Close the Book. Recall. Write it Down.

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the importance of using recall to learn new concepts and ideas. According to the article, two psychology journals just published papers showing that the strategy of recall works. 

According to the author David Glenn, recall is when students put down the text or notes that they are studying and recall everything they can. Students can either write down everything they remember or day it out loud. This active recall, such as using flashcards and other self-quizzing, is the most effective may to add something to your long-term memory.

These recall techniques, according to Dr. McDaniel, a researcher in the field of biology and teaching techniques, “If you ask people to free-recall, you can generate a better mental model of a subject area, and in turn that can lead to better problem-solving.”

This idea of free-recall has also generated some critiques from educators. Some professors have voiced concerns that recall is simply teaching students how to memorize instead of increases levels of higher learning and thinking. Dr. McDaniel argues that although these techniques may aid students in the often-required tasks of memorization, the free-recall tasks actually help to give students the skills needed apply their knowledge.

Read more by clicking here.

More strategies for effective learning can be found at the University of Memphis Department of Psychology's Principles of Learning page. Topics include

• Prior Knowledge
  
• Experience Alone
  
• Practice at Retrieval (similar concepts as presented in Glenn's article)
  
• Learning Epistemologies
  
• Variable Learning I
  
• Variable Learning II
  
• Avoid Passive Learning
  
• Process of Remembering
  
• Less is More
  

All of these topics provide concrete strategies for faculty and students to use to increase learning. Give them a try!

How do you encourage your students to use free-recall techniques or practice retrieval?

Team-Based Learning

Instructors can have a less than easy time trying to implement teaching strategies that are outside of certain methods, like lecturing. There are other effective alternatives to lecturing, however. One of these alternatives is group learning, which has its merits. Team-Based Learning is also one of these alternatives that is growing in momentum and offers significant opportunities for student learning. Recenetly, the Center hosted a workshop facilitated by Dr. Karen Sirum (Biological Sciences) to introduce TBL to BGSU faculty.

Team-Based Learning is a systematic method for helping students work in groups and learn together. Its supporters believe that the benefits attached to TBL are well worth the time it takes to learn how to implement the method. Moreover, TBL’s proponents are saying that it is an excellent way of supplementing their other methods for teaching that have been helpful for their students’ learning.

According to its supporters, TBL has been structured to help student learning in group settings and, almost as importantly, has accountability built into it. Before trying this method with students plans need to be made, which include partitioning the course content into macro-units, identifying the instructional goals and objectives, and designing a grading system. Later, in class, there are more methodical instructions on correctly implementing TBL. Please see Introduction to Team-Based Learning and Getting Started with Team-Based Learning to read why and how you can try TBL for yourself.

There is an entire website dedicated to TBL that we invite you to visit. The site has video examples, professional testimonies from people who have tried it and a number of other resources. Please take a look at the site to learn about the “buzz” surrounding Team-Based Learning.

The Ten Commandments of Lecturing

We found this list of ten "commandments of lecturing" by Rob Weir interesting. Weir generated a list of ten policies for instructors to follow when they lecture. Please read the list and feel free to share your own ideas.

I. Thou shalt connect new lectures to previous ones.

II. Thou shalt move beyond chalk and talk.

III. Thou shalt not lecture like caffeinated hummingbird or a tree sloth.

IV. Thou shalt not assume too much.

V. Thou shalt link known to unknown.

VI. Thou shalt be enthusiastic.

VII. Thou shalt not be a pompous ass.

VIII. Thou shalt not tolerate disruptive or disrespectful students.

IX. Thou shalt not lecture outdoors.

X. Thou shalt seize learning moments.

This is just a list of Weir's commandments. The Inside Higher Education website has more elaborates concerning each of the suggestions that he has for instructors.

Can Wikipedia be Used to Teach Writing?

The use of Wikipedia for class assignments or as a citation source has been an ongoing debate. Some professors accept the website's use, usually after encouraging their students to caution what they take from the website. Other professors absolutely abhor the use of the website by their students. Robert E. Cummings says that he has found a new way to incorporate the use of Wikipedia into his classrooms and makes a strong case for using it in higher education, particularly as a writing tool.

According to Cummings, detractors of Wikipedia's use in higher education assignments have reasons to be concerned. Wikipedia, indeed, is an open source where essentially anyone can edit or create information concerning almost any subject. With this in mind, people who use the website do expose themselves to getting inaccurate information or are subject to relying on information that is unfounded.

