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Tips marked with an * indicates that the
tip is consistent with learning-centered teaching
*Course Planning
Planning for next round of teaching - What big picture ideas
do you want your students to gain?
Before you immerse yourself in the day to day thinking of your
courses, make a list of the big picture concepts that you want
your students to gain in this course. In ten years when they
have forgotten all of the details and most of the content, what
do you want them to remember about this discipline? In addition,
do you want them to acquire better thinking skills, be able
to see connections, have a new set of skills, obtain new values,
etc.?
Once you have thought about these broader picture issues for
some time, then you can revise your courses to be more consistent
with these ideas.
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*Planning Process
When you get to planning for your next round of teaching use
this planning process:
- First consider the situational factors - who are your students,
how does this course fit into the large education program?
- Then consider your learning goals for the course. What
do you want your students to achieve at the end of the course?
- Next plan how you will assess your students and give them
feedback. Assessment should be consistent with the goals of
the course.
- Finally plan your teaching and learning activities to help
the students reach these objectives.
It may sound backwards, but it is more consistent and leads
to a better course.
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*Key Questions to Consider When Designing
Courses
Consider answering these four key questions when you are designing
your courses:
- What situational factors plan an important role in this
course? Situational factors include the general context of
the learning situation (e.g., the university, the profession,
etc), the nature of the subject, the characteristics of the
learners, and the characteristics of the teachers.
- What should the full set of learning goals be for the course
to meet the expectations of the courses that come afterward,
the profession, higher education in general, etc?
- What kind of feedback and assessment should the teacher
provide?
- What kinds of teaching and learning activities will foster
the achievement of the complete set of learning goals that
have been set?
These should be unifying themes in your planning.
This tip comes from Dr. L. Dee Fink, an internationally known
designer from the University of Oklahoma. He has developed a
model for integrated course design leading to significant learning
experiences.
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Are you thinking of revising your courses
by next year?
Are you on the cusp of deciding if you want to revise your
course or what to revise in your teaching? If so, consult with
the important stakeholders (people to whom the course matters)
before you make revisions. Important stakeholders for any course
include students, faculty who teach courses for which your course
is a prerequisite, or co-requisite, the faculty who teach the
prerequisite courses to yours, and your chair.
If you want to get ideas form previous students, you might
consider a post-course survey or focus group. Keep the stakeholder
faculty informed if you will be changing the content or delivery
of your courses so they will know what to expect.
Since the first time you offer a revised course or make innovations,
it may not be perfect. Let your chair know of your plans in
advance. All of these stakeholders will be wonderful resources
for ideas for improvement.
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Curriculum Development Process
A standard curriculum development process involves the following
steps:
- A statement of need - why is this course needed, by whom,
for what
- Development of the goals of the course
- Design the instruction, teaching and learning activities
and the student assessment tolls to match these goals
- Deliver the course - implementation
- Use feedback to evaluate how well it went, where it can
be improved
- Revise the course as needed, based on feedback and experience.
Don't forget to incorporate the feedback loop into your thoughts
and revisions. Feedback can come from many sources including
your students directly, student evaluations, your own experience
with the course, faculty who teach your students afterwards
the changing demands of the field or profession, peer evaluation,
etc.
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*Department vs. Breadth
As you plan your courses, think of the curriculum to be learned
as a rectangle, with the horizontal sides = breadth and the
vertical sides = depth. In this image the area of the rectangle
basically remains constant regardless of how you construct the
rectangle. Which do you need for your course, greater breadth
or greater depth? You cannot have it both ways. Mathematically
inclined folks will remind us that the maximum area of a rectangle
with the smallest parameter is a square. Perhaps you also need
to make your curriculum more of a square than a very narrow,
but long rectangle. (Adapted from John Biggs- Teaching for Quality
Learning at University, What the student does), SHRE and Open
Press, 1999
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*Preparing course syllabi
The more explicit you make the course syllabus, the more you
are communicating with your students about their course. This
improves the chances that the students will succeed in the course.
Here is a checklist of topics (not comprehensive, I'm sure)
to include in an expanded course syllabus or course manual:
- Why would a student want or need to take this course?
- What are the course objectives? Where do they lead the student
intellectually and practically?
- What are the prerequisites for the course? This includes
not just previously taken courses but major concepts that
the students are assumed to know and be able to use in the
course. How will students acquire necessary, but missing skills
or concepts?
- Why do the parts of the course come in the order they do?
- What instructional formats (lectures, labs, discussions,
student presentations, group work, etc.) will be used, when?
- What does the faculty member expect from the students in
day to day classes, in assignments, on tests, etc.?
- What is the purpose of assignments and exams?
- What will be exams and assignments evaluate - memory, understanding,
ability to synthesize, application, presenting evidence logically,
writing skills, problem solving, etc.?
- Why have the books been chosen? What is their relative importance
in the course and in the discipline?
