7 Learner-Centered Principles to Improve Your Teaching

A tenet of learner-centered teaching is that learning is the litmus test of any pedagogy. Therefore, one of the most important investments professors can make is to understand the learning process so that their teaching is intentionally learner-oriented.

The accountability movement and emphasis on assurance of learning and other evidence-based practices makes it imperative for educators to understand how students learn so that their teaching can be maximally effective. However, it’s not always easy to find the time to keep up with research in the learning sciences on top of what’s happening in your academic field.

In 7 Learner-Centered Principles to Improve Your Teaching, Dr. Michele DiPietro distills more than 50 years of instructional research into seven key principles, and explains how understanding each of those principles can enhance teaching. You’ll learn accessible and effective pedagogical strategies that support deep learning, activate prior knowledge, reveal knowledge organization, increase student motivation, facilitate the mastery of skills, foster student holistic development, and foster reflection and self awareness.

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After participating in this seminar, participants will:

• Be able to list and discuss the seven principles of learning and how they can be used to improve teaching;
• Understand the importance of surveying students’ prior knowledge and motivation;
• Learn to monitor how students construct their organization of knowledge;
• Implement strategies that force students to plan and reflect (e.g. using exam wrappers);
• Know how to write syllabi with a tone that creates a positive and productive learning climate;
• Be able to craft educational activities that tap into student goals; and
• Know how to break down skills into their basic components.

Most of us are being asked to do more—teach more, assess more, report more, publish more. This seminar will help you use your limited time wisely, because it’s done all the heavy lifting. You’ll not only gain new insights into how students learn but also learn about teaching strategies that reflect the latest research.

When you order the recording of this seminar on CD, you’ll also receive the complete transcript.

An optional Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to upload the CD of the seminar onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.

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This seminar is intended for:

• Faculty
• Faculty developers
• Graduate student instructors
• Instructional designers

All seminars include a discussion guide for facilitators
Participating in a Magna Online Seminar as a team can help leverage unique insights, foster collaboration, and build momentum for change. Each seminar now includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators which provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You’ll also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

At the conclusion of the session, she asked attendees to write on a note card one or two ways they promote active learning in their classrooms. As you can imagine, the exercise generated hundreds of great ideas; which we will continue to share during the next couple weeks. We encourage you to add in the comment box your own strategies for engaging and motivating students.

Here are more student engagement tips from attendees:
Getting students involved and making learning their own: I use a participation portfolio that students can choose the things they want to include. They collect/include any item that includes an aspect of American government (political event, election, school meeting, current event, etc.) From this, students see how they can be involved in their learning (and their government)

Task assignment: Oral presentation (10 minutes, 3-5 good sources) on a topic related to what will be on next exam. Very experienced, knowledgeable students are challenged by how to make their knowledge clear, to the point, and related to our course topic. Very weak students are challenged by finding 3-5 “good business sources,” e.g., Wall Street Journal, Business Week, NYT, etc.

When students have a major project, I expect and plan time for them to submit it for feedback before they submit it for a grade—it promotes a “safe” environment and an expectation for success.

I divide the class into a number of groups and they work on problems together. Then they can share with others in class.

I teach business communication; in class one, I ask students to think of a real example of a positive and a negative communications experience. Then we analyze their examples.

Conflict management: Assign students to think of one difficult person they have interacted with who causes tension or conflict. Task is to take one insight from the basic communication course and do one thing different in the next encounter with this person. They submit a brief report on the result. The assignment is due in 4-8 weeks to give students ample time to plan and reflect.

Test often. It keeps them motivated and builds students’ confidence.

Put the student in the shop and have them try their new skills

Make what is being taught relevant to the students’ lives. Example: Teaching about percent concentrations in chemistry, talk about DUI and percent alcohol in blood in determined and calculated.

To create a vision of real-life experience based on learning certain skills in management.

Tell students how the material will relate to their futures; use real world examples/documents.

Hands on learning: Practical experimental learning. Doing the tasks or following the lecture online or using a computer as the lesson/lecture is done or taught.

Balance grade point totals between multiple categories (exams, cases, lead class discussion, current event, worksheets, etc.). This allows students who don’t excel in one area to make up ground in another.

When composing homework assignments, I combine questions of varying difficulty. I ultimately include a problem or two beyond the difficulty required for my course and offer extra credit for solving these problems. The number of students that choose to step up to the challenge is so incredibly refreshing and motivating.

Active Learning: Independent laboratory projects are the best way I have found to promote active learning.

What do you do to help students value what they are learning? Take the mystery of the reason out of it. In other words, I let the students into the conversations in higher education about why we do what we do and what we hope they get out of it. Then I ask them what we can change for them to get out of it what we hope.

Motivation: Find a “hot issue” and use that to get students to formulate solutions and evaluate responses to solutions. Example: Nobody is happy paying sales taxes. Would you abolish taxes? How will you make up the money lost is sales taxes are abolished?

Active Learning: After working through the concepts, I give students random objects. In groups they draw analysis to the concepts connecting the ideas and sharing with their group members.

Motivation: The instructor indentifies a variety of assignments that meet the objective and that provides for different learning styles of students from which students may choose.

Pull something out of a website from today’s financial markets and link it to something we will talk about today and have the students tell us how that link can be used to help in their career quest.

When teaching graduate students how to teach online, I encourage them to consider face-to-face methods that are effective for certain topics and use parallel/similar techniques online, such as small group discussion or think/pair/share. These techniques can be effective online as well.

Expand what appears on a PowerPoint slide and ask students to refute it.

For motivation, my version of a “wildcard” assignment in my American Literature class: Pick one of the following: digital storytelling, paper (critical, pedagogical—for my pre-service teachers), creative), American literature game, or poster. But each one requires critical reflection.

To increase expectation of success: Because I know how difficult it is for students to remember everything they have learned and/or studied for a test, I offer some choice items (fig., choose A or B) so they can show what they know.

Community—I do team-building exercises at the beginning of the semester.

Active learning: Have students take responsibility for their learning by applying lesson concepts to their occupations, field of expertise, and personal experience.

Model these attributes in everything I do (from day 1); if I am enthusiastic, clear in my expectations, and believe the value of what we’re doing, they will be more engaged.

“15 Minutes of Fame”: The student gets to choose a topic they feel they could teach the class (for 15 minutes), they become the expert with certain guidelines to follow. Motivation—they are the “star” for 15 minutes. Active learning—they research. Task—they choose the topic. Community—they all practice with each other to get feedback before their 15 minute presentation. Holistic—they learn all types of things; respect, confidence, professionalism, body language, etc.

To develop a class community, I ask students to post a blog entry on-line (campus topic) and read other posts and comment. I have the students use their names.

Be positive and available. Have a form for the first day of classes asking students questions to ascertain how they came to a Post-secondary Institution, such as; Were you asked to be here? (By your parents), How do you feel about being here?

Motivation: Offer one question thrown out on quiz for “classroom” 100 percent attendance. “Stickers” to reward “A’s.”

I have 8-10 guest speakers come in.

I have 2 group assignments to go out and interview experts in industry for presentations.

