Newsletter: April 10, 2018

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Book Review: Small Teaching

Can’t get students’ attention at the beginning of class? Did they already forget what they learned two days ago? Two weeks ago? Feel like it’s too late to change anything at this point?

James Lang would beg to disagree. In Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, he introduces strategies that we can implement tomorrow without too much planning and preparation. Here’s one: start class with a story. Whether it’s about a scientific discovery, a personal experience in a dysfunctional school, or a disastrous sailing expedition, the right story can open up a topic and its relevance for students.

Another good way to start: summarize the conclusions from the last class session. When Lang says “summarize,” he means “ask the students to summarize.” He also means, “without referring to their notes.” This strategy asks them to retrieve the information from their brains, thus reinforcing the neural pathways that they’ll need on exam day.

And what about the end of class? Lang would recommend closing with questions that prompt students to summarize and reflect on what they have learned. If students answer these questions in writing, they will begin to create the neural pathways that you will ask them to reinforce in the next class.

These are just three of many suggestions. They don’t take much time to plan and implement, and they can make a big impact on student learning. This is because they are all based on the science of learning. Therefore, each chapter includes a few pages about how students learn. Lang not only gives us some user-friendly tools, but he also explains why they work. (If he didn’t, he’d be violating his own rule about giving students some kind of framework for what they’re learning.)

Lang’s final suggestion: learn about teaching and learning. Every year, read at least one book about pedagogy. Use web resources; follow the experts on Twitter; attend a conference; participate in programs sponsored by your campus center for teaching and learning.

Did he really say that? Yes, he did.

James M. Lang, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2016).

— Jocelyn McWhirter
Director, The Newell Center for Teaching and Learning
April 10, 2018

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Resources

From Small Teaching:

Books to read (all but one in The Newell CTL Library):

Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do

Peter Brown et al., Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

Susan Ambrose et al., How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching

     Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Daniel Willingham, Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom

Web Resources:

ABLConnect: All about activity-based learning. From The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University.

Pedagogy Unbound: A repository for practical tips. Founded by David Gooblar (University of Iowa).

Faculty Focus: If you subscribe, you get a regular infusion of helpful ideas. From Magna Publications.

Chronicle of Higher Education: The ultimate guide to our profession. For teaching and learning, Lang recommends features like On Course (his own column) and ProfHackers.

Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast: A new 30-to-40-minute episode every week, thanks to Bonni Stachowiak (Vanguard University).

Twitter:

     Start with @LangOnCourse and go from there.

More from James Lang:

     His home page and blog: http://www.jamesmlang.com/

     “4 Steps to a Memorable Teaching Philosophy,” from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

From the GLCA/GLAA CTL:

“Mapping the Megalopolis: Order and Disorder in Mexico City.”  Glen David Kuecker and Alejandro Puga (DePauw University) led a GLCA Expanding Collaborations project involving ten other humanities, arts, and social science colleagues. In this recorded webinar, they describe the project which led to the publication of an edited volume. According to the book jacket blurb, “Contributing authors engage topics such as the privatization of public space, challenges to existing conceptualizations of the urban form, and variations on the flâneur and other urban actors. Mexico City is truly a city of versions, and Mapping the Megalopolis celebrates the intersection of the image of the city and the lived experience of it.”

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News from The Newell CTL

Dedication Day! Join us May 4 for a dedication ceremony to celebrate The Newell Center for Teaching and Learning and to thank the Newells for their generosity. Invitation forthcoming.

Spring Coteries. We’re reading our books and concluding our meetings. Thanks to Ian MacInnes for leading the Small Teaching  coterie. The final CTL newsletter (April 24) will begin with a review and additional resources related to Creating Significant Learning Experiences by Dee Fink.

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Upcoming Conferences

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with an Equity Mindset National Institute. August 6-10, 2018 at Rainbow Lodge in North Bend, Washington. “The aim is to develop our capacity to understand and improve student learning opportunities within all teaching contexts by using critically conscious, self-aware, and collaborative practices of inquiry, challenging inequities while recognizing the community cultural wealth of all students, and engaging in systematic scholarly investigation and analysis learning, Sponsored by The Washington Center at The Evergreen State College.

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Newsletter: April 3, 2018

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Book Review: When Grit Isn’t Enough

If you’re a college student, when is grit not enough? When you’re not a white student in the middle-to-upper class. Linda Nathan, founding headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy, tracks some of her talented high school graduates who needed grit and a whole lot more. She concludes that perseverance and hard work alone can’t overcome the obstacles imposed by poverty, daily microaggressions, stereotype threat, and lack of cultural capital necessary to navigate the classrooms, dormitories, and administrative offices of predominantly white colleges.

The power of this book lies in the personal testimony of those high school graduates.

“My mother . . . didn’t understand that you have to do the FAFSA and the forms every year” (p. 20).

“My college is such a well-known school that it just assumes that every college student has the resources and means to navigate the system. But that’s just true. I didn’t” (p. 24).

“My friends from college . . . don’t have to worry about money as much as I do. They come from families where there is more financial support. But I had that scholarship [for students with a GPA of at least 2.8] and that was it. For a long time I thought I could go back . . . . But, you know, I began to feel that I didn’t belong there any more. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough for college” (p. 19).

