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Articles by Mary Bart

09:04:2010

The Teaching Professor Conference Issues Call for Papers for 2011

Magna Publications, the leading provider of professional development resources for the higher education community, today issued a Call for Proposals for the 2011 Teaching Professor Conference to be held May 20-22 in Atlanta.

Now in its eighth year, The Teaching Professor Conference provides a thought-provoking and stimulating forum for educators of all disciplines and experience levels to share best practices that advance college teaching and learning.

This year’s Call for Proposals seeks submissions for presentations, panel discussions, and poster sessions focusing on the theme of “Educate. Engage. Inspire.” Submissions should relate to one of the following tracks, however compelling ideas that fall outside of these topical areas are welcome:

To submit a proposal, please visit The Teaching Professor Conference website and fill out the online proposal form: http://www.teachingprofessor.com/conference/proposals. Information on the proposal process, including what the review panel looks for in a quality submission, is also available at the above link.

The deadline for submissions is Oct. 22, 2010.

“Each year The Teaching Professor Conference delivers a full slate of programs and presenters guaranteed to restore your enthusiasm and renew your personal commitment to teaching,” said MaryAnn Mlekush, conference manager. “We welcome proposals from new and returning presenters who lead sessions that engage attendees and offer practical strategies that can be implemented in their classrooms.”

09:01:2010

Five Steps to Improving Program-Level Assessment Practices

Student learning outcomes assessment can be defined in a lot of different ways, but Lisa R. Shibley, PhD., assistant vice president for Institutional Assessment and Planning at Millersville University, has a favorite definition. It’s from Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education by Barbara E. Walvoord and states that student learning outcomes assessment is “the systematic collection of information about student learning, using time, knowledge, expertise, and resources available in order to inform decisions about how to improve learning.”

Using that definition as a common starting point, Shibley led seminar participants through a five-step process for renewing program-level learning outcomes assessment.

Step 1: Create a team – Determining who to involve in the assessment process is a critical first step, and Shibley recommends creating a team that includes those who care about learning, faculty who need scholarship, both junior and senior faculty, and possibly students.

Once the team is assembled, you need to assign a point person to lead the team. You should also provide training, so that each member understands the process. Finally, given that participation on an assessment team is an additional responsibility to an already full faculty plate, it’s always a good idea to find a way to recognize and reward team members for their contributions.

Step 2: Identify issues, problems and needs – This is where you begin the conversation about assessment, clarifying assumptions along the way. Find out how faculty in your program define student learning outcomes assessment, and what they’re currently doing. Take the time to revisit the key elements of your assessment process, review prior reports, and determine specific strengths and challenges.

Step 3: Select opportunities – During this stage you want to prioritize issues for each phase of the assessment cycle. The cycle includes defining outcomes, establishing criteria, collecting evidence, interpreting results, and taking action.

Step 4: Develop solutions – Shibley uses a learning opportunities matrix to provide an action-plan framework for addressing the deficiencies and priorities identified through the previous steps. As you begin to develop solutions, it’s important to communicate to those outside of the team what you’ve discovered and how you plan to tackle each issue.

Step 5: Update the process – The final step of the assessment renewal process is the implementation phase, where you take everything you’ve learned about what needs to be improved in your assessment processes, and make it happen.

“It’s important to think about program-level learning outcomes assessment as much more than simply meeting the demands of accountability,” says Shibley. “It’s really about quality, and about focusing on student learning, and looking for strategies to help you improve student learning.”

08:23:2010

The Benefits of Making the Shift to Student-Centered Teaching

Would you let your students decide when you hold office hours?

How about whether projects are worth more points than exams, or vice versa?

Would you let your students decide some of the topics that will be covered in the course?

As learner-centered teaching continues to take hold, the balance of power in college classrooms is shifting from faculty to students. Not only do students have more power and choices, but they’ve become more responsible for their own learning.