Active learning: In a writing course, students receive each others drafts throughout the semester and one by one the whole class peer reviews the drafts. Students learn from other student papers and gain critical feedback on their own paper. In other words, every paper is read by every student, and every student must provide feedback.

For community & challenge: I use team service-learning projects in which students work on real organizational tasks which are challenging.

Public Speaking—End of the semester speech competition: all completed outside the regular class time. Motivation—Winning class does not have to take the final. Work as a community—The whole class has to contribute; vote on class speakers, visual and preparation outline, etc.

Community/Motivational Task: Visiting, via field trips, museums, during a class on Foundations in Bilingual Education or Methods of Teaching Social Science.

Sense of Community: I use “team-based learning” in my intro courses.

Holistic learning: So important to have students reflect on a learning experience and talk about how it felt (what we their emotions?) and how they might do things differently.

After presenting a concept, I summarize by asking students to think (and share) these about the concept: Who cares? Why do they care?

Motivate: Start each class with a “hook”—something that is contextual and related to the day’s concepts—provides relevancy and captures interest and involvement.

Motivation—Self motivated. Active Learning—Presentation (group). Task—Never Presented before. Community—Form groups 4-5 students. Holistic Learning—All applied info evenly.

I tell my students that I learn from them even as I teach. Learning is a shared activity. We are a community of seekers traveling toward a goal of knowledge.

Value: Speaker from related career speak on the outcome of education.

Motivation & Active Learning: To teach costume history, I had students write about why they wear clothes and why change certain items, compared to an appropriate moment in history.

I engage students to choose a concept from the course and teach a segment of the class.

Use short appropriate videos (expectancy) and tie it to a career (value) strategy.

Get the class to teach itself a concept/jigsaw.

With 40 students, divide into 8 groups of 5. 20 minute study sessions, with materials provided, then a 10 minute presentation from each group, followed up with a 10 minute debrief.

I start with an activity that will captivate their attention.

Get students to take ownership of their own learning. Provide them with projects and subject matter that connects to them personally. Show them how their knowledge can impact the world.

Motivation: Emphasize constantly how the new knowledge will serve them in their future.

Work optimally, feel valued, and learn holistically. I set the students up as instructors. They choose a brief lesson in a particular technique. They then present to the class, then the school.

Motivation: Had students act as ambassadors. They go promote the department and in doing so, realize why they like it.

Motivation: Since I am aware that “I” cannot “motivate” anyone, as motivation comes from within oneself and since I teach medicine, I always and continually remind my “medical students” that patients will be putting their lives in their hands and they deserve to be seen by a competent provider.

Teaching a skills lab (hands on) in learning to examine to different use of the knowledge.

Active Learning: Use real life examples (personal case studies) to relate students to students to learning.

Motivation: Don’t put deadlines on learning. If a student learns yesterday, tomorrow or in two weeks, the grade is the same.

Value: Have students negotiate evaluation methods (test & assignments) based on learning outcomes for the course.

Community: I give students a questionnaire to fill out on day 1 & then the 2nd week, put them into groups of 3-4 students with similar goals & backgrounds. They sit in their groups in class & during class, do problem solving exercises together. They help each other and learn from each other.

Measureable results: Apply task initially and again in 8 weeks, then they are graded on the growth.

Showing students how the subject relates to ‘real life’ is a real motivator. I use examples from TV shows and the news to drive the point home.

Take students’ pictures 1st day of class and memorize their names. Call students by name from the 2nd class on. Use their names frequently. This instills community and aids in engagement because students cannot hide.

Enhance value and therefore motivation by applying concepts to current and actual problems form the students’ live. It works well in Psychology of Learning and Motivation and Emotion courses.

Always find a means to connect content with everyday things. While difficult for everything, very effective for the ones you have. I am an ecologist, so anecdotal stories go miles. Students love it.

Motivation: Excitement/Passion. If I present my subject matter with passion and excitement (show my passion and excitement for biology), students (not all, but some) have commented that this gets them excited about biology and motivates them to learn about it too.

Got a tip? Please share it below.

23 Practical Strategies to Help New Teachers Thrive

The college classroom can be an isolated place. College instructors can spend many terms without knowing how other instructors handle problems, or if their own approach is the most effective one. When you are new to teaching, you’re even more in the dark because you’re encountering everything for the first time.

As a new college instructor, you probably have many questions.

• How do I write a strong syllabus, then stick with it in the classroom?
• How do I strike the right balance between high-stakes and low-stakes assignments?
• What is the best way to start and end each class?
• How can I manage my students and my workload so I can stay enthusiastic for years to come?

For the new college teacher, it is best to learn from those who have been there. In the latest Magna Publications white paper 23 Practical Strategies to Help New Teachers Thrive, you will discover the tips and techniques that have proven successful for experienced faculty and explore how to use these in your own classes.

This 45-page white paper takes a step-by-step look at some of the strategies used by successful college teachers, with examples and take-aways for your own classroom.

Order White Paper

In this white paper, you will learn:

• An introduction to foundational theory of pedagogy
• How to write an effective syllabus
• How to write learning goals
• How to pace your course
• Metaphors for viewing your own role in the classroom
• How to structure assignments
• Tips for classroom pacing
• How to grade efficiently
• How to keep students interested and involved
• How to protect your own “off-time”
• Ways to deal with compromise in the classroom
• Who to go to for help
• How to stay active and enthused for an entire career

You will also receive a comprehensive list of resources for future reading and study, as well as a sample syllabus to use as a model.

Who will benefit?
This report will give you a wealth of ideas to improve your teaching and is written for new college instructors as well as experienced ones, including:

• New instructors
• Experienced instructors looking for new approaches
• Deans and department chairs supervising new faculty

Cost

You can download the PDF of this white paper, or get the print version mailed to you.

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A Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to load the white paper onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.

23 Practical Strategies to Help New Teachers Thrive is based on a presentation delivered by Ike A. Shibley, Jr., an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, a small, four-year college within the Penn State system. He teaches chemistry, philosophy of science, and bioethics classes, and he has won both local and university-wide awards for his teaching. His research involves pedagogical approaches to improving science instruction at the college level.

College teaching can be a long and rewarding career. This white paper will help you address the challenge of the classroom and remain effective and enthusiastic for years to come.

My colleague was writing about learner-centered, or student-centered, pedagogies that include a range of strategies that involve students in the learning process. There is ample evidence that these strategies not only effectively engage students, they change the quantity and quality of what students learn. But many faculty do not use these strategies, and my colleague thinks it’s because they believe these approaches lower standards, diminish rigor and encourage learning at a very superficial level.

During workshops, I hear a similar concern expressed. Faculty worry about strategies that “pander” to students, meaning the strategies make it too easy for students, don’t offer enough challenge, don’t develop rigorous intellectual skills. Example: you put students in a group and give them a set of probing discussion questions—opened-ended queries that expose a host of ideas for further exploration. In five minutes, they are done after what has to have been a very superficial discussion.

