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Tips marked with an * indicates that the tip is consistent
with learnng-centered teaching
Teaching and Learning Activities
Higher Levels of Learning
Teaching and Learning Activities
Higher Levels of Learning
*How to produce big gains in your student learning
While preparing to teach, or throughout the semester, ask yourself
what am I doing to encourage my students to:
- learn how to learn
- be motivated
- help them change their values
- learn how to interact better with other people
- integrate concepts that they are learning with other concepts,
other courses, their lives, future careers, etc.
- apply their skills to new situations, as well as develop their
knowledge
Remember developing knowledge is not the only aspect of getting
a university degree
(Taken from Fink's Taxonomy of Higher Learning)
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*Helping student to accept that there is
more than one right answer
I have heard many faculty say that our students have difficulty
accepting that there might be more than one right answer or no right
answer. Here's an in-class way to help them:
- Ask students for more answers after one has been given, when
several possibilities exist
- When you ask a question say, I am looking for three or more
possible answers, meanings, results, interpretations, etc.
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*Enhancing Learning
Learning is enhanced if students are asked to do the following:
- Use their own words to restate material they learned
- generate their own examples
- recognize it in different contexts and formats
- make connections between what they just learned and other
facts or ideas previously learned
- apply it in different ways
- anticipate some of its consequences
- state it in its opposite or converse
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Planning Lectures
- First consider what you are trying to accomplish. Lectures
are best for the following:
- to pique student curiosity, motivate to learn if instructor's
style is very expressive
- to model an approach to solving problems or thinking style
- to give background knowledge/summary that might not be available
or as integrated
- to help students learn very sophisticated material for which
resources are not available at their level
- to present an organization, structure to help learn material
- to add personal viewpoint, insights into material-
- to present up-to date material that is not available elsewhere
- If your purpose is > 1 of the above, then consider giving
a lecture. If not, consider other student-active teaching formats.
If you are planning to cover material in the textbook or other
course materials, lecturing may not improve the students' understanding.
Once students learn that you are duplicating what is in the
textbook they will choose to do either come to class or read
the book few will choose to do both.
- If you decide to lecture - follow these steps:
prepare class objectives
whenever possible limit class of 50 minutes to 1 major topic
plan an overview of the lecture - time content schedule
try to avoid the 2 most common mistakes of lectures - covering
too much material and delivering the material too fast
divide the major topics into 10-15 minute chunks
plan student-active activities between the lecture chunks
plan the internal organization of the lecture:
Introduction
the body
the conclusion
develop appropriate visuals
think about illustrating abstract concept and relations and
examples
prepare easy to follow at a glance lecture notes, graphic notes
may be fine
notes should be sketchy as you know the material
key concepts to cover do not write out notes
put directions to yourself in notes - ask students to do ___,
write on board ____,etc.
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*Increasing your student's understanding
A goal of higher education is to increase our student's deep learning.
Deep learning is learning for understanding and not just memory.
Deep approaches to learning are involve integrative processes where
students actively synthesize and connect material to existing knowledge:
Four key ways to increase deep learning are:
- Assignments should motivate students to learn
- Teaching and learning activities should build on a carefully
structured, integrated knowledge base
- Use active student learning and involvement as much as possible
- Maximize the learning interactions among students
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*Making lectures more meaningful learning
experiences
To make your lectures more meaningful learning experience for your
students:
- Let students know about the objectives that you are trying to
achieve
- Have an attention-gathering introduction
- Divide your lecturing into mini-lectures of 15-18 minutes each
- Give the students something to do in between the mini-lectures-a
review of what was covered or a problem to solve
- Conclude with a 2-5 minute time to let the students recap of
the most important points in the lecture either through a classroom
assessment technique or an oral summary
- Encourage students to take their own lecture notes
- Provide effective handouts.
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*Helping students to learn more
If you want your students to learn more, then develop opportunities
for your students to discuss, examine, challenge, and look at their
learning from different perspectives. This allows the students it
improve upon their learning before they internalize it.
The converse is also true-learning is least useful and perhaps
may be inaccurate, if it is private and hidden. If students study
alone, without have a venues to share and enlarge upon their learning,
and only have 1 opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, their
learning may be reduced. Lee Shulman Change editorial 2000.
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Helping students to understand a difficult
concept
If your students are having trouble understanding a concept that
you want them to learn, try to give them an analogy in a completely
different field, perhaps even in an non-academic field. For example,
if your students do not write introductions and bridges in their
papers, show them that TV shows and movies have a set beginning
(title, main characters are identified, etc.) and specific ways
to help the viewer know that the scene is changing (fads outs, etc.).
This tip came from a discussion among the participants at the TableTalk
on creating dynamic videos on Monday, February 19, 2002.
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*Are your students realizing that learning in
your subject should not end when the course does
As the weeks roll on through the semester are your students coming
to realize that their learning in your subject should continue after
the course ends? What are you doing to help students continue learning
when the course is over? Think about trying to do some of the following.
Here are a few ideas to foster the idea that learning this discipline
can continue after the formal class ends:
- Are you showing how interesting the subject is and how much
you still enjoy learning about it?
- Have you made it clear that you will still be accessible to
the students as they continue to learn?
- Have you fostered intellectual curiosity in this subject matter?
- Have you helped students to develop these learning to learn
skills in this discipline:
- ability to ask good questions in this discipline
- knowledge of print, electronic, human resources that are
available to them
- ability to evaluate the appropriateness of these resources
for their continue learning
- ability to read the primary or secondary literature on this
topic
If we can get our students to achieve this lifelong learning in
a subject, we and they will have succeeded.
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*Why the type of assessments used lead to the
type of student learning
Assessment systems need to really reflect the level of understanding
you want your students to achieve. If students feel that they only
need to reproduce information, rather than make sense out of it
and apply it to new problems, the students will assume their learning
should have short-range aims and outcomes. If you want students
to achieve critical thinking and problem solving, the students need
to perceive that you require these skills of them.
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*Planning for the functions of content
coverage in your courses
Currently many faculty see the function of content is to build
strong knowledge foundations. While we all agree this is important,
the more comprehensive functions of content should be to develop
learning skills and learner self-awareness as well as to build knowledge.
As you are planning your specific teaching and learning transactions
for next semester (this is not just what you will cover, but how
you will get the students to learn the content) think of approaches
that do not separate learning strategies from content. The implication
of this is that teachers cover less, but student learn more.
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*Encouraging students to read and come prepared
for class
*Encouraging students to read current
professional or relevant popular literature
If you want your students to read current professional (better
for upper level courses) or relevant popular literature (such s
Scientific American for lower level classes), you want to say that
students can get few points each week for bringing in extra credit
or points to count toward the class participation component of their
grade
The pharmacy faculty who have implemented this idea find that few
students take advantage of this way of bettering their grade so
you will not be increasing too many grades.
