Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence: Comments

Comment on "Don't use your words: evocative visuals and active learning"

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:47:57 -0500

I love the idea of having students consider graphic representations. Graphics can be discussed, reflected on, elaborated, etc.

I especially like the idea of having students generate the graphics. Students can be invited to develop concept maps of content, create graphic representations as alternatives to written assignments, and generate problem solving strategies. The latter idea is one taken up by Dan Roam and his Napkin Academy. Simple, but powerful, ideas!

Representing ideas and content graphically is not about drawing, per se. Rather, it’s about showing how ideas are related to one another, how they compare to one another, and explicating how they are linked by paths and patterns. Injecting a little visual thinking into any course is a surefire way to spice it up and help students think differently about the content.

- CRYSTAL RAMSAY

Comment on "SITE Stories: TA for a Day"

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:43:48 -0500

I think that this is an exciting teaching practice. As a graduate student, I have been a part of small classes which consisted of only 5 students as well as big lecture classes. Sometimes, students may come into a large class with certain per-conceived expectations. Perhaps, they expect an impersonal and strictly PowerPoint lecture and multiple choice tests type of class. As instructors, we are always trying to find ways to engage students regardless of class size. It seems that the "TA for a Day" activity provides an opportunity for the students to feel like they are investing a part of themselves in their learning experience. In turn, they are motivated to really "think" about the material they are encountering in class. Students may be challenged in not just understanding the material for themselves but also in thinking how they may present it to their classmates. Such communicative skills may come in handy once they enter their careers. Also, as students work together to help each other and share ideas with each other, it provides an enriching experience for both instructors and students. Shared, constructed knowledge may be powerful in creating a memorable and effective learning experience. Above all, making learning "fun" is always a welcoming and attractive option--who doesn't want to have fun? I think Professor Coupland's "TA for a Day" activity is one to keep on the books.

- Deborah Goins

Comment on "Mentoring for Online Instructors"

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:05:36 -0500

I was a mentor for Heather who was teaching an online class of English15. I have taught this F2F, and done some teaching of Comm461 on line, so we had enough experience in common to have good discussions.
Heather is really conscientious, which is why she asked for a mentor in the first place, and was great about keeping in touch. WE set up two main means of communication-

- a shared journal on Google Docs
- a weekly meeting via Google video chat.
-I was also on her class list
-For the couple of times there were questions that needed a timely answer, email worked well.

The weekly meetings were really beneficial. We didn't just talk about the class, we discussed teaching issues as they came up, also philosophy, trouble shooting, conversations about balancing life and teaching. It was companionable, more of a partnership than anything else. Teaching at the college level in any format is much more isolating than K-12 where I came from, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas - sit back and think about what we are doing. Oddly you don't get that much opportunity for reflection with others at this level.

Here is an odd factoid...on Google, if you make the discussion public, which I did one day inadvertently (and couldn't figure out how to change back to private) you will be treated to random people-men for the most part- from anywhere in the world popping into your space. It was extremely odd, and somewhat creepy. We dealt with it by blocking out the intruders, and I managed to avoid the public setting after that. BUT, it was a reminder that there is NO PRIVACY on line, whatsoever and anyone who thinks so is bound to have problems.

I completely recommend the experience- we learned together. I never felt as though I had to be some font of all wisdom, just a teacher in the same boat.

- PAMELA A MONK

Comment on "Classroom Management Redux"

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:52:19 -0500

I've heard ancedotally from faculty about there being an increase in troubled students in their classes. This seems to be the case nationally as well:

http://chronicle.com/article/Prozac-Campus-the-Next/131951/

My understanding is that most campuses in the Commonwealth have some sort of resources for students who are struggling with mental illness--either on campus or through partnership with community providers. Has anyone consulted with their local resource/counseling center when dealing with a troubled student? Did it help?

- LARKIN NAPUA HOOD

Comment on "All Students Can Recognize Good Teaching: Just Ask Them"

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:37:31 -0500

This post got me thinking about sites where students can voluntarily provide ratings of university instructors--sites like http://www.ratemyprofessors.com, http://www.professorperformance.com, and http://www.koofers.com. If students are reasonable observers and judges of instructor quality, what are we to make of forums like this? In a 2008 article in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Otto et al. explored this question:

http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/JOURNALS/A080800O.pdf

I also couldn't resist resurrecting an article from two decades ago...Felder's piece from Chemical Engineering Education:

http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/JOURNALS/A080800O.pdf

From the research that's out there on student ratings, it seems clear that there's plenty of good information to be extracted from them. If kindergarten teachers are now responding to systematic feedback, surely we can attend to our undergraduates' thoughts.