On the other hand, Cummings believes that Wikipedia offers several advantages for students. He believes the major advantage to helping student essay writing with the use of Wikipedia is that students have audiences that are real and can provide plenty of immediate feedback to their writing. In his classes Cummings literally has his students post their work to the website for people all over the Internet to provide them with comments concerning their work. More importantly for the students, Cummings believes that students are writing and having more exposure to having having to write formally. According to Cummings,

"Composition assignments in Wikipedia frame writing as a collaborative practice hosted within a network. This arrangement seems much more predictive of the environment our students will find themselves writing in after they leave the composition classroom, both in later college courses (as they collaborate across networks with fellow students in coursework) or in the workplace (as they collaborate with co-workers to prepare reports, proposals, or Web pages)."

We invite you to read Cummings' article and see if what he has to say can be beneficial in any of your classes.

Choosing Technological Tools

With all the encouragement to integrate active learning techniques into your teaching, it's easy to get confused about what to use when. Specifically, deciding which technological tools to use can seem overwhelming. Three of the most common tools instructors use in their classes are blogs, wikis, and dicussion boards. To guide you in the process of choosing which tool to use, we have collected information and dveloped a chart.

It is important that you consider the answer to some important questions as you make your choice:

• What is the purpose of using the tools?


• What features are most important for you?


• What level of privacy do you need?

The answers to these questions and others can be found by looking at the chart. Make sure to use the left-most colomn labeled "Topic" to guide your selection.

You can download the document here.

And don't forget that you can always schedule a consultation at the Center for help on how to use your tool in class by calling the Center at 372-6898 or emailing the Center at ctl@bgsu.edu.

The 60-Second Lecture

The idea that a 60 minute lecture can be condensed into 60 seconds may sound absurd and even impossible, but there are some instructors in higher education who seem to think otherwise. The "Microlecture" is gathering followers across different disciplines in college teaching. Supporters of the one-minute lecture think that condensing a lesson strictly to key terms and ideas with less verbiage into a 60 second to three minute lecture has been beneficial for their students.

Naturally, the "microlecture" technique has its detractors. Critics of the practice think some topics, like literature or graphic design, are impossible to reduce down to three minutes. They also believe "microlectures" can at best provide "impressionistic overview."

Although the microlecture is intended for online courses it could be applied in a traditional classroom setting. Instructions for how to make a microlecture in an online are listed below.

Here are the instructions provided for how to make a microlecture:

Professors spend a lot of time crafting hour-long lectures. The prospect of boiling them down to 60 seconds — or even five minutes — may seem daunting. David Penrose, a course designer for SunGard Higher Education who developed San Juan College's microlectures, suggests that it can be done in five steps:

1. List the key concepts you are trying to convey in the 60-minute lecture. That series of phrases will form the core of your microlecture.

2. Write a 15 to 30-second introduction and conclusion. They will provide context for your key concepts.

3. Record these three elements using a microphone and Web camera. (The college information-technology department can provide advice and facilities.) If you want to produce an audio-only lecture, no Webcam is necessary. The finished product should be 60 seconds to three minutes long.

4. Design an assignment to follow the lecture that will direct students to readings or activities that allow them to explore the key concepts. Combined with a written assignment, that should allow students to learn the material.

5. Upload the video and assignment to your course-management software.

Read "These Lectures Are Gone in 60 Seconds" from the Chronicle of Higher Education website for yourself and learn more about "microlecturing."

Helping Students Understand Verbs Used in Test Questions

To instructors, who have received an extensive formal education, knowing exactly what a test is asking may come easy. For some students, though, the ability to know exactly what they should do when words like "analyze" or "discuss" on exam can be vague and even foreign. Teachingprofessor.com, one of our favorite websites, recently published a list that all instructors could use a reference to help their students. Here is a list of what they call "test" verbs that you may want to share with students in your syllabus or exam preparation documents:

Analyze—break something down into parts, such as a theory into its components or a process into its stages or an event into its causes.

Assess/Criticize/Evaluate—determine or judge the degree to which something meets or fails to meet certain criteria.

Compare/Contrast—identify important similarities and/or differences between two or more elements in order to reveal something significant about them.

Define/Identify—give the key characteristics by which a concept, thing, or event can be understood.

Describe—give the characteristics by which an object, action, process, person or concept can be recognized and visualized.

Discuss—debate, argue, and evaluate the various sides of an issue

Explain/Justify—give the basic principles or reasons for something; make it intelligible.

Interpret/Explain—say what the author of a quotation or statement means.

Illustrate—Use a concrete example to explain or clarify the essential attributes of a problem or concept.