If you’re used to teaching in the traditional, instructor-centered mode, sharing power with students can seem a little scary at first. And if you teach a large class of 80 or more students, the idea sounds like an invitation for chaos. Plus, let’s face it, it’s not unheard of for college students to try to “work the system” (no matter what that system is), and in some cases what they want out of your course, more than anything else, is an A (never mind if learning accompanies the grade).

And yet, learning-centered teaching can engage and motivate students in exciting ways not seen in most instructor-based classrooms, and even small, incremental changes can make a big difference in student learning, student attitudes, and class dynamics, says Carol Hurney, PhD, executive director of James Madison University’s Center for Faculty Innovation.

In the online seminar, Practicing Learner-Centered Teaching in Large Classes, Hurney presented three case studies from professors who felt something was lacking in their courses and made the conscious decision to add more learner-centered components. For example, a biology professor wanted his students to learn the basic course content on their own, so that class time could be used to tackle more complex topics.

The professor implemented a Readiness Assurance Process where each student takes a quiz on the assigned reading. The class then breaks into groups and takes the same quiz collaboratively using special IF-AT score sheets. The IF-AT sheets work a little like a scratch-off lottery ticket, and the students need to work on each question until the correct answer is revealed. The professor can then see if the group got the correct answer in one try, two tries, etc.

“I sat in and observed the students taking their group quizzes, and witnessed a lot of good discussion. At one point a student said that he thought the answer was ‘C’ because he remembered a chart from the reading that explained the process in question and I just thought ‘Wow, a student remembered a chart from the reading!’”

Not only are the students more engaged during class, and taking responsibility for their reading assignments, but the professor reports that even though quizzes take up part of the class time, he’s actually able to cover more content than in the past because the students arrive with a good foundation of knowledge, Hurney says.

08:19:2010

The Three Big Questions Faculty Need to Ask

The growth of knowledge within your discipline is what makes being a professor so exciting, but it also presents new challenges–particularly when it comes to teaching. Because the time allotted for each course remains constant and the content that could be included in any course continues to grow, you may find it difficult to try to cram all this information into a course.

To address this issue, faculty developer Ruth Rodgers, teaching and learning specialist at Durham College, recommends that professors reconsider their roles and re-examine which content to include in order to help students learn essential concepts and skills. They can do so by asking themselves the three big questions:

  1. What aspects of my subject MUST my students learn in THIS course?
  2. What attitudes/approaches/processes are CRITICAL for success in this field?

  3. What lifelong learning habits must students develop to be successful in this field?

In an email interview, Rodgers shared advice on how to discriminate between material that absolutely must be covered, and modules that can be safely skipped

Q: What do you see as the benefits of asking the three “big questions”?

Rodgers: The main benefit of this approach is that it assists faculty in setting teaching priorities based on real student “need to know” criteria, thus guiding the design of the learning activities in the curriculum. It also provides a touchstone for making difficult decisions about content priorities, balance, weighting, and teaching techniques, and helps the teacher think about using learning strategies that build needed skills, rather than focusing only on delivering information.

Q: Can you give an example of how a course was changed as a result of this process?

Rodgers: My own Introduction to Psychology course was redesigned using this approach when I realized that memorizing all the psychological “data” was not effective for my students, and that I needed to focus instead on how to find, analyze, and use psychological research instead. As a result, I have reduced the amount of information delivered, but designed the course experience to build and support the ability to continue learning about psychology. As a result, the course pacing is much more satisfactory, student achievement is better, and student satisfaction has improved—as has my own.

Q: What do you say to teachers who question whether this process is appropriate for their subject matter?

Rodgers: I suggest that any teacher try asking themselves the big three questions, and see what comes out of the answers. In my experience, this approach works no matter what the content area (which I hope to show via my videotaped interviews with profs from multiple disciplines during the seminar). It is not content-specific, but provides a framework for any teacher to examine his/her teaching priorities. I would also suggest that they survey their students before, during, and after a redesign of a course using this approach, to obtain their feedback.

Q: I would imagine that some instructors might feel compelled to get through all the material in a course. What advice do you have for those instructors?

