To that end, they designed an introductory behavioral/social science statistics course using what they describe as a “workbook curriculum.” Students read a short chapter (five single-spaced pages) introducing a topic. After reading, students answered questions, completed a problem, and summarized the results of their computation. Then they submitted this homework assignment online before class and got feedback on their work, also before class. These homework assignments counted for 17 percent of their course grade.

In class, the instructor began by answering questions about the homework and followed that with a brief lecture during which information in the reading was reviewed. Typically this consumed 15 to 20 minutes of the 75-minute period. Then students completed a “workbook” activity. “As students worked through each subsection, they answered increasingly complex conceptual and/or computational questions” (p. 6). They could access answers while they worked. The instructor was also available to answer questions. Students were encouraged but not required to work with a partner. The instructor ended the period with another short lecture summarizing the content presented in the workbook activity. Workbook answers were not graded. Grades were based on the homework assignments, four exams, and a final. Basically, every day in class was structured this way.

To study the effects of students’ exposure to this kind of active learning experience, the faculty researchers looked at student attitudes toward statistics. They measured these with an already developed instrument, Survey of Attitudes Towards Statistics (SATS), which contains 36 items and six subscales, including these three examples: one measuring student feelings toward statistics (the affect subscale), another measuring student beliefs about their ability to understand statistics (the cognitive competence subscale), and one measuring student beliefs about the usefulness of statistics in their lives (the value subscale). The 59 students who experienced the workbook curriculum completed this survey before and at the end of the course. The researchers also looked at the effects of this course design on exam scores and final course grades.

The attitudes and performance of students in the experimental group were compared with the attitudes and performance of 235 students in 20 other sections of courses similar to this one. All were general education courses that fulfilled quantitative requirements. All enrolled 30 or fewer students and required a prerequisite course in algebra.

The results confirmed the value of extensive active learning experiences in a course. “Our sections reported liking statistics significantly more than the comparison group (i.e., more positive affect scores). Our students also reported significantly higher statistical cognitive competence (i.e., confidence in their ability to understand and perform statistical procedures) than the comparison group. While students in our sections thought statistics was harder than the comparison group they also liked statistics more than the comparison group.” (p. 9)

“We suspect that most statistics instructors would want their students to report they like and understand statistics; however, we also suspect that most instructors are more concerned with their students’ actual ability to perform and understand statistics.” (p. 9) And their results did show that those more positive attitudes were positively associated with performance on the course’s comprehensive final.

The instructors also felt their teaching benefited from the approach. They were able to interact with individual students more often. They found themselves using student names more often, answering questions more frequently, and offering more feedback to individual students. They did find some student questions challenging. “Instructors must be comfortable ‘thinking on their feet.’ For our part, we found the unpredictability of students’ questions to be invigorating. We had become bored with teaching statistics but when we changed to the workbook approach, we were again excited about teaching the course.” (p. 13)

Reference: Carlson, K. A. and Winquist, J. R. (2011). Evaluating an active learning approach to teaching introductory statistics: A classroom workbook approach. Journal of Statistics Education, 19 (1), 1-22.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 26.3(2012): 3.

“What works” is incongruent with the nature of science. Her point applies more broadly. The phrase implies that “what works” is readily applicable to all contexts. It also conveys the sense that once you know “what works,” there is no need for further investigation. You’ve got the answer. There is no equivalent phrase or sentiment used in scientific investigations of the natural world. “Why should our evidence-based investigations and view about the issues in teaching and learning of biology be any different?” (p. 330)

“What works” ignores individual students and their brains as key variables. If the solution works, then it works for all students, or at least most of them. Lots of research now documents that “what works” for students depends on a host of demographic variables, including gender, language background, levels of family education, and ethnic identity. And then there is the individuality of student brains, which Tanner describes as “individual both in terms of architecture and information previously stored within.” (p. 330) “What if the right way to teach is not any singular way, but rather the use of a variety of teaching techniques intertwined to benefit a range of learners and their experiences in a heterogeneous classroom? What if the closest we get to ‘what works’ is to teach using all of the available techniques and not just one?” (p. 330)

“What works” assumes uniformity in instructor experience and skill. Also lurking within the “what works” assumption is the premise that it “works” for all instructors. Interestingly, when a technique is tried and it doesn’t work, blame is usually affixed to the technique, not the instructor. For example, “group work” is labeled a bad technique rather than being recognized as a technique that was used ineffectively. The success of instructional strategies, especially complex ones, depends on the experience and skill of the instructor. Any given technique may work, but not all instructors may be able to make it work, given their teaching skill and experience.

“What works” requires defining what is meant by “works.” This problem with the phrase has two parts. The first is that the definition for “what works” is largely left to the user. Typically “what works” means the strategy or technique promotes learning as measured by test scores and course grades. Tanner points out that grades may improve, but the technique may have had no effect on student motivation or interest in the discipline.

The second definitional problem with the “what works” phrase and accompanying thinking is evidence that supports the effectiveness of a particular solution is based on short-term measures, again mostly grades. “‘What works’ for short-term performance in a course … may or may not be the same as ‘what works’ for deep conceptual change and long-term retention, yet we have little to no evidence beyond a single semester time frame.” (p. 332)

Building a common language about the substance of the “what” in “what works” is not trivial. There is no common lexicon for instructional strategies. We toss strategy names about, assuming we all define them similarly, but in execution, even simple strategies such as think-pair-share look very different. If that’s true for comparatively straightforward techniques, imagine the variation involved in complex strategies such as problem-based learning or in whole approaches such as learner-centered teaching.

In sum, Tanner explains that “at some level ‘what works’ arises from a desire to give scientists [and the rest of us] a shortcut to effective teaching, but there may not be any shortcuts.” And what should we be saying and thinking in lieu of this phrase? “We can perhaps refocus on what has been shown again and again to be the path to effective teaching and learning: the development of reflective instructors who are analytical about their practice and who make iterative instructional decisions based on evidence from students sitting right in front of them.” (p. 329)

Reference: Tanner, K. D. (2011). Reconsidering “what works.” Cell Biology Education, 10 (Winter), 329-333.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 26.2(2012): 6.