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*Helping students to read the research or clinical
literature
Faculty often say that students have trouble organizing or summarizing
the primary, or secondary literature a discipline. Students often
want the literature to flow without disagreements, yet we know this
is not the case. If you are having the students review literature
ask the students to classify each article, web site or reference
they read into
- standing on the shoulders of the previous generation - the writer
sees the field as a steady progression of his/her work building
on previous ones
- major shift - the writer is proposing a new theory, paradigm
or sending the field in another direction
- warring camps - the writer is responding to warring camps. This
might be a good way to help them organize their paper or reviews.
This idea is adapted from Walvoord and Anderson, Effective Grading,
Jossey-Bass, 1998.
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*Getting students to effectively read and
use their textbooks
To get students to do their reading assignment, begin every or
some (unannounced in advance) with a short 3-4 item quiz on their
reading. From these quizzes, students earn a maximum of 10 bonus
points towards their final total number of points earned (not the
average). While the total number of points earned is very small,
it will not really effect their grade, it will motivate the students
to do the assigned reading.
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Transmitting information electronically
Experience has taught us that all of us do not read detailed information
from our computers, but we down-load it and print it.
Students have limited numbers of copies they can print from the
computer
It is far cheaper and more efficient to photocopy multiple copies
of your handouts, syllabi, outlines of your lectures, etc
Therefore if you think the students will be printing what you put
it on-line, photocopy it for the students, or give a paper copy
to the library for reserve
Further, when students print dark slides, they are using up much
printer ink, wasting much toner. Before you put your slides of lectures
on ERes or the Web or other electronic means, convert them to white
backgrounds
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*Getting your students to read with more meaning
Students read with more meaning if you give them a handout to guide
their reading. For example, you might ask students in lower level
courses to explain or diagram concepts and tell them what is especially
relevant or important to study. In higher level courses, your reading
guide does not have to hand-hold the students as much. Depending
on the material, you might ask students to answer or think about
answering application questions. You might ask student to relate
what is covered in this chapter or reading to what has been previously
covered. Reading guides are especially helpful when the material
is complex, confusing or very new to the student.
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*Helping students to master the
content and study
We spend most of our time covering content. As content experts
we forget how it felt to learn this content in the beginning. We
need to help our students learn how to learn this content. We might
model how to organize the material, i.e., hierarchical or do over-arching
concepts tie everything together. We can help students develop an
effective approach to studying this discipline (e.g., solve many
problems, ask the big picture questions, or what are the consequences
of impacts of an event or idea) since the disciplines have different
skill requirements and a different type of logic.
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*Getting students to write better
reflective journals
More faculty are asking their students to write reflective journals,
which is a good thing. However, some student have no idea what you
mean by reflection (except perhaps what light does to a surface).
You need to give them very specific directions or guidance as to
what type of reflections you want. Generally you want students to
reflect on 4 what's : What happened, so what, now what and what
does it mean?
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*Getting students to question the written
word, even textbooks
When you are planning your reading for your next course you might
consider trying a few assignments like this to get students to see
that textbooks differ in how they give the "facts". Do
not assign a particular text instead put many different textbooks
on reserve for the class and assign each student to use the comparable
chapter in at least two of them in order to complete the assignments
for each week or a few weeks. This exercise is intended to get students
to understand that the written word, even textbooks, are works of
individual authorship and not TRUTH.
Gene Weimer from Bates College posted this to a librarian listserv
and Mignon Adams forwarded it to me and we hope that it is good
enough to share with all of you.
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*Getting your advanced students to come
lifelong readers in your discipline
Competent professionals need to remain current in their fields.
Students may not know what journals they should be reading on a
regular basis once they are no longer assigned readings. Therefore,
spend some time telling students what journals they should be reading,
how they can access them once they are no longer USP students (like
memberships to organizations that come with quality journals, publishers,
etc). Even more important show them how to read these journals as
continuing education. You might want to bring in a copy and spend
a seminar or journal club meeting showing what you do with a new
journal issue.
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*Getting students to participate more
in class
To get more student involved in class participation, assign each
student to facilitate a class discussion. The student should prepare
the readings very well, develop focused questions, and be prepared
to answer questions raised by other students. A few days prior to
the class, the facilitator-student should meet with the instructor
to be sure the student is on the same wave length and well prepared.
After the class that student or another student should prepare a
summary of the class discussion, which after approved by the instructor,
can be posted on the Blackboard site for the class. At the beginning
of the class, the instructor needs to explicitly model and discuss
good facilitation skills. Some times students will participate more
for fellow students than they do for faculty. The work done as a
facilitator and summarizer should count as part of the class participation
grade.
*Getting your students to reflect on what
they should be learning in increase understanding
Ask your students to do a learning journal that you will collect
(and if time allows offer individual feedback on) a few times during
the semester. To make the students take this assignment seriously,
have it count a significant amount of the final grade. In the learning
journal ask the students to record either weekly or more often their
reactions or responses to classes, readings, assignments commentary
or critique on reading or lectures reflection on how understanding
the subject matter changed during the course how they can apply
what they learned to other courses, their career further questions
or areas they want to learn about coming from the content, assignment,
etc. other topics that relate to their learning.
This should give you feedback as to if the students are learning
what you wanted them to learn, should increase their engagement
with the reading and classes.
This idea comes from Park and was written about in the Jan. 2004
issue of the Teaching Professor.
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*Does the amount of content taught influence
how well students understand the material?
Thirty years of research strongly indicates that the more content
taught in a course, the more students rely on memorization and the
less they learn with understanding or acquire deep learning in the
discipline. Decide what is the essential content that you need for
the students to learn, and cut the rest out of your course. Then
work with students to learn to use the content and not for you to
cover the content.
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*Helping students to become self-directed
learners
All of us strive toward having students who are self-directed in
their learning. Yet many of us are at a loss as to how to help our
students achieve this goal. We must plan our courses so that the
student participate in repeated, systematically designed learning
experiences to explore and facilitate learner developed self-directed
learning capacities. This means building in specific activities
designed to teach students how to learn. It means spending a lot
of time modeling these self directed behaviors yourself and giving
students opportunities to practice them in low risk environments.
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Getting a quick read on how students are doing
while checking for who is enrolled
Once the add-drop period ends, the registrar's office always verify
student enrollment of each individual. Instead of taking roll in
class or checking if all students have handed in at least one assignment,
give the students a very brief formative assessment (i.e., 1 question
on the major idea they have learned so far in the class, or their
most confusing aspect of the content thus far), ask the question
in several venues and request that each student complete the activity
once with their name on their work. You can first give them a few
minutes in class to complete the assessment, you can post it on
your Blackboard site for your class and email your students (can
be done quickly from your Blackboard page, if you created one) the
same assessment assignment. You can also tell your students to tell
their friends to complete the assignment if they still want to be
considered enrolled in the class. A complete record from all your
students will give you the information requested by the registrar's
office and some insights as to how much the students are learning
or how confused they are.
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Helping students to see flaws in their reasoning
or correcting improper conclusions
Some times students fail to see why their logic or reasoning i
flawed or they bring in extraneous facts which they think leads
them to a conclusion. Other times students draw cause and effect
conclusions that may not even be related or at best correlation.
