Today, students with disabilities, particularly a learning disability, are increasingly common on college campuses. Both the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its Amendments of 2008 require colleges to provide reasonable accommodations. As a professor at a community college, I have worked with many students with learning disabilities of some form. Some of these students have openly communicated their issues to me on the first day and others have come to me when their grades started slipping. I, however, recently learned a valuable lesson on separating the heart and mind in the classroom when it comes to helping students with disabilities reach their educational goals.

As the mother of a child with special needs, I do not have lower expectations for my child. Yet I understand that he may have to take some different paths, perhaps windier, to achieve the goals of other children his age. That being said, I have always prided my teaching philosophy for special needs students as being one of understanding and going the extra mile.

I recently had a student who was very bright. He presented me with a note on the first day of class describing his disability, but gave no specifications on learning or assessment. I found he was able to communicate the correct answers in class and participate in open discussions. In addition, he was always well prepared and timely with his assignments. He did, however, have some test-taking issues so we overcame these issues, at my suggestion, with oral tests before or after class. I also went over his homework with him and emailed him mid-week to be sure he was on task. One evening when I was entering the building, his father was waiting to speak with me. I expected that he was there to thank me for the extra attention I was giving his son. On the contrary, he was frustrated and felt that I was coddling his son. He explained that while his son did need some test-taking accommodations, he needed to learn what it was truly like to be a college student. I wasn’t doing him any favors making the experience “easier” for him, the father said.

Initially, I was shocked, then ashamed. Upon further reflection I believe that I was projecting my personal feelings of wanting my own child to succeed onto this student. I was coddling him, which is ironic because I push my son in all that he does. Isn’t that our purpose as parents and educators to push our children to move beyond their comfort zones so they can achieve more? I learned a valuable lesson: we are not doing our students any favors by helping them when they truly don’t need it. Certainly we need to provide reasonable accommodations to the students who need them, but perhaps we would better serve all of our students if we give them the opportunity to try, even struggle a bit, and figure things out on their own.

As the butterfly gains its strength from beating its wings against the chrysalis, some of our students may need to struggle in order to find their place in higher education. With nearly 170 college programs created for special needs students, their futures are looking much brighter (Shah, 2011).

Shah, N. (2011). Postsecondary options expanding. Education Week. 31 (14), 14-15. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/12/14/14disabled_ep.h31.html

Melissa Street-Caulder is an adjunct professor at Delaware County Community College.

Service learning may be one of the more effective ways of engaging students in the learning process, particularly for the current generation of Millennials. It is worth the effort to add a real-world learning experience to a course, and this extends to online courses, where the challenges are even more complex than in a face-to-face course.

The course
Pratt has taught an online course, “Classroom Applications of Educational Technology,” for several years. This course teaches student teachers how to apply technology in their future classrooms, and Pratt saw the value of adding a service learning component. So, he found a local school that had just received new technologies; the teachers at this school were not receiving sufficient professional development training to adequately use these technologies.

Students in Pratt’s class consulted with the client teachers to learn about the technologies available to them, then did independent research on how each individual teacher could better use the resources at his or her disposal. Pratt’s students met one time face-to-face with their client teacher to present their findings, leaving the client teacher with a USB drive containing resources they could use in the classroom. Students discussed their experiences via online Blackboard discussion and completed a reflection paper as part of their grade; the client teachers also provided feedback on the presentation and value of the consultation.

Through adding this service learning component to his course, Pratt was able to learn the following lessons:

1. Pick a goal, and integrate it into the course
“The key is to meet the needs of the student in the course [as well as] the community organization,” Pratt says. “Pick a goal in your course that could be better met with an organization in your community.” In this case, he found a way to encourage his students to research uses of technology in the K-6 classroom while serving teachers who were already there.

“The next big part is to integrate it as a part of the class and not just an add-on,” he says. This may mean that the introduction of a service learning project will displace other projects. Faculty, Pratt says, need to “appreciate how much time it will take the students” to complete the service learning project and plan accordingly.

Faculty must also appreciate the value of students learning from professionals other than themselves. “It is hard for faculty to give up control, but it’s worth it,” he says. “Trust other people to help your students learn.”

2. Pursue funding
Pratt points out that pursuing funding for a service learning project is not always necessary to achieve the course goals. “You really don’t need any money, but it is nice,” he says. The organization typically is “paid” for its participation in free labor, and the students are typically “paid” in course credit, so no money needs to change hands.

However, Pratt was able to secure a university-provided grant in the amount of $1,000 for his project, and an outside organization called Indiana Campus Compact awarded him $3,000. This money allowed students to provide a USB drive to their client teachers as well as a book they selected, and it allows Pratt to present his findings at conferences.

3. Know when to keep and when to surrender control
One of the challenging aspects of a service learning project for many faculty is giving up some control. This is particularly necessary in a distance learning version of a service learning project, because the professor will need to rely on others to help the project move forward.

“You do have to have a point person at the site, especially for distance learning,” Pratt comments. Since there is no assurance that students will be working at a stipulated time or be coming from the same place, a point person at the client site can help troubleshoot issues. This need can be indicated in the contract between the university and the client organization.

This worked well for Pratt, whose course is offered through a regional campus; although it is online, most students come from a relatively small area, so he could choose a single client organization. The distance nature of the course does mean that Pratt has less control over student interaction with the client school. “With an online course, I can’t really tell students to be a certain place at a certain time, so I had them do a certain amount of research online and then [hold] one meeting,” he explains.

He adds that, had he allowed students to find their own client site, he likely would have asked the students to submit a few possible options for his selection and approval. Keeping control over the array of client sites is important.

4. Have back-up plans
“You have to have a back-up plan for student issues or site issues,” says Pratt. For example, have plans in place for what will happen if a student shows up in unacceptable dress, or in the case of inclement weather. Knowing how to handle these circumstances will make addressing them easier.

Additionally, Pratt recommends having back-up assignments ready for students who cannot attend a site meeting. Although he only required one on-site meeting and gave the students a month to arrange meetings, he did not feel he could require students to attend the meeting if they had work issues or the like. These conflicts are perhaps more likely to come up in the distance education environment, so it helps to have assignments ready the students can complete if they cannot go onsite.

Pratt also recommends faculty give students the opportunity to plan. After the first term he integrated service learning into his course, Pratt found some students were unhappy about the service learning requirement. “Some were upset they didn’t get notified up front,” he says. He recommends faculty make this information available at registration.