• If they can do it once — If students can learn to quote, paraphrase, summarize, and cite sources correctly just one sentence at a time, they can do it 100 times. These basic skills can be taught in easy-to-grade, small assignments. Later when we ask for a 10-to 20-page research paper, or that 100-page dissertation, we can concentrate on the soundness of their research rather than those frustrating mechanics.
• Do less to get more — Assign students to find an important quote in the day’s assigned reading, cite it correctly, and explain why they chose it. They will keep up with and be more engaged with the reading while learning or polishing basic skills one small step at a time. Correctly paraphrasing just one sentence can convince students to do more than change a word or two.
• Use already scheduled reading assignments — Any class can be used to teach research basics: summarizing and citing a chapter from a history text, an explanation of a math concept, a scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” a recent journal article, or even the professor’s lecture. Grading is doable because the professor is already familiar with the material as well as the source and can easily spot student spin or embedded opinions.
• Create your own style guide — Although most English professors teach MLA, publishing embraces a wide range of styles. Instead of choosing one and asking students to purchase another book, we give them one-at-a-time models to follow (but not the same source) to teach the habit of looking for style guidance. We also create a generic in-text citation, for example (Smith 2013:24). Later it will be easy to leave out the year or add a comma to fit a specific style. The same technique can be used to create Works or Literature Cited entries, one entry at a time. The class designs citation styles for unusual sources in order to understand how scholars can recognize various media (For example, radio—KVLF/1240. Morning Show, Alpine, Texas. 2 February 2013: 7:30am). Students eventually collect a variety of citation styles for publishing in their field: university presses, journals, and ezines.
• Use technology — Incorporate the use of Google Docs to allow students to collaborate and recognize their own and others’ mistakes and provide feedback on correct citations. This occurs outside the classroom and can be reviewed briefly, preserving valuable class time.
• Raise the bar — As students’ ability to correctly identify and cite sources improves, add more complexity to the assignments: blending sources, adding outside sources, and creating a more formal Literature Cited page.
• Get creative — As faculty, we also like to challenge ourselves: how many research basics can we teach using one sentence at a time?

In courses where long research papers are required, we use these short assignments as early “journal responses” (to the textbook) or “response papers” (to handouts, outside reading, or lectures) to teach the basics while students are still gathering information.

Reading these very short assignments gives us inside information about what our students are learning (or more often not learning) and what they find confusing. If they paraphrase romanticism, for instance, as falling in love, we can correct that misconception immediately. Students tend do their own work when the assignments are very short, perhaps realizing that cheating would be easy to spot. We also use these short assignments for an always-handy, end-of-class exercise on those occasions when we’ve completed the day’s lesson, but still have 10 minutes of class time left.

None of us learned to write well, especially within our own fields, in 12 years of public school or in one or two additional semesters of college. Sharing the responsibility for helping students to catch-up on research fundamentals is a realistic and proactive approach we can embrace, not to mention a better alternative to bemoaning the fact that students often come to us with poor research skills.

Dr. Barbara Barney Nelson is an associate professor of the languages and literature department and director of the Quality Enhancement Plan at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

Scarlet Clouse is the coordinator of field experiences and teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

Favero decided to redesign his review sessions. He decided to have them during a regularly scheduled class session. On the syllabus he lists them as a “review” or “test preparation” and has nearly perfect attendance that day in class. “Like many teachers, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted my students to become problem solvers, I had to provide them with low-stakes opportunities and time to solve them.” (p. 248)

Next, he changed the focus of the session from a rehash of content to solving problems. “Because of the vast amount of information in textbooks and other electronic media, most students today have a difficult time discerning the essential content of the discipline and how it might be used to solve problems.” (p. 247) To help students develop better problem-solving skills, Favero has used two different active learning strategies. The first he calls an “open-ended strategy.” Students start by writing down the five most important facts, theories, or concepts from that section of the course. They partner and compare lists. Favero then tallies and lists the topics on an overhead transparency. He adds topics students may have missed and then arranges the list in order of their importance, discussing with students why these are the topics they should be reviewing for the exam. Next, students, working in groups, generate two or three multiple-choice questions for topics on the list. These are presented and answered collectively in class. “Students regularly question each other on confusing language or selection of the answers, again revealing what student know (or don’t) and how they know it. Time permitting, we rewrite the questions so they could be exam worthy.” (pp. 247-248)

Favero also uses a second strategy he describes as “closed-ended.” He brings to class eight to 10 questions taken from previous exams. “I typically avoid knowledge or comprehension questions and focus on application-, analysis-, and synthesis-type questions.” (p. 248) All the questions involve problems, and Favero works hard to get students to outline key concepts and pieces of the problem first. “I try to get students to hold off selecting the answer. Too often, I find that student learning short-circuits when they attempt to identify the answer without first identifying how to solve the problem.” (p. 248)

He always includes a “tricky,” as in difficult, question in this group—not to frighten students, but to talk them through how challenging problems can be approached. “Explaining challenging questions before an exam gives students a better chance of learning how to problem solve before they are in the middle of a stressful exam.” (p. 248) This strategy also does an excellent job of removing hidden agendas. There are few surprises on the exam itself. Students are correctly anticipating the kind of problems they will be asked to solve.

Students don’t always embrace these review structures when they first experience them. They are used to asking questions and getting answers. These sessions require them to work! This process also effectively reveals to students whether or not they are prepared for the exam. Favero notes that even though the sessions initially cause students frustration, in the end they do reduce pretest anxiety.

Finally he notes, with some surprise, that these review activities have revealed strengths and weaknesses in his teaching. Sometimes he thinks material presented on a particular topic has been well explained and is understood by students. The review sessions reveal that students either didn’t understand it at all or are holding misconceptions. “The review sessions help me identify content areas that need attention, something that end-of-the-semester evaluations do not.” (p. 248)

Reference: Favero, T. G. (2011). Active review sessions can advance student learning. Advances in Physiology Education, 35 (3), 247-248.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 26.1 (2012): 6.

This strategy was developed by two sociologists and they report on their experiences using it in 12 different sections of four courses at three institutions. Students in these courses are assigned individual readings, as opposed to a textbook, often on “highly politicized subject matter” (p. 364) like race and gender. The reading groups, each with five or six members, are formed by the teacher who works to create diverse groups so students are more likely to hear various viewpoints. Students complete an information survey that the teacher uses to form the groups.

Group reading discussions take place in class and are identified on the course calendar, with the readings assigned for each discussion listed there as well. Students arrive in class having done the readings and with a completed reading preparation sheet. Generally, they are allotted 20-30 minutes for their discussions, although in some courses discussion times are longer.

One of the interesting features of this assignment design is that students are assigned different roles—discussion leader, passage master, creative connector, devil’s advocate, and reporter. Students assume one of these roles in each discussion, but not the same role. The discussion leader comes to the discussion with prepared questions (and brief answers) that he or she uses to facilitate the discussion. The passage master brings several important passages — ones that provide key information. They may be controversial or just a passage the passage master finds interesting. He or she is prepared to summarize these passages for the group. The creative connector makes connections between the readings and other “social, cultural, political or economic ideas.” (p. 357) They may be connections to other readings or they may be advertisements, clips from YouTube, cartoons, or the discussion of movie content. The devil’s advocate prepares a list of questions raised by critics of the authors or by those whose viewpoints differ. The reporter summarizes the group’s discussion, including topics where there was agreement and disagreement, points of confusion, and ideas the group found most interesting. These roles are described on a handout given to students; that handout is included in an appendix at the end of the article.

Participation in these group reading discussions counts for between 10 and 30 percent of the course grade. Students are graded individually, not as a group, and their grade is based on their reading preparation sheets as well as a peer assessment of their participation in the group. Reading preparation sheets may be turned in on discussion days, they may be posted electronically, or they may be retained and submitted at the end of the course in a reading portfolio. The authors have used all these strategies and report the assets and liabilities of each. They are considering having students review all their reading preparation sheets before turning them in and then writing a paper in which they reflect on their reading and reading discussion experiences.