This can be a serious problem particularly with advanced or graduate
students working on their research. Faculty may have a hard time
trying to get these students see their flaws in reasoning. Try asking
the students to graphically represent their reasoning either through
a flow chart, concept map, time line relationship, cascade cycle,
numerical graph of the relationship, etc. By forcing them to move
from the verbal to a graphic they may better see what is wrong because
they cannot use their arguments in the same way.
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Planning your course so that students will come prepared to class
If your goal is to have students come prepared to class to engage
in, discuss or apply the content, then you need to plan the course
so that students will come prepared. Usually assigning 15% of the
total grade for pre-class preparation should be enough to motivate
the students. Use a variety of preparation activities to keep the
interest high and to address different learning styles and goals.
Some possibilities for preparation assignments might be:
- Turn in index cards with notes from the chapter that will be
returned to the individual students for use during an exam
- Choose 1 sentence from the reading that you found the most relevant
or confusing and discuss why
- Develop questions for discussion, and ask students to lead the
discussion from their questions
- Create chapter study guides
- Generate questions on the content that they did not understand
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Getting your students to read before class and engage more during
the class through use of a communication form
Here is an idea to help students come to class having read the
assignment and engage in the material. Develop a single sheet template
for the students to copy and use for each class. The form has 4
parts. In the first part students put their contact information
and a photo of themselves. The form with this part completed should
then be copied to be used repeatedly. In the second part the students
list the readings and their reflections of the readings and should
be done before class. The third part focuses on the class meeting.
It can contain questions such as, "What new information did
you gain from today's class? How did it help you? What did the instructor
do particularly well today? Use questions that fit what your are
doing. The fourth part is for the students to ask questions, clarifications
or comments. Students should use the last five minutes of each class
to complete parts 3 and 4; this serves as a good review. You should
try to read these forms or a sample of these forms right after class
so that you can respond to questions or concerns the next class.
This idea come from Suzanne L. Medina and was published in the
October 2004 Teaching Professor newsletter.
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Helping your students to take notes that are
worthwhile and foster learning
Many students are not good note takers. Even good note takers often
have a hard time keeping up with faculty lectures or discussions
when words are unfamiliar to them. You might suggest that students
leave a large space in their notes whenever they feel they have
not gotten all the information they wanted in their notes. Then
they can easily find the gaps later. You can encourage students
to ask a peer for help or check their textbooks for the missing
information first and then if they still have a question or need
clarification then they can come to your office during office hours
or email you for some help. If you see the student is having repeated
problems taking notes you might suggest that they read and outline
the textbook before coming to class. If the problem persists, you
might think of other possible causes of this problems such as English
difficulty, information processing problems perhaps needing some
accommodations or non-academic problems interfering with his/her
ability to concentrate in class.
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Modeling your thoughts and problem solving
skills for the students
Many of us believe that we need to show a perfectly solved problem
for the students. Yet research shows that students learn more if
you overtly show your problem solving processes to the students.
A perfectly solved problem does not show your thought processes
because you already did the problem. Therefore, as you plan your
classes, show the students the perfectly solved problem as an illustration,
but also work through a problem that you have not solved before.
Talk aloud about what your are thinking as you solve the problem.
Be explicit about the strategies you are using and why you think
this strategy might work. Allow the students to see how you make
mistakes, but more important how you correct your mistakes. It will
take practice for you to be able to model your thinking by talking
about the intermediate steps that you skip. You may want to spend
the extra time on the process of problem solving, but it is time
well spent in terms of student learning.
This idea is part of the model of cognitive apprenticeship and
is backed up by lots of good research.
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Helping students to answer questions or out
of class assignments that involve research
When you are assigning students to answer questions involving research
or outside reading, always be sure they are headed in the right
direction in their search strategy to avoid the students from going
off into a wild chase for information but not finding the answer.
Cathy Poon suggests that before you send the student off, especially
clinical rotation students, to research something that you ask the
student for 3 possible places to look for the answers. If the student
is right on at least 1 of them, there is a good chance the student
will find the answer. If all three sources will probably not yield
the right answer, you might want to suggest some specific resources
or to talk to a librarian so that the student will have a worthwhile
learning experience.
*Helping students to use text and other readings
more effectively
Beginning students and some more advanced students consider the
purpose of reading texts or other materials is to take information
from the text. However, faculty consider the purpose of such readings
is to make meaning out of the information contained in the reading.
Ways to help students make this transition include:
- Ask the students to answer specific questions about the reading
that are not just factual recall
- Direct students to a more analytical approach to the concepts
that requires them to reflect, synthesize or evaluate the text
These ideas are adapted from an article by Blackman,
Gandolfo, and Kowalski, "Linking composition and chemistry"
that appeared in the Journal of Student Centered Learning, 2005,
2:145-152. This article will be discussed in an upcoming journal
club on the scholarship of teaching and learning.
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Planning your course to help
students acquire the thinking skills of the discipline
The nature of the discipline, the process of critical
thinking in a discipline is just as important as the material and
concepts in your discipline. However, we often tend to give these
skills and processes less emphasis in our day to day teaching. So
now that you are planning or revising your courses, plan time within
the schedule to go over how you think in this discipline. Role model
what you do by thinking out loud as you solve problems. Students
don't get the thinking process naturally if they just hear about
the content or see experts solving problems easily; however, once
they understand the thinking process within the discipline, the
content will come much easier to them. this emphasis on role modeling
critical thinking skills applies at all levels of courses as the
critical thinking skills requir3ed varies with the complexity of
the material.
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Assessing if students can
read the figures, graphs or diagrams in your discipline
Early in the semester give students a quick, in class assignment
to see if they can read, interpret and explain the non-text aspects
of your discipline. Textbooks, professional articles, etc. are full
of graphs, figures and diagrams that contain essential information.
Students may skip over them because they may not see them as important
or they may not be able to understand and use them. Then give students
feedback on their ability to interpret a diagram, etc. You might
want to explicitly teach how to read and explain them if the class
as a whole has trouble with it.
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*How to keep your teaching of the same material
fresh
After teaching the same courses over time, the material can become
a little stale for you. Here are a few suggestions to keep the material
fresh:
- Each year vary the readings, create new assignments, rearrange
the classroom, design new tests/projects, and so forth. Be challenged
by finding new and exciting ways to help the students learn.
- Instead of lecturing on the topic, turn it into a small group
assignment, a discussion or a question and answer session. Students
will always think of new ideas or perspectives, even if you do
not agree with them, and that can stimulate your own thinking
about the content.
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Helping students to use different kinds of resources
for papers
We have all observed that students only read what they can find
on the World Wide Web, sometimes often what they can google and
not going to more scholarly data bases. Students lose by not reading
different types of resources. Therefore, for term paper or library
type assignments require students to cite from 3 different types
of sources including books, reference materials found in the library,
like specialized encyclopedias, digital or Web based resources,
journals, etc. If you require different types of resources, give
students guidance in how to use these resources, the types of information
they are likely to encounter in each type and how to critically
evaluate the information obtained. As we know, but students have
not yet learned, using a wide variety of resources can lead to a
better quality paper.