Pratt suggests that faculty teaching a relatively new course not try to integrate service learning into it; rather, he believes this is “for someone who has taught a course for several years and is ready to take it to the next level.” Even for experienced faculty, service learning will require skills that the faculty members have not necessarily developed. “It is OK if you’re not good at all things; it can still have a huge benefit for the students,” he says. However, he is sold on the value of service learning. “A more engaging, interactive, real-world approach is more messy but more emotionally [fulfilling]. If any experience can be done in a real-world environment, do it,” he urges.

Reprinted from Hill, C. (2010). The 4 Keys to Successful Service Learning in Online Courses. Distance Education Report, 14 (24), 4, 8.

First Assignment – Personal Goals Statement
Prepare a paper (at least 750 words) that identifies your personal goals for this course. This statement should be specific and detailed. The paper should also contain a description of how you plan to meet your goals. If it helps, you are welcome to set weekly goals and a time schedule. You should do whatever will help you think through why you are taking this particular course and how it fits in with your overall learning goals.

Last Assignment – What Have You Learned from the Class?
Write a self evaluation paper (at least 750 words) in which you analyze how well you met your personal goals for the course. If your goals changed, discuss how and if unforeseen goals emerged, describe what they were. Conclude the paper by assigning yourself an overall-grade based on your performance in the course. That grade will constitute 10 of the 30 points available for this assignment.

What a great way to help students start the course thinking about how it might be relevant to them. The instructor of this course reports that many students have personal goals related to grades. He understands that and accepts it. His goal is to help students see that there is more to the course than just a grade—that the content is meaningful and useful independent of the grade.

I don’t think many students think in terms of specific learning goals. For many, doing so will probably start out feeling like just another one of those required assignments, but having to come up with goals is a useful exercise, even if at that time students aren’t all that committed to their goals. Beyond goals, you could ask student to identify two or three things they’d like to learn in the course. You might need to explain that other than learning things related the content, they might want to develop a learning skill; like how to write better, or how to ask questions, or how to construct an argument.

You could follow up after the first paper has been submitted by sharing two or three learning goals you have for students. You may even want to share a learning goal you’ve set for yourself, such as how to use a particular instructional strategy. Discussion of individual and course goals should happen regularly during the course. If what’s happening in class one day directly relates to a student goal, you could point that out. After providing feedback to the class on a set of assignments, you might ask them what progress they think they are making toward various learning goals. Don’t expect a vibrant discussion the first time you ask, as this is not a question students are used to answering. Yet even brief mentions of goals will remind students that goals should be a part of their thinking about this course.

The real value of the assignment is the final paper where students return to their goals and assess how well they reached them. You could prompt students to provide examples illustrating how their goals were achieved. If a goal hasn’t been reached, there needs to be a discussion of why. Ask if they were starting the course over, would they set the same goals or others?

Many different iterations of the assignment are possible. In a variety of forms, it’s an assignment that develops self-assessment skills by challenging students to make the course meaningful to them. Courses should not be something instructors do unto students. In any learning endeavor, students should have goals. They should be able to articulate what they hope to take from the experience. Here’s an assignment that provides the opportunity to develop those skills.

What are some ways you help your students create goals and assess their progress? Please share in the comment box below.

Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson suggest a solution in their book on grading (reference below). At first pass it may seem a bit harsh, but it is a solution that works. They recommend creating what they call gateway criteria. Simply put, these are certain requirements that must be met before the paper is even graded. If those standards for things like word processing, labeling graphs, grammar, punctuation, and so forth are not met, the paper is handed back with an F and instructions to revise and resubmit for grading.

A policy like this is fair only if the gateway criteria are clearly laid out before the assignment is submitted. They should be given to students and/or posted on the course website, and teachers need to remind students about them regularly. Walvoord, who writes of her experience using the gateway criteria, explains that she also gives students information about the Writing Center, including its hours, Web address, and location on campus. She points out that’s what people in writing centers do: they help students meet the requirements of standard written English. Her students also have the option of submitting a draft of their papers at least 24 hours before they are due. She does not edit these drafts or mark errors, but she does tell students whether the paper has met the gateway criteria. If it does not, again she lets students know that help is available in the Writing Center and she identifies composition sources where students can find relevant information. Walvoord does not apply the gateway criteria policy to other work in draft form, in-class writing, or other informal writing activities. It applies only to finished, formal work.

“The result of this gateway policy is that virtually all the final papers Walvoord receives make it through the gate.” (p. 58) And Walvoord has used this policy with first-year students as well as those in upper-division courses.

If the policy sounds viable but you’re still having some qualms, consider implementing it in an upper-division course. Do so recognizing that you will have to devote time to explaining the rationale behind the policy. This isn’t an exercise of teacher power. It isn’t because the teacher is lazy and doesn’t want to correct mistakes on papers. It’s because on that first job, when the student (now employee) submits a report, prepares a proposal, or posts minutes from a meeting and there are these kinds of mistakes, there will be consequences far worse than getting an F. Bosses will not return the paper and ask for corrections. They will come to unfavorable conclusions about the potential and worth of that employee.

Walvoord and Anderson also point out that you can set the gateway criteria at different levels for different groups of students. They suggest that special attention be paid to those learners for whom English is a second language. The criteria may be set lower for these students, but only temporarily, because these learners will be expected to meet the same standards in the world beyond the college or university. “The idea is not to hand out a lot of F grades but to teach students that to function in the outside world, they will have to master ESWE (Edited Standard Written English) or their work will be dismissed before the reader has even dealt with the writer’s ideas.” (p. 58)

It is encouraging that Walvoord’s students do manage to meet the gateway standards. It underscores what research documents and most of us know firsthand. You can set standards that challenge students. If they understand the rationale behind the standards and their teachers stand by with support and encouragement, they will step up to the plate—often surprising us and themselves.

Reference
Walvoord, B.E. and Anderson, V.J. (2010). Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010.

Reprinted from Weimer, M. (2010). Gateway Criteria: Minimum Standards before an Assignment is Graded. The Teaching Professor, 24 (10), 5.

For all of these reasons and more, today’s student body is a highly diverse group with many different learning challenges, often manifesting in problems with notetaking and listening comprehension. All of this creates what Keith Bain calls an “accessibility imperative.” And although there are many legal obligations that institutions must satisfy with regards to accessibility, Bain says recording and transcribing lectures can improve retention and success for all types of students.

In the recent online seminar Tools and Techniques for Improving Course Accessibility, Bain, the international manager of the Liberated Learning Consortium and an adjunct professor at St. Mary’s University, explained the value of digitizing, captioning, and transcribing course material, why you should do it and how.

