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?

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.

Learning Students' Names

A recent string of ideas came across the Lilly Conference on College Teaching listserv recently. Here is a sampling of some ideas you can try in your large lecture class to remember students’ names:
From L. Dee Fink (author of a great book - Creating Significant Learning Experiences):
...(L)earning names is extremely helpful but challenging in large classes. Here are two ideas that have worked for some:


1. This worked for me in classes of nearly 100, N=75. I used small groups extensively in the course. So, after forming the groups on the first day of class, I took a Polaroid picture of each group and as it "came up", they wrote their names by their individual picture. I then posted these pictures by my desk in my office and worked on learning the names within each group. After learning the names in the first group, I would learn a new group and review the names in the previous groups, and so on.. I took a week or two to get them all done, but I eventually did. What seemed to work for me was: it was a lot easier to memorize 12 groups of 6 students, than it was to memorize 72 students. And students really appreciated it.


2. A math professor I knew had a very large class, over 100, and knew it would be valuable to learn their names. So he used assigned seating, made a chart, and then each day of class, worked on memorizing a block of 6 students (3 in front and 3 behind). Then each day when he came to class, he made a point of visiting with students in each new block and in the ones he had already learned -in addition to the class in general.

In took awhile, but again by working continuously at it, he eventually got their names all down so that even if he met them while walking across campus, he would recognize them and be able to address them by name.

The point seems to be: You have to commit to doing this because you know it makes a difference in how students respond. If you commit to doing it, you can do it even if it takes some time. To read more about L. Dee Fink’s book, please click here.

Here are some more ideas from the listserv and other faculty suggestions:

• Index card w/ name/contact info and 2-5 questions about them; review these early & often, especially during class discussions (call name and associate w/ their face


• Students create/use name tents each class session; some faculty have students take/bring these each class, while others collect them and use this as an attendance check (but this requires space to lay out the cards, usually alphabetical or clustered, and time to collect/organize them at the end of class). If the name tent IS collected, combine with the index card suggestion, having students answer questions on the inside for you to review.


• When handing back papers, call their name and personally hand it to each student


• Mandatory brief office visits (2-5 min.) are requested by some instructors during the first 1-3 weeks of class (which may be unmanageable for very large classes)


• Just “good ol’ memorization” of the roll sheets and then associate with faces during first classes


• Take pictures of groups of students and write their names out (be careful of the legalities of this at your school); study these groups with names/faces frequently; helps if they sit near each other in class

Do you have any creative ideas to learn the names of your students?

Outstanding TA Award nominations being accepted

Outstanding TA Award nominations are being accepted.

Nominations are being taken now for the Outstanding TA Award at BGSU.
The award, sponsored by the Graduate Student Enhancement Program
(GradSTEP) and the Graduate College, is designed to encourage and
reward excellence in undergraduate instruction. Winners receive a
plaque commemorating their accomplishment and a cash award of $250.

To be eligible, the Teaching Assistant must have taught a course for
which he/she had major responsibility at any time in 2008. Exam
proctors, graders, and past recipients of this award are not eligible.
Self-nominations will not be considered for this award. Those eligible
will come from one or more of the following categories:
1) TA teaching own section(s)
2) TA leading study/recitation section(s)
3) TA teaching laboratory section(s)

Information and nomination forms can be found at
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/gradstep/page29564.

Nominations must be received by Feb. 9 and should be sent to 215 South
Hall or gradstep@bgsu.edu.

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!

Where Will You Teach?

Among the difficult decisions graduate students must make is what kind of college or university they will work for once they're done with their graduate studies. The soon-to-be teachers/instructors must decide whether they will teach at an institution that has a premium on research or a place where teaching is highly valued. They may be required to have real strengths in both research and teaching, which can be difficult. This is a common dilemma for graduate students. James Lang recently wrote Facing the Truth concerning the situation and he offers plenty of practical advice and information concerning the issue of graduate students going to teach at a teaching-oriented college. What Lang has to offer will probably seem daunting to some graduate students, but his article is definitely worth reading.

The Center for Teaching & Learning would love to hear what some of BGSU's graduate students or former graduate students may have to say about Lang's advice and commentary. Please leave us a short comment about what you think.

New TA Workshop Series

Starting this fall the Center will be hosting a new Teaching Assistants workshop series. The series will be discussions for incoming, current and former Teaching Assistants. There are all sorts of components entailed in being a Teaching Assistant and instructing a room full of college students, and the Center would like to work with TA's to discuss the many aspects. We will be talking about everything from taking attendance, to assessments, to writing syllabi. Resources and other suggestions will be offered to aid in every part of being a TA.

The Center is aiming to start this series of workshops in late August, with the next workshop to come around mid-October, and a final workshop towards the end of fall semester. The exact times and dates for the workshops will be forthcoming. Please see the Center's website for further details in the near future.

Tips for TA's

All you have to do is ask a second-year Teaching Assistant or Graduate Assistant who has taught, and they could provide plenty to say about how daunting teaching can be. There are issues of how to teach, what to teach, what to assign, how to write a good syllabus, etc. The list could go on. 

We are trying to relieve some of the anxiety that many TA's may have with our resources for tips. They can all be useful for incoming and returning TA's.

Below are some online resources, which could be extremely helpful for any new TA.

The Center for Instructional Innovation and Teaching Learning Academy at Western Washington University  have posted web pages which help writing a syllabus:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/cii/workshop_handouts/syllabus_3-2-06/

The Teaching Center at Washington University in St. Louis provides tips for faculty teaching for the first time:

http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/tips-faculty-teaching-first-time

The Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have a list of practical tips that any TA could use:

http://www.cte.uiuc.edu/did/resources/TA/preparesemester.htm

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What are some of your suggestions? Have any of these resources worked for you?... Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!

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Reflection: Share Your Thoughts -- "I'm Grateful For..."

For Teaching Faculty and Graduate Teaching Assistants:
As an educator at BGSU, what are you most grateful for so far this semester?

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-->Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!

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