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Engaging students in the course and the
subject matter on the first day of class
Prepare a game show, trivia quiz, bingo or other fun activity for
the first day of class. You can ask 2 different types of questions
about your course, the syllabus, your expectations and course requirements,
and about the subject matter to be studied. The subject matter questions
might be about general terminology and well known concepts. Try
to ask some questions that students will know to help them connect
what they previously know to what they will be learning. Both types
of questions are great stimuli to get students discussing, thinking
about this course and asking you further questions.
This idea comes from Christine Flanagan.
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Making your (large) lecture classes much more
interactive
One of the problems with large lecture classes is that it is very
difficult to hear from most students, either to assess their knowledge
or determine what they do not know on an immediate and on-going
basis. However,we now have a technology that can overcome these
problems. Just like on TV and at large professional meetings, we
now have an audience response system at USP. The hardware has been
wired into all of our large lecture halls. We have 45 clickers for
you to borrow to see how they work (you can ask groups of students
to respond). If you use PowerPoint, you can easily learn how to
incorporate interactive questions and get students' answers to respond).
If you plan to use clickers on a regular basis and want to record
the students' individual responses for participation grades, the
students need to purchase their own clickers that are available
from the bookstore.
Bernie Brunner has pioneered the use of this technology on this
campus and as usual is willing to share his knowledge and experience.
Bernie Brunner has graciously agreed to let faculty observe him
when he uses the clickers with his students. Bernie requests that
you let him know in advance if you will be coming.
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Personal reflective annotations for reading
assignments: A writing-to-learn assignment
Here is a different way to get students to actively read an assignment
and be ready to come to class to discuss it.
- In addition to the regular highlighting or underlining that
student's do, they need to add meaningful margin notes interacting
with the reading. The notes do not have to be very long or too
many per assignment.
- The instructor should give a sample of appropriate annotations
and explain them such as including challenges to the reading,
further examples, references to other sources, personal experiences
that relate to the reading, ideas on applications, personal reactions
to the reading, compare or contrast with similar concepts.
- The assignment requires that students hand in their copies of
their book containing their annotations on a reading. Students
need to put their name across the front cover of the book and
an identifying mark (such as part of their student identification
number) inside to confirm that it is their property
- These assignments should be completed prior to the class discussion
of the reading.
- The grading can be done quickly and globally by preparing a
checklist of comments and indicating which ones apply to each
of the students' work
- This type of assignment works best for prose or essay type of
readings and probably not for textbooks. Russ Moulds, the author
of this idea, recommends only using this annotations assignment
for readings that the instructor has enduring value for the students
and not on a routine basis.
This idea comes form Russ Moulds, and was published in the Best
of the Teaching Professor, Magna Publication, 2005
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Helping students to contribute more to
class discussions based upon out of class assignments
If you want students to contribute more meaningfully to class discussions
based on out of class assignments, they need to remember more about
the assignment. Such assignments might be a reading, answering questions,
or reporting on research they did. To help refresh the students'
memory of the assignment and help them change gears from their previous
class, give the students a few minutes at the beginning of class
to review the assignment. You might even want to direct their review
in some way.
This tip came out of the TableTalk on using films and was suggested
by Claudia Parvanta and Bill Reinsmith
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Adding energy to a class when the students
are dragging
If you have to teach a boring topic right around school break,
you may find that the students' energy is dragging. You can get
the students more engaged in the topic and the class by using a
game show format to make things livelier. Plan what you want to
do several class periods before the day you plan to use it. Tell
the students in advance of your plans, tell them to come prepared,
and enlist their help. They may help you write the questions to
be used for a quiz show, or the answers for jeopardy, or any other
format. People who use games find that the students learn the material
better that day, but there are other nice consequences also. Students
tend to bond with those on their team and class discussion goes
up even after the games session is over.
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Good questions for reflection
We often want our students to be more reflective about the course
or the content. However, asking good reflection questions can be
difficult.
Here are a few suggestions:
Why would I have you read/write about this?
Why do you think we just did that exercise?
What about what we just covered is applicable to other subjects,
to your life, to your career?
What is the bottom line message in what we did/read?
Thanks to Bruce Rosenthal for suggesting some of these.
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Helping your students to do better presentations
If you are asking your students to do a presentation, give them
a template for the presentation. Also meet with the students 1:1
in advance to help them to make a better presentation, correct any
mistakes in advance and avoid the student from being embarrassed
in class.
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Another idea for a topic for a class discussion
Select a number of quotes that summarize your discipline or are
written by famous people in your discipline. Put each quote on a
separate piece of paper, and spread them out written side down for
students to select them one at a time. After student has a little
time to compose his/her thoughts, ask the student to speak for 1
minute on the quote. The remarks can come from their own personal
experience, course material, news, etc. depending on the discipline
and the quote. Then you can ask other students to respond to what
the student said.
If you have a large number of students in your class, you can make
a few sets of quotes and divide the students into separate groups.
This idea comes from Christine Staley, 50 ways to leave your lecture.
Thompson, 2003
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Having students share some of their learning
from doing a review of the literature
If you require students to work on individual topics and do a review
of the literature, either as part of another project or as a term
paper, then you should ask the students to share what they learned.
You can ask the students to make a simple poster (using PowerPoint
slides) summarizing the literature they read about. Then you can
devote 1 class to a poster session. You can also ask the students
to develop a website summarizing the material or electronically
send each other their summaries, if you do not want to spend class
time. Then you can give the students a short assessment on the literature
summarized so you know they read each other's work seriously. You
can even make it open-notes, as long as the answers cannot come
directly from the material share.
Virginia Anderson of Towson University suggested some of these
ideas.
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Being more explicit than, "Do you understand"?
Many faculty do a quick comprehension check in their classes by
asking the students, "Do you understand"? In most cases
the responses are nods. Everyone thinks they understand. Some students
may not know to what level or what detail they should understand.
To help the students see if they really comprehend the material
ask very explicit questions such as:
- Identify___________________ (the consequences, causes, etc)?
- Calculate the ______________
- Evaluate the effects of ____________
- Compare and contrast _____ with _____
- Determine the reasons why ______
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Helping students to learn how to do good
summaries
Give your students a very short lecture or have them read a short
article. Ask them to develop a summary of the lecture or reading.
Then give them your own summary. Ask them to describe in writing
how and why your summary was different from theirs. Also ask them
to describe what they learned from doing this activity. Collect
their comparison and the reflection on their learning, but not their
summary. This exercise should be enlightening for the students.
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Helping students to do better peer teaching
If you are asking your students to do peer teaching or presenting
of material to the class, give your students a template of what
you expect them to cover, how to organize the material or a guide
to follow.
Helping students to solve problems better
or have better reasoning
Here are 2 suggestions to help you teach students how to solve
problems better or use more effective reasoning to be used in different
venues.
- In class go over the correct way to solve problems and also
go over common mistakes that students make and how students can
avoid these mistakes.
- When you are meeting with students 1:1 to go over content or
how they did on an exam, explain what the student did correctly
and also specifically show them how their logic or problem solving
process was flawed. Then explain how to change their reasoning
or problem solving techniques in the future.
Concentrating on both the positive and negative gives a balanced
view and real ways to improve.