At the most basic level, Bain said, an instructor could record a presentation with little more than a good lavalier mic or headset and a digital recorder. A more intermediate approach could include using audio recording software like Audacity, PowerPoint narration, or tools such as mp3DirectCut or Power Sound Editor. If the institution has invested in lecture capture systems such as Camtasia Relay, Mediasite, Tegrity Campus, Echo 360 or Panopto, there are even more options and much less work since the recording and synchronization are all automated.

Once the presentation is digitized, the next step is to transcribe it, Bain said, noting that this is often the most difficult aspect of offering students truly accessible course media. Some of the tools Bain recommends for converting speech to text include Dragon Naturally Speaking, Media Access Generator (MAGpie), CapScribe, and InqScribe.

YouTube also offers a captioning feature that Bain called “promising” and there are a few research prototypes with speech recognition based transcription, including an IBM Research’s Hosted Transcription Service and Synote.

During the seminar Bain also shared results of a case study that measured the performance of students who used multimedia notes (recorded lectures with real-time captioning and transcription) against those who used traditional notes. The students who studied using multimedia notes scored better on quizzes and exams.

“Accessibility is not optional but rather a critical success factor,” he said. “At the very simplest level, record your next lecture. At the minimum you can create an auditory based learning object that will greatly enhance learning opportunities for many of your students. I found that a lot of students will listen to these newly created podcasts.”

But as two articles highlighted in the February issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter point out, those changes have not been accompanied by corresponding changes in assessment practices. The evaluation of student work remains completely under teacher control. Now don’t stop reading, because the point is not that students should be grading their own work. That’s an abrogation of legitimate instructor responsibility and that’s not what this is about.

What we’re talking about here is the fact that students do need to develop self assessment skills. They need to be able to look at their own work and with some accuracy assess its merits. That includes the work they do in our courses. As authors Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick point out, students already do make judgments about their work and performance. They write something in a paper and ask themselves if they’ve written enough, if what they’ve written makes sense, if they’ve said what they think the professor wants them to say, if they put the references in the right format, or if their solution is correct. And they answer those questions which means they are giving themselves feedback. So, why, ask these authors, aren’t we intervening during this process and doing what we can to improve their self-assessment skills?

How could we intervene? Well, we could do what we still do more than we should—tell students how they should assess their work. But that’s another version of the information transmission teaching model and it doesn’t work nearly as well as letting students practice the skill we wish them to develop. So, students need to participate in activities where they look at their own work and the work of others. They can develop what Sadler calls “appraisal expertise” by generating assessment criteria, making rubrics or looking at potential criteria and assessing their relevance. They develop the ability to self-assess by reviewing examples and applying assessment criteria to those examples. Sadler advocates “intensive use of purposeful peer assessment.” (p. 548) Looking at the work of others prepares students to look critically at their own work.

Of course the grading issue complicates the development of these skills. How likely are students to share honest evaluations of their work with the teacher who is the ultimate assessor? If you were in their shoes, would you point out weak parts of your paper to the teacher? Probably not, but you might do it if the paper could still be revised, and there are some ways of interacting with the teacher about your work that do address these self-assessment skills. What if the student generates two or three questions about the work that they would like teacher feedback to address? What if after receiving teacher feedback, the student prepares a short memo that describes how that feedback is going to be addressed in the next piece of work and then in next piece of work identifies examples of where the feedback has been acted on.

I think fears about students’ motivation to get high grades (even if they don’t deserve them) has caused most of us to conclude that students can’t be a part of the assessment process. I realized after reading these articles that leaving them out means they may never fully develop these critical self assessment skills on their own and we should explore practical ways they can be involved.

References: Sadler, D. R. (2010). Beyond feedback: Developing student capability in complex appraisal. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35 (5), 535-550.

Nicol, D. J. and Mcfarlane-Dick, D. (2007). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31 (2), 199-218.

First, the chalkboard or whiteboard in the classroom becomes what I call a “community space.” Two students are selected to use the space. They have three minutes at the beginning of class, before the quiz, to write anything from the materials assigned for that day on the board. I use a random process to select the students who write on the board. I allow students to decline the offer to participate, but I do not select alternates if one, or both students, decide not to write on that day.

Whatever information is put up on the board can be used by the rest of the class on the quiz. The students who write on the board are allowed to talk with one another; often, they begin by quickly planning what they will place on the board and who will cover what information. The other students in the class may not talk or consult their notes or the book during the three minutes when their classmates are placing information in the community space. As the course progresses, students start being able to anticipate the kind of information I will be asking for on the quiz, and that’s what they write in the community space. Most pairs tend to use the last 15-30 seconds of time to check each other’s work and to add missing information.

When I first introduced this idea to the class, there were some reservations, especially about my being “fair” when selecting the students. Here’s what we decided I would do: I call on one student and ask that student to designate a number. Then I call on a second student and that student tells me “up” or “down.” Based on those responses, I go to my class roster and start with the name of the person who gave me the number and then I count up or down by that number. That’s the first student selected. From that student’s name I continuing to count up (or down) using the same number, and that’s the second student.

Although students have the opportunity to decline to write, I have yet to have a student do so. Sometimes the information they provide is limited, but very rarely is it inaccurate. I’ve found the expectation that they may have to share information in the community space motivates most students to closely read the assigned materials. They want to help their classmates perform well on the quizzes, and they don’t want to appear lazy or irresponsible to their peers. The three minutes allocated limits the amount of help fellow classmates receive. Consequently, students who do not prepare for class will not perform well on the quiz, even though they have access to this information. I’ve observed that this approach encourages collaborative learning and creates a sense of community among the students. It also gets students coming to class prepared, and I think it makes the quizzes a more positive and useful learning experience.

Audrey Deterding Ph.D. is an assistant professor of communication at Indiana University Southeast.

Reprinted from Deterding, A. (2010) A New Kind of “Space” for Quizzes. The Teaching Professor, 24 (9), 6.

How can instructors better accommodate and encourage adult student success in a classroom setting? Here are a number of ways to create a better environment for adult learners, no matter what the subject material.