“Sometimes I feel nervous about speaking up. I never felt like that in high school” (p. 56).

Some of Nathan’s students believed that they could graduate from college. They worked hard, found the necessary support, learned the ropes, overcame the obstacles, and achieved their dream. Many, however, withdrew with a few credits and a load of debt.

Nathan makes us wonder, what can we do to remove some of the obstacles that prevent them from persisting until graduation? She offers some suggestions, like fostering a growth mindset culture, taking anti-racism training, educating students about their social contexts, and maintaining transparency about our academic and administrative systems.

Many thanks to Ethnic Studies, the Faculty Committee on Diversity, Molly Thompson-VanderHayden, and Ashley Feagin for introducing us to this book: Linda Nathan, When Grit Isn’t Enough (Boston: Beacon Press, 2017).

Jocelyn McWhirter
Director, The Newell Center for Teaching and Learning
April 3, 2018

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Resources

For When Grit Isn’t Enough:

“The Growing College Graduation Gap.” David Leonhardt (New York Times, March 25) reviews some statistics, comments on federal policy, and promises more articles to come.

“A Trip to the Grocery Store.” Joy DeGruy’s story illustrates the effects of stereotype threat and microaggressions as well as the difference that allies can make. From crackingthecodes.org.

“Why Student Loan Debt Harms Low-Income Students the Most.” What happens to low-income students who take out loans and then don’t (or do) graduate. By Maggie Thompson, for talkpoverty.org.

“It’s Hard to Be Hungry on Spring Break.” Just one more example of how college wasn’t designed for students who can’t afford to go away for a week. By Anthony Abraham Jack, New York Times, March 17, 2018.

From the GLCA/GLAA CTL:

“Diversity in the Heartland.” Ric Sheffield (Kenyon College), who engages his students in learning about the diverse population of his own rural surroundings, announces a “Diversity in the Heartland” project in which he aims to engage students and faculty at other GLCA schools. Interested? Read the article; then respond to Ric.

“Oral History in the Liberal Arts.” Brooke Bryan (Antioch College) introduces us to the GLCA-supported Oral History in the Liberal Arts Project. To date, OHLA has sponsored 13 curricular projects (most of them courses) and 22 student research projects. 

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News from The Newell CTL

Stockwell 305. The walls are painted, the carpet is laid, and the furniture is arranged. Still needed: books, pictures on the wall, and YOU! Stop by, try your ID card in the door, and set a spell!

Spring Coteries. We’re reading our books and concluding our meetings. Each of the next two CTL newsletters will begin with a review and additional resources related to one of the books.

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Upcoming Conferences

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with an Equity Mindset National Institute. August 6-10, 2018 at Rainbow Lodge in North Bend, Washington. “The aim is to develop our capacity to understand and improve student learning opportunities within all teaching contexts by using critically conscious, self-aware, and collaborative practices of inquiry, challenging inequities while recognizing the community cultural wealth of all students, and engaging in systematic scholarly investigation and analysis learning, Sponsored by The Washington Center at The Evergreen State College.

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March 13, 2018 Newsletter

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Book Review: The Discussion Book

The subtitle says it all: “50 Great Ways to Get People Talking.” After a brief introduction, Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill present 50 techniques one after the other, in no particular order. The order is supplied by a “User Guide” that lists the “top ten techniques” for various purposes. To get discussion going with new groups, for example, try “Participation Rubric” or “The Three-Person Rule.” To foster good listening, implement “Circular Response” or “Understanding Check.” These particular techniques will get students paraphrasing what someone else has said, responding to others’ contributions, and waiting until three others have spoken before jumping in again.

Alternatively, you could try the techniques with the most alluring names. Maybe you’d like to experiment with a little “Snowballing.” If so, start the class with silent reflection on a question. Then have them share their thoughts with pairs. Then combine the pairs and begin the search for differing perspectives and emerging issues. Continue to process the issue by pairing groups until the entire class is discussing the question together. Would you prefer a “Cocktail Party”? If so, get your students to mingle around the classroom as you serve them hors d’oeuvres and beverages (sorry, no alcohol) along with relevant conversation prompts. Every five minutes, re-mingle the students into different conversation circles.

The techniques are designed to promote full participation, to energize and engage, to keep groups on topic, and to foster creativity and collaboration. I wonder whether I’m brave enough to try some of them. But I don’t have a choice, because of a deal I made with a graduate school colleague. We agreed that, whenever the opportunity presented itself, we would do crazy things — that is, things that pull us out of our comfort zones. So, watch out, students! “Quick Writes,” coming your way!

Jocelyn McWhirter
Director, Newell Center for Teaching and Learning

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Resources for Class Discussion

“Keeping Discussion Going through Questioning.” More from Brookfield and Preskill on the kinds of questions that will draw answers rather than blank stares. Posted by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning.

“Using Class Discussion to Meet Your Teaching Goals.” Want to help your students think like a specialist? Develop critical thinking skills? Develop problem-solving skills? Here are some strategies from Kelly McGonigal (Stanford University). Courtesy of the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning.