More effective group discussions
I seem to keep writing this, but I think that’s a design problem rather than an inherent indictment of students discussing content in groups. You could make that discussion activity more robust in a variety of ways. For example, the instructor could have students write down their answers and identify two or three passages in the reading that support their analysis. The groups would tackle different questions and then explain their question and answer to a second group, which then generates a follow-up question for the first group to discuss. The groups could then post their answers on a discussion board to which the teacher raises follow-up questions that are discussed electronically or the next time the group convenes.

It is absolutely true that the teacher can offer better answers to discussion questions than students can. At issue is whether students learn to answer discussion questions by listening to their teachers answers. I keep contending they may learn some but the real learning occurs when students participate in discussions and get feedback on their contributions.

Students object to the learner-centered strategies because they think they are having to do the teacher’s job. “Why should we sit around in groups trying to come up with examples when the teacher could just give us a list of good ones? Isn’t that the teacher’s job?” It’s much easier to copy examples than to generate them which means this approach can make students work more, not less. Of course, teachers also work more because they have to figure out how to get students to come up with good examples in a timely manner.

Benefits of rubrics
Let’s consider a second example: Rubrics. Lots of faculty eyebrows raise at the idea of essentially giving students the grading criteria for an assignment. “Doesn’t this fall into the category of telling students exactly what you want, thereby making it easier for them?” That depends on the rubric criteria.

If the criteria say that the paper should be 900 words long, with at least two primary sources correctly cited and no content from Wikipedia, those are decisions the students don’t have to make. But if the criteria specify that “an A paper will contain coherently constructed paragraphs that advance a position on the topic and support that position with evidence,” that tells students what they need to do, but it doesn’t make writing a carefully crafted paragraph any easier. The argument in favor of rubrics is that students aren’t spending time wondering about what they are supposed to do, they are spending time trying to do it … which is exactly where their efforts should be focused.

Rubrics really start to make sense when students are given a role in constructing them. From that process they learn assessment skills that will serve them well after college. Will students develop substantive rubrics the first time they try? Probably not, but again that’s a design issue. It makes sense to give them a teacher-generate rubric first, then have them apply a rubric to some writing samples, then maybe they co-construct a rubric with the teacher and finally they construct rubrics on their own.

My colleague pointed out that not much discussion of standards and learner-centered strategies has occurred. I agree and welcome you to continue this conversation.

Unfortunately, class sizes are increasing almost everywhere, and that means the number of faculty struggling with the challenges of large courses is growing, too. But if there’s a silver lining to that big, dark cloud of bad news it’s the increased coverage of the topic in the pedagogical literature. Let me highlight several good resources.

• The redesign of an introductory biology course, described by the authors as “problematic” and enrolling between 170-190 students, included the reordering of content, regular use of in-class group problem solving and some student-centered strategies like a revised approach to quizzing. “Our positive results illustrate how changing the instructional design of a course, without wholesale changes to course content, can lead to improved student attitudes and performance.”

  Armbruster, P., Patel, M., Johnson, E., and Weiss, M. (2009). Active learning and student-centered pedagogy improve student attitudes and performance in introductory biology. Cell Biology Education, 8 (Fall), 203-213.

• Problem-Based Learning, Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning and Peer-Led Team Learning are three group models developed on the science side of the academic house but are now used in many disciplines. This article describes each, and identifies relevant resources and references research on their efficacy. The models are adaptable and offer a range of ways of engaging students with each other in substantive learning activities.

  Eberlein, T., Kampmeier, J., Minderhout, V., Moog, R. S., Platt, T., Varma-Nelson, P., and White, H. G. (2008) Pedagogies of engagement in science: A comparison of PBL, POGIL, and PLTL.” Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 36 (4), 262-273.

Here’s a couple of excellent books:

• Stanley and Porter’s book is a classic and one that anyone who teaches a large class ought to own. It’s an anthology with an opening section that addresses all the issues involved in planning, delivering and assessing learning in a large class. It even includes a readable summary of the research. Would it surprise you to learn that one of the earliest studies of college teaching was an analysis of the effects of class size on learning? The second section contains chapters written by faculty in 17 different disciplines, all with large courses. They offer a wealth of ideas and information.

  Stanley, C. A. and Porter, M. E. (2002). Engaging Large Classes: Strategies and Techniques for College Faculty.

• Heppner’s book also addresses a variety of issues, contains practical advice and a range of alternatives to lecturing. He offers wisdom accumulated across 38 years of teaching large classes.

  Heppner, F. (2007). Teaching Large College Classes: A Guidebook for Instructors with Multitudes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Regular readers of this blog and The Teaching Professor newsletter know that I frequently direct faculty to reading in disciplines other than their own because I believe many instructional strategies are transferrable. The best way to decide if you think that’s true is by taking a look some of these resources. In this case I’d even propose that most of these large course strategies are great ideas for smaller classes as well.

Now, do the strategies need to be adapted so that they work with the kind of content you teach, with the peculiarities of your teaching style and the learning needs of your students? Absolutely! But what faculty who teach large classes often don’t have are ideas and the literature contains a plethora of them—the effectiveness of many verified by research. The tip of the iceberg described here is supported by a huge collection of ideas and information not mentioned here.

I encourage you to use the comment box to share your best ideas and favorite references for teaching large classes.

Despite this large database, researchers continue to explore this issue and, surprisingly, find new groups to ask and new ways to analyze the results. Even more amazing is how much overlap and consistency there is across these many studies, and the study we’re about to highlight here is no exception. The researchers studied a group of 35 faculty members who had received a Presidential Teaching Award at a public university in the Midwest. To be considered for the award, teachers had to write a 1,500-word essay describing their teaching philosophies and teaching goals. Using a qualitative methodology (hermeneutics), researchers analyzed these statements with the goal of identifying the factors that made these teachers successful. The researchers found four categories of comments characteristic of all these award-winning teachers.

1. Presence – “The term presence for this study is defined as a deeper level of awareness that allows thoughts, feelings, and actions to be known, developed, and harmonized within. Presence is also the essence of a relationship and of interpersonal communication.” (p. 13) Illustrating this particular category were comments in the essays indicating how important it is for teachers to get to know their students. “The classroom should not be a sea of faceless forms,” writes one teacher. (p. 13) Another frequent theme in this category related to the importance of caring for students. “By caring for my students, I mean that I am genuinely interested in my students’ learning and understanding the course material, and in making a significant contribution to the success of their careers.” (p. 14)

2. Promotion of learning – These teachers also wrote of the importance of student learning and their roles in promoting it. They held their students and themselves to high standards, seeing students’ work in their courses and programs as preparation for lifelong learning. They also wrote of the need for students to do more than just memorize material. “Mere possession of scientific knowledge without the ability to apply it is of limited value in nursing practice,” wrote one nurse educator. (p. 14) Equally important was their shared view that promoting learning goes beyond content acquisition. Education is also about personal development, and teachers have a role in promoting that kind of learning as well.

3. Teachers as learners – These exemplary teachers described themselves as learners, each making it a priority to keep their teaching current. “As teachers, we must continue to re-engineer our curriculum, experiment with new and different methods of delivering course content, and bring emerging technologies into our classrooms.” (p. 15) These teachers valued opportunities to revise course content, to teach new courses, and to work on degree-program curricula.