• Treat them like the adults they are. Adult learners are generally more sophisticated and experienced than their younger counterparts and they benefit from realistic examples of skills they can use in “real life.” “Adult learners will be empowered as they discover they have a great deal to teach their younger classmates, and the dynamic is mutually beneficial,” said Thomas Lisack, an instructor at Rasmussen College in Wausau, WI. Lisack recommends incorporating intergenerational discussions on issues that otherwise have a generational divide as appropriate for the subject matter to engage learners of all ages.
• Be aware that their classroom skills may be “rusty.” Some adult learners have not been in a classroom for 30 years, so you may need to remind them of basic rules and etiquette, such as raising a hand if you have a question. At the same time, reassure them that, as the instructor, you will not be judgmental of their life experiences or their perspectives, and that they will be evaluated only on their mastery of the content. Be generous when it comes to formatting issues such as APA writing guidelines. Instead, focus on content. “I have found adult learners to be self-conscious, even apologetic, when it comes to being in the classroom,” Lisack noted. “They might even exhibit some shame because they feel decades behind their classmates. The more you can break down these walls of insecurity, the better.”
• Consider and acknowledge the technology gap. Students in their 50s and 60s are generally not nearly as tech savvy—or tech dependent, as some would argue—as 18 or even 30 year olds. Assess each student’s level of proficiency as it relates to class requirements and compensate. Lisack said he once spent three hours after class teaching a group of displaced workers—many of whom had never used a computer—the finer points of Microsoft Word. “The students were very grateful. I felt I’d accomplished something important to help them on their educational journey and it was very satisfying,” he said. Even if they are skilled with technology, adult learners tend to have dramatically different habits. “While younger students may be tethered to technology, adults have longer attention spans and traditional classroom approaches appeal to them,” Lisack said. “This does not mean you can lecture to them for three hours, but you can expect the older learner to concentrate on complex material without feeling ‘withdrawal’ of from a technology device.”
• Be efficient with lessons and activities. “Move fast and don’t waste anyone’s time,” advises Andrea Leppert, adjunct instructor at Rasmussen College in Aurora/Naperville, IL. “Adult students have jobs, sometimes children and tons of responsibilities, so pack every class with information and useful activities.” Consider balancing instructional time with “lab” time, giving students an opportunity to do modeling work or homework in class to give them a better chance of accomplishing all the requirements on time. Leppert also suggests being “strictly flexible” — diligent in your expectations, yet understanding about busy lives, illness and working late. “Like any job, it’s not to be abused, but as grown-ups, we have priorities that sometimes take precedent over finishing assignments,” she said. “Build in safety nets that allow a limited number of late assignments to maintain flexibility, accountability and expectations of excellent work.”
• Be creative: Use the unique vibe or personality of each class to teach the lesson and choose activities that engage, and even entertain to some degree. Pair highly motivated students with those less skilled on projects to create peer encouragement and mentoring. Leppert says this strategy keeps students interested, attendance high and motivation strong.

Finally, beyond specific tactics, both Lisack and Leppert emphasize personal growth when working with adult students. While younger students are encouraged to do well on standardized tests and accustomed to being compared to their peers in this way, adult learners are challenging themselves. Consider making personal growth in ability and skills part of the actual grade. Leppert said, “I compare the first speech to the last one given when I grade to determine how they are personally improving. It helps build confidence and give tangible areas for improvement. School is hard enough…we should point out the positives.”

Brooks Doherty is the dean of faculty at Rasmussen College in Minnesota, where he oversees students seeking degrees in business, education, health care, and technology. Brooks has worked in higher education for a number of years as an academic dean and general education coordinator.

There are currently about 40 facilitators at Century. Each receives a small stipend for leading faculty members in six two- to two-and-a-half-hour sessions. Participants are eligible for a small stipend as well once they have written and disseminated a report on their project.

Full-time and part-time faculty members are eligible to participate in this program, and in the past 10 years, approximately 200 tenured faculty members have taken part in it. Of those, three-quarters have participated four times or more, estimates Larry Litecky, president of Century College.

“That’s the way we’ve done much of our faculty development, and it has led to a fair amount of experimenting with new approaches,” he says.

2. Organizational Development at Century College
In addition to individual faculty, Century is taking a broader approach to improving student learning. The college is in the midst of developing a collective approach to professional development that will explore department and program strategies such as learning communities, intrusive advising, supplemental instruction, and student success courses—strategies selected from Achieving the Dream, a nationwide initiative aimed at improving the success of students of color, low-income students, and underprepared students.

“In some ways it’s more organizational development than traditional individually based faculty development,” Litecky says. To that end, the college has rewritten department chair and program director position descriptions to focus more on student success and less on some of the routine tasks typically such as scheduling and budgeting.

Reprinted from Kelly R. (2010). Century College Professional Development Strategies. Academic Leader, 26 (10), 8.

Redefine Teaching
A common outcry by some who resist scholarly production is, “My commitment is to teaching rather than scholarship.” Who would argue with such a contention? The argument is in the definition of the teaching environment. The faculty member who fails to teach outside the four walls of a university classroom closes too many teachable doors. Teaching and scholarly production are inseparable. Scholarly production is teaching outside room 231 and into the local, state, and/or national community. Once this notion is embraced, a faculty member is more inclined to gain an insatiable appetite to teach through scholarly production recognizing the value of distant learning.

Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse
In the scholarly world, the cart involves the knowledge and skills required to publish. The horse involves the dispositions. It is the dispositions of the scholar that make or break the scholarship. Most faculty members hired have the knowledge and skills to successfully publish. Fewer have the dispositions to publish. In other words, talent is necessary but not sufficient. There must also be passion, initiative, persistence, perseverance, focus, determination, tenacity and the list goes on and on.

Write From the Heart
A failure to publish is often mind over matter. In other words, write about something that matters. A blind allegiance to publishing is often detected by a reviewer and reader. This indiscriminate type approach replaces the desire to champion a cause for a simple desire to obtain promotion and tenure. Scholarship undergirded by a sense of cause shows. It shows the breadth and depth of the scholar who longs for the message to become a means to affecting change and serving others.

Snobbery Alienates More Than It Cultivates
There are often arguments by academicians that scholarship should reflect research and that research must be either quantitative or qualitative in nature. The argument removes a most important scholarly role; a role assumed by scholars who choose to champion the research rather than conduct it. Qualitative and quantitative research is necessary but not sufficient. It is equally critical that scholars write expository, conceptual articles designed to translate the research into action. The acceptance of such a position will encourage not only more scholarly production among hesitant or disinterested researchers, but it will encourage the championing of the research.

You’re 90 Looking Back and Asking, “Did I Leave the World a Better Place?”
There are few tombstones that witness to a faculty members promotion and tenure. It is rare that someone giving a eulogy witnesses to the same. The question often asked is, “How did this person contribute to the quality of life among students and teachers?” A desire to leave the world a better place is a wonderful anecdote for procrastination, excuse-making, and a lack of commitment. Invariably, faculty members join the university to impact change. Very likely, there has never been a prospective faculty member who said, “I plan to get my Ph.D. because I have longed to be called professor.”