- What other resources should the students obtain/access.
e.g., calculator, lab materials, professional attire, access
to the Web, etc.
- Include a detailed schedule of events, classes, assignments,
exams, date due and your expectations regarding them.
- Include your policies on lateness (both personal and for
assignments), make-ups, absence, class participation, etc.
- How will the final grade be determined - Will you curve
the grades, allow students who are getting an A to be excused
from the final, etc.? What weight does each assignment, exam,
class participation, presentation, etc. have?
- Who the instructors will be if more than one is used, and
how the students can contact them.
Take time to plan and develop detailed course syllabi, it will
save you time later.
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*Planning written assignments
As you plan your written assignments for next semester, take
a tip from the faculty who teach writing. Ask your students
to hand in a draft or a section of a major paper a few weeks
before the deadline for the final paper. Then spend time making
suggestions for improvement and comments throughout. This will
force the students to work on the paper earlier and once they
see what you want, they will hand in a better final copy. The
writing faculty say that the time you spend with the rough drafts
will be saved in the correcting of the final paper.
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Content Coverage
As you plan your courses, ask yourself the following questions
about content coverage:
- How much content are you expecting the students to learn?
Is this reasonable?
- Is the content covered in a context that will help the students
to learn the material?
- Am I assuming that content coverage (by the instructor in
a lecture or in the readings)= student learning, mastery?
- What can the faculty member do to promote students learning
the material?
It is better to thoroughly learn less material, than to superficially
learn, but not understand more material.
A quote from a very well respected educators says it very well,
"The greatest enemy of understanding is coverage. If you're
determined to cover a lot of things, you are guaranteeing that
most kids will not understand, because they haven't had time
enough to go into depth, to figure out what they requisite understanding,
is, and be able to perform that understanding in different situations"
(Gardner, 1993)
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Consistency in expectations
Are you writing low level objectives, yet expecting high level
learning? Or are you writing high level objectives, and only
examining for lower level learning? When you develop your materials
for a course, be internally consistent. If you are expecting
higher levels of learning, then make sure the students see that
they will be examined/evaluated in a manner that is consistent
with higher level learning. Higher level evaluations might include
multiple choice questions involving problem solving based upon
a scenario, student reports presentations asking student to
graphically or pictorially represent a concept or develop a
schema for organizing the major topics of the semester, essay
questions, critique primary literature in the field, etc. Many
of these techniques can be streamlined in the time required
for correcting. The way you present material can also encourage
higher level learning. Do you go over all the material, or expect
the students to come prepared to class and ask questions? Give
the students assignments or projects to do in class that encourage
higher level learning.
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Rethinking how Objectives are Met
Before you begin actually planning the specifics of your course,
take a fresh and critical look at your objective and goals.
Ask yourself, are there other ways to meet these objectives
than what you have been doing in the past? You might consider
how technology might affect the nature and structure of the
unit or course itself? These technologies may not have been
available a few years ago when the course was first planned.
For example, you might move a large part of the dissemination
of information out of the classroom activities to self-paced
or structured study through the use of mixed media, including
print and electronic. This frees up classroom time for discussions,
answering questions, exams (and not have to schedule them at
7:30AM), demonstrations, etc.
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Making sure your students get the big picture
from your class
During the break from the regular routine of classes, take
stock of what you are doing and what you are trying to achieve
in your classes. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What really matters in this class?
- What major learning outcomes do you want the students to
achieve?
- What are you really good at with the students?
- Are you doing enough of that with your students?
- What do you really want to accomplish with these students?
- What are you doing to help your students reach these important
goals?
If you find that you are not concentrating on these answers,
what can you let go of to help achieve what you really want
to achieve?
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*Planning Courses to
help students become intentional, responsible and enabled learners
A national panel of educators has recommended that college
graduates should be intentional, responsible and enable learners.
- To meet the goal of an intention learner, we need to help
our students to become integrative thinkers and see connections
among disciplines, reflect on their acquired knowledge and
their learning to learn skills.
- Since responsibility to act as informed citizens is based
on values, principles and commitments, we need to help students
acquire these values and principles. Responsible citizens
are active participants in their society and can see consequences
of their own and others' actions and decisions.
- Enabled learners can use their knowledge and skills to communicate
their ideas, solve complex problems and manage practical situations.
As you review, revise and plan your courses for next semester
ask yourself how well or how much are you fostering these skills
in our students. This thought process may allow you to incorporate
these desirable outcome indicators without making huge changes
to your course structure.
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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 in 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 end:
- 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?
- you fostered intellectual curiosity in this subject matter?
- Have you helped students to develop these learning to learn
skills in this discipline:
If we can get our students to achieve this lifelong learning
in a subject, we and they will have succeeded.
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Setting expectations and welcoming your
students
If you are completely changing your course over the way it
was taught in previous years, or if you are teaching a brand
new course to advance students, you might consider sending these
students a letter or email to their homes explaining the course
and outlining some of your expectation of the course. You might
also want to welcome them into the course and tell them how
excited you are that they will be in the course. This letter
should only be used in special cases and not for routine courses
or course changes. It might work best for the students that
you have already taught and have some expectations about what
your course will be like.