Student responses to this strategy have been very positive. Data reported in the article shows that on a 5-point scale with 5 being “Always,” the “How often did you complete the readings for this course?” question received a 4.25 overall average. The average response to the “Were the actual reading groups/class meetings helpful for understanding the readings?” question, again with 5 being “Always,” was 4.35, and a question about whether the prep sheets and discussion helped students see connections between the readings and everyday life garnered an overall average of 4.43.

This is a useful article, with various handout materials appended and all the logistical details carefully described. The authors correctly conclude, “The group format described here can provide the basis for collaborative learning within a range of courses within and beyond sociology.” (p. 365)

Reference: Parrott, H. M., and Cherry, E. (2011). Using structured reading groups to facilitate deep learning. Teaching Sociology, 39 (4), 354-370.

Reprinted from Reading Groups Get Students Reading, The Teaching Professor, 26.1 (2012): 3, 5.

Humor in educational settings serves a variety of positive functions beyond simply making people laugh. Humor builds group (as in class) cohesion. People respond more positively to each other when humor is present. It brings them together. Humor can facilitate cohesion by softening criticism. Research also establishes that humor helps individuals cope with stress. It relaxes them. But not all the functions of humor are positive. If humor is used divisively or to disparage others, it weakens group cohesion. Humor has negative impacts when it is used as a means of control. For example, given the power dynamic in the classroom, it is highly inappropriate for instructors to target students by making fun of their ignorance or beliefs.

There are many different types of humor that have been identified and explored in research. Among those listed in a comprehensive table in the article are humor related to class material, funny stories (hopefully related to the content), humorous comments, self-disparaging humor, unplanned humor (spontaneous, unintentional), jokes, riddles, puns, funny props, and visual illustrations. Humor related to course material, funny stories, and humorous comments are almost always appropriate. Other kinds of humor are appropriate depending on the context. And some kinds of humor are never appropriate, such humor that manipulates, denigrates, ridicules, or mocks others and offensive humor that is racially or sexually based.

Research has documented that the use of humor can benefit instructors in a couple of important ways. For example, the review lists five studies reporting positive connections between the use of humor and higher student evaluations. Conversely, overuse of humor and sarcasm has been related to lower evaluations. Nine studies document a positive relationship between the use of humor and an instructor’s credibility. The opposite has also been verified. Using too much humor, negative and aggressive humor, and humor disparaging to students damages credibility.

Believe it or not, there has been considerable research (11 studies referenced in this review) on the effect of including some humorous material on exams. Does the presence of humorous material improve exam scores? Very little evidence supports positive effects from humorous material. Humorous material does not have a negative impact on scores; in most of the studies, it had no measurable impact.

But the most important question is whether using humor promotes student learning, and here the research results are quite mixed. The article highlights findings on both sides, and its authors conclude, “The conflicting findings regarding the effects of humorous communication on information acquisition and recall make it difficult to form unequivocal conclusions regarding the relationship between humor and learning.” (p. 132) They identify some problems with the research and the difficulty of finding appropriate measures that link humor and learning. And finally, they use examples to illustrate the very disparate methods that have been used in studies addressing the humor-learning question.

As for the advice offered educators based on the review, the researchers begin by suggesting that teachers use humor that fits comfortably with who they are and how they teach. They point out that humor is not a necessary ingredient of effective instruction and that few things are worse than people trying to be funny when they aren’t. They suggest if an instructor doesn’t use humor but would like to accrue its benefits in class, the instructor should use the humor of others—by sharing cartoons, comics, or video clips.

Second, they reiterate the findings that humor is related to positive perceptions of the instructor and the learning environment and advise again against the use of humor that is negative or hostile. “Teachers should utilize humor that laughs with students rather than at them.” (p. 136)

Finally, if the goal is to use humor to increase learning and retention of course material, then use the humor to illustrate a concept just taught. This way, the humor helps students remember the material, and material can’t be learned unless it is remembered. And one thing about humor and learning is well-supported by the research: Humor positively affects levels of attention and interest. It’s a way to keep students engaged and involved with the course material. So if the concept is an important one, consider incorporating some humor.

Reference: Banas, J. A., Dunbar, N., Rodriguez, D., and Liu, S. (2011). A review of humor in education settings: Four decades of research. Communication Education, 60 (1), 115-144.

Excerpted from Humor in the Classroom: 40 Years of Research, The Teaching Professor, 25.10 (2011): 3.

This semester I required all of the students to write about our city, Anderson, Indiana. In addition to all of the other “process” assignments I use to teach my students inquiry, research strategies and drafting techniques, I recently added an art project to the mix. The assignment was simple: create a poster that gives a “face” to the city of Anderson. I told the students to be creative in their design and to represent visually the key discoveries they’ve made about their specialized topics. I also encouraged them to suggest the focus and purpose for their essay through the content or design of the poster. I promised to give each student 30 seconds to offer comments about his or her poster to the class.

In “Design Principles for Visual Communication,” Maneesh Agrawala, Wilmot Li and Floraine Berthouzoz insist that communication through visual images is “fundamental to the process of exploring concepts and disseminating information.” Because I teach writing, I tend to be preoccupied primarily with discovery and communication through language. However, the liberal arts academy in which I teach reminds me that the relationship between the humanities, the sciences and the arts is intimate and profound. “The most effective visualizations capitalize on the human facility for processing visual information, thereby improving comprehension, memory, and inference” (Agrawala, Li and Floraine 60). That’s exactly what I was trying to accomplish with my students: capitalize on their ability to “comprehend” their own discoveries and to communicate those discoveries and rhetorical ambitions to an audience clearly.

The posters students created in response to the assignment were impressive—not in their artistic design but in their clarity. Nearly every student was able to articulate an appropriately narrow focus AND a specific purpose for the essay project. Making the poster seemed to help them identify the key ideas or categories of information they would include in the paper.

Using words, symbols, clip art, photographs and drawings (some very crude, some skillful), the students successfully identified relationships among the bodies of information or ideas they had generated through research and exploratory writing. Many of the students even reflected on their research process in their comments about the poster, using phrases like “I thought X was true about Anderson, but I discovered . . .” or “I think readers would be surprised to learn X about this city . . .” or “My goal for the essay is to persuade readers that . . .” Although I gave specific instructions for the poster, I gave no specific instructions for the commentary. The students’ statements suggested to me that the act of translating ideas and information into a visual “essay” helped them take control of their own writing goals.

For the next essay, I plan to use this poster technique in lieu of a traditional outline. Organizing content visually and symbolically may be just the trick to helping student “comprehend” a logical structure for their arguments.

Reference: Agrawala, Maneesh, Wilmot Li and Floraine Berthouzoz. “Design Principles for Visual Communication.” Communications of the ACM 54.4 (2011): 60-69. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 3 Oct. 2012.

Deborah Miller Fox is professor of composition, creative writing and literature at Anderson University, a liberal arts college in central Indiana.

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, 23.10 (2009): 4.