4. Enthusiasm – “Effective teaching presupposes a command of the material and facility in communicating it with clarity, grace, fairness, and humor. But most of all it supposes enthusiasm.” (p. 15) This enthusiasm starts with a love of the content, but it goes beyond that and includes a genuine love of teaching and a passion for students and their learning. “I am also concerned that my students develop a passion for learning that goes on well after the course has ended.” (p. 15)

In their conclusion, these researchers note that “there is no formula for successful teaching. Each professor is unique and has an individual educational philosophy and teaching goals.” (p. 16) Even so, good teachers share common commitments and characteristics—they do in this study and have done so in many others as well.

Reference: Rossett, J. and Fox, P. G. (2009). Factors related to successful teaching by outstanding professors: An interpretive study. Journal of Nursing Education, 48 (1), 11-16.

Excerpted from “Qualities of Successful Teaching.” The Teaching Professor, 24.1 (2010): 6.

Here’s how the groups have been used in 10 sections of courses that enroll between 60 and 150 students: During the first week of the course, students are randomly placed into small discussion groups with five to 10 other students. Throughout the semester, each group will work on four to six problem-based learning (PBL) cases. Like all good PBL cases, the ones used in this research present intriguing but ill-defined problems. They cannot be solved without students finding more information.

The example included in the article describes the “suspicious” death of a professor who may have been a victim of foul play or may have succumbed to an undiagnosed metabolic problem. Students work on each case for about two to three weeks. Online, in their groups, they propose hypotheses about what’s happened, and they may request data from the instructor or pull information from texts. While students are working on each case, they are assigned readings that contain relevant information, and they hear material in class presentations that is also pertinent. However, the solution is not provided in the texts or in class. To prevent groups from sharing solutions with each other (across semesters or within them), faculty use similar cases but with different data and solutions.

What’s most interesting and useful about the approach described in the article is the method these authors have developed for assessing student work in these groups. Performance in the case discussion counts for between 10 percent and 15 percent of the course grade. The scientific content of each student’s posting is given a numerical rating from one to 10. The rubric used to make these determinations is included in the article.

Typically, individual scores start out low, but as students acquire information, start asking the right questions, and get the data they need, they are able to hone their postings and the point totals start to rise. The highest contribution score achieved within the group as a whole becomes the final group grade. Individual student grades are assigned relative to the group grade, based on both participation and quality of individual contributions. The grading mechanism is explained in detail on pp. 255-256 of the article, including how much time is involved and how senior students can be trained to help with the grading.

The grading system allows faculty to track the problem-solving abilities of students throughout the course and sometimes even two courses (as two of these courses were part of a sequence). They found that this activity did improve the problem-solving abilities of many students, although they also found a group of students who consistently applied the same ineffective strategies. Those students did not improve without faculty intervention. The beauty of the approach, though, is that it allows faculty to work with those students who most need help.

Generally, students responded to this activity positively. Sixty percent found that the case studies helped them understand biochemical concepts and that the experience of working with other students was enjoyable. About 10 percent of the students responded negatively to the experience. “By far the most common negative comment was that students did not trust their peers to contribute correct biochemistry content.” (p. 258) The solutions students developed to the problems showed that this fear was unfounded.

The authors see two main benefits with this approach. First, it provides students “with a forum to discuss and apply their biochemistry learning.” (p. 261) Opportunities like this are not often a part of large courses. Second, the activity gives instructors the opportunity to analyze individual students’ problem-solving strategies. “The data obtained in the online discussions allow a far more precise and constructive method of student assessment than is possible in the face-to-face setting.” (p. 261)

Reference: Anderson, W. L., Mitchell, S. M., and Osgood, M. P. (2008). Gauging the gaps in student problem-solving skills: Assessing individual and group use of problem-solving strategies using online discussions. Cell Biology Education, 7, Summer, 254-262.

Excerpted from “Developing Problem-Solving Skills via Online Discussions.” The Teaching Professor, 23.10 (2009): 6.

Here’s how the activity works. After students have finished the exam, but before submitting it, they complete a short post-test analysis questionnaire—you may need to state that you won’t accept the exam unless the analysis sheet is attached. Barkley suggests having students respond to items such as:

• Predict your exam score.
• Rate your effort in studying for the exam on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest).
• List the specific learning strategies you used to study for the exam (Did you make flash cards to help you memorize definitions? Rewrite your notes? Create outlines of assigned readings? Discuss the readings with other students?).
• Identify what you found easiest and most difficult about the exam and explain why.

After the exam has been graded and returned, students do a second analysis—you might want to not record the exam scores until students complete the second analysis, or you might want to offer some bonus points to those students who complete both analyses thoughtfully and carefully. Here are some of the suggested items for this second analysis:

• Describe your emotional response to your exam score (Surprised? Disappointed? Relieved? Pleased?).
• Compare your actual score with your predicted score and comment on how well or poorly you predicted your score.
• Identify where each question came from (in-class material, book material, online resources) and then calculate the percentage of questions missed in each of the categories. What do these percentages tell you?
• Reflect on the strategies you used for studying for this exam and the amount of time you devoted to study. Describe any changes you plan to make in your approach to studying for the next exam.
• Do you have any suggestions for how I or your classmates could help you better prepare for the next exam?
• Based on your performance on this exam, set one goal for the next exam. Make the goal specific and concrete (e.g., “I plan to get at least 75 percent of the questions from the reading materials correct.”).

An activity like this is most beneficial if it’s completed early in the course so that students can act on what they have learned. Although the advantages of such an activity may be perfectly obvious to the teacher, don’t assume that students will automatically see the value of this kind of analysis. Introduce the activity with a discussion of things students can do to improve their exam performance in this (and other) course(s). If students do the activity for more than one exam, you might want to add an item that has them track their performance across the exams, asking to what they attribute their improvement (or lack thereof).

Reference: Barkley, E. F. Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009, 336-339.

Excerpted from “Using Post-Test Analysis to Help Students See Correlation Between Effort and Performance.” The Teaching Professor, 23.10 (2009): 1.

Since being uploaded to YouTube in Oct 2007 it’s been viewed more than 4 million times. Even if you’ve already viewed it, it’s worth a second look. It describes some of the most important characteristics of students today, as told from the student perspective.

Editor’s update: A second video we planned to include in this post has been removed from YouTube. Our apologies.

In the seminar 23 Practical Strategies to Help New Faculty Thrive, Ike Shibley, PhD, an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, talked about the importance of creating your own ‘teaching self’ that’s grounded in key best practices and teaching philosophies. It’s something that most beginning instructors get very little training on, if any.

“Unfortunately most of our graduate education is centered around this concept that if you know the content you can teach,” Shibley says. “That’s disappointing because the content, while critically important, really falls flat on its face if all you’re doing is sharing the content in a didactic fashion.”

During the seminar Shibley provided a comprehensive blueprint for instructors — from preparing the course syllabus and writing learning goals … to making effective use of class time and adopting efficient and effective grading strategies … to finding a work/life balance.