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*Plan and Teach to Foster success in your
students
As you plan your courses and teach them, remember three 3 important
goals to foster success in your students:
- acquisition of knowledge that can be used and applied
- development of self confidence
- learning to take responsibility for their own learning and
professional development
Thanks to Lois Peck and Diane Morel for making these student
success goals so clear.
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Plan what kind of time schedule make the
most sense for your courses now
We will be doing zero-based scheduling next year. This means
that the registrar will be planning all of the courses from
scratch and not using this year's schedule to plan next year's
schedule. Thus, we are in a window of opportunity to really
think about what makes sense for our courses in terms of scheduling.
For example, would larger blocks of time (but meeting less frequently)
meet your needs better than 50 minute classes. Literature from
both adult education and secondary education indicates that
longer blocks of time promote more interactive learning activities
and seem to support increased learning. However, you need to
really re-think or perhaps learn about how to use all time effectively.
Once you make these decisions, please convey your rationale
to the person in your department who is responsible for making
the scheduling request for next year.
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*Planning courses to help students become
intentional, responsible and enabled learners
A national panel of educators has recommended that college
graduates should be intentional, responsible and enable learners.
- To meet the goal of an intention learner, we need to help
our students to become integrative thinkers and see connections
among disciplines, reflect on their acquired knowledge and
their learning to learn skills.
- Since responsibility to act as informed citizens is based
on values, principles and commitments, we need to help students
acquire these values and principles. Responsible citizens
are active participants in their society and can see consequences
of their own and others' actions and decision.
- Enable learners can use their knowledge and skills to communicate
their ideas, solve complex problems and manage practical situations.
As you review, revise and plan your courses for next semester
ask yourself how well or how much are you fostering these skills
in our students. This thought process may allow you to incorporate
these desirable outcome indicators without making huge changes
to your course structure.
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Helping students to succeed with changes
you are making to your courses
Are you planning to change the way you run your courses next
semester? Perhaps you want to incorporate more learning-centered
teaching, a different evaluation scheme, or requiring students
to hand in drafts or parts of a project before the final copy
is due, but are afraid that the student will not accept the
changes or will not be able to do well with them. For any of
these changes, you need to build in enough structure and guidelines
to help the students overcome their resistance or learn how
to succeed. You might want to write a rationale in your syllabi
and go over the rationale repeatedly in class. You need to spend
time convincing the students why they need to move from their
current, perhaps overly dependent state, to becoming autonomous
learners.
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*Helping students to understand your
syllabi or how you are teaching
If you are innovating how your course is being run, using a
different assessment process than usually done by others or
if you have a complicated series of events for the students,
make sure all of this is spelled out in the syllabus. To get
the students to read and understand these directions, assessments,
events, etc. tell the students they will be responsible for
the material on the syllabi for the second class. Then in that
class play a short quiz game on the way your course will be
run to insure student understanding.
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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 students learn more.
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Setting the right tone for your class, getting
to know your students
Early on in the semester, have a discussion with the students
(can be in small groups, with summaries reported back to you)
about what they expect in a class. What have they liked or disliked
about classes in the past? Ask whose responsibilities is it to
establish or maintain such a climate or a policy? This short discussion
can give you insights into how to improve your class and promotes
learning centered teaching.
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*Still time to revise your syllabi
As the first week of the semester draws to a close, it is a good
time to make a few changes in your syllabi. Before doing so gather
some data from your students. Perhaps they would like to see the
test dates or due dates for assignments modified a little bit
to ease their overly heavy days. Do the students understand what
is expected of them? Perhaps you need to elaborate on what you
want them to do. After seeing who is registered for the class,
do you need to modify the schedule a little? Perhaps you need
to spend more or less time on the introductory material at the
beginning of the semester. Did enough copies of the textbook arrive
at the book store or do you need to modify some early assignments?
These are the types of minor modifications that you can make now
and go a long way to improving student learning and satisfaction
in your course.
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Thinking about trying some thing different
next semester
Are you thinking of trying something different in your courses
next semester? Perhaps you are thinking of trying a different
way to assess students, a new policy, or trying a different teaching
and learning transaction. If you are ready, pilot test this new
strategy in one of your courses this semester for the next few
weeks. Then gather feedback from the students as to how you can
improve it and did it lead to greater learning, student satisfaction,
engagement with the subject matter, etc.
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Looking at your policies
As you preplan your courses, or educational programs, please
take a close look at all of your policies. As you review each
policy ask yourself, "How does this policy help students
to take responsibility for their own learning?" Alternatively
ask yourself, "how much does this policy encourage students'
dependence on us for their learning and their decision making?"
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Textbook selection
When you are considering textbooks to use in connection with
your courses, first consider what and how the content is taught.