Rodgers: Working through the big three questions helps professors to determine what material actually needs to be in a course. It’s not a question of arbitrarily jettisoning material, but being consciously selective about what MUST be taught.

Q: What effect might reducing the number of topics covered in class affect the students’ experience?

Rodgers: Reducing the amount of content, if done in accordance with the big three questions, will enhance the student experience in focusing the course on real essentials, giving students time and activities designed to support their mastery of these essentials, and helping them develop the skill and ability to continue their learning beyond the course. This approach will also ensure that the experience becomes more active and student-focused, as opposed to (primarily) lecture based and teacher focused. Typically, students prefer more active engagement in their learning and find it more effective.

For more on this topic, check out the seminar titled What to Teach When There Isn’t Time to Teach Everything, presented by Rodgers. Go here to learn more.

08:16:2010

Nine Ways to Customize Learning Experiences

In every course there are certain core concepts and principles that are important for each student to learn, develop into useful knowledge, and apply appropriately. What’s not important is how they learn these core concepts.

This is where customized learning experiences come in, essentially shifting the course from teacher-directed to learner-directed. From a course that focuses on content to one that focuses on what students are doing with the content. And it all starts with a flexible course design, and a willingness to relinquish some of your control.

Judith Boettcher, Ph.D., an author, consultant and leading voice on educational technology and online teaching explained the benefits and techniques for “flexing a course design to meet learner interest, and increase engagement and motivation.”

In the online seminar, Teach More Effectively with Customizing Learning Experiences, Boettcher outlined the nine points of customization that can map neatly to the four phases of any course: the beginning, early middle, late middle, and wrap-up. The nine points are:

Beginning of the course:
1. Get acquainted – Help students get to know other students and personalize their social presence in the course by sharing photos, bios, and interests. This helps lay the foundation of a learning community.

2. Customize learning goals – Create a discussion thread or forum during the first week that requires students to review course goals and outcomes. Find out what the students know and what they want to know once the course is complete.

3. Exam course structure and expectations – Review with your students the course structure, assignments, and expectations for meetings and deadlines to ensure the structure aligns with their needs, expectations, and goals.

Early middle of a course:
4. Differentiate assignments and content resources – Build flexibility into your course content that allows you to alter specific assignments based on personal learning goals and readiness.

5. Create options for peer interaction – Team assignments and peer review are powerful community building and assessment tools, but they’re not for everyone. Be flexible on how each are used in your course.

6. Build leadership opportunities – Not all learners need to be assessed in identical tasks. Some students may want to lead a seminar or discussion forum, others may prefer to demonstrate their learning through by writing a summary or conducting an interview.

Late middle of a course:
7. Customize and personalize projects – Working adults in particular will proactively work on projects that have meaning for them in other areas of life so it’s good to have a project proposal process that cycles between the instructor and the learner for a good learning-interest match.

8. Offer peer review opportunities – Peer review of project proposals, projects-in-process, and finished projects helps build community, extend learning, and reduce grading burdens and unwelcome surprises.

Course Wrap-up:
9. Provide choices for project sharing – End-of-course wrap-ups often include project presentations, allow your students to select from a range of project types, including podcasts, wikis, journals, interviews, papers, etc.

“Designing customized learning experiences, like many things in learning, is both simple and complex, but it makes a huge difference in satisfaction and effectiveness,” Boettcher says.

08:04:2010

Tips for a Successful Strategic Planning Process

When you think about your school’s strategic plan, what words come to mind? Academic exercise? Waste of time? Dust collector? Paper weight?

All too often, and despite the best intentions, a department, school or even entire campus will put great effort into creating a strategic plan, and then everyone moves on to their other responsibilities without communicating the plan to the rest of the stakeholders or ensuring its implementation. Before long, the strategic plan is long forgotten.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In Successfully Implementing Your Strategic Plan, Kathleen A. Paris, PhD., consultant distinguished emeritus for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of Quality Improvement (OQI), explained how to bring your strategic plan to life.