But informal writing garners benefits beyond this accidental improvement of writing skills. Writing promotes thinking—it clarifies ideas, generates reasons, and crystallizes arguments. A faculty team of sociologists decided to try to maximize that writing-thinking connection, saying, “To ensure that our students learn to write, we must do more than assign it; we must teach it with explicit purpose.” (p. 180). They wanted more than the accidental benefits derived whenever students are writing. Specifically, they aspired to create prompts for their students’ informal writing that would (1) make their expectations for students clearer and more specific; (2) be more useful and accurate; and (3) result in more thoughtful and effective analysis and arguments in other work students submitted.

They framed their efforts to enhance thinking through writing around a model of concentric thinking that involves prioritization, translation, and making analogies—what they call “PTA.” The model “suggests that students must be able to prioritize material from their reading and discussions . . . before they can translate difficult passages into their own words. Additionally, they must be able to both prioritize and translate in order to say that one issue, situation, or problem has relevance to another—that is, to draw analogies.” (p. 181)

Here’s how the actual assignment works: Students are given a blue book on the first day of class (and more if they need them as the course progresses). For the first 10 minutes of each class, students respond to a teacher-provided prompt. Occasionally, they answer these prompts out of class. These informal journal writings are collected several times during the semester. Early on, students are not graded, but they are asked questions and given comments. This writing is graded at the end of the course. It is counted as part of their participation grade, which also includes attendance and participation in discussion.

Perhaps most interesting is the aspect of this assignment where students are challenged to look at all the responses they have written across the course. In their final informal writing exercise, they respond to these four prompts: (1) They circle the strongest response written to one of the prompts and briefly say why it is the strongest; (2) They circle the response that was hardest to answer and again briefly explain why; (3) They circle the response that does the best job of stating their values and beliefs, and then they discuss how those values and beliefs have affected their ability to understand course content; and (4) They look at the responses written during the first couple of weeks of the course and compare them to those written at the end of the course, and describe changes they see in the responses and in how they now understand issues.

The article provides an example of a carefully constructed assignment that gives informal writing a larger meaning and purpose. The authors conclude, “By teaching students a process for connecting content and thought, we model for them a process of lifelong learning that will serve them throughout their professional lives. And in our classrooms, we are able to shift our own thinking: We are no longer ‘teaching writing’ but, rather, ‘promoting learning through writing.’ While subtle, the difference is profound.” (p. 187)

Reference: Hudd, S.S., Smart, R.A., and Delohery, A.W. (2011). “My understanding has grown, my perspective has switched: Linking informal writing to learning goals.” Teaching Sociology, 39 (2), 179-189.

Reprinted from Informal Writing and Thinking The Teaching Professor, 25.9 (2011): 6.

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The purpose of this article is to explain how a relatively new technology, like clickers, can be paired with an age-old teaching technique, like in-class debates, to help students develop a deeper understanding of course material and achieve higher exam scores.

Pairing clickers with debate
Our baccalaureate senior level adult health courses meet twice weekly after 18-hours spent in clinical rotations. Each class session lasts two hours and fifty minutes. By the second class, instructors noticed that students were minimally engaged in the discussions. In an effort to enhance student engagement, we began using clickers to promote student debate with a goal of facilitating learning through questioning, critical reflection and discussion.

Here’s how it works. The typical class always begins with an overview of the student learning outcomes for that class session. It was within that context that we introduced students to the clicker/debate strategy, including the rules of behaviors. The primary rule is respect, which we define as a group to include things such as not interrupting others when they are speaking, refraining from side conversations, using professional voice and body language at all times, maintaining appropriate tone of voice, and keeping responses to two minutes or less. For the purpose of building self-confidence and enhancing communication skills, the students are encouraged to stand while speaking, however standing was not required.

Once the class agrees to the rules, the instructor begins the lesson with a PowerPoint guided lecture. Within the first 10-15 minutes, the first debate question is presented. The question stem is displayed for all to view and students are instructed to silently consider all possible and plausible answers. The instructor chooses one student from anyone willing to answer the questions with a rationale. Then any student with a differing view is invited to offer their answer and rationale, and why they believe the opposing student’s response was fallible. To help facilitate critical thinking, the instructor asks follow-up questions to deepen understanding. This debate portion of the class lasts one-to-three minutes depending on the complexity of the topic being discussed.

Once the debate period closes, four possible answers are displayed and the class uses their clickers to anonymously select what they believed to be the correct option. When all responses are tabulated, a bar graph of the collective responses is displayed for everyone to view and discuss further. The student debater who had the correct answer receives a small prize, such as a full-size candy bar, while the opposing student receives a consolation type prize, such as a pencil or a kid’s toy typically found in a fast food meal. If neither were correct the entire class gets a mini-size candy bar. We found that this little incentive helps motivate students to participate, and makes the experience fun for everyone.

Reaction from faculty and students
Nurse educators have a responsibility to ensure students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to transition from student to nurse successfully. Classroom experiences set the tone for learning in the clinical setting; therefore, lesson plans should be inclusive of strategies that not only focus on disease management but other essential skill-sets such as effective communication, conflict resolution, and a healthy self-confidence. One way to accomplish this is by incorporating clicker questions, complemented by student debate in the classroom.

Faculty found this teaching strategy to be student-centered, while students reported the class to be fun, engaging, and helpful with retention of material. More importantly, the strategy resulted in positive student learning outcomes. Prior to implementing this approach, the average class score on the unit exam was 82%. The average score on the same unit of study with similar class demographics moved to 87% and was consistent over the next two semesters. This upward trajectory of scores suggests a positive correlation between the teaching strategy described and student learning outcomes.

Leslee Shepard, EdD, RN, CMSRN is an associate professor of nursing at Winston Salem State University.

References
Martyn, M. (2007). Clickers in the classroom: An Active Learning approach. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 30(2), 71-74.

Mayer, R., Stull, A., DeLeeuw, K., Almeroth, K., Bimber, B., Chun, D., Bulger, M., Campbell, J., Knight, A., & Zhang, H. (2009). Clickers in college classrooms: Fostering learning with questioning methods in large lecture classes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34(1), 51-57.

For most college professors, it’s an all-too-familiar scenario. Whether it’s the student who is in real danger of failing the course or the student who is unaccustomed to any grade lower than an A, many students make these pleas for the very simple reason that many high schools allow students to retake tests or do extra-credit assignments to raise their grades. When these students get to college, they expect similar options and often struggle without them, said Mary Clement, EdD, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Berry College, where she also is a professor of teacher education.

During the recent online seminar A Good Start: Helping First-Year Students Acclimate to College, Clement shared ideas for recalibrating student expectations of how things work in college so they can be successful during that first critical year and beyond.

“How do we change this mindset going from high school into college?” Clement asked. “The number one way is to put your policy in writing in the syllabus. If the paper is due Monday, and the student is not in class that day, will the paper be accepted after Monday? Will it be accepted after Monday at all? If the answer is yes, until when and with what penalty?”