If you find several textbooks that are consistent with what you
plan to teach, then look at the additional instructional materials
that you and the students can us that go along with this textbook.
Publishers of large sellers are developing excellent electronic
cartridges that have many presentation software for the figures
in the book, self-instructional materials, self-assessments, web
links, 3rd demonstrations, etc. Some of these cartridges can also
get you started with Blackboard very easily.
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Consistency of standards
across instructors or courses
Students often feel that they have been unfairly treated if they
think that their peers had it better with another teacher or if
another instructor in the same course was easier. As we have multiple
sections of various courses or multiple instructors for a course,
we should strive for consistency among instructors within the
same course or different sections of a course. Departmental meetings
might be an appropriate place to discuss the level of expectation
that we want to achieve with our students as well as expected
content to be covered. For example, what should the pass cut off
point or standard be or how much should a student have to do to
pass a course? What is the expected item difficulty that we are
striving for? Do we want most of our students to get an item right
or only 50%.
These discussions will show how different we are now and what
we can do to strive for more consistency. They might even lower
the complaints of our students.
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*Helping students to feel like they have
some control might raise course evaluations
All people, but especially adolescents, like to feel that they
have some control over their lives and thus their courses. If
you allow students to have some say in de terming course policies
(such as expected course behavior like attendance, lateness, etc,)
they probably will come up with the same rules you would impose,
but now they feel they made the rules themselves. Further if you
allow them as a group to help you determine deadlines for assignments
(within general guidelines), or dates within a week for tests,
you might make their lives more manageable.
Students might not resent the deadlines or dates as much if they
helped to select them.
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Insuring students get the big objectives
for the course
About half way through the semester it is a good idea to reflect
and take stock on the progress being made in your courses. For
each course ask yourself if the students are realizing the overall
objectives, not just the day to day content objectives. Are you
preparing students for the more advanced courses that follow this
course? Are you spending enough time with students or emphasis
to help them gain the thinking skills, values, learning to learn
skills, etc. that are important for this domain? If you need to
make mid-course corrections, you can do so.
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*Allowing students a little say over
deadlines and getting them to get in the habit of using the Blackboard/Listserv
for your course
When you give out your syllabi on the first day of class, tell
students that you are willing to take their feedback on the due
dates of some or all assignments (within a limited time period),
or the actual dates of exams (if you have flexibility) electronically
between the first and second class. Then pose the relevant feedback
questions on your chat room, discussion board or class list serve.
Tell students they can only respond electronically until the second
class and you might want to limit how many times they can respond
to the question.
Asking for feedback and the possibility of making minor changes
(based on the voice of the majority) to the schedule helps students
to feel part of the decision making in the class and may cut down
on complaints or excuses later. Make sure you tell them it is
majority rule with your ability to overrule them.
Giving students a very early assignments (and one they might
want to do) on Blackboard or other electronic discussion format
you will be using insures that they know how to access it, sign
in and might get them in the habit of using this non-class discussion
venue frequently. If you find the technology is not working you
will know about very early in the course.
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*Time to refresh your course
Before offering a course again, it is time to refresh it. Consider
the following:
Have you included the recent developments in this discipline?
Does your textbook now offer a course pack that has many worthwhile
self-instructional and self-assessment activities? You might want
to include some of them in your course requirement.
Look at what your students really need to know to succeed in
more advanced courses or careers that follow from this course
and make sure it is emphasized.
How are you fostering student learning?
What learning activities would help students to master the difficult
concepts and skills of the course.
Remember you can not continue to add without taking out or reducing
emphasis.
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Spend time thinking about the courses you
are teaching now
Before you get involved with the grading of exams and final papers
and before you are thinking about next semester's courses, spend
time reflecting and writing about this semester's courses. Go
through all of the material you gave students especially the syllabus,
assignments, etc. Think about timing - should you have moved things
around, emphasized 1 topic more and another less. Were your directions
clear or did you have to explain something to many different students?
If so, re-read them now and make changes based upon the students'
questions. Did your evaluations (exams or projects) meet your
expectations and the objectives for the course?
Write your reflections on how to improve or change the course
now and put these notes along with the folder and computer files
you keep for this courses.
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Excellent, free web-based instructional
materials available for the sciences and health sciences
I found out about an excellent collection of free, web-based
instructional resources in anatomy, on various diseases, organisms,
chemical and drugs, analytical, diagnoses and treatment techniques,
biological sciences, psychology, physical sciences, and health
care. As the collection is continuing to grow, you will need to
recheck the site over time. Check http://www.healcentral.org or
http://www.healcentral.org/index.jsp
Let me know if you use anything from this national digital library
and how it worked.
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*Helping our students to become self-directed
learners
As teachers we all now that the subject matter has more content
than we can possibly fit into the time available for the course
and what makes it worse is that the content is growing daily.