Reference: Nilson, L. B. Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors. 2nd ed. Bolton, Mass. Anker, 2003. [now available from Jossey-Bass]

Learning Styles

It’s no secret that people learn in different ways. The key to success in teaching is realizing that people learn differently and finding ways to incorporate different learning styles into our classes. Recently, we held a workshop titled Pragmatic Practices for Teaching Assistants, Learning Styles that addressed how to assess learning styles and how to make our students aware of and responsible for their own learning styles.

In a paper titled Student Learning Styles and Their Implications for Teaching, authors Susan Montgomery and Linda Groat discuss the importance of recognizing learning styles and offered several different ways to assess these styles. Among the learning style models that they covered are the Myers-Briggs Model and the Kolb/McCarthy Learning Cycle. The authors also provide useful tips to engage students with different types of learning styles in your classes. These tips include using both group and independent work, requiring in-class presentations and providing less direction to students.

To read the rest of the article please click here.

How do you engage students in your classes that have different learning styles?

Assessing Assessment

Inside Higher Ed’s article “Assessing Assessment” launches its discussion by stating that assessment and accountability movements are “alive and well,” and that colleges who think they can ignore them are “misguided.”

In an effort to provide an overview or guide of assessment practices, the National Institute for Learning Outcomes and the Alliance for New Leadership for Student Learning and Accountability are being developed, the former being led by Stanley Ikenberry and George Kuh.

The president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, Judith Eaton, is noted as supporting the work of these institutes, claiming that (from IHE) “better knowledge of assessment would improve the relationship between accreditors and institutions, and that a sustained commitment by higher education to accountability would preserve the principles of self-regulation for higher education.” Eaton hopes that the new effort will “strengthen the academic leadership of our colleges and universities.”

Some detractors of the higher education assessment movement have called it an oversimplified and potentially harmful mission due to concerns over using a single test to demonstrate student learning outcomes. According to one faculty member, what’s lacking is “any evidence of validity” for these single measures. Members of the NILO and ANLSLA, however, state that the intent is not to establish a single standardized test for colleges, but to offer a more comprehensive method for accountability, which Ikenberry states will most likely incorporate multiple measures.

To read the full Assessing Assessment article click here: Inside Higher Ed

Where do you stand on these assessment and accountability movements?

Teaching Assistants and Principles for Good Practice

Using a framework to provide effective, impactful, and quality education is not a new concept. While grounding pedagogy in theory is important, Teaching Assistants more often are interested in how to implement educational practices that will result in student learning. Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) 7 Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education is a foundational document that offers both a framework and specific methods valuable for any instructor. Chickering and Gamson give seven suggestions, based on a review of literature, to facilitate good practice:

1. Encourage Contact Between Students and Faculty,

2. Develop Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students,

3. Encourage Active Learning,

4. Give Prompt Feedback,

5. Emphasize Time on Task,

6. Communicate High Expectations,

7. Respect Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning.

As a Teaching Assistant, we can use this framework to plan methods that will result in student learning.

If you want more detail or would like to learn more, consider attending one of our Pragmatic Practices workshop sessions. You can still sign up for the last two: Learning Styles and Teaching Tips! Visit the Center's webpage for full descriptions or to register, or call 419-372-6898 for more information.

Vella's 12 Adult Learning Principles

In recent years Jane Vella has become a renowned and respected figure in the adult teaching field. Vella's 12 Principles for Adult Learners, spelled out in her known book Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults, are highly regarded in adult education. Below are Vella's 12 Principles.

* Needs assessment: participation of the learners in naming what is to be learned.

* Safety in the environment and the process. We create a context for learning. That context can be made safe.

* Sound relationships between teacher and learner and among learners.

* Sequence of content and reinforcement.

* Praxis: action with reflection or learning by doing.

* Respect for learners as decision makers.

* Ideas, feelings, and actions: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor aspects of learning.

* Immediacy of the learning.

* Clear roles and role development.

* Teamwork and use of small groups.

* Engagement of the learners in what they are learning.

* Accountability: how do they know they know?

These 12 Principles are actually quite helpful towards working with any learners in higher education.

3rd Annual BGSU Teaching & Learning Fair Slideshow

Here are just a few pictures from the Third Annual BGSU Teaching and Learning Fair, held on Friday, February 6, 2009 in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union. Barbara Millis, from the University of Texas at San Antonio's Teaching and Learning Center, presented the keynote, Persisting with Passion: A Summary in Break-throughs in Teaching and Learning. For more information on presenters or the keynote, visit the CTL Fair site.