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A possibility for an extra credit assignment
for weaker students
Many instructors ask their students to write journals reflective
on their learning in a course. I read a study that shows that these
journals are more effective for helping weaker students than for
stronger students. (Cisero, College Teaching, Spring, 2006).
So if you are looking for a possible additional assignment to give
weaker students, you might ask them to keep a reflective journal
on their reading from the textbook or other assigned reading. This
should help them engage with the content more.
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Having more meaningful discussions
Before you have discussions in class or online, set out the goals
of the discussion and identify the student learning needs and learning
outcomes. Then as the discussion transpires, periodically check
that you and the class are meeting these goals. If you have to,
make some mid-course corrections to make the discussion meet its
objectives.
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*Helping our students to come closer to being
an experts in our discipline
A goal of higher education is to transform novices to beginning
experts in their chosen field of study. Research shows that experts
and novices approach problems and learn within the field very differently.
Our job is to help our students to make this transition. Ways we
can help students to make this transition include helping students
realize that the discipline has knowledge that is organized and
integrated and not just a collection of isolated facts. We can help
students to organize information by using different encoding strategies
in class and through their assignments. We can ask students to compare
and contrast information, to make concept maps or organizing schemes,
etc. When we explain information we should try to use analogies,
visualizations and metaphors that make sense in the discipline.
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*Planning on spending time to help students
confront misconceptions
Research shows that unless students confront their misconceptions
and really see the faults in their ideas, they never learn the new
material properly. Therefore, you need to plan assignments that
will force students to see their own misconceptions about your discipline.
This might be in-class or outside of class. You might ask students
to do something alone as homework and then work in groups to go
over it or take the concept to the next level together. These activities
could force you to change you plans for the course, alter the rate
that you cover some topics, etc. Taking this time is worth it for
the students to really learn your discipline beyond passing a test
in your course.
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Helping students to really understand
and benefit from your course
Student need to overcome common misconceptions or stereotypes in
your discipline to leave your course with a real understanding of
your discipline. This is especially true in the sciences To help
students overcome this common misconceptions, you need to give students
several opportunities to see why these misconceptions are wrong
as part of learning activities. In addition, questions on assessments
at the end of the semester should ask students to explain why these
misconceptions are wrong or to correct the concept. You might give
an example and ask students to explain the concept.
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A role model student in your class
If you have a TA, an instructional supplement assistant or can
ask a superior advanced student, have that individual come to your
class a few days toward the beginning of the class, but once you
have gained a nice stride in the class, ask the assistant to be
a model student in terms of note taking, participation, asking questions
or whatever else your students are not doing as well as you would
like. Tell your students you asked this person to come to class
to be a role model student. You might want to spend a few minutes
at the end of the class debriefing on what the role model student
did to further show the class the behaviors you are seeking in them.
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Helping students to solve problems better
When you assign students to solve problems either in class, as
homework or on a test, ask the students to write their rationale
or how they came to solve the problems or the process they arrived
at in their thinking on a few of the problems. Ask them to write
on a problem they think they solved well and a problem that they
had difficulty with or are not sure they solved correctly. Their
insights will be very helpful in seeing how they think. You will
be able to help them solve problems better both collectively and
individually when you have a better understanding of their though
process. When you teach how to solve these types of problems, say
that you got insight from them.
If you ask students to write out their rationales, assign fewer
problems as this takes a lot of time. Also, if this is a graded
assignment, give students credit for writing their thought processes.
You might give everyone points for showing their thoughts and more
points for more explanation. You should not give fewer points for
reasoning that is not correct as they probably are losing points
for the answer itself.
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Helping students to really understand and
benefit from your course
Students need to overcome common misconceptions or stereotypes
in your discipline to leave your course with a real understanding
of your discipline. This is especially true in the sciences. To
help students overcome this common misconceptions, you need to give
students several opportunities to see why these misconceptions are
wrong as part of learning activities. In addition, questions on
assessments at the end of the semester should ask students to explain
why these misconceptions are wrong or to correct the concept. You
might give an example and ask students to explain the concept.
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Helping students conceptualize the relationships
among concept to be explained in a big project or paper
Early in the time the students have to work on a big project, such
as a term paper, an independent study or research project, ask the
students to draw a concept map or a flow sheet or other graphic
representation of the concepts. This will help them see the relationships
among the concepts more clearly than asking them to outline the
topics to be covered.
Virginia Anderson of Townsend University suggested this idea.
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Helping students learn how to solve problems
or write effectively in your class
Students can learn how to solve problems or how to write more effectively
in your course after they have tried to solve problems or have written
something for your class.
Prior to these attempts, your instruction is too abstract for many
students to want to try to make sense of it. After an unsuccessful
attempt, students are ready and willing to listen to suggestions
and ways to improve their skills.
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Assessing students and working with a
smaller group within a larger class
Here is a way to assess students preparation for class or understanding
of content covered before and then work with a smaller group of
students from a larger class.
Tell students to be prepared for a quiz in class. Give a short
quiz for about 15-20 minutes, collect their papers and then go over
the answers. Announce that if you got an 80% (you set the level
where you want it-high or low) on the quiz, you are excused from
the rest of class if you want to leave. Now you should have a smaller
number of students in the room. You can work with these students
to go over the questions they did not understand, help these students
with this material, solve problems, work in small groups, etc. The
possibilities are endless in terms of what you want to cover-mastery
of simple concepts, solve problems, etc.
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Remembering September 11th in your teaching,
Teaching and Learning List of Web Resources
As we approach the first anniversary of September 11, 2001, you
may want to incorporate some topic relevant to that date in your
teaching for that week. There are many possible connections for
many different disciplines. The professional listserv that I belong
to has accumulated various web resources that have educational material
relating to September 11th. I am passing this collection on to you.
Thomas Friedman's columns in the New York Times on this topic won
him a Pulitzer Prize and also has been made into a book. One or
more of them may been an excellent stimulus for discussion.
Even if you do not actually discuss the events, be aware that some
of your students may be finding the week particularly difficult.
First anniversaries of sad events are always very hard for people.
from: Karen Gustavson
Subject: Teaching and Learning List of Web Resources: September
11th.
Keep in mind that there are many more useful sties than what we
have listed.
Teaching and Learning List of Web Resources: September
11.
Listed below are various web sites that one can use to develop
discussions and assignments for the classroom that promote deeper
learning about the impact of September 11th in the US and around
the world. The sites range from remembrances of the 9/11 victims
to learning about other cultures as well as how to discuss emotional
topics with students. Descriptions are direct quotes from those
websites.
<http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=10997>Education
and September 11: an Introduction
Nadine Dolby, Nicholas C. Burbules |2002
>http://www.tcrecord.org>http://www.tcrecord.org
"An introduction and overview of the TCR special issue on the
response of educators to the September 11th attack on America."