This article is written for one reason. Faculty members often suffer from the publish or perish syndrome; a syndrome that causes analysis paralysis and dispassionate scholarly production. In the first case, faculty members become immobilized from scholarly production for fear of failure. In the latter case, they become productive but the yield lacks heart and fails to champion a cause. We are here but a short time. If in this short time, faculty members who read this article produce scholarly work that affects change, improves lives, and helps the faculty member achieve promotion and tenure, then I will reflect back at 90 and say, “Job well done!” In this case, teaching will be integrated with scholarship for scholarship is an extension of our teaching.

Dr. Mark J. Cooper is a professor in the department of early childhood and special education at the University of Central Arkansas.

In a previous issue of The Teaching Professor (March 2010), Kirin Dosanjh Zucker provided a number of helpful suggestions for “Keeping Office Hours ‘Real’ in the Facebook Age.” In a similar vein, we wanted to share ideas culled from our research on students’ perspectives on out-of-class communication. We’ve done in-depth interviews with a diverse group of 33 students. The finding that has most impressed us we already knew, but our data has provided an important reminder: in-class communication sets the stage for out-of-class communication. If you are knowledgeable, convey caring for students, and announce your availability to assist, then students are more likely to approach you outside of class. Conversely, if you appear unprofessional in the classroom, convey apathy or disdain for students, and do not encourage interpersonal contact, students are more likely to avoid you outside of class.

Following are 10 specific strategies that the students we interviewed identified as being particularly effective for encouraging out-of-class contact with professors.

1. Be there for office hours, keep scheduled appointments, and make time for students when they need additional help.
2. Arrive at class early and stay after class (even if it’s in the hallway) to accommodate easy contact. This is the time when students with questions are most likely to ask them.
3. Include an invitation in the syllabus to visit during office hours. Give students a “by appointment” option, since your set office hours may conflict with their class or work schedules.
4. Tell students on the first day of class and regularly thereafter that you are available for extra help during office hours or at a time convenient for them. Explain that you enjoy talking with students, particularly about the course, current research, and your discipline.
5. Use email to connect socially and academically. In addition to prompt, brief responses, include a friendly opening and closing. Send periodic emails to the class to offer assistance on projects as they progress through the semester.
6. Write your email and office hours on the board regularly, maybe even every class session at the beginning of the course. Say more times than you think necessary that you welcome questions, comments, and the chance to interact with students.
7. Work to learn students’ names—sooner rather than later. Recognize and greet students when you see them in the hallways or around campus. Smiles and waves are also appreciated.
8. Provide specific feedback on course projects, and allow opportunities for revisions prior to assigning a final grade on major projects. Offer tutorials during office hours and encourage small groups of students to attend.
9. Schedule midterm consultations with each student (maybe even make them mandatory) if not many students are taking advantage of your office hours. Use these meetings to review the students’ progress in the course, provide assistance as needed, and help with goal setting for the rest of the course.
10. Provide your home phone number or cell phone number in case students run into “emergencies.” Although students most likely will never call you, they appreciate this caring gesture and invitation to accessibility.

In sum, students do pay attention to those classroom behaviors that convey we care. If we vigilantly maintain our office hours and employ the strategies recommended by these students, then we can more actively engage students in academic discourse, facilitate a deeper understanding of our fields and their associated professions, and serve as better advisors and mentors. Given what positive interpersonal communication does for students and for us, it is certainly worth the effort.

Dr. Bonnie Farley-Lucas is professor in the communications department at Southern Connecticut State University. Dr. Margaret Sargent is an associate chair and associate professor in the communications department at Southern Connecticut State University.

Reprinted from “Enhancing Out-of-Class Communication: Students’ Top 10 Suggestions.” The Teaching Professor, 24.10 (2010): 7.

A biology professor reports on his experience using research articles and asking test questions about them in an undergraduate course for students majoring in life sciences. Students were assigned a research article to read—the article was relevant to content being covered in class. It was posted on an accessible website. Sometimes the article was discussed during the lectures and sometimes it was the topic of a tutorial session (these were large classes that included tutorial sections). Either way the students had access to the articles before and during the assessment activity.

The students were then given test questions on these articles. The questions were set at three levels on the Bloom taxonomy. Questions at level one were straightforward, testing students’ scientific literacy and conceptual understanding. Questions at level two focused on students’ abilities to link prior knowledge or textbook content to material in the research article. The goal was to see whether students could correlate different components and understand scientific reasoning. At level three, the questions asked students to link the research content to daily life—integrating it with their current knowledge and applying it in a creative way. Three different research articles were assigned and the test on each counted 10 percent, for a total of 30 percent of the course grade.

An elaborate system used to evaluate student responses revealed that students had read, understood, and were able to write about the research articles. A majority of the students were even able to correctly answer level three type questions. And students responded favorably to this approach. They felt it positively affected their motivation in the course and showed them interesting and relevant aspects of the content. “The results showed that the approach strongly motivated students to step out of their comfort zone (textbook) and to develop high-order cognitive skills, including correlation, application, and synthesis.” (p. 289)

A good deal of the success of this approach can be attributed to the criteria used to select the research articles. The author notes that finding suitable articles was a “major challenge” in developing this approach (p. 284). But the criteria used help to explain the success of this assessment strategy. Articles had to meet four criteria. First the article had to be relevant. It had to link with the content being covered in the course. Second, it had to be interesting. It had to address some topic that would capture students’ curiosity. It could be addressing a question so far unanswered or on some controversial issue. Third, the article needed to be comprehensible. Students had to be able to understand it, or at least most of it. It could not be overly complicated as these students had little (if any) previous experience reading research material. And finally, it had to be heart stirring—the author’s way of saying it had to be an impressive piece of work, something that would inspire students and set high expectations for their future work as scientists.

Reference: Wu, J. (2009). Linking assessment questions to a research article to stimulate self-directed learning and develop high-order cognitive skills in an undergraduate module of molecular genetics. Cell Biology Education—Life Sciences Education, 8 (Winter), 283-290.

Reprinted from “An Assessment Technique Using Research Articles.” The Teaching Professor, 24.10 (2010): 8.

At the onset of weekly discussion, outstanding online instructors wait cautiously to ensure that peer interactions and student self-discovery have the time to flourish. Then, at precisely the right point, they add several probing responses, invoking relevance and scholarship into the discussion. Concomitantly, they vigilantly strive to avoid omniscient, overbearing, or evaluative posts that inhibit future participation. This professional dialogue continues in this way throughout the length of the discussion, where sustained interaction becomes a rich environment for critical thinking to flourish.