Here are four of the 23 strategies he shared:

1. Create multiple grading opportunities: Students have different ways of expressing their learning, and appreciate it when instructors offer a variety of grading opportunities rather than having their grade determined solely on a midterm and final exam. Shibley recommends a mix of high-stakes grading, such as exams, term papers and group presentations, and low-stakes grading such as participation, short writing assignments and quizzes.

2. Introduce and summarize: Most television series start each week’s episode with a recap of what happened the previous week. It’s a good strategy for faculty as well, and can help refocus students’ attention and get them ready to learn. Using minute papers is a good way to get students involved in the exercise, Shibley says.

3. Incorporate technology: When it comes to technology, each person has a different comfort level. But whether you’re an early-adopter who relishes in the opportunity to innovate with the latest tools or someone who takes a more cautious approach, incorporating technology into your teaching is an important aspect to engaging today’s students, and can improve your efficiency.

4. Find a mentor: Oftentimes, new faculty are assigned a mentor based on office proximity as much as anything else, but a mentor doesn’t even have to teach in the same discipline as you. While it’s good to have someone nearby to help you with some of the tactical issues, Shibley recommends finding a mentor who is truly interested in playing an active role in your development as a teacher, and will share teaching tips, reading lists and serve as an advisor and sounding board.

Finally, while the seminar was geared toward new faculty, Shibley talked about the importance of removing the stigma that can be associated with faculty development.

“Unfortunately, faculty development usually means remediation,” he says. “If you’re a good teacher, no one recommends you work with a faculty developer. If you’re getting good ratings, no one seems to think that you need to practice. This, in a big way, is a myth. I have yet to have a single class period go perfectly, let alone an entire course. Every day there are things to improve in big and little ways. Professional athletes practice, and professional teachers need to practice also.”

My solution: sneak study skills into your class along with the content.

Course structure:

• Select a textbook that has learning aids (study guides, online materials, and/or audio files) and encourage your students to use them.
• Craft your syllabus carefully. By setting the right tone, you can motivate students.
• Design clear, meaningful assignments that enable students to accomplish course objectives.
• Space the workload out evenly throughout the semester.
• If students don’t master an assignment the first time, give them constructive feedback, and the chance to redo it. You may not want to do this for every assignment, but doing it for one early in the course "sets the bar" and encourages them to do quality work.

The first week:

• If your class is small, set up interviews with students individually or in pairs to find out why they’re taking the course and what they want to get out of it. Not only will you learn about who’s in the class, but you’ll increase students’ commitment to work hard and communicate with you. If the class is large, use email to collect information about students and to establish connections.
• Talk to students about how to study for your course. Give them a list of study techniques recommended by students who’ve taken the course and earned A’s.
• Early in the course, have students use their textbooks in class. By using class time, you acknowledge the book’s value. If you can’t afford class time, have students do a homework assignment that they can’t complete without using the book.
• Offer students time management suggestions. Let them know approximately how much time they should spend on the course each week. Talk about how daily study keeps the information fresh and helps avoid cramming. Show how longer assignments can be broken into small pieces.

Techniques for teaching:

• Start class with something that gets their attention and then quickly review what was covered in the previous class.
• Show students "tricks of the trade," or how you learned the material. Talk aloud when you solve a problem. Show students what you do when you get stuck.
• Provide a partial outline and have your students fill in the missing material during the lecture.
• Leave five minutes at the end of each class for students to check their notes with those of their neighbor, review major ideas, and indicate what they thought was important and why.

Testing tips:

• Assign study groups prior to the first exam, have them exchange contact information, and require a one-hour study session outside of class. Help them be more productive by providing a study guide and/or sample test questions they can submit for bonus points.
• Give students frequent tests and constructive feedback throughout the course.
• Give a practice test before the actual exam so students get a feel for the types of questions you ask. If you use essay questions, share an example of an A, C, and F answer.
• Take class time to go over the first exam. Talk in detail about the questions most often missed.
• Have students analyze the first exam, or quiz, by writing you a memo that responds to questions like these: Was it harder than expected? Were any of the questions a complete surprise? If so, which ones? Were there any questions you didn’t understand or found confusing? If so, rewrite them using your own words. What one change are you going to make when studying for the next quiz? What study strategy did you use that worked well?

These simple strategies teach students learning skills that will make them better students in every course.

Excerpted from “Teaching Strategies That Help Students Learn,” The Teaching Professor, 23.7 (2009): 1,8.

Sara J. Coffman, Center for Instructional Excellence, Purdue University.

To help our students, we need to directly ask for academic risk-taking behavior (e.g. asking questions, dwelling in uncertainty, and advancing untried hypotheses) and identify it whenever we ask for it, so students know we perceive and value the challenges they face. Here are some strategies to try in class.

Model risk-taking moves: I sometimes ask my students to take a safe proposition (“College basketball harms some athletes”) and move it “out on a limb” in stages: What would be a riskier, less-believable statement? What would seem even loopier? What would be entirely out of bounds? Having stretched to the point of sheer mania (“College basketball is destroying American families”), students can step back a notch but still consider an interesting, difficult problem (“College basketball recruiters shouldn’t make high-pressure pitches”). Showing students examples of valuable risk-taking helps them move beyond a standardized-exam mind-set. Having students play with complex issues can help them develop risk-taking muscles.

Use peer-based learning: Students are more willing to reveal uncertainty and try out risky ideas with a few peers than in a full class. Faculty using Think-Pair-Share (T-P-S) exercises take advantage of this notion: they pose a question, allow a minute for individual quiet thought and a minute to discuss possible answers with a peer, and then ask for shared answers. Matching T-P-S or another peer-group exercise with a deliberately, overtly risky request—addressing a tricky problem-set, questioning a commonsense conclusion, suggesting alternate solutions—can increase both student interaction and risk-taking behavior.

Create low thresholds and allow soft openings: Not all students have the same level of risk tolerance. We can scaffold risk-taking behavior, beginning with risks most students can participate in (brainstorming questions) before we move to more complex tasks (proposing solutions). Students also need space in which to perform as risk takers. When some restaurants first open, they welcome a few guests but don’t advertise widely; staff can work out the kinks before scheduling the grand opening. Having students share working drafts, give mini-presentations of an in-progress project, or complete practice exams in groups presents an opportunity for risky performance. When we actively encourage, model, and support risk-taking actions at these stages, we help students take full advantage of the moment.

Reward academic risk-taking: If I engage students in T-P-S with a risky enterprise and then dismiss some of the shared answers as not worthy of discussion or I severely downgrade an essay draft because of grammatical or organizational errors, I send mixed messages: take risks, but don’t screw up. Many students will decide that it’s better to be safe and right than risky and wrong.

It’s true that on exams and major essays we cannot allow errors to earn full credit. However, we should remember that Olympic divers and skaters earn higher scores for imperfectly performed difficult moves than perfectly performed easy moves. I can create a line in my grading rubric, a section of an exam, a reflective assignment component, or a statement about partial credit that shows students how I will reward particular kinds of risk taking even if the final product is imperfect.