Different Way of Grading Papers

Michael Nelson is a political science professor at Rhodes College. As a "guest blogger" for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nelson recently wrote a short blog post that shares a different way for instructors to grade papers. Nelson writes that he intends to break a habit that he (and many other instructors) tend to have when they grade student papers.

Nelson wonders what would happen if at the end of student papers he were to rephrase his traditional way of comments about the paper. Instead of praising the positives of a paper followed by a powerful "but" which is usually followed by critiques of the paper, Nelson says he would like to try the opposite. He wonders how students receptions could change if critiques were written first, then the powerful "but" is followed by praising comments about the work.

Nelson offers a small blog posting which could make big differences for students and instructors.

Reflections: TA Workshop #1

CTL would first like to say thank you for the participants who did come to the workshop. Your input, time and effort are more than appreciated. We're really looking forward to our next discussion and are planning on seeing all of you again.

Here are some of the reflections that we took from our discussion:
* Most of you appreciated that there is some kind of forum where you can talk about being a TA here at BGSU. And, you were all more than willing to share some of your experiences and insight that you have had here.

* Many of you would like to be able to hear more from other TAs. You would like to hear what other TAs are doing in their classes, how they deal with certain situations, integrating certain tools and methodologies into your classes, and some of you expressed that you would like to see about making your classes more interactive and lively.

* Some of you appreciated it when instructors are open to getting feedback from students, so some of you discussed how you do the same in your classes. In other words, you appreciate an instructor's willingness to improve and adjust, and many of you are willing to make the same effort.

* Finally, many of like any further input you can get about teaching from any reliable source.

We are adjusting our next workshop to address and capitalize on these promising topics. We are actually thinking about having you all share different unique practices that you implement in your classes, which could only help one another, as TAs. Our next two workshops are October 14th @ 1:30p-2:30p and October 15th @ 10:30a-11:30a. These workshops will be the same format and topics. We just have added another day and time in case more TAs come and having some flexibility to work with your schedules.

Please do not hesitate to register for the Teaching Assistants are Links workshop series by e-mailing or calling us. If these next two workshops go as well as the first one, we will have a wonderful time.

What are some suggestions for TAs? What are some topics we could discuss in our next workshop? We would love to hear from current or former teaching assistants!

Motivating "These Kids Today" (Discussion/Workshop Extension)

On Tuesday, Dr. Jodi Haney presented a discussion session at the CTL entitled Motivating "These Kids Today" and challenged participants to consider their role in creating an environment that will encourage and foster students' motivation to learn. The bottom line she stressed was that:

"faculty CANNOT motivate students, as motivation is a personal construct and can only come from within… we can only set the scene and create a motivating environment for learning."

Student Motivation is defined as a “student's willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process" (Bomia et al., 1997, p. 1). This includes extrinsic motivation, where a student engages in learning "purely for the sake of attaining a reward or for avoiding some punishment and intrinsic motivation, when a student is motivated from within, actively engaging in learning out of curiosity, interest, or enjoyment, or in order to achieve their own intellectual and personal goals (Dev, 1997).

One analogy presented was:

To Catch a Cat…
A. Pull the cat out from under the couch
Vs.
B. Entice the cat by dangling a string
(p.s. - our students are the cats!)

STRATEGIES -- Ideas that WORK!! (GENERAL)

• Capitalize on students' existing needs
• Make students active participants in learning
• Ask students to analyze what makes their classes more or less "motivating.”
• Instructor's enthusiasm
• Relevance of the material
• Organization of the course
• Appropriate difficulty level of the material
• Active involvement of students
• Variety
• Rapport between teacher and students
• Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples

Incorporating Faculty Behaviors:

• Hold high but realistic expectations for your learners
• Help learners set achievable goals for themselves
• Tell learners what they need to do to succeed in your course
• Strengthen learners’ sense of power (behavioral choices)
• Avoid creating intense competition among learners
• Be enthusiastic about your course
• Take time to GET TO KNOW learners, talk to them, and express enjoyment in your interactions
• Vary your teaching methods

Motivating Students to Do the Reading (some examples):

• Assign the reading at least two sessions before it will be discussed
• Assign study questions
• If your class is small, have learners turn in brief notes on the day's reading that they can use during exam (Jodi’s “C option”)
• Ask learners to write a one-word journal or one- sentence journal summarizing the reading
• Ask non-threatening questions about the reading (fishbowl)

In summary... Create an environment that provides learners with a SENSE OF:
* POWER - I have control over my learning.
* CONNECTEDNESS - I am a valued member of a learning community.
* MODELS - I can do this because my peers can do it.
* UNIQUENESS - I am an original learner.
(Stevenson, 1992; modified by Haney, 2007)

Dr. Haney encourages all of us (including herself) to focus on incorporating just one or two of these strategies during a semester, reflect on the change throughout, and continue to analyze and build upon them in the future.