Teaching & Learning in a Time of Crisis
A resource prepared by The Center for Teaching &
Learning at Western Kentucky University
<http://>http://www.wku.edu/
TI<http:www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>Introduction:
Teaching and Learning about the Current Crisis and Beyond
by Ted Hovet, CTL Faculty Associate/Department of English
II<http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>An
International Perspective: Tips and Comments
by Larry Caillouet, Director of the International Center
III<http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>Dealing
with Sensitive Issues in the Classroom: Tips
and Comments
by Retta Poe,Professor of Psychology
IV<http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>An
Approach to Building Understanding and Cooperation: Tips and
Comments
by Johnston Njoku, Professor of Modern Languages and Intercultural
Studies
V<http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>Nurturing
Values and Understanding Behavior:Tips and Comments
by Richard Greer, Director of the Counseling and Testing Center
VI <http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>Additional
Resources
VII<http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/booklets/crisis.html>Conclusion
Perspectives from the Social Sciences
<http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/>http:/www.ssrc.org/sept11/
"Terrorist attacks on and since September 11th have stimulated
public sold-searching, military and diplomatic responses, and efforts
to reform public policy. Both the attacks and responses to them
have raised a host of questions about social organization, basic
social institutions, how people mobilize amid crises, and how differences
of culture and politics shape conflict and cooperation."
Facing History and Ourselves
<http://www.facing.org/facing/fhao2.nsf/all/September+11+Menu?
opendocument>http://www.facing.org/facing/fhao2nsf/all/September+11+Menu?opendocument
"<http://www.facing.org/facing/fhao2.nsf/all/september+lessons?opendocument>Reading
and Connections from Facing History -- New readings with
themes pertinent to the events of September 11th and to your class
work already planned for the year.
<http://www.facing.org./facing/fhao2.nsf/all/september+classroom?opendocument>Ideas
from the Classroom - Read how some Facing History teachers
have been using our materials and strategies in their classrooms.
<http://www.facing.org/facing/fhao2.nsf/all/september+resources?
opendocument>Resources -- A list of relevant
links to other websites that may be helpful in the classroom and
in your preparation of lessons.
<http://www.facing.org/facing/fhao2.nsf/all/september+reflections?
opendocument>Reflections from the Facing History Community
-- Scholars, classroom teachers, students, resource speakers and
others who are a part of the Facing History community offer their
reflections on September 22th and related events."
Einaudi Center's Dept. 11 Web Site Aims for Global Understanding
<http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/9-11/index.asp>http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/9-11/index.asp
By Linda Myers
"To find out how people beyond U.S. borders view the war in
Afghanistan, the hunt for Osama bin Laden or the latest bioterrorist
threats, download this web page:
<http:/www.einaudi.cornell.edu/9-11/index.asp>http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/9-11/index
asp.
The web site "Terrorism and War: Context and Aftermath of
September 11th" aims for greater global understanidng. Launched
in late October by Cornell's Einaudi Center for International Studies,
it includes links to major online newspapers around the globe, many
available in English, such as Cairo's Al-Ahram, Tel Aviv's
Ha'aretz and Jedda's Arab News.
"Our main perspective is international, and that includes
an effort to grasp how people outside the United States understand
the current world crisis," said David Lelyveld, the historian
of South Asia who is executive director of the Einaudi Center. "We've
pulled together a range of information and commentary to guide people
to an understanding of the background and implications of the attacks
and their afermath -- the nature of international terrorism, including
bioterrorism, as well as the war in Afghanistan."
Collisions of Religion and Violence: Redux
<http://www.crosscurrents.org/violencespecial.htm>http://www.crosscurrents.org/violencespecial.]
"The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have
brought to the focal point of public consciousness a topic that
was featured in the Summer issue of CrossCurrents: namely, the relationship
between religion and violence."
Center for Applied Linguistics on the World Wide Web.
<http://www.cal.org/front/911.html>http://www.cal.org/front/911.html
"CAL is a private, non-profit organization: a group of scholars
and educators who use the findings of linguistics and related sciences
in identifying and addressing language-related problems. In an effort
to share this knowledge, CAL has put together a list of resources
that can help improve understanding of the languages and cultures
of groups of people living in the United States."
C-SPAN in the Classroom
<http://www.c-span.org/classroom/sept11_about.asp>
http://www.c-span.org/classroom/sept11_about.asp
"This C-SPAN in the Classroom series offers sets of materials
designed to foster critical thinking and learning about the aftermath
of September 11th. The materials offer:
- focused topics of inquiry
- direct access to current information via C-SPAN
- a variety of viewpoints
Each set of topic materials is comprised of three components: description,
C-SPAN video and discussion questions. Topics may be added or deleted
as current events demand. Components may also be revised or updated.
C-SPAN in the Classroom offers a sample of programs on each topic
and students and teachers can explore other programs in the
<http://www.c-span.org/terrorism/>Complete Archives.
All programs are archieved in their entirety and
can be viewed online with <http://www.real.com/player/>RealPlayer.
It is possible, using <http://www.real.com/player/>RealPlayer,
to fast forward, pause, or reqind the programs."
Covering the Attack
<http://www.poynter.org/Terrorism/default/htm>http://www.poynter.org/Terrorism/default.htm
<http://www.poynter.org/Terrorism/default.htm>Poynter.org'sTerrorism
Archive,with front pages, storeis, and resources
The September 11 Digital Archieve: Saving the Histories
of September 11, 2001
<http://911digitalarchive.org/>http://911digitalarchive.org/
"The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to
collect, preserve and present the history of the September 11, 2001
attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and public response
to them. The Archive working with the Smithsonian Institutions'
National Museum of Ameraican History, Behring Center; Museum of
the city of New York; New York Historical Society; City Lore; and
other local and national institution
One Year Later: Remembering Septeber 11, 2001: Suggestions for
Educators and Other Caregives
<http://www.nasponline.org/NEAT/oneyearlater.html>http://www.nasponline.org/NEAT/oneyearlater.html
Stephen E. Brock, Ph.D., NCSP, California State University, Sacramento
and Shane R. Jimerson, Ph.D., NCSP, University of California, Santa
Barbara "Coping with the loss, death,and grief associated with
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is a process, not an
event (<http://www.nasponline.org/NEST/grief.html>National
Association of School Psychologists, 2001 a; Pfohl, Jimerson, &
Lazarus, 2002; Wolfelt, 2002). Thus, it is critically important
for professional educators working with acutely traumatized students
to continually consider hwo to help youth deal with lingering reactions
to these national tragedies."
Septmber Suite
<http://www.npr.org:html//www.npr.org/
"NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg talks with poet
Lucille Clifton about her sequence of seven poems that she wrote
in the week after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. She
call the series, September Suite. The poems are part of
a new anthology called September 11, 2001 - American Writers
Respond.. (7:00 min)"
To find out more about the book:
<http:www.etruscanpress.org/02_september_11_2001.html>http:///www.etruscanpress.org/
Understanding September 11
Edited by Craig Calhoun, Paul Price and Ashley Timmer
<http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/september11volumes.htm>http:/www.ssrc.org/sept11/september11volumes.htm
"The first volume is entitled Understanding Septemer 11.
Essays in the volume are written by leading social scientists who
examine the political, social and economic factors underlying the
attacks, and the implications of terrorism and America's response
for a number of issues facing concerned citizens at the beginning
of the twenty-first century."