Risk taking and right-answer achieving can appear to be contradictory goals for students in our classrooms. When the correctness stakes are high and no other criteria are visible, everyone plays it safe. If we want our students to take risks, we need to create classrooms in which, at least in some designated zones, risk taking is more visible, accessible, and desirable than the alternatives.

Dr. E. Shelley Reid is an assistant professor and director of composition in the English department at George Mason University.

Excerpted from “Teaching Risk-Taking in College Classrooms.” The Teaching Professor, 23.8 (2009): 3.

When I decided as a second career (or third, depending on how you look at it), that I wanted to teach at the postsecondary level, the first step was to enroll in a doctoral program. Because the field I teach encompasses several disciplines, I chose an education program to pursue. Over the two-plus years of classes, tests, papers, presentations and the final dissertation, I learned much about myself as a student that has transferred to my teaching of adult students.

Here are just a few of the things I like to keep in mind as I teach:

Be organized. As a student I rarely appreciated an instructor who was disorganized, didn’t meet deadlines, or who rambled during a lecture while appearing completely unprepared. If you want me to meet deadlines, then meet yours as an instructor, too. If you say you will respond by e-mail within 24 or 48 hours, do so. If you promise to have papers back within a week or two, then you need to meet that deadline. And, well, if you aren’t prepared, then say so because my time is valuable too and I can spend it working on something else. As an instructor, I try to follow this to an extreme, because I remember how valuable timely feedback and responses were to making feel that the professor was concerned about my learning.

Your experiences are interesting, to a point … Many of us are hired because of our background and history in business and industry, our prowess in a subject, or just our general sparkling personality. However, if you ask me as a student to read three chapters and do preparatory work for a class, I am not entirely thrilled to sit and listen to one, two or three hours of your experiences, your political opinions, or your problems with university administration. Ah yes, you can be the sage on the stage, after all that is what you are getting paid for, isn’t it? But limit your rambling to that which is relevant to the class. Otherwise, as an adult learner, my mind will soon be on what I need to pick up at the grocery store on the way home and why the heck I paid so much for this class. I use this philosophy to keep classes on task, and sprinkle in my experience sparingly.

Make it clear. Both students and instructors routinely dread the first test, paper, or quiz of the semester, primarily because we are still getting used to each other. As a student, I always wondered if a professor would appreciate my writing style, whether I studied the right things for the test or quiz, and how this would start my semester. That’s why I love rubrics and checklists! Come whatever, I felt like as a learner, that I had control over my learning, and that I wasn’t writing some paper that would be so far off the mark that I would never dig my way out of that hole. Studying for tests became more organized with checklists and the chances of using my time wisely and well were generally rewarded.

I do the same favor for my students. I post rubrics for everything – discussions, short papers, term papers and projects. Are they fun to put together? Not necessarily. But as an instructor, it forces me to think long and hard about my definition of exceptional, good, fair and poor. It gives me a more standardized tool to give back to the students rather than just a paper covered in red. It takes time in the beginning, but as rubrics are refined and tightened, it makes grading those large amounts of paper on the same topic infinitely more enjoyable.

Life does get in the way. We all set assignment dates, hoping against hope that we will have some breathing room between the classes to grade all those assignments and papers. It is the closest thing to control that we have as instructors during a semester to make sure the learning goes forward. However, I learned early and hard two weeks into my doctoral program when I broke my ankle and couldn’t drive to my classes that you can’t plan everything. Students (especially adult learners) have jobs, kids, families, cars, bills, illnesses and all the detritus of life that gets in the way. It doesn’t hurt to give a little, especially early in the semester. A little leeway earns a lot of student loyalty. However, students can and will take advantage, so set your own limits.

Talk to me. I encourage students to talk to me throughout the semester, whether I am their primary advisor or not. The reasons are explained in the previous section. Disappearing into the twilight and not making yourself available to your students can lead to student retention problems. So, dear students, please talk to me. I may not like what you say, but if you just disappear, or get frustrated and leave, I can’t help you. I had several professors that had that policy, and while I tried not to abuse their open door, ear, and telephone, it certainly sustained me during those days when I wondered why I was even trying.

It’s about learning…not teaching. I came in with the grandest of notions to the teaching profession … opening minds, inspiring the next generation, spreading my love of learning, etc. What I found is this profession is not about me, my ego, or my knowledge. This profession that we have chosen is about learning and how we can help our students be successful. I really don’t care if every student in my class gets an A and sometimes I am thoroughly disappointed to have to give anything else. Grades are a measure like anything else, and if my students are learning, then I am successful.

That’s it in a nutshell. My experience as a student taught me that taking classes to get the degree is the goal of some students. But, I try to instill the fact that this stuff is important to your future, you need to learn it, and I can’t be there two, five or ten years down the road to hold your hand. You, the student, have to learn it and take responsibility for the learning. You are certainly paying enough for it. I am here to guide you down that road and keep you moving. I hope to be here doing just that for a long time.

Vickie A. Kelly, EdD, is the program director and assistant professor of technology administration at Washburn University.

Word sort is a strategy that helps students learn and better remember new vocabulary. Students work in small groups, with each group given an envelope containing key terms on separate slips of paper. Students are instructed to discuss what they think the words mean and then organize them into different categories based on what they think the relationships among the words might be. The strategy was developed for use in science courses, where terms have more precise meanings and fit more readily into categories. Students do this initial sort before reading about the terms or hearing them defined and discussed in lecture. After exposure to the words in the text or lecture, students get back into their groups and re-sort the words, comparing their new arrangements with the ones they first constructed.

A lot of iterations of the basic strategy can be used. For example, individual students can be given the collection of terms and told to define and relate them after having done the reading as a homework assignment. Before turning their work in for some modest number of points, students might share with other students in a small group what they’ve done. Or the instructor might use a particularly good categorization in a final review of the material or position that chunk of content with what’s to be learned next.

As might be expected, some students (in this article it was a small group) object to the approach. These are the students who think that the instructor should just tell them the definitions and their relationships. Having to figure it out for themselves means that the students are doing the work the teacher should be doing. What these students fail to understand is that the process of discussing—saying the words aloud and using them in sentences—makes the words more familiar and therefore easier to remember. Exploring how the words relate to each other means that the students are building a framework that puts the words in context, also making the words easier to remember in both the short and long terms.

If students work with the terms and their relationships before being given their definitions and relationships, they are forced to draw on their prior knowledge and experience. Students discover that they often do know something about the terms and their relationships, and teachers need to include more activities in courses that challenge students to draw on their prior knowledge. Students do not arrive in college courses as blank slates—they have taken (in this case) science courses previously. That tasks like these challenge students is a good thing. Students benefit when they are put in situations where figuring out answers is up to them.

Reference: Nixon, S. and Fishback, J. (2009). Enhancing comprehension and retention of vocabulary concepts through small-group discussion: Probing for connections among key terms. Journal of College Science Teaching, May/June, 18-21.

Reprinted from Word Sort: An Active Learning, Critical-Thinking Strategy, The Teaching Professor, vol. 23, no. 10, pg. 4.