“Rethinking Whole Class Discussion.” Todd Finley (East Carolina University) offers lots of ideas for facilitating discussions with large groups. From edutopia.org.

“The Dreaded Discussion: Ten Ways to Start.” Peter Frederick (Wabash College) suggests some simple exercises.

From the GLCA/GLAA CTL:

“Responses from a Consortial Colloquy Dialogue: Making a Difference.” Sarah Bunnell (Ohio Wesleyan), Adriel Trott (Wabash College), and Jocelyn McWhirter (um, Albion College) answer these questions: What difference does the GLCA/GLAA CTL want to make on our campuses, in our communities, and in our nation? What difference can we make? (At least some of us thought we were answering these questions!)

“The PoWEr (Polonium, Tungsten, Erbium) of Learning in Community.” Joanne Stewart (Hope College) tells the story of a community of practice whose members teach at various colleges and universities. Driven by their passion for their subject (inorganic chemistry and cheesy Periodic Table acronyms) and their emphasis on community, they meet in person and online. Sounds like a good model for the GLCA/GLAA CTL!

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News from The Newell CTL

Stockwell 305. The walls are painted, the carpet is laid, and the furniture is arranged. Still needed: books, pictures on the wall, and YOU! Stop by, try your ID card in the door, and take a peek at our new CTL space!

Spring Coteries. We’re reading our books and starting our meetings. Each of the next three CTL newsletters will begin with a review and additional resources related to one of the books.

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on The Newell CTL! To register, just reply to this newsletter.

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Upcoming Conferences

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with an Equity Mindset National Institute. August 6-10, 2018 at Rainbow Lodge in North Bend, Washington. “The aim is to develop our capacity to understand and improve student learning opportunities within all teaching contexts by using critically conscious, self-aware, and collaborative practices of inquiry, challenging inequities while recognizing the community cultural wealth of all students, and engaging in systematic scholarly investigation and analysis learning, Sponsored by The Washington Center at The Evergreen State College.

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February 27 Newsletter

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

The Vocabulary Crisis: How to Fix It

Our students’ vocabularies inform both who they are and who they can be. Evidence suggests, however, that our students are reading less, hearing less conversation, and bringing a smaller vocabulary to college.1

Most of us already have techniques we use for promoting vocabulary learning, but we generally direct these at our field-specific terminology. We need to be more self-conscious about the other kind of vocabulary, the kind we used to presume students learned on their own. Here are some practical steps.

  1. We will need to resist the natural pressure to simplify our language to make ourselves understood; instead, we need to use a deliberately rich vocabulary. It is especially useful if we employ words drawn from the reading. When we do so, we give students the auditory cues that can cement vocabulary learning. We also embed the vocabulary in a more accessible context, informed by things like body language and gesture.
  2. We need to be more thoughtful about the way we use words that may be unfamiliar, deliberately introducing more synonyms, explanations, repetition, and circumlocution. In this way students who are reluctant to announce their ignorance get a graceful way to learn what we mean (and learn words at the same time).
  3. We will need to ask students more often to recast textual information in their own words, not only through the more traditional means of formal paraphrasing and summary but also verbally and on the spot. This process of “recoding” has been shown to be crucial to creating vocabulary memory.2 In a discussion it may mean slowing things down and resisting the impulse to move constantly forward.
  4. We need to encourage students to play with new words. Word games are some of the easiest playful activities to include in the classroom. We should consider adding ordinary words from the reading to these games. We don’t need to be game-creators to do this. Many commercial word games can be easily adapted to our content. A good example is the 2016 Game of the Year (Spiel des Jahres): Codenames.
  5. We need to think carefully about how to assess and reward ordinary vocabulary gains. Since the number of words encountered over a semester can run into many thousands, traditional methods won’t help. Instead we should consider adding explicit categories for precise and appropriate word choice to our evaluation of written and oral work. We can also reward thoughtful attention to words by calling attention to and praising the way students phrase in-class comments.

No matter what field we are in, we need to model for students an excitement in words and language and allow them to experience the power that comes from fitting a new word to a new situation. If we are inclined to be pessimistic or to lament the decay of learning, we should take heart. Research tells us that language is hard-wired in the human brain.3 We have biology on our side.

[For more on the vocabulary crisis, see Ian’s post on the GLCA/GLAA CTL website.]

Ian MacInnes, Department of English

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1 Tom Nicholson and Sue Dymock, Teaching Reading Vocabulary (NZCER Press, 2017). “To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence” (National Endowment for the Arts, 2007).

2 Marilee Sprenger, How To Teach So Students Remember (Alexandria, Va: Assn for Supervision & Curriculum, 2005).

3 Many researchers have contributed to this claim. One recent source is Iris Berent et al., “Language Universals Engage Broca’s Area,” PLOS ONE 9, no. 4 (April 17, 2014): e95155, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095155.

 

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Resources

Fiona Macrae, “iPad Generation ‘Will Learn Fewer Words’ as Oral Tradition of Passing on Knowledge Is Dying out,” Mail Online, July 23, 2013.

Maryellen Weimer, “A New Way to Help Students Learn Course Vocabulary.” From Faculty Focus.