Critical Views of September 11: Analyses from Around the
World
Edited by Eric Hershberg and Kevin W. Moore
<http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/september11volumes.htm>http://www.ssrc.org/sept11
"The second volume, Critical Views of September 11: Analyses
from Around the World, provides deep perspective on the changing
world order in the wake of the attacks and the war in Afghanistan.
An array of schaolars from around the world offer candid views of
the international order and America's role in the world from the
vantage points of Africa, Europe, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle
East, and Latin America".
Thanks to
Karen Gustavson, Director
Center for Teaching and Learning
Garden City Community College
801 Campus Drive
Garden City, KS 68746
email: karen.gustavson@gcccks.edu
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Guidance in discussing war with students,
in class
Many of us are very concerned about the war in Iraq and some faculty
want to bring it into their classroom discussions. A professional
colleague of mine, Matt Kaplan and his associates at the University
of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and teaching prepared
a most useful website that offers guidance for discussing a war.
It can be accessed <www.crlt.umich.edu/wariniraqdiscussion.html>
I hope you find this useful. Best to everyone in these difficult
times.
Teaching and Learning Activities
Student Assignments
*Helping students to prepare papers, presentations,
lab write-up, etc.
Sometimes collaborative brainstorming can help students prepare
for a written assignment such as a report on research, patient work-up,
term paper, or an oral assignment such as a large presentation,
etc. Here's a way to structure such a collaboration:
Have students work in groups of 4-5, and have everyone put their
name on a sheet of paper. Then each student writes to title of their
assignment and passes the paper to the next person. Each of the
next people within a group will write 1 sentence on 1 of the major
topics of the paper/presentation. Everyone will work on helping
each other's paper. For example, each person might write an introduction
point for the title they just received, then pass it to the next
person. On the third time, each student will write the statement
of purpose for the paper they just received. Then pass on the next
person who writes on the methods. The fifth time the papers are
passed, the students each write on the results. The last time the
students write on the conclusion or the interpretation for that
piece of paper. By using this exchange of papers, students can see
how others are thinking and learn from each other, as well as stimulate
further thought or research This works best if the assignments are
similar such as a research write-up or a patient presentation. By
the end of the session, the student will have offered suggestions
to each other in an efficient way. Students might also make suggestions
on what has been previous written. At the end of the session, each
person collects his/her original paper full of suggestions for sections
of the paper. (Patricia Delwiche Quick Fix - Passing Notes in class
College teaching, 1998, 46,100.)
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*Writing to learn
Most writing students do is "high stakes" in that it
is graded and needs to be a finished product. We need to allow students
opportunities for feedback on their "low stakes" writing.
This kind of writing allows students to sort out their thoughts.
Give students a few short writing to learn assignments just to get
experience writing or thinking in this discipline. These writing
to learn assignments work best if they count very little toward
their grade, but good feedback is given to the students.
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*Ways to help students master the material,
acquire skills
If you want students to master the material or become skillful
at doing something, you might try the following:
- Ask students to redo assignments to improve their skills or
understanding. You might have to reduce the number of required
assignments.
- Give students on-line multiple choice questions before class,
expect the students to do the assignments before coming to class,
including answering the questions
- Ask students to develop test items themselves, good ones might
be selected for the actual exam.
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*Reviews for finals
How about making the review for the final fun? You could develop
a quiz show type of approach even award small prizes (a few points
on the final, candy, etc.). If you are willing to try a quiz show
approach you might want to ask the students to develop questions
in advance. If their question is used, they become the expert on
the topic, so they will need to bring resources with them. Give
them at least 1 week's notice to develop the questions, so it is
best to prepare early. You could take a few tips from some popular
shows; teams or individuals could consult with someone else (promoting
cooperative learning), or asking all participants to show their
answer at once moves the game along quicker and keeps everyone involved
all the time.
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*Helping student to do well on assessments
that require critical thinking
Elisha Nixon of Kean University has found that students get especially
anxious when you announce that the next test will require critical
thinking or problem solving. This fear can be largely overcome if
you let the students know the kinds of questions they might encounter
or the kind of responses you are expecting.
Therefore, if your final exam will be somewhat different from your
previous tests because you are expecting the students to integrate
more material, or demonstrate greater critical thinking, you might
consider helping the students overcome their anxiety by:
- sharing exam logistics - e.g., number of questions, question
types
- giving a practice quiz before the real one
- going over a typical question and model the answer you would
like to see
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Giving Assignments to Meet your goals
When designing student assignments or tests, keep in mind what
kinds of learning you are trying to measure. Then ask students to
do what is important to demonstrate their learning. Design the assignment
around these objectives. This may change your description
Naming the assignment is important. For example, you may want the
students to integrate literature. Then call the assignment a review
of the literature and not a term paper.
Not all big assignment need to be in prose. Consider asking the
students to do a concept map, an annotated bibliography and a list
of questions to be addressed.
These ideas were adapted from Walvoord and Anderson, Effective
grading, Jossey-Bass, 1998, available in our resource collection.
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*Having examples of excellent work to
motivate students
Several times this past week I heard different faculty tell me
they had graded some very outstanding work. All of them commented
that when these were shared with other students, the bar was raised
for the rest of the class. For example student did a fabulous job
on a presentation. All presentations after this one were much better.
As faculty we want to be able to preserve these outstanding examples.
Therefore, when you are grading an outstanding project or paper,
get permission to keep a copy of it to show to your students in
the future. Next year when you are discussing a similar project
or paper, show this outstanding example to that class. When your
students do an excellent presentation, try to keep what you can
for others to see. For example, ask if they would email you a copy
of their Powerpoint presentation, or keep their hand outs. Perhaps
you could even ask them if they would re-do the presentation so
it can be videotaped.
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Giving effective presentation and
helping students to do the same
Here is a website on giving effective presentation. If you want
your student to make presentation, you might pass this information
on to them: Jeff Radel OT,PhD at Kansas University Medical Center
excellent site with references and links
http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/effective.html
Thanks to Micki Cohen for passing this source on to us.
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*Helping students to see the application of
a concept
Many of us agree that our students are excellent memorizers. Some
of our students have more trouble seeing the application of a concept
to their future careers. to the real world, or to other disciplines
to be studied. To help student to see applications ask students
to develop applications of concepts that are emphasized in the course.
For example, you might do a brief classroom assessment technique
at the end of class on a small sheet of paper, where you ask students
to list 2 applications of a concept (1 in 2 different areas). Or
you might also ask students to develop a more fully developed idea
of an application on a homework assignment or part of a quiz. After
you read the students' answers, you might post the best applications,
or the most diverse (but plausible) applications on your course
web page, announcements section on your Blackboard site, or email
it to the class through the class listserv.
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*Giving more effective group
assignments
A good assignment for groups or teams is one that accomplishes
several purposes simultaneously. According to Dee Fink (who came
here a few years ago) and his colleague Larry Michaelson, group
assignments should promote high individual effort by all members
of the group, promote social cohesiveness within the group (i.e.,
the opposite of "social loafing"). and result in significant
learning for the students.