Further, because there’s so much variation across different high schools in terms of homework, attendance requirements and making up for missed work, and grading practices, Clement recommends creating an interest inventory to give students during the first week of class. If it is anonymous, students may feel more comfortable answering the questions. Here are some questions you may wish to ask, and use as a springboard for discussing your expectations for the course:

• Describe your high school academic program. For example, did you take any Advanced Placement courses?
• About how many days were you absent during your senior year of high school? Was it easy to have “excused” absences in your school? Could you make up the work missed, including tests?
• Were you ever allowed to re-take a quiz or test? If so, please describe the policy.
• About how many hours did you study per week? Which subjects required the most homework?
• Were you able to check your grades throughout the semester in high school? If so, how (electronically through the school’s website, by keeping track yourself, by checking with the teacher)?
• If your grade in a high school class was not as high as you wanted, could you complete extra credit or re-do assignments and tests to improve the grade? Please describe.

“Why should we know about high school [policies]?” Clement asked. “I think that knowing helps us to meet students where they are and then change their mindsets for college success. This is not about making college like high school. College is very different, and, yes, college should be different.”

1. Learner-centered teaching engages students in the hard, messy work of learning. I believe teachers are doing too many learning tasks for students. We ask the questions, we call on students, we add detail to their answers. We offer the examples. We organize the content. We do the preview and the review. On any given day, in most classes teachers are working much harder than students. I’m not suggesting we never do these tasks, but I don’t think students develop sophisticated learning skills without the chance to practice and in most classrooms the teacher gets far more practice than the students.

2. Learner-centered teaching includes explicit skill instruction. Learner-centered teachers teach students how to think, solve problems, evaluate evidence, analyze arguments, generate hypotheses—all those learning skills essential to mastering material in the discipline. They do not assume that students pick up these skills on their own, automatically. A few students do, but they tend to be the students most like us and most students aren’t that way. Research consistently confirms that learning skills develop faster if they are taught explicitly along with the content.

3. Learner-centered teaching encourages students to reflect on what they are learning and how they are learning it. Learner-centered teachers talk about learning. In casual conversations, they ask students what they are learning. In class they may talk about their own learning. They challenge student assumptions about learning and encourage them to accept responsibility for decisions they make about learning; like how they study for exams, when they do assigned reading, whether they revise their writing or check their answers. Learner-centered teachers include assignment components in which students reflect, analyze and critique what they are learning and how they are learning it. The goal is to make students aware of themselves as learners and to make learning skills something students want to develop.

4. Learner-centered teaching motivates students by giving them some control over learning processes. I believe that teachers make too many of the decisions about learning for students. Teachers decide what students should learn, how they learn it, the pace at which they learn, the conditions under which they learn and then teachers determine whether students have learned. Students aren’t in a position to decide what content should be included in the course or which textbook is best, but when teachers make all the decisions, the motivation to learn decreases and learners become dependent. Learner-centered teachers search out ethically responsible ways to share power with students. They might give students some choice about which assignments they complete. They might make classroom policies something students can discuss. They might let students set assignment deadlines within a given time window. They might ask students to help create assessment criteria.

5. Learner-centered teaching encourages collaboration. It sees classrooms (online or face-to-face) as communities of learners. Learner-centered teachers recognize, and research consistently confirms, that students can learn from and with each other. Certainly the teacher has the expertise and an obligation to share it, but teachers can learn from students as well. Learner-centered teachers work to develop structures that promote shared commitments to learning. They see learning individually and collectively as the most important goal of any educational experience.

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The authors propose definitions broad enough to include more specific descriptions. For example: engagement is “students’ cognitive investment in, active participation in, and emotional commitment to their learning.” (p. 168) Or, engagement is “students’ involvement with activities and conditions likely to generate high-quality learning.” (p. 168)

Based on this synthesis of research, student engagement can be promoted in the following ways:

1. Enhance students’ self-belief — There is no agreement in the research literature as to what motivates learners to engage, but the dominant view is that students engage when they act as their own learning agents working to achieve goals meaningful to them. This means that what students believe about themselves as learners is very important. They must believe they can learn, including that they can overcome and learn from failure. Giving students some control over learning processes helps develop this confidence and commitment to learning.

2. Enable students to work autonomously, enjoy learning relationships with others, and feel they are competent to achieve their own objectives — “When institutions provide opportunities for students to learn both autonomously and with others, and to develop their sense of competence, students are more likely to be motivated, to engage and succeed.” (p. 170) Not unrelated to the first recommendation, the focus here is on cultivating intrinsic motivation, which fosters the self-determination that leads to engagement.

3. Recognize that teaching and teachers are central to engagement — Much research places teachers at the heart of engagement. For example, one study found that “if the teacher is perceived to be approachable, well prepared, and sensitive to student needs, students are committed to work harder, get more out of the session, and are more willing to express their opinion.” (p. 170)

4. Create learning that is active, collaborative, and fosters learning relationships — “Findings acknowledge that active learning in groups, peer relationships, and social skills are important in engaging learners.” (p. 171)

5. Create educational experiences for students that are challenging and enriching and that extend their academic abilities — Easy learning activities and assignments are not as effective at engaging students as activities and assignments that challenge them. When students are reflecting, questioning, conjecturing, evaluating, and making connections between ideas, they are engaged. “Teachers need to create rich educational experiences that challenge students’ ideas and stretch them as far as they can go.” (p. 171)

6. Ensure that institutional cultures are welcoming to students from diverse backgrounds — To become engaged, students must feel they are accepted and affirmed. They must feel they belong at an institution.

7. Invest in a variety of support services — Sometimes it seems as though students don’t take advantage of support services like learning and advising centers, but a wide variety of research findings confirms the importance of these support services. They are perceived as part of the institutional culture, and students engage when that culture values and supports their efforts to learn.

8. Adapt to changing student expectations — An institution should never be satisfied with how it is promoting student engagement. As students change and new research evidence emerges, institutional practices should be adjusted. Engagement cannot just be promoted, it must also be maintained.

9. Enable students to become active citizens — “What is needed is a democratic-critical conception of engagement that goes beyond strategies, techniques, behaviours, a conception in which engagement is participatory, dialogic and leads not only to academic achievement but to success as an active citizen.” (p. 173)

10. Enable students to develop their social and cultural capital — This kind of capital derives from a sense of belonging, from active relationships with others, and from knowing how things work around the institution. It is especially essential for minority students who need to be successful not only in the classroom but beyond it as well.

Reference: Zepke, N., and Leach, L. (2010). Improving student engagement: Ten proposals for action. Active Learning in Higher Education, 11 (3), 167-177.

Excerpted from Ways to Achieve Student Engagement. The Teaching Professor, 25.6 (2011): 8.

On The Teaching Professor’s LinkedIn Group we asked members to share some of the strategies they use to engage students in discussion, manage the dominant talkers and the nontalkers, and steer a discussion that’s gone off track. Nearly three dozen faculty members shared their techniques for prompting discussion. Below are excerpts of just a few of the strategies shared.