This weekly unrehearsed exchange of timely, purposefully worded interaction is an art that faculty leadership needs to teach and develop in instructors, particularly if they are new to teaching. There is a distinct competency in creating and sustaining student to instructor and peer to peer discourse. We are remiss if we assume all faculty members are cognizant of the many educational values of online discussion and how to facilitate those forums in such a way to elevate discussion to a superlative learning tool. When we consider that discussion forums are one of the few unique places in an online course where all three pertinent levels of interaction occur: student to student, student to content, and student to instructor, we know we must promote their success.

Unquestionably, successful online forum facilitation is a daunting and complicated equilibrium that, if unbalanced, can inhibit learning. In today’s highly regulated postsecondary environments, we hold faculty accountable for substantive interaction that promotes learning. However, we do not often give them straightforward instructions on how to create and foster the setting for this to occur. Online adjuncts are often professionals in their fields and are entering education as a secondary or supplementary occupation. They do not have the foundational educational, behavioral, or other developmental knowledge to always intuitively handle forums appropriately. Leadership needs to aid faculty in answering their frequently posed question, “How many discussion forum posts?” Now, we can simply tell them with confidence, “The answer is as simple as a dinner party.”

But how? By using a centuries-old teaching tool: schema and analogy.

Discussion forums are like dinner parties, and the instructor is the host. Personally welcoming each student into this new and unfamiliar place and making them feel like they belong in that environment is a necessity to help integrate them socially and academically into the course; key elements in all retention research. We know that retention is heavily reliant on that integration and students’ related satisfaction.

Using the dinner party analogy simplifies the complex nature of discussion forum facilitation into a much simpler, relevant analogy because everyone has experienced it either as guest or host. When we give faculty this connection, it removes the guesswork by activating their own schema to understand how to facilitate in a way that promotes learning through substantive interaction.

The Dinner Party: The Host’s Actions….

• Welcome EVERYONE personally at the door. (Online forum)
• Make sure every person feels comfortable in the new environment. (Tone)
• Don’t ignore anyone. (Reply to each student throughout the course)
• Disagreements are phrased professionally.
• No one should be silent, including the host! (Be present in forums)
• Serve them something delicious. (Content!)
• Invite them back! (To weekly forums, to the next assignment even if they’ve faltered on the previous one, to the university if they’ve finished your course)
• Proportionate time with every guest. (Don’t reply to the same students every time)
• Spend extra time with needy guests. (Struggling students)
• Don’t talk all at once, spread the conversation throughout the party. (Post on various days, keeping the volume consistent)
• Start up a new conversation when one is stale! (Add a relevant link to a current event to discuss)
• Hosts are visible, immediately attend to guests’ needs, personable, and proactively plan for a great evening!

Faculty leadership should use the same strategies to teach professors as we preach to use with students: Activate schema, provide an analogy as a teachable tool, and motivate throughout. Discussion forum dialogue has the potential to be the most valuable learning opportunity in online environments. Let’s help faculty to make every course deliciously successful.

Dr. Cheryl Hayek is the associate provost at Grantham University.

The recognized precursors for transformative learning of triggering event (or disorienting dilemma), critical self-reflection, discourse with another, and an action using the transformed perspective (Brock, 2010) provide a helpful framework for viewing the online environment where each may be fostered.

1. Triggering events. Students who feel comfortable and supported in the classroom are more likely to share their thoughts, ask questions, and be open to probing or opposing views. A welcoming email, a structure to share personal information, goals, and a means to become acquainted with others help students to feel comfortable. Taped audio welcome messages allow students to hear the faculty member’s voice, which in turn helps to connect students with faculty. Through the introductory events, students find that they share similar goals, fears, and experiences. They also are exposed to classmates from different backgrounds and cultures and realize that many share the very same goals. This realization in itself expands their way of thinking.

Reading material, conducting role-plays, participating in team projects, conducting research, and watching videos followed by questions and discussion can introduce major opportunities for triggering events. Various and wide-ranging ideas, minority or contrarian opinions, trying on new roles, and the sharing of experiences and assumptions expose the reader to new ways of thinking. Any of these can cause the student to pause and consider what differs from their own way of thinking. Peer evaluations on projects or faculty’s feedback on projects/assignments can also create a triggering event.

2. Personal critical reflection. Online technology offers numerous means for reflection. This is triggered not only through thinking about and articulating viewpoints through weekly discussion, but also through writing papers, using electronic journals, and writing personal blogs. Each promotes reflection and synthesis of thoughts. Asking the student to expand on another student’s comments, share their own thoughts, and be exposed to a contrarian or alternative view also encourages reflection.

Team assignments, role-plays, or otherwise representing and explaining opposing assumptions behind views on a topic can force a student to try out a new way of thinking, and can trigger a reflection on their assumptions. Probing questions from faculty can further reflection about the assumptions held. Unlike a face-to-face classroom, in an online environment the student does not have to respond immediately. Most of the discussions are asynchronous, which allows time to think and reflect critically before answering. This can be a real advantage.

3. Discourse with others. Technology has opened up many avenues for having discourse with others. It is in this precursor that one student will exchange assumptions with another on a viewpoint, will share their disorienting dilemma (triggering event), or probe deeper about why they thought the way they did and how they may be changing their assumptions. Faculty can use their own institution’s technology platform such as Blackboard or other Web-based classrooms or can use some of the social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the digital world of Second Life (just one of many game-type interactive sites). We are also seeing faculty building their own avatars, using synchronous chat rooms, and taking advantage of Skype, Wimba, Wikis, and audio or video messages, and I’m confident there is much more to come. Technology in the online classroom can give an advantage to students for discourse with others because of how it expands the availability of geographic locations, increases the number of possible discourse partners, and allows 24/7 discourse rather than confining it to a face-to-face classroom.

4. Action. According to the theory of transformative learning, action on the transformed assumption is needed to complete the process of transforming the learning. The needed action can be writing a paper, making a statement to another person, or any other means of asserting the new assumption. For some, the action is a behavior such as joining a professional organization, working toward new goals, changing the declared academic major, selecting a new career, or, in one situation I observed, forming an organization to address an identified need in the community. It is helpful to ask students frequently and at the close of the semester to share what they learned that expanded or changed their thinking on a topic and how they will apply the change in their thinking.

Reflections for educators and educational institutions
It’s a new world in academia, and it is one in which some educators may require critical reflection on assumptions about online learning and outcomes. In addition, educators may need to enhance their technological competencies, and some may need to be more selective and thoughtful with technological applications. Institutions may need to invest more in designing further capability in their computer platforms and ensure that technology choices are conducive to both teaching and learning in the online environment. Opportunities to develop faculty skills for online andragogy and staying current with the ever-changing tools are a must.