How can we solve this problem? One option is that we all could
talk faster, but that probably won't do it. A real solution involves
the following:
Learn how to restrict the content we expect our students to
learn and provide the scaffolding to allow for further learning
Help our students keep on learning the subject after the course
is over.
The is the only real chance we have to go beyond the basics
with the students.
Have to find ways to make this subject interesting and inspiring
so they will want to keep on learning
Thanks to Dee and Arletta Fink for helping with this tip.
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*Planning for new courses or revising
courses on the basis of program learning outcomes
Many programs have developed or revised learning outcomes. This
was done before looking at course learning outcomes intentionally.
Now that the program learning outcomes are completed it is a good
time to look at where there are holes or duplications in where
these outcomes are met. It is probably appropriate for all of
the faculty within a program together to review the program and
course learning outcomes to see where changes should be made to
courses. Revised courses or new courses should flow from areas
identified as needing more or less focus on the learning outcome
identified by the program.
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*Helping students to get the essential
long-lasting lessons from your course
As the semester winds down, help students to emerge from the
day-to-day aspects of the course to see the essentials, long-lasting
lessons from your course. Help student to see what you want them
to always remember from your course by developing a handout, including
such a discussion at the end of the course, giving them a directed
assignment or questions on the final relating to these essential
lessons. Once you have decided what are these essential long-lasting
lessons, check for consistency of what you are saying now and
the goals of the course. If they are not aligned, redo your goals
for the next time you teach this course.
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*Getting students to read and have ownership
over the syllabus
I have often heard faculty complain that students do not read
their syllabi and they ask questions that are contained in the
document. To get the students to read and take ownership over
the syllabus hand out a draft syllabus with certain points left
for the students to decide. Students can have a say over deadlines
for projects, dates for tests within a few days, or even how much
weight, within a range, specific assessments will count. Students
can be asked to modify or add policies, but you still get the
final veto. Class time during the first class can be devoted to
discussing some of these points and the discussion can be continued
after the class period ends. If you are using Blackboard, students
can have a discussion between the first and second class of the
decision they have to make. Without an electronic discussion system
that all can read, they can communicate with you by email. Before
the second class you should determine the consensus. You can also
give a bonus point or 2 if the students correct mistakes in the
document, or if they identify areas that need further clarification.
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*Helping to balance the power in your
classes
To achieve learning-centered teaching the instructor needs to
look at the balance of power between themselves and the students.
Some possible ways to do is to consider:
Faculty can share power with students to determine how individual
classes are conducted, how material is learned (not what material)
is learned).
What opinions are expressed, etc. Yet we cannot give up power
as to how an entire course is run.
Faculty power comes from the authority our university has given
us as the instructor.
We can share power but we can never share authority.
The idea of the distinction between power and authority comes
from D. Fink's book, Teaching with your mouth shut, 2000 Heinemann
Publishers.
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Getting mid-course feedback on your class
About half way through the semester it is a good idea to get
a read on what the students think of your course. Ask your students
to write their answers to a few questions on topics that you can
change or make mid-course corrections. You might consider asking
about how fair (in terms of aligned with objectives or what you
say will be on the test is on the test) your tests are (not how
difficult are your tests), your pacing in your classes, clarification
of difficulty concepts, availability to answer questions, etc.
Once you get their feedback address their concerns in class or
on Blackboard and indicate if you will be making any changes as
a result of what they told you. Some things you may not be able
to change or want to change, bit it still worth letting your students
know you recognize their concerns. Students will appreciate you
more as a teacher and value your class more because you showed
them you care about them.
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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 hat 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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How to plan time allotment for a course
Most of us plan courses in terms of how many hours the students
spend in class. However, the unit that we should be using is learning
time, not class time. The general wisdom is that for e very hour
spent in class students in undergraduate courses are supposed
to spend 3 hours out of class and perhaps more for graduate classes.
Therefore, for a three hour per week of classroom time, the students
really should have 9 hours of learning time per week for that
class. Now divide the 9 hours into what students can do on their
own (often learn material), what should be done with others (such
as discussions), what a teacher is needed for (such as answering
questions or doing demonstrations or modeling problem solving
or learning to learn in the discipline). Plan your weekly schedule
based upon the total learning time and the type of activities
needed to learn the course objectives and where they should be
done. This might lead you to plan class time very differently.
Students should be made aware of this change in thinking and oriented
to the concept of learning time. This might help them to spend
more time on your course outside of class.
Chris Knapper of the UK and now in Canada introduced me to the
concept of learning time.
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Being supportive of our students in
their differences in the time they need to master skills
If you are assessing students on their skills, give the students
several opportunities during the semester to demonstrate these
skills, provided they are independent skills and not ones that
build on each other. Some students take longer than others to
learn skills and others may not more than one attempt to demonstrate
mastery.
This tip come from Margie Roos in PT and was mentioned at the
last TableTalk on being supportive of our students. Many other
good ideas also come out, so attend the next discussion on Tuesday,
January 18th.