In the age of Google, answers are only a click away. Soon I was poking through a confusing array of 234,000 options. During the last 30 years, scaffolding has at one time or another referred to any and all teaching activities: modeling, assessing, questioning, monitoring, and prompting as well as baby talk, software, textbooks, problems, analogies, and plain old encouraging words. It can refer to physical objects like computers and calculators or cultural objects like language and tradition. It is a noun referring to material and symbolic structures. It is a verb referring to transient actions.

Meaning anything that might help someone learn, the term seems to be another way of gassing up the folkways of teaching so that they sound profound. Researchers use it to discuss what teachers do when focused on learners. Acclaimed as “one of the most recommended, versatile, and powerful instructional techniques,” it supposedly prompts teachers to get out of the way.

So what did the peer reviewer mean when he told my colleague to “provide more scaffolding”? Probably the reviewer thinks my colleague’s students need more help. What kind of help? The help that helps them learn. How much more? As much help as helps them learn more. With this language, experts (and peer reviewers) can say something erudite about any classroom practice without offering much in the way of help. Can we do any better?

Alternatives to the scaffolding metaphor
Sometimes good metaphors further understanding. Such figures of speech can help us see familiar aspects in something new or see something familiar in a new light. The scaffolding metaphor doesn’t do either. It functions more like a crock of oatmeal (to use a metaphor) covering and congealing what instructors do.

So how might scaffolding as an object relate to teaching? It can refer to efforts to prop up a learner or to create a situation in which a learner can do something. Accordingly, instruction can prevent failure or enable learning. Either teaching is a set of protective activities that eliminate mistakes and reduce frustration or it is what an instructor designs to allow learners to perform beyond their normal capacity. In our hearts we would like our teaching to do both.

But the point of teaching cannot be to eliminate or even reduce the likelihood of failure. To eliminate failure throttles the learner. For the student does the learning. The student must be free to think and act and, in so doing, err—and recover. That is the cost of learning. To prescribe that teachers enable learning is a tautology. Of course that is what we want to do—the question we beg is: “How?”

How do you help without promoting helplessness? How do you challenge without promoting defeat? How do you induce learning by doing without scarring those who cannot do? These questions need research and discussion that take a fresh perspective and vocabulary that helps us name the crucial activities. What we don’t need are more names for our ignorance that don’t clarify our practice.

Are there any good metaphors out there to help us describe, discuss, and conduct research on these issues? More likely they are to be found in other learning situations. To start, here are two: the training wheels we put on bicycles to enable youngsters to learn balance and the T-ball pedestal that allows six-year-olds to play baseball. Each device works by restricting and focusing the teacher’s role while expanding the learner’s opportunities. Both offer new and more fruitful ways of looking at learning designs and teaching practices. Both allow us to escape the scaffolding that now prevents further construction of understanding.

Larry D. Spence, PhD is the director of Undergraduate Learning Initiatives in the School of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University.

Excerpted from A Critique of Scaffolding, The Teaching Professor, volume 23, number 5.

Familiarizing students with basic terms such as “fixed” and “variable costs,” or “product” and “period costs,” can be challenging. The textbook my institution uses is well organized. It starts with the basics and eventually progresses to the complex process of making business decisions. However, my students work on learning the material chapter by chapter. When they must analyze in-depth questions, they have difficulty knowing which tools to use and why, even though these tools have already been covered in the text. To help with this problem, this year I recommended that students prepare a reference sheet containing the concepts, how to use them, and what information they revealed. Not a single student took my advice.

I needed a way to help students take the concepts out of the chapters so that they could be applied to subsequent material so I adapted an approach I learned at a leadership conference. Here’s how it works:

With each concept introduced, the students get an index card. I write the basic concept on the board and how it behaves or what it is, and then I provide an example. For instance, for break-even analysis, the students write down the formulas, how to calculate the individual components of the formula, how to achieve the sales dollars given the units and vice versa, and what “break even” means. Students keep these cards; they may refer to them when I offer illustrations from the chapter and use them for study outside of class.

Students end up with eight to 10 cards by the end of the course. The cards divorce the ideas from the individual chapters and thereby enable students to apply the concepts to more complex business decisions. For example, when deciding if the company should discontinue a seemingly unprofitable segment, students can look at the cards from the early chapters in which basic concepts like fixed costs are defined and explained, and use this knowledge to decide which costs should be considered in making this particular decision.

Moving beyond ‘chapter learning’
I’m enjoying teaching the course more because during the later half of the course, the students’ knowledge is much stronger. They analyze the choices involved in a particular business decision faster and they start to ask questions about issues beyond the basic course content. This tells me they comprehend the decision and are beginning to see it in a larger context.

Are my students’ grades higher? Do I have fewer students failing the course? The first time I tried the approach, grades in the course pretty much stayed the same. However, fewer students failed the course. Normally that percentage ran between 10 and 12. When I used the index cards, only two of the 55 students enrolled in the course failed. The second time, my class average grade rose to an incredible 82 percent and no one failed the course.

Am I doing too much to help them learn? Was the last class just more intelligent than previous ones? I’ll have to do further research to answer that question definitively, but for the time being I’m going to carry on. Any technique that helps students apply concepts beyond the chapter in which they’re presented seems like an approach worth continuing.

Karen Lightstone, PhD is an assistant professor at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Excerpted from Student Success Is in the Cards … Or Is It?, August -September, 2008, The Teaching Professor.

Think it only happens to you? Think again.

In the recent online video seminar, Strategies for Teaching What You Just Learned, Therese Huston, PhD. shared strategies to help instructors effectively teach course material that’s new and unfamiliar to them. Huston, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Seattle University, began studying the seemingly taboo topic for her 2009 book, Teaching What You Don’t Know, and discovered that more and more educators are being asked to teach unfamiliar content.

In some cases, it’s a course in a constantly changing field, other times budget cuts are forcing faculty into uncharted territory. But whatever the reason, it makes for a challenging semester for even the most experienced professors.

To help ease the anxiety some faculty feel when teaching outside their area of expertise, Huston recommends finding a mentor to confide in and tapping into campus resources, such as the library or Center for Teaching and Learning. It also can bring some measure of comfort and control to start the course from a place of knowledge and build from there, and to use assignments similar to those that have proven effective in the past.

When determining what to teach, Huston says it’s important to think about what you really want your students to learn and prioritize course content into three categories: must know, should know, and could know. This helps to not only bring more focus to the course, but also can keep you from falling into the trap of trying to consume everything you can about the new topic and then regurgitate it back to your students.

“By focusing on the big questions and what you want your students to know, you won’t get overwhelmed by all the little details you don’t know,” Huston says.

Although there will be times when students ask questions you can’t answer, it’s important that you don’t try to fake it. Suitable responses include:

• Great question. No one has ever asked me that.
• I believe the literature is mixed….
• To be honest, I haven’t read that literature.
• I’m not sure of the answer, and I don’t want to lead you astray. Let me think about it.
• That’s a very precise question that deserves a precise answer. Can I get back to you?

“It’s OK to give an educated guess, but call it that,” says Huston. “It’s more important to create a learning environment where students are inspired to ask great questions than one where they think you are perfect.”