I pose a few items for us as educators to reflect upon and be mindful. The reader will perhaps expand the list. Would I know transformative learning if I saw it? Does my classroom foster an environment for transformative learning? Is there more I can do to foster a climate conducive to transformative learning? What assumptions do I hold about learning online? Are my assumptions limiting ones? Am I mindful of the transformative learning experiences of the students in my online classroom? How can I assist students on the edge of transformative learning?

References
Brock, D. E. (2010). Measuring the importance of precursor steps to transformative learning. American Association for Adult and Continuing Education. Adult Education Quarterly 60 (2).

Taylor, E. (2008). Transformative learning: A critical review. ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career and Vocational Education (Information Series, number 374).

Dr. Joyce Henderson is a professor of human resources at the University of Maryland University College.

Excerpted from Henderson, J. “Transformative Learning in the Online Classroom: Experiences of an Educator” Online Classroom (October 2010): 1-3. Print.

As we begin again, I thought this characterization of “The Ideal Professor” might be of interest. It’s offered by students who were asked to compare their Ideal professors with their Typical ones. This cohort of juniors and seniors rated professorial characteristics in three areas: personal, course design, and policies and behaviors. The items were selected for the survey based on research in each of these three areas.

Perhaps a bit surprising is the lack of strong distinctions between Ideal and Typical professors. “We found that preferred qualities and behaviors were not wholly absent in the Typical professor—they simply appeared less pronounced than in the Ideal professor.” (p. 182) Despite overall similarities, the research team does describe some of the differences between the two as “striking” and eight of these are listed below. The numbers reflect the percentage of students who endorsed this characteristic for their Ideal professors and the percentage who said they characterized the Typical professor.

Teaching Characteristic	Ideal	Typical
Professor speaks clearly/not monotone	93	80
Course and daily goals appear on the syllabus	83	52
Students have a voice; input on course policies and procedures	40	7
Professor talks informally with students sometimes	43	15
Professor lectures	78	93
Professor uses discussion	58	37
Professor does in-class activities/demonstrations	57	21
·Uses humor often/occasionally ·Uses humor occasionally only	97	75
·Cheating/plagiarism policy—investigates and resolves incidents ·Do not know what approach is used to deal with academic dishonesty	58	64
Solicits anonymous, written, informal feedback on teaching/course	68	17
·Solicits student feedback two or more times per term ·Never solicits student feedback	72	30

The research team offers this succinct summary: “Overall, our research suggests that Ideal professors are highly accessible to students, allow student input into the course policies and procedures, provide for significant variety in the course, and provide a comfortable learning atmosphere for students.” (p. 182)

Two findings are worth noting as we launch a new year and another semester. First, students indicated that overall, personal characteristics were not important for their Ideal professor. I take that as a validation of our individuality. Ideal professors aren’t all cut out of the same cloth. We can be who we are; we shouldn’t try to create some inauthentic teaching personae. And I think it’s encouraging that the characteristics these students identified as belonging to those teachers who most effectively taught them were not absent in Typical professors. They just weren’t as pronounced. I take that to mean, if you aspire to be ideal, you don’t have to do new things, just more of those good things you already do.

The question not answered by this research is whether the characteristics identified as ideal have any bearing on student learning. Based on other research, it is probably safe to say that most of the characteristics don’t cause learning but they may make it a more likely outcome of a classroom experience.

Reference: Epting, L. K., Zinn, T. E., Buskist, C. and Buskist, W. (2004). Students perspectives on the distinction between ideal and typical teachers. Teaching of Psychology, 31 (3), 181-183)

Videos are another fun alternative to written assessments, and the latest technologies have made video creation remarkably easy. Video can be shot with a $200 flip camera, which provides very good sound and picture quality if a microphone is used. Even the ubiquitous smart phone provides remarkably good quality.

But production values are not the point, and poor production values can even add a layer of humor and authenticity to the project. The best advice is that if you are not Orson Wells, don’t try to be. Attempting to reach movie studio quality only highlights the differences. Be self-referentially hokey as a way to make the lack of production values itself part of the production.

That said, your students’ videos certainly will need some editing and tools such as Live Movie Maker (Windows) or iMovie (Mac) are free and relatively easy to use. Once your students are done editing and happy with the finished product, they can post it to YouTube for others to view. Vimeo and Screencast.com are other good places to post videos. There is no FERPA rule against students posting their work publically.

A good video assignment is to put students into small groups with instructions to make a video that teaches a key concept related to class. If done well, the video not only demonstrates students’ understanding of the concept, but also serves as a resource that can be used by others. Often you will find that students are proud of what they produced and want to show it to friends, family, and maybe even future employers. When was the last time a student showed a written essay to anyone?

As usual, I welcome your comments, criticisms, and cries of outrage in the comments section of this blog post.

The Teaching Professor and Magna Publications are seeking nominations for the Maryellen Weimer Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning Award. Now in its fourth year, the award recognizes outstanding scholarly contributions that advance college-level teaching and learning practices. Author(s) of the winning article will be recognized at the 2012 Teaching Professor Conference, June 1-3, 2012 in Washington D.C. and awarded a $1,000 stipend.

If you value scholarship, please take a few minutes and nominate your favorite article for this award. A complete list of criteria and submission procedures can be found here »

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, January 15, 2012!

The first article of Peter’s I read has a great title, “The Dreaded Discussion: Ten Ways to Start.” I recently looked at the article again and most of his suggestions are just as good now as they were 30 years ago when the article was published. When you are as old as I am, you come to accept that there are few new things under the pedagogical sun and there is a certain agelessness about many good teaching ideas.

Yesterday, I found an article of Peter’s that I hadn’t read. It’s a brief reflections piece in which he shares four moments that occur regularly in his classroom, followed by four learning principles that support what’s happening during those moments. The paragraph describing those principles is a wonderfully succinct description of what we know about how students learn best.

“First, students learn best to the extent that they are actively involved with the material, in our case history, reading, interpreting, touching, listening to, feeling, role playing and manipulating it. Second, students learn best when they are confronted with a compelling human historical problem, decision, or personal question. It is best to put the problem into a larger context … that connects with problems, questions, and themes in their own lives. Third, learning occurs in a context of frequent and caring (or lovingly challenging) feedback and occasions for reflection, especially with others. Therefore, small groups. The fourth, and perhaps most important, principle is that every learner makes his or her own meaning by reworking prior learning and experiences in terms of new ones. This means we must find ways of connecting what’s already inside their heads with the concepts, ideas, themes, and yes, even the names, dates, and facts we want them to know.”