To accomplish these several goals, the assignment should be constructed
to meet five important characteristics:
- Ensure individual accountability
- Promote close physical proximity
- Promote high level discussion among team members
- Provide teams with meaningful feedback
- Reward group success
To find out more about how you can create assignments that meet
these characteristics, open the attached documents by Fink and Michaelson.
It is a part of a wonderful book that we will obtain as soon as
it is published. I have lots more information by them if you want
more.
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*Helping to do better on open-ended assignments
Are you assigning any short open-ended assignments such as asking
students to develop the thesis statement for a term paper, a hypothesis
or prediction statement for lab or research, or a PICO question
(population intervention comparison outcome) for research courses,
an abstract for a paper, etc.? If so, use this assignment as a way
to get peers to offer immediate feedback and help students to improve
this short assignment. On the day that the assignment is due, prior
to handing in the assignment, ask the students to work in pairs
to review their developed answer. Have them draw a line under what
they prepared for class and write what the pair agreed would be
a better statement. If students come unprepared with the assignment
they can work alone on the assignment and suffer the consequence
of not having time to get feedback and improve their answer prior
to handing it in. The amount of time devoted to this exercise will
vary with the complexity and length of the assignment.
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Helping your students to write better essays
and papers
If you want your students to write better essays and papers ask
them to address the following three questions in every essay and
paper:
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- Who is your audience?
- What do you need to do to convince your audience (what evidence
do you need to present and how to do it?)
You may want to set some parameters for these questions such as
telling them the level of evidence necessary or the intended audience.
Justin Everett went over this material in his workshop this past
week and would be happy to explain more.
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Helping students to understand a topic
If the first time you explain a topic, the students look confused
or ask questions for clarification, don't just repeat what you said
the second time. Try to explain the concept differently, using different
words. Try using metaphors, common usage examples of this concept,
or analogies to explain it differently.
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Getting students to value the importance
of and develop abilities to interpret non-prose text
Early in the semester, copy a complicated table, graph, figure,
flow sheet, diagram, etc. from something the students will read
during the semester. Ask the students to explain what it means,
and what they learn from it. Tell the students to try to complete
the exercise, but it will not count toward their grade. Then go
over the graphic with the students. This exercise should illustrate
the importance of non-prose materials in their readings.
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Giving students advise on how to do better
in their course
When students ask how they can do better in your
course, ask them if you can inspect their notes from your lectures.
(You might tell them to bring their notes in advance or when you
are scheduling the appointment and tell them that you are not looking
for neatness, and will not grade them on these notes). By looking
at their notes of what you said, you can determine many things including:
are they able to see the big picture, are they getting enough detail,
do they seem to wonder off and not listen to you during parts (especially
the middle) of the lecture, can they identify the concept and see
how something is an example of that concept or do they only write
the concepts or only the examples, etc. You might show them how
to take better notes with a small section of their notes and ask
them to come back again after the next class with their notes from
that class.
If you see patterns in their note taking, you might
want to explicitly talk about ways of taking notes in your class
at the beginning of the next semester or might even see ways that
you can improve your lectures, slides or handouts for them.
Some of this idea come from Thomas Berg a professor
at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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A way to encourage class participation
Prior to class post thought provoking questions or
questions for which there may be many alternative answers on newsprint
or white boards around the room. As students come in, ask them to
go around the room and read the questions and write responses to
at least several of them. After about 10 minutes, ask the students
to pick the 1 question they want to discuss further and go to that
question. After the groups form around the questions, ask the students
to summarize the major points in the answers and correct any misconceptions
as a group. Then call upon groups for reports on the questions.
This idea probably works best for classes of less
than 60 students and where there is room for students to move around
the room especially by the walls.
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Helping students to know which
details or examples they need to know and what is given for the
purpose of explanation
A good teaching tool that many faculty use is to
include examples of a concept. However, some students may have a
hard time distinguishing between an example that is given for the
purpose of an illustration and one which they need to know the details
of. This often leads to students who cannot see the forest for the
trees and spend too much time memorizing tiny details of an example
without understanding what the example illustrates. If you use many
examples you might tell the students explicitly what the purpose
of the examples are (as an illustration or important to know the
details about).
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Checking to see that students
read resources and write their papers
When you ask students to write a paper using other
resources or references, ask the students to write a few sentences
for each reference cited on how this resource related to the topic
of the paper or some other commentary about the resource. You can
also ask them to write something in class about their most useful
resources.
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Asking good questions to stimulate
students' reflection
Most of us realize the value of getting students
to reflect on what they are learning or doing. Reflections are especially
important for service-learning, field experiences, laboratories
and clinical rotations. Yet directing students to write insightful
reflections is difficult. Asking students appropriate questions
often improves the quality of their answer.
Carol Maritz has used the following types of questions with good
results:
- What did you learn?
- In what ways were you pleased/frustrated with how things went?
- What will you do differently next time?
- What were you thinking as you arrived as XXX? How did your thoughts
change during the encounter and what were you thinking about as
you left?
- Give an example of an encounter that you had with XX (a patient,
someone in the community, etc.). Did it go as you expected or
anticipated that it would?
- What have you discovered about yourself as a learner over the
past several weeks? Describe how you will use this new found insight.
Use a different combination of these types of questions for every
reflection.
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Assessing if students can read the figures,
graphs or diagrams in your discipline
Early in the semester give students a quick, in class assignment
to see if they can read, interpret and explain the non-text aspects
of your discipline. Textbooks, professional articles, etc. are full
of graphs, figures and diagrams that contain essential information.
Students may skip over them because they may not see them as important
or they may not be able to understand and use them. Then give students
feedback on their ability to interpret a diagram, etc. You might
want to explicitly teach how to read and explain them if the class
as a whole has trouble with it.
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Helping students learn how to and to value
making revisions to their writing or to their projects
Students often write 1 draft of their work and never revise anything.
Yet the revision process is an essential part of learning and improving.
To help students learn to revise their work and value this part
of the learning process,tell students that you will save a small
percentage of their grade on a project or paper if they do significant
revisions. There are several ways of doing this:
- Students could use track changes and submit their final product
along with earlier drafts to show how they changed it.
- They can make these revisions to occur after you, their peers
or other assessors evaluate it.
- Students can write a few paragraphs of the revised work
- Students can write a reflection on how they would revise the
product
Shelley Reid from George Mason University suggested these ideas
on how to get students to revise their work.
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Involving more students in a fun way to
review for a test
This is a slight variation on the quiz show review idea.
- Ask students to prepare short answer or multiple choice questions
on the material that will be on an exam and bring them to the
review class.
- Determine which students have brought questions and distribute
them across the groups. You could even assign the groups in advance
and ask them as a group to make up questions or to review each
other's questions prior to class.
- Divide the students into teams of 3-5 students per teams
- Decide which team will ask each question. However, prior to
them reading the question, ask another teams to be the judge.
The judging team has to decide if it is a fair and appropriate
question once it is asked. After they rule that the question is
good, then call on another group to answer the question. The judging
team has to determine if the answer is correct. This gets 3 groups
involved for every question. If the answer is wrong, then call
on another team to answer.
Keep account of which role each of the groups have played and try
to insure even or almost even participation.
You can comment or elaborate on the concept after the question
has been answered.
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