In 1999, Kathleen Gabriel estimated that, for students with poor vocabularies reading textbooks (and possibly even listening to lectures), “the meaning of every tenth word is unknown.” In her book Teaching Unprepared Students, pp. 110-14, she outlines a strategy for helping students build their vocabularies. The book is available in the CTL Library (Ferguson 108).

Vocabulary building? There’s an app for that! Actually there are quite a few. Here are some suggestions from Inc.

From the GLCA/GLAA CTL:

“Teaching Men: What Difference Does It Make? What Difference Can It Make?” by Warren Rosenberg (Wabash College).  “Behind the ‘masks of masculinity,’” says Warren, “our male students are fully and complicatedly human, a fact those masks are designed to make us forget.”

“Multiple Choice Makes a Comeback” by Rick Warner (Wabash College). Multiple choice questions are useful not only for assessing “factoid recall.” Drawing on his experience as a reader of the World History AP Exam, Rick shows us how to design multiple choice questions that engage higher-order learning skills AND make grading a breeze.

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News from The Newell CTL

Stockwell 305. The walls are painted, the carpet is laid, and the furniture is arranged. Still needed: light fixtures, books, a key card access door handle, and YOU! Stop by and take a peek at the new CTL space!

Spring Coteries. Our three book coteries are enrolled and ready to go! For more information about the Ethnic Studies/Faculty Committee on Diversity coterie, please contact Ashley Feagin. The book: When Grit Isn’t Enough: A High School Principal Examines How Poverty and Inequality Thwart the College-for-All Promise. Co-sponsored by The Newell CTL.

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on The Newell CTL! To register, just reply to this newsletter.

Posted in Albion College CTL, CTL News, Resources, Teaching Reflections, Upcoming Events | Leave a comment

February 13, 2018 Newsletter

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Smart Phone Teaching

I have always wanted my Introduction to Kinesiology students to experience firsthand how someone in my field would perform a particular skill in the real world. This presents an interesting and fun challenge. Last semester I was looking for ways to shift the emphasis from lecturing to engaging students in hands-on activities. For example, I wanted to see if I could provide an opportunity to have students use the concepts of biomechanics as a professional would. This desire sparked my idea of trying to incorporate a Moodle assignment that could be completed during class time!

I’m used to providing kinesthetic learning experiences. They are inherent to the athletic training and anatomy classes I’ve taught for many years. It’s a different story with Introduction to Kinesiology, for several reasons. First of all, the course introduces students to the various professions that are the “spokes” to the “wheel” of kinesiology. This makes it very broad in content and somewhat shallow in depth. The larger class size (between 25-30 students) presents a few logistical challenges for engaging students in hands-on learning activities. Finally, although it is required for first- or second-year kinesiology majors, it also attracts students from outside of our discipline who are seeking to learn more about our amazing world “on the other side of the tracks.” Given the diversity of the interests, ages, and motivations of the students taking this class, my previous experiments were not always met with immediate success.

But nearly every student loves their cell phone, so allowing them to actually use their phones productively during a biomechanics lesson was a win/win break through. In pairs, students took videos of each other performing a “squat” technique that is utilized during injury rehabilitation or strength training. They immediately uploaded those videos to the “assignment folder” that I had created on Course Webs. After all of the videos were uploaded we were able to view them during the same class period and discuss how to analyze the biomechanics of their “squats” by critiquing the videos as we were watching them. The students quickly figured out the technology and learned the biomechanical concepts.

Since attempting this activity with Moodle, I am already looking forward to trying it again this semester. I am also trying to think “outside the box” for more opportunities to use video uploads. The only glitch that I encountered in setting up the assignment folder is that I did not realize that Moodle defaults each student’s submission(s) to only one. This number can easily be edited in “submission types” after the assignment folder has been created, changing the number to anything from 1 to 20 submissions.

Carol Moss, Department of Kinesiology

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Resources

Albion College Information Technology. If you can dream it, they can help you make it happen.

Albion College Course Webs. Questions about Moodle? Log in and look for “Moodle Guides for Instructors.”

Basic Active Learning Strategies. Twenty-three active learning strategies: why and how to use them. From the University of Minnesota Center for Educational Innovation.

Role-play. Ideas and strategies for classroom role-play. From the Kendall College Center for Teaching and Learning.

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News from The Newell CTL

Spring Coteries. Get a free book; then join a group of teachers to read and discuss it! Our aim is to make these groups as productive as possible in two or three sessions. Books and coterie facilitators listed below. Dates, times, and locations TBA. Look for an invitation coming soon.

Ian MacInnes, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning
Dan Mittag, Creating Significant Learning Experiences
Jocelyn McWhirter, The Discussion Book: 50 Great Ways to Get People Talking

You should also have a message in your inbox (sent by Lori Duff on February 5) inviting you to join an Ethnic Studies/Faculty Committee on Diversity coterie. The book: When Grit Isn’t Enough: A High School Principal Examines How Poverty and Inequality Thwart the College-for-All Promise. Coterie facilitators: Ashley Feagin and Molly Thompson-VanderHayden. Co-sponsored by The Newell CTL.