“I know there is skepticism about whether strategic planning can work in higher education, and some people have had disappointing experiences,” Paris says. “But I have had so many positive experiences where people got together, identified key priorities, and then really achieved them, that I know that it works if it’s done right.”

At UW-Madison, Paris was involved in the study of campus planning practices in which nearly 70 leaders of departments, schools, and colleges were surveyed. The survey asked about their planning processes — from the day they decided they needed the plan until the plan was completed — how successful they feel the plan was, and what benefits they’ve seen as a result of the plan.

At the end of the survey process, the group discovered that there are six practices that correlated with successful planning, which was defined as “achievement of goals set forth in plans” or “leader’s view of planning exercise was beneficial.” The six practices identified are:

  • Meetings to get input prior to planning
  • Collective review of data
  • Meetings to review proposed plan
  • Establishing metrics to measure success
  • Identifying annual or short-term goals
  • Period checks on progress

Some of the benefits the group identified as a result of successful planning are:

  • More effective resource allocation
  • Improved climate (collaboration, trust, morale)
  • Expanded awareness of external environment
  • Development of leadership capacity
  • Process improvement

“I think that first bullet point about resource allocation is very important because sometimes people say, ‘Well, how do we get anyone to take strategic planning seriously?’” Paris says. “If people realize that this is how we’re going to allocate resources, they take it much more seriously than, ‘Oh, this is something we just have to do to keep the dean happy.’”

07:29:2010

BYU Library Promo Goes Viral

Suddenly the campus library is cool. That’s right, the library.

Students at BYU put together a hilarious spoof of the Old Spice ad campaign, only instead of pushing body wash it promotes the benefits of studying in the library.

BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library’s student-driven Multimedia Production Unit, led by Mike Hill and Christopher Garcia, shot the promo in one day and posted the final product online Thursday, July 15. Within hours, comments came in from all over the country – and even a few from around the globe, according to a BYU news release. Within a few days it had received more than one million views on YouTube

The one-minute video stars BYU psychology major Stephen Jones, president of Humor U, BYU’s stand-up comedy club.

Take a look. You’ll love it!

07:28:2010

Twitter in the College Classroom: Engaging Students 140 Characters at a Time

If it seems like everyone is tweeting these days, it’s not just your imagination.

In 2007 Twitter users, as a whole, made about 5,000 tweets a day. By 2008 the number had increased to 300,000 per day, before growing to 2.5 million per day in January 2009. Just one year later, in January 2010, the figure jumped to 50 million tweets per day.

I think that is what people mean by the phrase “hockey stick growth.”

Despite its rapid growth, however, Twitter can be a bit puzzling to someone on the outside looking in. With its quirky lingo, written (and unwritten) rules, and very real potential for being a classroom distraction, some instructors feel Twitter is a can of worms that’s better left unopened. And yet, as an educator, you can’t help but be curious to see what all the fuss is about, not to mention the desire to add something new to your student engagement toolbox.

In an effort to demystify the Twitter universe for faculty considering leveraging the power of the micro-blogging platform in the classroom, Kerry Ramsay, a professor at Loyalist College, presented a seminar on Using Twitter to Enhance Collaborative Learning.

After covering the basic terminology, Ramsay, who has applied social media in a variety of contexts to help create a collaborative learning environment for her post-graduate students, explained why Twitter makes sense in the college classroom, including how it can be used for research, networking, and to maximize classroom connections.

One of the most common uses for Twitter in the classroom is as a discussion tool, particularly in large classes where it’s often hard to get students to participate. Ramsay notes that Twitter won’t replace classroom discussions, but rather enhance them by establishing a safe format for both introverted and extroverted students to share their opinions. For example, an instructor could ask students to summarize key points of a recent reading, and use the tweets as a starting point for discussion.