We teach students to assess the communication context and adapt their messages to respond to the audience’s needs and desires. But how often do we fail to do that same thing with our teaching? If we are honest with ourselves, I believe the answer is “far too often.”

Here are five principles I try to reclaim when I feel myself slipping into that dark night where even my best efforts are revealed as ineffective and the only remedy is a candid self-assessment.

1. Practice what you preach. Students can smell a rat from the next building, so if I am insisting upon audience awareness as a basic tenet of effective communication, I’d better be showing as well as telling them how to do it. Think about it this way: how am I demonstrating audience awareness if I never deviate from the lesson plan I prepared five, 10, or even 15 years ago? How am I modeling flexibility of thought and expression if I insist upon using the same lecture notes, overhead transparencies, or PowerPoint slides even when it’s clear I have lost my audience? Are you finding it hard to connect with your students? Practice what you preach: sharpen your audience awareness and adapt accordingly.

2. Remember that “adaptive” is not a synonym for “easier.” While teachers can discuss their assignments and exercises with a level of conviction that borders on the religious, suggest experimenting with something new, something that shifts the paradigm from teaching to learning, and you’re likely to experience the academic equivalent of a smack-down, cloaked in the polarizing rhetoric of “rigor” versus “dumbing down” the curriculum. Change is inherently neutral. Adaptive change is good. Just ask the dodo. Wait, the dodo is extinct. Precisely.

3. Reflect upon the meaning of the verb “to educate,” which comes from the Latin educere, “to draw forth.” We cannot “draw forth” a student’s interest, awareness, and ability if we never leave our egocentric elevation on center stage. Drawing forth suggests a reaching in and a pulling out, a teacher-initiated effort to meet the student where he or she is and move forward together. It implies an other-orientation, a willingness to set our own comfort aside and risk entering the student’s cerebral territory—however unsettling that prospect may be.

4. Put yourself back in their shoes. Do we recall how frustrating it can be to know what you want to say but find it hard to say it effectively? Were we born knowing how to develop a solid thesis statement and at least x-number of strong supporting points? Humility is an underutilized virtue. Plenty of bright people in this world could not identify the “best” thesis statement from a list of possibilities. It’s helpful to reflect upon that from time to time.

5. Try and try again. We have all heard colleagues wax eloquent about students’ inability to translate knowledge from one context to another—for example, to think about something they learned in an economics class while reading an assignment for an English class. Are we guilty of the same silo mentality? I wonder. If we only view “revision” as a topic related to writing, then we are missing the point in a serious way. Revision is a life skill. The point is that experimenting with new instructional strategies is going to be at best a series of educated guesses. Know when to cut your losses and move on to the next method. The more you try, the more likely you are to succeed now and then. And when we succeed, our students succeed.

Kim Taylor, PhD is an instructor at Trident Technical College, SC.

Excerpted from Talking the Talk, but Not Walking the Walk: A Meditation on Irony, May 2008, The Teaching Professor.

Over the years my approach has changed. I started making progress once I realized that a brain alone was not enough. To teach well I also needed a heart and courage. I learned to be comfortable just being myself. I no longer used the podium and came to class with a one-page plan. I lectured less and students talked more. I invested more of myself in teaching. Let me share how I reached this point.

As I’ve developed as teacher, my attention shifted from self to students. Although this is a natural progression for teachers, it is not automatic. Some teachers remain the focal point of the learning process. This transfer of focus has been the impetus for changing how I teach. In planning for classes now, I continually ask how I can get students out of the stands and onto the field. This means I design simulations to highlight important information and processes, create games to explain content, and use small-group activities to engage students. I want my students to grasp concepts, and being in an active role helps them do that.

Placing students in the center of the teaching-learning environment requires that teachers have a different attitude and a new way of relating to students. Effective teachers are comfortable with both the cognitive and affective dimensions of teaching. Achieving more genuine relationships means being available to students, being glad to be in class with them, sharing with them what’s happening in our lives that is relevant, and investing the time it takes to prepare meaningful activities.

As a college teacher, I see my role as one of enabling others to become their best. I have come to realize that it is not so much what students know as what they can do. Likewise, teaching is not about what I know but what I enable others to do. Thus, I have changed the ways in which I teach to build students’ capacities. The critical question now is: “How can students show their understanding?” Finding ways to allow such student demonstrations influences my choice of course activities and assessments.

Finally, I want students to know that I reflect on what I do. I respond to their feedback; I talk about my mistakes in teaching. I agree with Parker Palmer when he says that “…teaching is a daily exercise in vulnerability.” Because of this personal exposure, teaching demands courage and honesty. It is vital to view the process of teaching as a developmental journey and to share the belief that we have not “arrived” in the practice of our craft. In this way we present ourselves as more approachable; our arrogance (perceived or real) thus declines. Students become more accepting of us.

One’s transformation as a teacher should not be a one-time event but a continual process that spans the career. Focusing on students, building their capabilities, and examining our own practice can transform our teaching and students’ learning. The evolving nature of becoming a teacher definitely makes the journey more enjoyable.

Patricia H. Phelps, EdD, is a professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Arkansas.

Excerpted from Teaching Transformation, December 2008, The Teaching Professor.

Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom

Think back to your first few years of teaching. If you’re like most educators, you probably made your share of mistakes. Maybe you were too strict … or not strict enough. Perhaps you were so absorbed delivering your course content that you didn’t realize half the class was completely lost. Or maybe you made assumptions about your students that later proved to be false. You’re not alone.

Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom features 15 reflective essays from instructors who were generous enough to share their early-career missteps in hopes that others can learn from their mistakes.

Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom

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When Faculty Focus put out a call for articles for this special report on teaching mistakes, we really didn’t know what to expect. Would faculty be willing to share their mistakes for all to see? Would the articles all talk about the same common mistakes, or would the range of mistakes discussed truly reflect the complexities of teaching today?

We were delighted at the response, not only in terms of the number of instructors willing to share their stories with our readers, but by the variety of mistakes and lessons learned. For example, in “You Like Me, You Really Like Me. When Kindness Becomes a Weakness,” Jolene Cunningham writes of her discovery that doing everything you can for your students is not always the best policy.

In “If I Tell Them, They Will Learn,” Nancy Doiron-Maillet writes about her realization that it’s not enough to provide information to students if they don’t have opportunities to then apply what you are trying to teach them.

Other articles in Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom include:

• When Expectations Collide
• Things My First Unhappy Student Taught Me
• Understanding My Role as Facilitator
• Don’t Assume a Student’s Previous Knowledge
• Establishing Credibility with Students: It Doesn’t Happen Automatically
• Teaching Mistakes: Four Lessons for Beginning Instructors
• What Works in One Culture May Not Work in Another
• Disaster at the Casino: Betting on Subject Matter Expertise to Win Over Adult Students
• On a Frustrating Day or in a Troubled Class, Remember We All Make a Difference
• Neglecting to Cultivate a Research-Based Teaching Practice
• Becoming Aware of the Instructional Value of Student Writing Samples
• Assumptions I Made in the Past and How I Come to Know My Students Now

Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom

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Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom

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