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*Using a bingo card concept to increase student
interaction with the content and decrease procrastination
This is a more complex tip than usual, but I think it is worth
trying.
Create a bingo card with cells giving the types of additional activities
you want the student to do to help them engage in the regular and
consistent interaction with the content necessary to really retain
it. Examples for the cells might include:
- you might ask the students to create a 20 item crossword puzzle,
with the answer provided, on the terms used in a chapter
- ask five intelligent questions pertaining to the class material
during a class
- have > 95% class attendance
- find a website that is accurate about a concept discussed in
the textbook etc.
Distribute the bingo card at the beginning of the semester and
let the students know that this is an optional assignment.
When a student shows proof that (s) he completes the activity the
instructor marks the box. Prizes are given when people complete
a line or several lines. Prizes can be to drop the lowest quiz grade,
can bring a study sheet with information to the final exam or adding
5 points to the final exam score. The irony is that students who
get the most lines probably will not need the prizes because the
extra work they did helped them to master the material. However,
the motivation to earn the prize may have helped them to engage
in the content more and to decrease their procrastination.
This tip was adapted from Amy Jo Sutterluety, Bingo Games Decreases
Procrastination, Increase Interaction with Content. The Teaching
Professor, Nov. 2002: 16 (9) 5-6.
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*Maximizing student learning
As you are preparing or revising syllabi, prioritize what you do,
what you ask students to do and especially what you do while with
the students (i.e., in the classroom) to maximize student learning.
Here are a few things to consider:
- Information can be disseminated many ways beside through a lecture,
consider posting material to read, giving students access to websites
or course auxiliary materials to illustrate concepts
- While students are in the classroom, have them engage in the
material by solving problems, asking you questions, or answering
questions. You can use the time to check on their mastery of the
material, to help them to learn better or clarify misconceptions
- Ask students to check each other's homework, discuss their differences
and then have an opportunity to redo their improved/corrected
solutions (have them hand in both versions). This might be done
out of class.
- Use blackboard to give self-assessment quizzes with the answers
explained after the deadline for doing it
- Give students assignments that prepare them to come to class
ready to engage in the material. Use class to reinforce or apply
content not to go over what was covered in the assignment
- Give students explicit criteria on how you will grade papers,
projects, etc. in advance of when they complete the assignment.
- Give students opportunities to give each other formative
feedback either prior to or instead of you reviewing every
product (especially homework problems).
- Allow students to give feedback using your criteria on drafts
and they you will receive better papers
If you incorporate some of these ideas, you might need to adjust
the balance in your syllabus or consider the total picture of what
you are doing in the course.
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Reviewing how the courses went as you
finish the semester
As you hand in grades, take a little time to review how your courses
went and write some notes to yourself. Try to analyze where the
students had difficulty-identify the concepts they had trouble learning,
the assignments or activities they seemed to have a hard time understanding
or doing, etc. Look at the directions you gave students for exams
or assignments and check that they were clear. Finally record what
went especially well. As you revise your courses for the next time
you offer these courses, these notes will help jog your memory.
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Developing prerequisite courses that
meet the expectations of the instructors of advanced courses
If you are teaching a course that is a prerequisite for more advanced
courses, talk to the instructors of these courses. Find out the
essential knowledge (topics or concepts), skills and attitudes that
they want your students to acquire in your course. You might find
that you are covering material that they do not care about or some
topics might need further emphasis. Then plan your course to be
a good match with what they want without and what you think should
be covered.
Barbara Tewsbury of Hamilton College suggested this idea.
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Making sense of students' complaints that
the instructor or the course was unfair
Research shows that students complain that a course or an instructor
was unfair when there is a disconnect among the goals or objectives
of the class, such as how the students were taught, what the students
were expected to do and how they were assessed. Courses that are
aligned or consistent in all of these areas are more likely to be
perceived as fair. Students might think they they are too difficult
or too challenging, but fair if they are aligned.
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Getting meaningful feedback from your students
that is separate from course evaluations
If you want to gather some individualized feedback at the end of
a course, ask the students to complete a couple of questions that
you would like to know more about.
Leslie Bowman suggests the following questions:
- What did you find most useful in the course?
- What is the most valuable lesson or content you learned from
this course?
- Is there something that the instructor should be informed about
concerning his/her teaching style?
Keep these questions separate from the course evaluation forms
that students need to complete. This should be formative feedback
just for you.
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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 required varies with the complexity of
the material.
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Alignment of Skill Requirement.ppt
Best educational practice models say that students learn more when
a course is aligned. Alignment means that the objectives, teaching-learning
methods and assessment methods are consistent and coherent. Roger
Ideishi developed a beautiful series of graphics to show when a
course is aligned and when it is not aligned. He is using these
slides in conjunction with the workshops on general education. However,
they apply to all courses and not just those with skills. His slides
are attached.