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on The Newell CTL! To register, just reply to this newsletter.

Teaching Reflections. Thanks to Carol Moss for today’s teaching reflection. We’re still taking submissions for this semester! If you’d like to contribute a brief essay about teaching and learning, reply to this newsletter.

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January 30, 2018 Newsletter

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Three Miles

“Less than one fifth finish in six years.”

The statistic refers to “poor kids who make it to college.” The quotation is from Chana Joffe-Walt, a producer of the radio program This American Life. Jaffe-Walt hosted the show “Three Miles,” originally broadcast in 2015. Just after I published the last CTL newsletter, one of our colleagues sent me the link. I highly recommend giving it a listen.

The title “Three Miles” refers to the distance between two high schools in the Bronx. “University Heights High School,” says Joffe-Walt, “is a public school. It’s 97% black and Hispanic. It’s located in the poorest congressional district in the country, the South Bronx. . . . Fieldston is also in the Bronx. But it’s one of New York City’s elite private schools. It’s 70% white. It’s known as a progressive school. One in five kids gets financial aid, which is helpful because last year tuition was $43,000.”

Students from both schools are involved in an exchange program. The University Heights students get to see what an expensive education looks like. Some apply to college; some of those who apply, go; some of those who go, finish. Jaffe-Walt interviews three of them along with their high school mentors.

The interviews make the show worth listening to. There is nothing like hearing these young people tell their stories, especially for those of us who don’t usually hear such stories or who don’t have a similar story of our own.

Also valuable are Joffe-Walt’s observations.

About the college experience of “poor kids”: “They were dropped into a foreign land and asked to mentally imagine themselves as belonging.”

About a University Heights student who went to Bard College: “She is a mental gladiator. . . . She has to ignore the fancy [Fieldston] library that she did not get to enjoy in high school, the bad grades she got in college, the fact that she can’t afford books, the fact that she’s the only black kid in class, the fact that her peers in college already knew how to use a semicolon correctly, the Facebook stream of high school friends dropping out of college one at a time, and the boyfriend who deeply, more deeply than her, believes the message confirmed again and again by all these things, that he is unworthy. Raquel has to not look at the mountain of evidence that what she’s working toward will not be possible, and instead has to repeat to herself, you do deserve this. You deserve this. You do deserve this.”

Her conclusion: “Education is the best way to cross class barriers. And in many cases, education seems to be the barrier.”

— Jocelyn McWhirter
Director, The Newell Center for Teaching and Learning
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Resources

Three Miles. It’s not that far. Or is it?

“It’s Not Enough for Working-Class Kids to Get into College,” by Nick Morrison. “The problem lies not so much in whether they can afford to study at university but in how they feel when they are there.” Published February 26, 2017 by Forbes.

“Promoting Inclusion and Identity Safety to Support College Success,” by Mary Murphy and Mesmin Destin. This 2016 report begins with observations from Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor. From The Century Foundation.

New on the GLCA/GLAA Website: “GLCA Faculty Survey: Concerns, Strengths, and Directions for the Future,” by GLCA Program Director Greg Wegner. Find out what our GLCA colleagues are doing and thinking.

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News from The Newell CTL

Spring Coteries. Look for an invitation to join one of four book discussion groups for Albion College teachers. Featured books:

The Discussion Book: 50 Great Ways to Get People Talking, by Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill
Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, by James Lang
Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses, by L. Dee Fink
“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on The Newell CTL. To register, just reply to this newsletter.

Teaching Reflections. We already have two volunteers for this semester! If you’d like to join them by contributing a brief essay about teaching and learning, reply to this newsletter.

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CTL Newsletter: January 16, 2018

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Jocelyn McWhirter

What’s the Big IDEA?

On January 8, we held our first annual student ratings of instruction party. What a nice way to spend a snowy day! Drew Dunham shared some great IDEA tricks for tracking numbers and interpreting student feedback. We learned that the survey’s formative report includes links to “teaching and learning resources” for each of its student learning objectives and teaching procedures. (Scroll down for more information.)

I didn’t pass up the chance to promote my new favorite resource, the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) Project. The TILT Project was developed by Mary-Ann Winkelmes, Coordinator of Instructional Development and Research at UNLV. “Transparent teaching methods,” says Wilkelmes, “help students understand how and why they are learning course content in particular ways.” They are especially important for students who are not familiar with the culture of higher education. Winkelmes offers tips for transparent learning strategies, disciplinary methods, classroom agendas, assignments, and grading. My own resolve for this semester is to be more transparent about my teaching philosophy, starting on day one.

I’m sure you’re wondering about the results of the contest to determine the funniest, least helpful, and least intelligible student comments. Well, I have to disappoint you. I didn’t keep a record. All I remember is that one of the winning entries said something like, “This was too much work for a 100-level course.” The comment appeared on the survey for a 200-level course.

You gotta love those students. Happy New Year and Happy Spring Semester!