- CRYSTAL RAMSAY

Comment on "Reflecting on Wesch's Wonder and Big Questions"

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:41:25 -0500

One of the things that impressed me about Wesch's talk was its focus on the emotional component of teaching and learning. All the elements of his talk -- words, images, music -- were carefully designed to get the audience involved on an emotional as well as intellectual level.

I think that kind of emotional involvement can be crucial to helping students connect to the big questions Crystal mentioned -- or as Qi said, to encourage students to care about more than a job.

- CHARLES RONALD BRUA

Comment on "Reflecting on Wesch's Wonder and Big Questions"

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:44:32 -0500

I guess the big question for educators is how to make students care about what is important beyond the vocational pursuit. Maybe this question should start years before college, before entertainment-oriented social networks occupy the vacuum. Here is Wesch's post on why good classes still fail (http://mediatedcultures.net/smatterings/why-good-classes-fail/), and an excellent comment by Mary: "students in secondary schools and universities need more personal, more active and more engaging instructors." I would say students need to be surrounded by role models. The more digital their life becomes, the more coaching from an exemplar model they need, whether that's through technology or not.

- QI DUNSWORTH

Comment on "What is college for?"

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:56:04 -0500

I wonder if there might be some sort of instrument that we might give students as they progress though Penn State to see if they're achieving these? In part, I'm thinking of the Wabash Study, http://www.liberalarts.wabash.edu/wabash-study-2010-overview/ , that looked at students as they went through college. It looked at different issues, but as best I know, such studies are rare. That said, it seems to me that if you really want to answer such questions, you need data.

- WILLIAM LEONARD GOFFE

Comment on "Classroom Flipping: Technologies and Teaching Strategies to Facilitate Active Learning"

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:55:06 -0500

Nice find, Bill. We developed a somewhat similar (albeit longer) guide last year, specifically thinking of instructors that want to conduct research around the use of lecture capture.

http://www.psu.edu/dept/site/pursel_lecture_capture_2012v1.pdf

I know PSU is still piloting various lecture capture software packages. If you want to learn more, or sign up for the pilot, you can check out:

http://capture.psu.edu/

- BARTON KELLER PURSEL

Comment on "Classroom Flipping: Technologies and Teaching Strategies to Facilitate Active Learning"

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 23:55:15 -0500

I just came across a succinct guide to this topic; see "The Flipped Classroom FAQ," http://www.cirtl.net/node/7788 . It strikes me as very useful as it gets to the heart of this approach and also provides some very useful resources.

- WILLIAM LEONARD GOFFE

Comment on "Listening to Our Students: Comments from a Student Panel on August 23, 2012"

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:07:43 -0500

If any running theme came out of this student panel discussion, it was that "we are...so diverse." The student panelists all shared one thing in common: They are committed to their academic pursuits. Beyond that, their messages were about their different preferences for learning, the different ways they spend their discretionary time, their varying levels of social interaction in a day, and even their wildly different musical preferences. These are our students.

Feedback from members of the faculty audience suggested that this fact was not lost on them...Remarking about what changes he or she is likely to make, one person noted that, "I will not make as many assumptions about common strategies likely to help all students...the alternatives offered cannot be second rate." Another instructor explicitly stated that, "I learned more from student differences than from their common interests/preferences."

It seems that the challenge of any instructor is to find ways to attend to differences in two ways: To support students when differences impair learning and to exploit the differences when highlighting and leveraging them in the classroom improves the learning experience for everyone.

- CRYSTAL RAMSAY

Comment on "Are the changes we make to our teaching lasting ones?"

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:16:47 -0500

The article and Bill's comment remind me of two things. First, that sometimes we are not good at teaching outside our comfort zone. Like most humans, we need to practice new things in order to improve. I think too many faculty opt out in the face of student resistance (as Bill suggests) or because the new technique doesn't feel as comfortable as lecture (or whatever technique is most familiar).

One thing that a community or a listserv can do is help us realize that we are not alone in our discomfort or our awkward first tries. The community is also useful for finding adaptations that work with our teaching personalities. Colleagues, whether other faculty or teaching center consultants, can help us figure out how to tilt the "flip" or the activity in ways that work better for us.

Bill also brings up another critical area where new teaching strategies can be particularly challenging--when students complain. Never forget that many of our best students excelled in a lecture format, so when we change the "rules" they may also feel out of sorts.