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Beginning to do scholarship on your teaching
If you have innovated or find a part of your teaching interesting,
you can begin to do some scholarship on your teaching. Start with
a question you would like to find the answer to, or think or a way
to show that the improvements you mace in your courses have been
worth making . Then gather data on it.
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Making your course more aligned and more
explicit to your students
As you finish off the semester, review your course to make sure
that your objectives, teaching/learning activities, and assessments
are consistent. Alignment means that if you have evaluation or problem
solving as a goal for the course, you give students opportunities
to practice these skills and that you assess the students on these
skills. A lack of alignment would be is the assessments did not
match the level of the goals. At the end of the course review what
actually happened compared to what you hoped would happen. Note
where you need to make further alignment. Perhaps you need to change
how you assess the students toward more projects using authentic
assessment (mimics what practitioners do).
Then the next time you teach this course discuss on the first day
how your course is aligned. You might want to show your students
that the course is aligned in the syllabus. Students will accept
why you are asking them to do something if they see is as congruent
with the goals of the course.
Aligned courses lead to more learning.
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Teaching models to revise as you plan for
next time you teach
Many faculty use a hub and spoke model of course management without
even thinking of it. The instructor is the hub because students
look to the instructor guidance, feedback, information, assessment.
They even answer questions just directed to you and make presentations
to you. When you plan your course the next time try not to use the
hub and spoke model. Instead diffuse the center by having student
look to each for information, for assessment, feedback. Discussions
need not be directed by you. As you plan your course, ask yourself,
would a hub and spoke diagram work for what I am doing or asking
students to do.
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Essential aspects of course planning
When you are planning your course, think of the most important
aspects/concepts/values of what you want to cover in the course.
One way to do this is to think what you would cover, do or ask the
students to do if they only had 3 hours to devote to this topic.
This usually gives you the real essential aspects. Then plan your
course around this theme.
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Making the implied more visible and constant
in your syllabus and first day of class
When we develop our syllabi and our grading policies they make
sense to us and often follow from what we believe to be the correct
way to teach this course. However, we may not make our logic clear
to the students. We might need to elaborate on the implications
of our policies. For example:
- If a professor's grading policy puts a heavy emphasis on class
participation, group work, or written assignments, then that professor
probably wants students to be creative, to engage in dialogue,
and to interpret texts freely Students may not realize this unless
you tell them. However, some times we can give the wrong message
by our grading policies. for example.
- If the grading system is simply an average of two of three test
scores, with no emphasis on participation or interactivity, then
some students might assume that the professor would almost rather
the students not show up for class and get the notes from a friend.
So we need to be sure we are being consistent with our messages
and our goals.
Justin Everett set me this idea which comes from"If your
Syllabus Could Talk," By Monica D'Antonio in_Chronicle Careers_at
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/07/2007071901c/careers.html
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Getting students to understand the relationships
among concepts
While experts often see relationships among objects, novices often
fail to see these relationships. One reason why novices do not see
these relationships is they do not know what should be compared.
We often summarize relationships into compare and contrast type
tables. In order for students to understand what we mean by compare
and contrast, we need to explicitly explain what we mean. We need
to help students to understand what are the appropriate criteria
that they can use for valid comparison and help students see the
big picture.
Some of these ideas come from Virginia Anderson of Townsend University.
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Getting course-specific evaluation information
from your students
If you are interested in learning about how your students felt
about course-specific activities, such as a unique assignment or
a different method of assessment, ask your students to complete
a brief survey on these points. This semester you will have to ask
your students to complete this survey separate from the university
wide course evaluation form. We will be using online, standard course
evaluation forms this semester and you will not be able to ask additional
questions on these forms this semester (we hope to be able to do
so in the future).
Also you might remind your students to complete the online course
evaluation form since it will not be given out in class.
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On the first day of class help your students
to see the overall consistency in your course
When you plan your course you want to align your objectives with
the teaching/learning activities and with what and how you assess
your students. This is considered a best practice in education because
it leads to increased learning. While you may align your course
or make it internally consistent, students may not see this overall
integration or alignment. Therefore, you want to make this alignment
explicit to the students. You should explain how the course is aligned
to the students on the first day and describe it in the syllabus.
You might put a table in to show your alignment of objectives, teaching/learning
activities and assessment.
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Do your students understand your syllabus
and know what will be expected of them?
After the first class or first few classes, you might want to be
sure your
students have read and understand the syllabus for your course.
You might want to do a syllabus check as an online quiz or a short
assignment. This assessment can count a little toward their participation
grade.
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Getting students' ideas on how you can improve
your course and how they learned.
Toward the end of the semester, ask students to reflect on your
course. You might ask them to describe how they learned in this
course. What they found confusing, what worked well or suggestions
for improvement for the next time you teach this course.
Read over the suggestions and before the last class, thank the
students for their feedback and tell them some of the changes you
are considering as a result of their feedback. This is also a time
to check on the accuracy of your perceptions of what they said.
Completing this feedback loop is a models good communication and
shows them that you took their comments seriously.