Bob Burdette, Assistant Professor of Accounting, Salt Lake Community College: No one method works for me to get my non-talking students to speak and the talkers to be quiet and listen. So, I try to change up the tool I use to get the desired results. On one day I will start working a problem on the whiteboard. I’ll then give the marking pen to a student and thank them for volunteering. They get to come to the board to work the next part of the problem. After they are finished they pass the pen to another student to continue work on the problem. We continue this process giving as many students the opportunity to come to the board and teach small parts of the problem to the rest of the class. To remove the anxiety of coming to the board we give the student at the board the authority to ask for help from all the students still seated.

Another day I’ll pass out two or three poker chips to every student. As we begin the discussion I ask each student to give me back a chip each time they answer a question. Rapidly the talking students use up their chips. Since they can no longer speak in the class it leaves the non-talking students to answer the remaining questions.

Another day I’ll bring a deck of cards to class and allow every student to select one from the deck. Once I begin working a problem I’ll stop and draw a card from the deck. Any student with a card higher than mine has to come to the board and continue working on the problem. If I have the higher card then I have to continue working the problem.

Warren Dittmar, Professor of English, Miami Dade College: A good foundation for interactive conversation is a relaxed atmosphere and an understanding by students that their ideas and opinions are important and will be accepted and entertained. Students must feel that their comments are going to be listened to and sincerely responded to. Establishing student trust and acceptance is an important aspect of their participation.

As an example of one technique that I use in my classes, I have a Burning Question Period that starts just before the beginning of class and runs through the first five or ten minutes. Students can ask any question about current world happenings, national problems, or any important issue to them. Their questions are always varied and create general discussion that includes vocal students as well as more reticent students. The issues are usual hot issues and generate strong reactions and controversy. They are required to substantiate their positions. This technique has generated regular interactions and open communication.

Erica Kleinknecht, Associate Professor of Psychology, Pacific University: I find that in lecture classes, most students don’t read before-hand, they do so after class. When I want discussion, I create a series of writing assignments due at the start of select class periods. This gets them to collect their thoughts before class so they don’t feel pressured to come up with something on the spot. Many students are afraid of being wrong. I also do what others on this list have suggested: small group discussion with one delegate who reports to the whole class. When I do both in one class, I get many more talkers.

Chitu Okoli, Associate Professor of Management Information Systems, Concordia University: Clickers are quite helpful. You ask a question, give people time to think about it (and they are allowed to discuss with their neighbours first), and then click in their multiple-choice responses. Before you tell the students the right answer, you ask people from each answer group (e.g. those who answered A, B or C) to justify their responses. This gets a wide variety of people to talk who wouldn’t otherwise because 1) everyone has time to think and commit to an answer before you ask them to talk to the class; and 2) different people give different answers, so it’s not always the same 5-7 people talking every time. Of course, even then, the 5-7 people problem pops up, so after these people have responded twice or so, you ask to hear from people who have not yet spoken. This approach has helped me hear from a lot more students, especially the more thoughtful but otherwise silent ones.

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In this article I focus on some of the practical techniques that faculty can use to increase the attendance in their classrooms. I have used most of these methods during my years of college teaching to keep attendance high in all of my classes.

1. Prepare learning contracts for students to sign at the beginning of the semester. The contracts can be part of the syllabus or independent documents. They should define exactly how grading is done and include an attendance policy. This way, students know right from the start that attendance is part of the calculation.

2. Give unannounced quizzes. The main objective of these quizzes is to encourage students to prepare for each class so they have a basic understanding of the current terms and concepts. Make it clear that the quizzes can’t be made up later by absent students.

3. Provide handouts in class, but do not post them on your course website. Students can come to your office hours to pick up a handout later, but the idea is to discourage them from skipping class knowing that they can grab the material from your website.

4. Collect contact information from students at the beginning of the semester, including their phone numbers and email addresses. Call or e-mail students who are frequently absent and encourage them to attend more often. I started my teaching career at a two-year community college where this was expected of faculty. It worked so well that I have continued doing it, even with my graduate-level students.

5. Think of ways to keep the morale high. Learn students’ names as quickly as possible. Prepare lesson plans that grab student interest. Try to tie in course material with modern real-life examples that students can relate to. Create a classroom that has a sense of community and mutual respect where each member has something to contribute and where disagreement is tolerated. Continually adapt your lesson plans to make the subject interesting and relevant. Encourage student feedback so you can eliminate some of the “busy work” that has minimal learning benefits.

My 14 years of college teaching experience has convinced me that maintaining a high level of student attendance has significant benefits to both the student and the faculty member. Be aware that monitoring class participation through unannounced quizzes, attendance points, or not posting materials to the course website will not be popular with some students. The support from administration and other faculty is essential. Explain to your colleagues and department chair the benefits of your attendance strategy. Many of the students who are initially resistant to this approach will realize its value and respect you for going forward with it.

What are some of the tactics you use to ensure students come to class? Please share in the comment box below.

Reference
Park, K. & Kerr, P., Determinants of Academic Performance: A Multinomial Logit Approach, The Journal of Economic Education, Spring, 1990.

Dr. Rick Sheridan is an assistant professor of communication at Wilberforce University in Ohio.

In the exploration phase, students usually start with a model and the questions help them see patterns within the model. “Often, the questions lead students to test hypotheses or explain the patterns and relationships found in the model.” (p. 263) The invention phase involves introduction of a concept or relationship. In the application phase, students are challenged to extend and apply the concept to new situations. “The sequence of questions in POGIL materials are carefully devised to help students progress properly through the phases, to guide them toward appropriate conclusions, and to develop desired process skills, such as problem solving, deductive reasoning, communication and self-assessment.” (p. 236)

The POGIL model was developed for use in the sciences and has been used successfully in a variety of chemistry courses; in biology, anatomy and physiology, physics, math, computer science, and environmental science; and now in other fields such as education and marketing. The website (http://pogil.org) shows sample materials. For those interested in the model, the website contains much useful information, including a detailed instructor’s guide that can be downloaded for free.

In this model, the instructor functions as a facilitator who’s available to assist the groups. However, instructors do not answer questions that students should be able to figure out for themselves. Rather than answering student questions, instructors opt to ask the group questions that lead them to the answer. Students are assigned roles in this model. There is some variation in the roles, but there might be a manager who keeps the group on task, a scribe who is the group’s official record keeper, a spokesperson who may be called upon to share the group’s solution, and a librarian who may be the only person in the group permitted to have the textbook open.

The POGIL model has been studied empirically in a number of courses. Here’s a sample of the findings. In organic chemistry, less than 8 percent of more than 1,000 students were negative about the method. The same cohort had 30 percent registering negative attitudes about traditional lectures. In an anatomy and physiology course (see reference at the end of this article), grades improved at statistically significant levels. In a medicinal chemistry course taken by pharmacy students, exam scores for students in the POGIL section were higher, as was the final grade distribution (see reference at the end of this article).

This not a method that can be undertaken without significant planning and preparation. The anatomy and physiology professor writes, “Although POGIL requires a great deal of effort and a careful introduction to students who might be skeptical of a novel and unfamiliar classroom experience, its benefits cannot be easily disputed.”

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

(Note: This excellent article contains information on problem-based learning, POGIL, and peer-led team learning (PLTL), which was the subject of an article in our March issue.)