See the following link for 5 recommendations for success:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/arl15/blogs/angela_linse/handouts.html

- Angela R. Linse

Comment on "Are the changes we make to our teaching lasting ones?"

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:19:31 -0500

I wonder if one reason is support after an instructor decides to adopt new teaching methods? It can be pretty lonely doing new things in the classroom, particularly if students don't like the changes. At least in my case (I adopted "Team-Based Learning" in my small classes a few years ago), the TBL listerv was a godsend.

- WILLIAM LEONARD GOFFE

Comment on "Learning Analytics: Tread Carefully"

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:35:29 -0500

True. Some folks will always find a way to access data (rate my professor, talking with friends, etc) to drive a decision towards the 'easy A'. Hopefully other students will find data (like from the examples above) that might help drive them to a course or interest they otherwise may not discover.

- BARTON KELLER PURSEL

Comment on "Learning Analytics: Tread Carefully"

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:48:59 -0500

I hear what you're saying about this looking scary. On the other hand, as an undergraduate, these sorts of conversations were routine: Students would ask which professor was an easy A, or who never gave a grade below B. It was different in that you could not take only those classes, however, some students certainly were selective in choosing electives to boost their GPA's.

- Dave Dieteman

Comment on "Classroom Management: What Would You Do? "

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:33:40 -0500

The first thing that always pops into my mind when I see such scenarios is a flashback to a faculty workshop on disrespectful student behaviors. We used similar scenarios as those provided by Larkin. The faculty in that workshop took the discussion in a direction that I didn't expect. Some of the faculty challenged their colleagues to consider alternative explanations for the behavior beyond lack of respect, selfishness, or cluelessness. The discussion came full circle in a lively debate in which they concluded that any interpretation could be correct, unless they spoke with the offending student. That discussion caused a lot of "Aha!" moments among the faculty who realized that before assuming the best or the worst, they should first talk to the student.

Of course, that doesn't help in the case of a student that just doesn't care...but it was an eye-opening discussion for many of us nonetheless.

One behavior that nearly all of us have experienced, is the student whose head is down on her desk during class. Is she asleep? We all heard about a real student who had figured out that it was the best way for her to concentrate on what the instructor was saying and not be distracted by the other students. Indeed, the student might have been misinformed that because she had a *preference* for "learning by listening" it was the _only_ way she could learn. But she also might have a condition that supported her approach. The faculty member who brought up this students did feel that it helped avoid an incorrect classification of the student and an antagonistic response.

- Angela R. Linse

Comment on "The Fun of Learning"

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:26:17 -0500

Interesting discussion; thanks!

Mark: This sounds like a fabulous technique to build a learning community and rapport among students as well as between them and you. Do you do this more often at the beginning of the class, or is it a regular activity throughout the semester? I'm wondering about how much class time you devote to it overall.

- Marie Sumner Lott

Comment on "The Fun of Learning"

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:16:27 -0500

I am the "gripe day" professor mentioned in Kathy's posting. While gripe day is indeed fun and students often comment on the SRTEs that they enjoy it, its primary purpose is to get students more at ease talking in class. By having them talk about things that relate to their everyday lives, they become comfortable speaking up in a classroom setting. This strategy has been effective in classes of over 100 as well as in much smaller enrollments. And it is fun.

Managing this activity requires a quick wit and the ability to tease out some of what they want to share. Perhaps not all professors would be comfortable being the stand up comedian, but I've found that the students are appreciative of this technique and enthusiastic.

- MARK DAVID MAUGHMER

Comment on "The Fun of Learning"

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:28:36 -0500

Talking casually with students about what makes a course fun has given me some deeper insight into the characteristics of our students. When you ask them what makes a course fun, you get some of the typical responses you'd expect: food, humor, holding class outside. But it's some of the other themes in the responses that should give us pause: content is made relevant to students' lives; interactive--students and instructor get to know one another, mix of strategies are used to engage students; mixed media or short field trips provide examples of concepts and content; when the instructor takes the content seriously, but not him or herself. Our students are more thoughtful than we often give them credit for being.

I don't really know how to define fun. But I know it when I experience it. And so do our students. Seems like a lot of things that are fun in the classroom are also great teaching strategies. Fun and learning are not mutually exclusive!

- CRYSTAL RAMSAY

Comment on "Flipped Classroom"

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:36:39 -0500

This is a timely topic. ETS is doing some pilot projects with this approach now. Recently, we published a video on YouTube that explains the approach if you'd like to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26pxh_qMppE

- ALLAN SHAWN GYORKE