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An activity for the first day of class to find
out what concerns the students about your class
Students may have heard rumors about you or your class. They want
to hear the truth, but do not have the nerve to ask you directly.
Here is a brief activity to answer their concerns.
Ask each student to write their concerns, questions about the course
or about you on a piece of paper. Then ask the class to stand up
and quickly introduce themselves (name only) to six other people
as they exchange papers. After six switches, no one will know who
wrote what on the paper. Then ask the student to form small groups
of about 5 students each and to pick the questions or concerns that
they also want to know about from the papers they are holding. You
can address their fears without knowing who expressed them
Good luck getting ready for the semester to start.
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Should you provide students with complete
lecture notes? No
Research shows that students learn more when they do not receive
complete lecture notes. The process of taking notes in their own
words helps students to learn. If you want to help students to learn
give them a partial set of notes with major title or headings or
an outline where the students have to fill in more details.
Reference: Cornelius & Owen-DeSchryver (2008) Differential
effects of full or partial notes on learning outcomes and attendance.
Teaching of Psychology, 35 (1), 6-12
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Trying innovations, get feedback and
make corrections
If you are trying something new in your courses. Assess how well
it is going by determining if the students are learning from it,
and if they like it. Once you have the feedback, you can make mid-course
corrections, if necessary. If the innovation is a complete failure,
abandon it and tell the students why you are not continuing its
use. Usually you can find ways to improve it and not abandon it.
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Helping students find what you posted on Angel
Students think differently than we do and navigate Angel sites
differently. When students do not find what they are looking for
they either get frustrated or contact you right away. If you are
adding content, either as attachments, or as links to your material
on Angel, please post it several places or at least make reference
to it in several places. You might put in under the lesson and the
communication tabs.
This tip comes from Jeff Swain, of Penn State University who gave
a day long presentation on using Angel more effectively. The plenary
part of his presentation is is available on this link. ANGEL
Overview by Jeff Swain. I have copies of his handouts if you
missed the presentation.
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Making sure your students understand what
is expected of them in your course
About the second or third week of the semester, find out if your
students have any questions about your course. You could also ask
the students to re-read the syllabus and other handouts such as
descriptions of assignments and projects before you ask students
to respond to you.
You might create a discussion board on Angel and let the students
ask questions about the course, and let them answer each others
questions. You might respond if they have the wrong idea or if only
you would know the answer to the question.
You could also ask students to email you such questions or spend
the last few minutes of the next class asking students to write
their questions. Then either go over the questions in class or develop
a comprehensive answer sheet.
Doing this activity is especially important if students come into
your class after the first day or if you are doing non-traditional
activities or assessments in the course.
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Gathering feedback from your students
using an online, free and customizable survey tool
We know that it is a best practice in higher education to gather
feedback from students about their insights into their learning
during the semester. The standard course evaluation form does not
do this because it comes too late and assesses other things. I recommend
registering and using the Student Assessment of their Learning Goals,
a free, online survey tool. The site has a standard survey that
asks about knowledge, understanding, integration, skills and personal
data and a list of many other surveys used by other instructors
to give you some ideas. You can also customize the standard survey
or create new ones. The results are collated for you and then store
the data and your history of use. The url is www.salgsite.org.
Using this tool should jump start everyone finding ways to improve
their teaching and gathering evidence about how effective they are.
I thank Madhu Mahalingam for showing me this site.
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Summarizing and using feedback on your
courses
As the semester winds to an end and you hand in your grades, take
time to reflect on how the course went. Read over the feedback you
get from the student courses evaluation forms, and comments students,
peers, your chairs, etc. made to you during the semester. Think
about ways you can improve your course. Not all feedback makes sense
and some you cannot act upon.
You might make a 1 page summary of the feedback and your analysis
for each course by constructing a table with 4 columns at the top
of the page and leaving some room at the bottom of the page. The
first column might have different headings such as topic covered,
activities and assessments, or what every you want to comment on.
The final part of the sheet should summarize your action plan. Then
place this summary on the top of your file or save it along with
your ANGEL materials for each course.
Summary of Feedback of Course _________ Semester ______ Year ____
| topic |
Number of students who felt positive about this
topic |
Number of students who felt negative about this
topic |
Comments for improvement |
| |
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Action plan: How I will improve the course the next time I teach
it.
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Get more meaningful feedback from student course evaluations
Nationally faculty are reporting that online course evaluation
forms results in fewer students completing the forms. The up side
to the online course evaluations forms is that sometimes students
write more or better quality comments online than on paper.
If you want to get more students to complete the form for your
class and if you want comments, you might send the students a message
or tell them in person who important the course evaluation forms
are for you. You can appeal to them on the basis of needing complete
information to improve the course. If you are especially interested
in feedback on one aspect of the course you could communicate this
to the students. While we use a standard course evaluation form,
you certainly can develop your own brief form and ask students to
complete it online.
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