Brown, P. J. P. (2010). Process-oriented guided-inquiry learning in an introductory anatomy and physiology course with a diverse student population. Advances in Physiology Education, 34, 150-155.

Brown, S. D. (2010). A process-oriented guided inquiry approach to teaching medicinal chemistry. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 74 (4), article 121.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 25.4 (2011): 4.

The above scenario was real, except that the shop owner wasn’t really 70; she was in her 20s. Nor was she a shop owner; she was a student in my composition class. And the corporation wasn’t really planning to build a plant in her town; in fact, neither the corporation nor the town existed. So, what was real? Issues that raise concerns and fears, and the necessity for using argument to persuade others.

Argument goes hand in hand with critical-thinking skills. While textbooks provide instructions and models, I have found that few methods engage students so fully in the process of arguing and counterarguing as a face-to-face role-play scenario. Here’s how it works in my class. This model can be adapted for use with many different kinds of content and structured variously, as well.

I divide my class into three groups and present them with the following scenario:

FRAMcorp is coming to town. This multinational conglomerate makes headlines for its innovative technological products but has drawn criticism for causing pollution, increasing traffic in rural areas, and driving local competitors out of business. FRAMcorp wants to establish a plant that will employ about 500 people in the town of Homeland Square. Restaurants and retail stores will also surely follow, increasing employment opportunities. However, some citizens, fearing the plant’s disruption of their way of life, have formed the Homeland Square Neighborhood Association (HSNA) to make their concerns public. In a show of goodwill, FRAMcorp agrees to debate the HSNA and leave the fate of the plant in the hands of Homeland Square’s townspeople. If they veto the plant, it will be built elsewhere.

• Group 1 represents FRAMcorp.
• Group 2 represents the HSNA.
• Group 3 represents the townspeople.

Groups 1 and 2 spend several minutes discussing among themselves how best to present their cases to the voters. The two groups then face each other and debate the issue for at least 20 minutes. Group 3 is free to ask questions of either side. To make their task more challenging—as well as to give them practice arguing and counterarguing—I tell the townspeople they must reach consensus.

I observe and take notes, which I sometimes use to guide a follow-up discussion. If the debate lags or if particular students do not appear to be engaged, they can be drawn in by being assigned individual roles (e.g., “You are FRAMcorp’s director of public relations; if the citizens veto the plant, you may lose your job.)

At the onset of the exercise, students usually ask a vital question: What products does FRAMcorp make? I let the students answer this question themselves. Leaving “holes” in the scenario forces students to engage their imaginations. It also emphasizes the importance of doing research: Without fully understanding the opposition, Groups 1 and 2 often make assumptions about the other that do not hold up under scrutiny. The HSNA, for example, often assumes that the pollution will involve toxic waste—a claim easily denied by the corporation if the type of product hasn’t been clearly established.

As the debate proceeds, students find themselves drawn into their particular groups and championing their causes. They often brainstorm their own subscenarios. One student, for example, took on the role of a farmer who feared that toxic waste would damage his land. The student mentioned earlier spontaneously identified herself as a 70-year-old shop owner whose business could be threatened. Students representing FRAMcorp went to great lengths to tout the advantages of the plant: more jobs, local hiring, minimal training, even “going green.”

Many times, students resort to tactics that are both humorous and unintentionally revealing. One student in the HSNA kept interrupting the corporation when they tried to answer questions. In another class, a student representing FRAMcorp told the locals who feared losing their jobs, “Too bad for you!” On the surface, such exchanges reflect students having fun with the game. On a deeper level, they reveal hidden attitudes and prejudices (e.g., all corporations are greedy; all small-town residents are hicks) and echo real-life exchanges that get politicians and CEOs in trouble (oil executives, anyone?).

The outcome is not as important as the process of arguing and counterarguing. By projecting themselves into imaginary roles, students often emerge from the exercise with a deeper appreciation of the pros and cons of controversial issues. They understand the fears, both realistic and unrealistic, of people caught in such controversies, and they gain firsthand experience in developing strategies to address those fears. Perhaps most important, they personalize controversial issues rather than merely reading about them in textbooks.

Greg Gildersleeve teaches composition at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 25.3 (2011): 3.

The authors of the following list of strategies write that they attempted to “focus … on strategies and activities that typically do not require … a radical reframing of current standard practice, and are therefore more readily accessible to most science educators.” (p. 263) They discuss each strategy in much more detail than space here allows, and they include many references describing experiences with and alterations of these seven strategies.

Questions – These are questions that students discuss. Short periods of discussion occur after every 10 to 20 minutes of lecture, or they can be used to open and close a class session. Students may write ideas about answers, they may talk about answers with those sitting next to them, and they may explain answers to each other. As valuable as it for students to articulate content-related ideas and information, there is a caveat with this approach. “Good outcomes require good questions, and framing good questions is hard.” (p. 263) Closed questions (ones with one- or two-word right answers) have their place, but they are not very effective at promoting student interaction and reflection. Questions and discussion can be used in large classes and can contribute to student learning.

Technology for “on-the-spot feedback” – Clickers engage students with the content and provide instructors with valuable feedback. They are particularly well-suited for large courses, with the cognitive benefits of clickers a function of the quality of questions students are responding to. The goal is to develop those questions that move students in the direction of higher-order thinking.

Student presentations and projects – This article references another article in which 10 to 15 students researched and prepared reports on a “disease of the week.” They prepared materials for fellow students, and findings were also presented in class. Some instructors have used a poster-session model, where a different subset of students prepares and presents a poster to classmates each week. Presentations and projects can also be prepared by groups of students. They can be presented online and review of them assigned as homework.

Learning-cycle instruction models – Here’s a common example of a learning-cycle model: 1) engagement that draws students in with a video clip, provocative question, or other short activity; 2) exploration that uses other learning tasks to focus on the concepts and skills necessary to understand the central topic; 3) explanation that provides more examples and opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding; 4) elaboration that seeks to deepen understanding with applications and implications; and 5) evaluation during which student understanding is assessed. In this model the instructor’s presence is most visible during the explanation step, with students doing much of the work in the other steps, although they do so using instructor-designed tasks and materials.

Peer-led team learning – This strategy uses peers to facilitate learning in small groups and is described in detail in another article in this issue.

Inquiry-based approaches – Here students use simple equipment to do laboratory-type exercises in class. “Despite this necessity for simplicity, students can exercise the intellectual power behind designing aspects of the experiment, predicting outcomes that would lend support to their hypotheses, and analyzing and interpreting their findings.” (p. 265)

Problem-based learning and case studies – These are the kinds of problems that promote learning on a need-to-know basis. They can be formatted in a variety of ways, with students working on the problems in class. At various intervals the instructor might lecture about relevant content or be available to answer questions submitted by the groups.

Biology workshop – This model combines class and lab experiences as students explore a theme that is integrated into the content, activities, and assignments of the course. “Students explore and discover fundamental concepts through asking and answering their own questions.” (p. 266)

Given the continuing presence—indeed increasing prevalence of large courses—those who teach them must explore ways of making them rich learning experiences for students. As this article demonstrates, there are a variety of alternatives, all of which have been tried by instructors who teach large courses.