Jocelyn McWhirter
Director, The Newell Center for Teaching and Learning
January 16, 2018

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Resources

From IDEA:

Where to access your results: albion.campuslabs.com/faculty

Faculty Resources: http://www.ideaedu.org/Resources-Events/Support-For-Current-Clients/IDEA-SRI-Powered-by-Campus-Labs#1033494-using-your-feedback

Guiding Questions for Interpreting Reports: https://www.ideaedu.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/Client%20Resources/Interpretive-Guiding-Questions_CL-Report.pdf

Using the Formative Report: http://www.ideaedu.org/Services/Diagnostic-Feedback-Formative-Tab

IDEA Teaching and Learning Resources: http://www.ideaedu.org/Resources-Events/Teaching-Learning-Resources. If you’d like some tips for how to achieve a learning objective or how to implement a teaching procedure, this is the place to get them.

New Titles in the CTL Library:

A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom
Teach Students How to Learn
Overcoming Student Bottlenecks
Encountering Faith in the Classroom
Shaping Your Career

Borrow these and other great books in Ferguson 108.

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News from The Newell CTL

Change is in the Air! First, a name change. From now on, we will be known as The Newell Center for Teaching and Learning. Look for our updated logos as soon as the Director can figure out how to paste them and gmail decides to implement the signature changes she just submitted. Second, a location change. Stockwell 305 is currently under renovation. We’ll move our quarters there sometime this semester. Look forward to a grand opening!

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning: The website’s newest feature is an article by GLCA Director of Program Development Greg Wegner on “The Liberal Arts in Currents of Change.” Greg summarizes reflections from a February 2017 Colloquy for the GLCA/GLAA Center for Teaching and Learning. Those reflections include assessments of recent changes at our institutions (changes in the faculty, in the student body, etc.) along with the challenges and opportunities that those changes present. Albion College was represented at the colloquy by Ian MacInnes and Jocelyn McWhirter.

And, in case you missed it, you can also check out Jocelyn’s Digital Town Hall Meeting on Teaching a Student Body from a Variety of Backgrounds along with Ian’s article, “The Coming Vocabulary Crisis and What to Do about It.”

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on The Newell CTL! To register, just reply to this newsletter.

Teaching Reflections. Thanks to Carrie Walling and Eric Hill for last semester’s Teaching Reflections. We’re taking submissions for this semester. If you’d like to contribute a brief essay about teaching and learning, reply to this newsletter.

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Upcoming Conferences

Teaching Professor Conference, June 1-3, 2018 in Atlanta. “There’s simply no better place to explore and celebrate the art and science of teaching.”

Teaching Academic Survival and Success (TASS) Conference, April 8-11 in Ft. Lauderdale. “The Teaching Academic Survival and Success Skills Conference is a forum for faculty, staff, student support personnel, administrators and others who help under-prepared students succeed in college and beyond.”

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CTL Newsletter: December 4, 2017

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Teaching Reflection: Expert Eyes and Outside Ears

“I’ve been a surgeon for eight years,” writes Atul Gawande. “For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau. I’d like to think it’s a good thing–I’ve arrived at my professional peak. But mainly it seems as if I’ve just stopped getting better.”

It wasn’t like this for his first couple of years, he recalls. Every day or so he would encounter some unusual condition that might cause a post-surgery complication. But after eight years and more than two thousand operations, his complication rates have leveled out.

Gawande could be satisfied with his performance, but he isn’t. He notes that even professionals at the top of their game are still learning. Rafael Nadal has a coach. So does Itzhak Perlman. So does Renée Fleming. And so now does Atul Gawande. Their coaches provide the expert eyes and outside ears that help them to keep improving.

How we teachers use expert eyes and outside ears? One way is to use our own. After each class, when ideas for improvement might be fresh in our minds, we can jot them down. We can then file them where we will see them the next time we are writing the course syllabus or the planning the class session. For example, just the other day I wrote and filed the following: “Daniel’s apocalypses: how are they meaningful to students?”

A second way is to use the expert eyes and outside ears of our students. Since they are experts at taking classes, their feedback on the IDEA Survey should tell us something about how they experienced ours. We can benefit from their feedback, using it to identify areas for growth in our teaching. We can do this at the CTL “What’s the Big IDEA?” workshop, to be held onMonday, January 8 from 9:00 a.m. — 1:00 p.m. Look for an invitation, coming your way soon!

Third, we can use each other’s expert eyes and outside ears by pairing up with a colleague, trading classroom observations, and debriefing over lunch. Colleagues who have done this in the CTL Talking about Teaching program always find it helpful. If you and a colleague would like to talk about teaching next semester, please let me know and I’ll help set you up. Also let me know if you’d like to talk about teaching with me. I’m always up for friendly conversation over lunch!

Finally, why not consult the experts? The CTL Library is full of their books! Just go to the CTL Lounge (Ferguson 108) and sign one out for winter break. Or join one of the Spring Coteries, get a free book, read it, and discuss it with your colleagues next semester. More information in January.

As I write this teaching reflection, I am conscious of my debt to Steven Volk, history professor emeritus and director of the Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence at Oberlin College, from whose November 13 article I have borrowed extensively. Although Steve was voted U.S. Professor of the Year in 2011, he has been heard to say that we never become excellent teachers. We are always learning.

Here’s to learning together!