What are strategies you use to create an environment where students are motivated to learn? Any other thoughts or comments on this issue?

Social Responsibilities in the Classroom

Instructors have long talked about how classrooms should be havens for teaching and learning, not a forum preaching politics or "saving the world." In teaching a touchy and charged topic like the war in Iraq, Joseph J. Gonzalez reveals how it's the transformations for students that instructors aid in maturing, which is interesting and a sign of good teaching.

In a recent editorial, How Good Scholarship Makes Good Citizens, to The Chronicle of Higher Education Gonzalez describes how he enjoys seeing his students become good citizens, who are "people ready to inquire, to think, and to engage with the world as they find it." These good citizens, according to Gonzalez, are created by an instructor doing a job well done and good scholarship on the instructor's part.

The piece is worth reading and does beg the discussion over what are some of the signs of a quality higher education or what makes a good instructor. We'd love to hear what anyone might add to the article.

Perfect the Art of Teaching

Universities every couple of years have to "revamp" and revise their overarching ideas and approaches in order to better prepare their students for their lives after college. BGSU has different programs and goals, like the University Learning Outcomes, which are dedicated to providing a quality education while in college and after.

Kim Mooney's recent article on insidehighered.com asks professors to examine the ways they approach teaching. She asks whether professors are asking the right questions, teaching effectively and willing to adjust to their students' needs. Ultimately, Mooney asks if professors and universities are using approaches and materials with their students that are in-line with the world their students live in now and will inherit in the future. Mooney provides readers with interesting questions, anecdotes, and examples of what some institutions are doing to better accommodate their learners. Please read the article and see what other professionals are saying beneath the article.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/08/01/mooney

Foster article: "New Systems Keep a Close Eye on Online Students at Online Students at Home"

Just last week an article by Andrea L. Foster was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The article has been generating plenty of traffic and just as much discussion. If you wonder why the article may be attracting so many readers, please read the first two paragraphs of her article (below) and what she writes about the overhauled Higher Education Act that recently was overwhelmingly approved by Congress.

"Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes.

It sounds Orwellian, but the paragraph — part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act — is all but assured of becoming law by the fall. No one in Congress objects to it."

Many instructors and students may not realize the impact this act may have on them. We would like to hear what some people say. Please read Foster's article or get some more facts on the Higher Education Act and give us a comment on what you read.

Link to Foster's article:

<http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i46/46a00103.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en>

The Teaching Professor 2009 Conference

In our most recent Center newsletter we featured a short "Visionary" piece on Maryellen Weimer. Dr. Weimer is the editor of the The Teaching Professor online blog and newsletter, which are dedicated to inspiring "educators committed to creating a better learning environment," as their website indicates.

The staff at The Teaching Professor also have a popular annual conference to further their commitment to higher education. They have recently released details on their 2009 conference. The conference will be held: June 5-7, 2009 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. The themes for next year's conference are: educate, engage and inspire.

For more information on the conference, please refer to The Teaching Professor's website at: <http://www.teachingprofessor.com/conference/index.html>.

You can also peruse The Teaching Professor website and newsletters at: <teachingprofessor.com>.

What are Your Classroom Goals? (Workshop Extension)

Developed by Thomas Angelo & K. Patricia Cross, the Teaching Goals Inventory (TGI) allows faculty to examine the needs, outcomes, and goals of their course(s) in a quantifiable fashion. The results of your highest ranking goals can then be used to determine the most appropriate formative assessment strategies for your students or as a framework for crafting a course syllabus. Classroom Assessment Techniques includes a paper version of the inventory, but the University of Iowa's Center for Teaching created an online version of the TGI for faster analysis and application.

Here is a sample readout from the TGI:
The cluster areas correspond to goals from the inventory, which can be measured throughout a course using various formative assessments from Classroom Assessment Techniques by Angelo and Cross (1993). With about 50 CATs to choose from, the TGI is a quick way to sort them into a manageable quantity to explore. Additionally, the TGI can be used by individual faculty, departments, or even students to uncover their vision and/or motivation for learning.

The Center's next workshop on using the TGI (Identifying Your Teaching Goals Using the TGI) is Wednesday, August 6, 10:15am-11:00am, immediately followed by the Formative Assessment Using CATs workshop from 11-12. For more information or to register for one or both, click here!

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After taking the TGI, share your results (or main cluster/goal area). Was this tool beneficial?

Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!

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