Reference: Allen, D., and Tanner, K. (2005). Infusing active learning into the large-enrollment biology class: Seven strategies from the simple to the complex. Cell Biology Education, 4 (Winter), 262-268.

Excerpted from The Teaching Professor, 25.3 (2011): 7.

I found that self-disclosure bridged the gap between the students and me and led to increased student engagement. In my case, I told them my educational history. I told the story about all of the failures, mishaps and bad decisions. I showed them the real me in a presentation accompanied with real photographs of key individuals in my life. My intentions were to let the students know that they can succeed, no matter how insurmountable the obstacles may seem. At the end of the story, I realized that my story had impacted the students. Further, grades increased in my courses by about 20% after the talk.

When I spoke, it was to a very attentive audience that seemed poised at the edges of their seats. No one was texting or doing anything disruptive. They found out their professor is a human. Not a robot.

What I shared was this: I went to college with the goal of becoming a medical doctor and majored in biology with a minor in chemistry. During my second year of college, I lost my academic scholarship because I made a “D” in a course in my major. In my junior year after meeting all the prerequisites, I was accepted into dental school. Upon arrival at dental school, I found out I was pregnant. During my first year of dental school, I gave birth to a daughter. I discovered after the first two years that I did not like dentistry as much as I thought I would. I dropped out of dental school and began working as a receptionist. Due to the input and influence of a mentor who had taught me biochemistry in dental school, I applied and was accepted to graduate school. Because of this chance I finally had the opportunity to follow the dream I had denied myself all along … to teach.

Graduate school was a very difficult time for me and being a mom did not make things any easier. After the first semester, I was placed on academic probation. At the end of the second year, I took the written qualifying exam and failed. The director of my program told me that he honestly did not think that I could complete the program. One year later, I retook the qualifying exam and passed. Two years after that, I received my PhD.

All of these experiences made me a better student. More importantly, these experiences make me a more empathetic and effective professor. As a result of having told my real story to my students, I have become a “mother of another color” to many of my students and I am very proud of this title.

Feedback from my self-disclosure was all positive. Here are just a few of the things students shared in response:

• I know you have to work hard to achieve your goals and now I know I can do it too.
• It let me know that that even though I may start off bad; I can still have a chance to be what I want to be.
• At times, i have been scared to ask you questions but from now on it won’t be a problem.
• I now realize you weren’t given anything; you earned it all.
• This talk makes me want to be like you in a sense because you were able to persevere.
• You seem more approachable now and I know that you are not perfect. Most professors make it seem like they are perfect and did excellent throughout their career.
• You are the best professor I have ever met in my life.

Being able to have an impact on students has been my goal from the beginning of my teaching career. I believe that my self-disclosure had a direct impact on my effectiveness as a professor.

Now it’s your turn. What are some ways you humanize yourself to help build rapport with students? Please share in the comment box.

Dr. Leslie Wooten-Blanks is an assistant professor in the department of biology at Claflin University.

• When they raise vital questions and problems from the text,
• When they gather and assess relevant information and then offer plausible interpretations of that information,
• When they test their interpretations against previous knowledge or experience …,
• When they examine their assumptions and the implications of those assumptions, and
• When they use what they have read to communicate effectively with others or to develop potential solutions to complex problems.” (p. 127)

And don’t we all wish our students read this way! Unfortunately most of them don’t, and the challenge is finding those strategies and approaches that help them develop these sophisticated reading skills. Terry Tomasek, who crafted this description of critical reading, proposes one of those kinds of strategies.

She uses reading prompts. “The purpose of these reading/writing prompts is to facilitate personal connection between the undergraduate student and the assigned text. The prompts are simply questions used to orient students with a critical reading stance and to guide their thinking as they read.” (p. 128) Her goal in using the prompts is to help students identify the big ideas rather than just “mine” the text for facts and details. She’s not anti facts and details, but she thinks that’s mostly what students read for and the big ideas are what prompt the reflection and analysis typical of those who read deeply and think critically.

Tomasek develops prompts designed to promote a range of critical-thinking responses. The categorization she has developed is neither linear nor hierarchical, meaning the prompts can and should be used in different orders. Here are her six categories and some of the sample prompts contained in the article.

Identification of problem or issue—This “lens” is used to create a “need to know” viewpoint for readers. (pp. 129-130)

• What problem is the author identifying? Who does the problem relate to?
• For whom is this topic important and why?

Making connections—These prompts helps students think critically about course content, what they are reading, and their own knowledge. The goal is to get students to integrate their experiences with what they are reading.

• How is what I am reading different from what I already know? Why might this difference exist?
• What new ideas are here for me to consider? Why am I willing or not willing to consider them?

Interpretation of evidence—These prompts are best used when students have been assigned a case study, have viewed a video clip, or are reviewing each other’s work.

• What inferences can I make from the evidence given in the reading sample?
• What relevant evidence or examples does the author give to support his or her justification?

Challenging assumptions—The goal of these prompts is to encourage students to identify and critique assumptions.

• What kind of assumptions is the author making? Do I share these assumptions?
• What information builds my confidence in the author’s expertise?
• If the opportunity arose, what questions would I pose to the author?

Making application—Here students are challenged to use what they have learned.

• What advice could I add to this reading selection? On what basis do I give this advice?
• Looking toward where I want to be in two years, what suggestions from the reading make the most sense to me?
• Taking a different point of view—Students develop critical perspectives when they are encouraged to consider diverse ideas.
• What would I point out as important about this topic to others who either question or disagree with my point of view?

As for the mechanics, Tomasek assigns one reading prompt at the time the reading assignment is made. Students respond in one or two paragraphs prior to the next class. They are asked to share their responses to the prompts in a variety of ways. They might post them on a Blackboard discussion space and then respond to the comments posted by other classmates. This electronic exchange takes place before class.

Tomasek may use material from these exchanges when she discusses the reading in class. Other times students email their responses to other students, who respond by asking clarifying questions. This kind of exchange then happens face-to-face at the beginning of class. Or students may simply write out their responses to the prompt and email them to the instructor, who uses them in a variety of ways as the content is presented and discussed in class.

Tomasek instructs students not to worry about grammar, punctuation, or paragraph structure. What students are being asked to prepare is not a writing assignment, but a response to an attempt to help them uncover the big ideas and see how they relate and can be applied. When students submit their responses, the feedback provided is limited and the papers are not graded. However, Tomasek does keep track of students’ responses, seeing that they are doing the reading and responding thoughtfully.

“This is one way to facilitate a richer learning experience for students outside the classroom. The list of reading/writing prompts offered here is by no means exhaustive; in fact, they should only be used as [a] starting point to broaden the critical reading skills of other individual instructors’ undergraduate students.” (p. 132)

Reference: Tomasek, T. (2009). Critical reading: Using reading prompts to promote active engagement with text. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 21 (1), 127-132.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 24.10 (2010): 4-5.