– Jocelyn McWhirter, Religious Studies
December 4, 2017

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CTL Newsletter: November 7, 2017

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Jocelyn McWhirter

Teaching Reflection: It’s Not about Cell Phones

For years, I tried to find a way to reduce classroom cell phone use without increasing resentment. Like nearly all my best ideas, I stole this one from someone else. Here, most of the credit goes to Dr. Louise Katz, Professor of Psychology at Columbia State Community College, for an article she wrote in the Chronicle. You can find a copy here. 1 One thing I’ve learned after nearly a decade of stealing ideas from other teachers is that you have to tweak them to fit your own style.

How it works (or, at least, this is what I do)

1)  Buy a calculator holder. Here’s 2 the one I use.

2)  On the Course Web, print the Participants page with the ‘User details’ option.  Cut out individual pictures with names, fold between the names and pictures to make flashcards, learn students’ names and then try to guess them all on the first day of class.

3)      You’ll need to find a place to hang the holder each day. In rooms with chalkboards, the existing hooks are a bit too big to fit through the grommets. I just made some rope loops as seen here.

In rooms with a whiteboard, you can use the hooks that come with the holder. You’ll need to loosen the whiteboard screws just slightly to slide the hooks into place behind the board.

4)  On the second day of class, explain the policy. “Every day at the start of class, I will come in and take a picture of this cell phone holder. You can earn up to 10 bonus points in the class as a percentage of the number of times your phone is in the pictures. So, if I take 20 pictures, and your phone is in 15 of them, you get 15/20 = 75% x 10 = 7.5 bonus points. You can think of those points as being added directly to a test. It’s totally optional, and you can change your mind from day to day. If you decide to put your phone in the holder, any time you need to use it, feel free to stand up quietly, grab your phone, go out into the hall, do whatever you need to do, and then just come on back in whenever you’re done. Believe or not, I actually get way more distracted when students try to hide their phones and type on them in class. So please, don’t hesitate to just go out in the hall any time you need to use your phone.” This is all 100% true for me, by the way.

Show some slides with science about how cell phone use is related to lower GPAs. Here 3 are the slides I use.

Have students choose a number on the holder and ‘sign it out.’ I use this grid. 4

5)  The first time you see a student using their phone in their lap in class, just ask them politely, by name (see Step 2), to head out into the hall if they don’t mind. The student will usually quickly apologize and say that they’ll just put the phone away. That’s when I say something along the lines of, “Oh no, no, really, it’s okay, I don’t mind at all. I know everybody needs to use their phone every once in a while. It’s really no big deal. Just head out there and come back whenever you’re done.” The student will likely insist on putting the phone away, but I find it helpful to reassure them that it’s totally fine. Keep generously acquiescing nearly up to, but not quite to, the point where it becomes awkward. This part is important to gently establish a strong social norm for everyone without having the student in question actually lose face in the exchange.

6)  Tally up the absences. I find that the quickest way to count them up is to download the images to your computer, open the first image with Windows Photo Viewer, and then just use the right arrow key on the keyboard to quickly scroll through. You might need to rotate all the images. Just highlight them all in the folder, right click, and rotate. I focus on one number/pocket with each pass, count the number of times that phone is in the holder, and then move on to the next number.

You can also post the photos and file details on the course web in case student have questions about dates they missed.

Why it works (I think)

The first comment below Katz’s original article is from a person identifying themselves as Steven Michels – “This is a great idea. But it’s also sad. The students can’t seem to control themselves. Clearly, we are dealing with addicts here.”

A cell phone is really a device that allows you to carry all your friends around with you in your pocket and hang out with them anytime you want. Are students addicted to friendship? Sure, but so are most other human beings. I was talking with Dr. Barry Wolf about this phone approach, and he was saying how, for some students (and really a lot of people in general) being asked to put away your cellphone under the threat of losing course points is really a sort of unreasonable request. It’s just so easy when the phone is right there and the motivation for social interaction is so strong. The present method gives students a really easy choice. I’ve so far had one student out of now close to 200 hundred that did not give up their phone on a consistent basis.

And, this method also gives students the choice to access their phones any time. However, students rarely actually get up to use the phone. In my intro psych. class of 40 students, it happens maybe once a week, because, as Barry noted, we’re basically increasing the threshold that must be overcome to use the phone. The payoff is no longer worth the effort and negative attention. The choice to give up the phone is an easy one to make. The choice to get up to use it during class is a surprisingly difficult one to make. But, the fact that these choices exist seems to work to prevent any resentment on the part of the students.

I’ve vastly exceeded my word count here, so I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about this whole process. Barry and Dr. Mareike Wieth are currently using this approach in their own classes with, from what I understand, a great deal of success, and they have said they’d be happy to field questions as well.

– Eric Hill, Psychology.
November 7, 2017

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Resources

Deciding on a Classroom Technology Policy. In this 12-minute video, Amber Handy presents some of the research about classroom use of laptops and smart phones. The video is designed for teachers to show in class as a prelude to discussion in which the class would agree on a technology use policy. Two minutes in, we learn what our students with laptops are really doing in class. From the Kossen Center for Teaching and Learning, Mississippi University for Women.