Peter uses four question sets to keep his instructional decision-making on track. Here is a sample question (or group of them) from each of those sets.

1. “What do we know about who our learners are and what’s inside of them?”
2. “In what ways can we make the historical questions and issues we deem most important connect to student lives and prior experiences, to their goals and aspirations, to their fears and hopes, or to what’s happening on campus that week, or in the news?”
3. “In a typical classroom day, who is doing the talking? Who is analyzing the primary source? Who is interpreting the passage, document, photograph, letter, chart, map, graph, video clip or artifact? Who is making the meaning, identifying recurring themes, sorting out multiple perspectives? Who is doing the synthesizing, the connecting with other cultures, eras, events and people? That is, who is doing the learning?”
4. “What are the four or five conceptual themes that inform our courses, upon which students can hang the myriad of facts?”

There’s nothing quite like a good question to encourage deep thinking and lead to answers we may not like but need to confront.

Yes, Peter is a favorite author—one from whom there is much we can learn. Good pedagogical scholarship not only benefits those who read it, I think its primary benefit still goes to those who write it. Peter writes that he tries to practice what he preaches. Every time he’s ready to leave for class he looks at a note he has taped to the corner of his desk, “Less of me is more of them, for authentic, deeper learning.”

Reference: Frederick, P. J. (2001). Four reflections on teaching and learning history. AHA Perspectives, 39 (October). Online at http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2001/0110/0110tec1.cfm

And just in case you’d like to take a look at Peter’s vintage piece on discussion: Frederick, P. J. (1981). The dreaded discussion: Ten ways to start. Improving College and University Teaching, 29 (3), 109-114.

From common problems, such as class disruptions, disrespect, and cheating, to more serious, potentially dangerous behaviors, instructors may face a myriad of unwelcome behaviors in their classroom. How they respond is important, but even more critical are the proactive steps instructors can take to prevent these behaviors from occurring in the first place. Or, if they cannot prevent the problems completely, at least recognize the early signs and respond appropriately before the situation spins out of control.

During the recent 90-minute seminar, Managing Student Discipline Issues Legally and Effectively, Rob Jenkins, associate professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, and attorney Deborah Gonzalez shared strategies for maintaining appropriate discipline without alienating students or compromising the course. They also explained the legal issues around disciplinary hearings, including differences between public and private institutions with regards to student rights and due process.

One of the key tools for preventing disruptive student behavior is the syllabus. Used properly, the syllabus—and how you present it on that first day of class—can go a long way in setting the tone for your course, Jenkins said.

Before crafting your syllabus, you’ll first want to familiarize yourself with your institution’s student code of conduct. Then, Jenkins recommends asking yourself a few questions:

• How do I expect students to behave?
• What will or won’t I tolerate?
• What compromises or “concessions to reality” am I willing to make?

As you write your syllabus, it’s important to set clear expectations for learner behavior and responsibilities, as well as workload, learning outcomes, deadlines, grading, late assignments and assessment. Then, as you go over the syllabus with students, you’ll want to clarify specific points that are particularly important to you so as to avoid any misunderstandings down the road. Jenkins likes to use this time to explain why he has certain rules and often shares past experiences to illustrate his point.

“One of the things that I’ve learned in 26 years of teaching is that there are steps faculty can take very early on that will head off a lot of these problem to begin with,” said Jenkins. “I think sometimes we create rules because things annoy us and not because they actually disrupt the class. You have to decide, what’s your level of tolerance? Are you really going to try and ban smart phones in your class? Is that even feasible? It’s important not to have rules that you can’t enforce.”

Building on that foundation, the scholarship of teaching movement has shown faculty that they can “study,” as in systematically inquire about, what’s happening in their classrooms. Increasingly, instructors’ examinations of their teaching and their students’ learning are finding their way into the pedagogical literature. One of the side benefits of these scholarly endeavors is the importing of a number of interesting assessment techniques mostly developed in psychology, cognitive psychology and educational psychology. Think alouds is one such technique and Lendol Calder describes how he used this approach in an introductory history course.

Think alouds were originally developed by cognitive psychologists as a research tool to study how people solved problems. Calder used them in his course “to measure changes in thinking patterns over time for selected individual enrolled in my survey [course].” (p. 1367) At the very beginning of the course he gave students a number of historical documents (somewhere between seven and ten) pertaining to the battle of the Little Big Horn. Students were supposed to try and figure out what the documents meant. They did so by talking out loud to themselves. “Their verbalized comments were recorded and transcribed for later analysis to determine patterns of cognition used to make sense of the documents.” (p. 1367) Students participated in the same exercise at the end of the course only with a different set of historical documents.

You could do the same with papers written before and after a course, but Calder thinks that the think alouds have distinct advantages. “The advantage of think alouds over graded student work is that they allow one to observe the process of thinking in a raw, unvarnished state. Think alouds reveal not only what a student thinks but also how she came to think it. Think alouds expose the stumbling, the hesitations, the blind alleys, the good ideas entertained and abandoned, the inner workings of a mind trying to make sense of the past.” (p. 1368)

But Calder identifies another advantage that’s even more compelling: “Listening to my students think out loud as they tried to make sense of documents is the single most eye-opening experience I have had in my years as a teacher.” (p. 1368)

Could changes in student thinking be detected in the before and after of these think alouds? “What my studies revealed is that even in a short, ten-week course students on average make modest to occasionally dramatic gains in all six aspects of historical thinking taught in the course.” (p. 1368) I should note that Calder’s course is your not typical history survey course—his article describes a course design that deviates significantly from how history courses are usually designed and taught.

It’s such an interesting assessment strategy. Even if you didn’t want to use it in a rigorous study design, the idea of listening to students as they try to deal with content has got to be revealing. In the cognitive psychology research, think alouds have been used to differentiate expert and novice knowledge and thinking processes. As I have pointed out in previous posts, it is so easy for faculty experts to forget how novices think about the content. Yes, it can be depressing, even frightening, since most students do not think all that deeply about our content. But knowing where they start allows for a more efficient journey to where they need to be. As Calder’s experience shows, you can then design a course, in his case one where he used the content to explicitly teach six cognitive habits: questioning, connecting, sourcing, making inferences, considering alternate perspectives and recognizing limits to one’s knowledge. (p. 1364).

Reference: Calder, L. (2006). Uncoverage: Toward a signature pedagogy for the history pedagogy. The Journal of American History, March, 1358-1370.