In some cases, instructors may chose to have students tweet comments or questions during a lecture. Known as backchanneling, this requires a willingness on the part of the instructor to give up some control to the students who now have an easy way to share their opinions as well as offer links to supporting information in real time. In order to maximize the power of the backchannel, Ramsay recommends having a TA monitor the live Twitter stream, and respond in a timely manner. You also will need to create a hashtag for the class to use.

Despite the many benefits of using Twitter to enhance student engagement and collaboration, there are challenges as well, including:

  • Keeping students focused on the topic
  • Learning how to write clear, concise tweets within the 140-character limit
  • Ensuring comments remain constructive and professional

“Learning how to use Twitter can be a humbling experience, and it takes a little time to get comfortable with it, but don’t give up,” Ramsay says. “Ask a colleague for help, practice with your friends and family, and before you know it you’ll have the confidence to use it in the classroom.”

To see a YouTube video on how one professor uses Twitter in the classroom, go here »

07:21:2010

Four Pillars of Online Course Quality

The rapid growth of online education, coupled with instances of lax academic integrity and cases involving questionable instructional quality, has put the entire industry under the microscope. As a result, today’s distance education programs are looking to not only prove the quality of their programs, but improve them as well.

Florida State College at Jacksonville (formerly Florida Community College at Jacksonville) Open Campus has borrowed a page from the corporate sector to create a continuous process improvement plan based on elements of the ISO9000 and TQM quality assurance programs.

In the recent online seminar, Ensuring Online Program Quality with the eQuality Model, Richard Schilke, EdD., associate dean for online Liberal Arts and Sciences at the Open Campus, outlined the school’s system for measuring and delivering quality in its distance learning programs.

The eQuality program looks at quality from four different perspectives, which the Open Campus calls the four pillars of program quality, and has qualitative and quantitative assessments for each.

  1. Quality Courses – The quality checks in this area ensure the courses provide a sound learning environment, implement best practices in online learning, meet college requirements for academic rigor, and reflect all official curriculum requirements.

  2. Quality Instruction – The quality checks in this area ensure sound instructional approaches and techniques for reducing the transactional distance in online courses.

  3. Quality Support – The quality checks in this area focus on those elements outside the courses that make the teaching and learning experience easier and more fulfilling, including, technical support, student advisement, faculty training, and staff training and development.

  4. Quality Administration – The quality checks in this area examine the policies, procedures, guidelines, and other interactions between the institution and the staff, faculty, and students. The goal is to minimize the organizational barriers to student success, student satisfaction, and faculty satisfaction. This pillar is by far the most complicated to manage and improve, Schilke says.

“The most successful quality programs ensure they provide their stakeholders with the right tools to succeed,” says Schilke. “In online learning this means giving your faculty, staff, and students the technology, knowledge, and skills to do their respective jobs as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

07:13:2010

College Students Are Studying Less

During my first year in college I remember two stats that were thrown down with such authority that I didn’t doubt them for a second. The first one was delivered during the welcoming address to the incoming freshmen class in which the speaker did the old “look to your left, look to your right, one of you won’t be here by the end of the year.”

The other statistical declaration was repeated by many of my professors at the start of each course in which they’d remind us that “For every hour you spend in class, you should spend two hours working on assignments outside of class.”

For the typical class load of 12 to 15 credit hours, that was 24-30 hours of studying per week.

Of course I haven’t thought of this stat in years until I saw an article in The Boston Globe about new research conducted by two economics professors who found that the number of hours the average college student studies each week has been dropping steadily for the past several decades.

Through their research Philip Babcock, of the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks, of the University of California Riverside, discovered that in 1961 the average student at a four-year college studied about 24 hours a week. Today the average student hits the books for about 14 hours each week.

The Globe article outlines some of the possible reasons for the decline, including the fact that technology makes students more efficient, the speculation that student evaluations have made some faculty hesitant to be too demanding, and finally to something the students admit themselves: poor study habits.

What do you think? Are students spending less time studying than they have in the past? If so, what do you think is causing the decline? Please enter your comments below.

The full article, What happened to studying? is available here »

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