Digital Devices, Distraction, and Student Performance: Does In-Class Cell Phone Use Reduce Learning? A study by Douglas A. Duncan, Angel R. Hoekstra, and Bethany L. Wilcox; University of Colorado, Boulder. AER 11 (2012).

Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. A study by Faria Sana, Tina Weston, and Nicholas J. Cepeda. In Computers and Education 62 (2013): 24-31.

Why We Can’t Look Away from Our Screens. A March 6, 2017 New York Times interview of social psychologist Adam Alter (Stern School of Business, New York University). By Claudia Dreifus. Alter is the author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.

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CTL News

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning: The website’s newest feature is the third in a five-part series on “Key Goals for Liberal Arts Learning.” The article on “Integrative Learning” was written by five GLCA colleagues including our own Dianne Guenin-Lelle. Congratulations, Dianne!

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on the CTL! To register, contact Jocelyn McWhirter by replying to this newsletter.

Teaching Reflections. Thanks to Eric Hill for this week’s Teaching Reflection. We’re already gearing up for Spring 2018. If you’d like to contribute a brief essay about teaching and learning, please contact Jocelyn McWhirter by replying to this newsletter.

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Upcoming Conferences

Teaching Professor Conference, June 1-3, 2018 in Atlanta. “There’s simply no better place to explore and celebrate the art and science of teaching.”

Teaching Academic Survival and Success (TASS) Conference, April 8-11 in Ft. Lauderdale. “The Teaching Academic Survival and Success Skills Conference is a forum for faculty, staff, student support personnel, administrators and others who help under-prepared students succeed in college and beyond.” Call for proposals closes December 15.

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CTL Newsletter: October 26, 2017

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Jocelyn McWhirter

WWKD?

Here’s a report from the CTL “Teaching Unprepared Students” workshops, held September 27 and 28. In each workshop, we discussed three scenarios from this year’s Common Reading Experience book, Make Your Home among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet. We then asked: If Kathleen Gabriel, author of Teaching Unprepared Students, were faced with this scenario, what would Kathleen do?

The main character in Crucet’s novel is Lizet, a first-generation Cuban-American student at a small liberal arts college. Partway through her first semester, she is failing chemistry and has unintentionally plagiarized an English paper. Her cohort of first-generation students has been told that, in all likelihood, only 1 in 5 of them will graduate.

Kathleen Gabriel’s teaching philosophy intentionally ignores this statistic. She operates according to five principles:

  1. All students, including those who are unprepared or at risk, can become lifelong learners.
  1. Significant change requires commitment and time.
  1. Struggle is a necessary and important part of life.
  1. Students must accept responsibility for their learning progress.
  1. Professors should never do for students what students can do for themselves (p. 13).

If Kathleen were Lizet’s chemistry professor, then, what would she do? She would make sure that Lizet knows the highest grade she can achieve, explain that Lizet could get this grade if she put in some time and effort, and then point her towards the necessary strategies and resources — strategies and resources that Lizet never needed in high school but does need in college.

In the novel, Lizet finds the academic skills center and joins a study table. She passes her first semester and, in January, finds herself in a biology lab. The professor instructs the students always to write their lab notes in ink. They should never erase their mistakes. They should just cross them out and keep going. That’s just what I’m doing now, thinks Lizet. Crossing out my mistakes and moving on.

— Jocelyn McWhirter, Religious Studies

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Resources

Mindset. The psychology behind Kathleen Gabriel’s teaching philosophy. It’s a game-changer. From Stanford’s Carol Dweck.

Transparent Methods. Students like Lizet come to college with very little knowledge of how college works. We, who know quite a lot about how college works, sometimes forget to explain it to them. Mary-Ann Winkelmes (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) shares some strategies for how we can be more transparent about what we’re doing and why.

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CTL News

Stereotype Threat: When the Teacher Feels It. If you think that students are stereotyping you, there’s something you can do about it. Join us in discussing strategies for resilience on Wednesday, November 9 from 5:00–6:00. Look for an invitation coming soon to your inbox!

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning: The website’s newest feature is the first in a five-part series on “Key Goals for Liberal Arts Learning.” It’s an article titled, “Civic Engagement: Connect the Needs of Students and the Community.” Our own John Carlson is one of the co-authors. Thanks, John!

Talking about Teaching. You can always talk about teaching. Find a partner, trade classroom observations, and talk about teaching while having a Baldwin Cafe lunch on the CTL! To register, contact Jocelyn McWhirter by replying to this newsletter.

Teaching Reflections. Each of these bi-weekly newsletters begins with a Teaching Reflection. If you’d like to contribute a brief essay about teaching and learning, please contact Jocelyn McWhirter by replying to this newsletter.

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Upcoming Conferences

Teaching Professor Conference, June 1-3, 2018 in Atlanta. “There’s simply no better place to explore and celebrate the art and science of teaching.” Call for proposals closes October 31.

Teaching Academic Survival and Success (TASS) Conference, April 8-11 in Ft. Lauderdale. “The Teaching Academic Survival and Success Skills Conference is a forum for faculty, staff, student support personnel, administrators and others who help under-prepared students succeed in college and beyond.” Call for proposals closes December 15.

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