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Using the Moodle Quiz as a Learning Tool

--contributed by Joan Van Duzer on 11/19/2009

Most people tend to think of a quiz as a means to track student learning, but few recognize how the rich features of the Quiz function in a learning management system (LMS) can be harnessed to enhance student learning.

Review Options

While many teachers welcome the automatic scoring feature of a LMS as a time saving boon, students also value the immediate feedback of how they fared on the exam. This feedback can be expanded to include explanations of correct or incorrect answers to reinforce learning, especially when referencing more detailed explanations in the assigned readings, homework, lecture, or other resources.

The default setting does not reveal to students answers to individual questions immediately upon submitting the quiz. If allowing only a single attempt on a quiz, consider revealing the answers immediately after the attempt to support learning.

Repeat Attempts

When the teacher allows students multiple attempts on an exam, students are given motivation for improving their understanding. Using the “Highest grade” grading method also encourages further effort, as students need not risk lowering their score. Coupling repeat attempts with random question selection can help students spot the areas where their grasp of the topics is weakest and focus their study accordingly.

Self assessment

By providing practice quizzes for self-assessment, students can check their understanding before graded exams and highlight areas for which they can seek clarification from the text, instructor, or other resources. These practice quizzes can also help to alleviate test taking anxiety so a more accurate assessment of student learning is possible. Quizzes can be easily excluded from the gradebook to provide merely a self-assessment opportunity. Create an “Ungraded” or “Self Assessment” category that is weighted to 0 and place all practice items in that category.

Data Gathering

The teacher can take a birds-eye view by analyzing automatically-compiled quiz results to spot the questions that were most often missed. The “Item analysis” link on the “Results” tab provides an opportunity to address confusion and misunderstandings on key course concepts in class.

For more helpful tips on how you can use the Moodle Quiz tool, contact the HSU Help Desk (ext. 4357) or request a Moodle training at http://training.humboldt.edu.

Using Clicker Technology in Large Classes

--contributed by Joan Van Duzer on 11/12/2009

As you prepare to submit your textbook orders this week, remember to alert the Bookstore if you plan to use student response systems (“clickers”) in your class next semester so they can have an adequate supply of used and new clickers available at the lowest possible cost for students.

Are you still “on the fence” about using clickers? Embedding questions in a large lecture and requiring student responses via clickers can motivate students to attend class, complete readings and assignments as preparation for class discussion, generate interest in course material, evaluate student learning mid-lecture, or apply new learning to conceptual or practical problems.  The types of questions posed and how the instructor uses student responses are important for the successful use of these devices.

Woelk (2008) provides a useful taxonomy of the types of questions that can be posed:

• I am here (attendance questions, demographic questions)
• I am prepared (factual questions about the assigned reading)
• I am interested (questions that pose course topics in a context that relates to student interest – e.g., preceding a discussion of saline concentrations with a question about the mass of salt found in the blood of an average human)
• I learn (questions that evaluate student learning of a topic just covered in lecture)
• I understand (questions that evaluate conceptual understanding or application of new material presented in lecture)
• I apply (questions that require students to make a prediction based on new learning)
• I will (questions that pose an open-ended problem for students to consider before the next class – questions that bridge the content of adjacent classes)

Students enrolled in sections of courses that included clicker questions during lectures outperformed students enrolled in sections (taught by the same instructor) in which students could answer questions as an optional out-of-class activity (Radosevich, et al., 2008; Reay, 2008; Woelk, 2008). The improvements observed in exam performance persist in long-term follow-up exams.

-Adapted from University of West Florida’s Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.

Reference Management Programs

--contributed by Robert Sathrum on 11/05/2009

A critical part of the student research process is keeping track of references (citations)—journal papers, books, web pages, facts, pictures, quotes, etc—that support their research so that they can properly cite them in their work using a required publication style. In an increasing online research environment reference management programs can assist by:

• Collecting references from online sources, e.g., the HSU Library Catalog, research databases, web pages, and other sources; or by manual input.
• Storing and managing these references in searchable folders.
• Linking to the full text of references, if available, and allowing addition of personal notes.
• Generating bibliographies or inserting references into papers composed in Microsoft Word or other word processors and automatically formatting them in a required publication style, e.g., MLA, APA , or CSE.

Two Recommended Programs:

• EndNote Web (http://www.endnoteweb.com/) — This web-based program is available free to all HSU students, faculty and staff as part of the HSU Library’s subscription to Thomson/Reuters databases. The program is available wherever there is Internet access. Continuing access to this program is available for up to two years after leaving HSU.

• Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/) — This is a free open-source add-on for Firefox that lives in the browser after being downloaded and installed. To increase portability of collected and stored references Zotero can be synchronized with their online site so that references can be accessed from any location. A second portability option is to use Portable Firefox (http://www.zotero.org/support/using_portable_firefox_on_a_usb_drive) which can be stored on a USB drive or HSU network drive.

Both these programs are available to all HSU students, faculty and staff. References created in one program can be ported to the other program or to another reference management program (http://library.humboldt.edu/~rls/bibdata.htm).

Classroom Applications:

In addition to using the basic functions of these programs to improve the student research process one can:

• Create stand-alone bibliographies or annotated bibliographies. Both programs have output formats for annotated bibliographies.
• Collaboratively build or share a reference list for class or group research projects. Both programs allow the creation of user groups. Anyone can set up a group with the extent of user access determined by the group owner. Access can be read only, entirely read and write, or read and write to selective group members.
• Check student progress towards completion of an assigned research project by having students generate a report of sources compiled to date.
• Generate class reading lists with full text links that can be imbedded into Moodle or any web page.

See Zotero’s Use Cases (http://www.zotero.org/support/use_cases) for other examples of classroom use.

Correlation with Student Learning:

Use of these programs can enhance student learning by:

• Increasing research competence and critical evaluation of reference sources.
• Increasing understanding of and competence in source documentation.
• Using program search features to discover new information connections among reference sources that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
• Building self-identification as an emerging scholar in a discipline as a student collects reference sources as a freshman and continues the process through the completion of a senior project.

For a learning “scenario” see EDUCAUSE’s 7 things you should know about…Zotero (http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7041.pdf”)

Learn More:

Both EndNote Web and Zotero have excellent online documentation and tutorials at their sites. In addition see:

• Using EndNote Web at HSU (Humboldt State University Library) http://library.humboldt.edu/~rls/endnote_web.html
• Zotero (Georgia State University Library) http://research.library.gsu.edu/zotero

Effective Presentations

--contributed by Kim Vincent-Layton on 10/29/2009

We have all been faced, at one time or another, with the struggle of creating a fascinating, engaging, interactive presentation. How does one create a presentation that not only engages their students, but also provides the necessary concepts? Not only are there a variety of presentation tools out there, but also a wide variety of techniques and tips.

10 Tips

1.Create goals. What do you want your students to learn?

2. Reduce content. Make it simple. Too much content in a presentation can do the opposite of what you want your students to take away. There is so much to remember; they remember almost nothing. By reducing content, we give students time for thinking and therefore providing those ‘takeaways.’

3. Make it clear. This provides students with some direction so they know where they are headed. Emphasize the two to three major concepts at the beginning and conclusion so your students will know what you deem important and what is expected of them.

4. Don’t let the technology be the presentation. You want the students to focus on you and the concepts you are discussing, not your presentation tool.

5.Observe the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. Venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki says a presentation should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and contain no font less than 30 points. However, research shows even shorter presentations (approximately 12 minutes or less) are more effective for maintaining attention. Try building in activities for each concept before you hit that 12-minute mark. This will break up the “presentation” and give time for critical thinking.

6. Use visual aids that are simple, easy to understand, and support the concepts you are trying to convey without too much clutter or animation. Visuals help students to learn more readily and retain more information. Using graphs and charts for statistics or data can often help drive home a point more clearly.

7. Add variety and interaction. Remember, your class will have students with a variety of learning styles. If you only teach to one style you will lose everyone else. This means adding visual, audio, and kinesthetic formats where appropriate. When students engage actively with material, they generally understand it better and remember it longer. Begin lectures with questions/problems for the students to consider. Invite students to participate. Using a tool such as Classroom Response Systems, i.e.: Clickers, can be valuable in active learning. Research has shown that clickers increase attendance, increase participation, and increase student enjoyment (Bruff 2009).

8. Resist the urge to read your slides. If you read every word, you will definitely lose your students’ attention. Limit one idea per slide.

9. Move around the room and make eye contact. A presentation remote gives you the flexibility of advancing your slides from anywhere in the room. Making eye contact is important in maintaining the attention of your students.

10. Plan for a disaster. Consider what could go wrong. Maybe the network is down or the computer won’t be working. Always have a back up.

Effective Presentation Tools:

Sometimes they say it is all about the tool. Again, the tool is there to support you, not be the focus. However, there is a mass of technology tools for presentations. Below is a list of the some of the more popular, suggested presentation tools.

Tool	What does it do?	Cost
Jing	Easy to use screen capture software. Add visuals to documents, online conversations, and more. http://www.jingproject.com/	Free
Microsoft PowerPoint	Slide presentation software. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/default.aspx	$
Keynote	Slide presentation software. (Mac only) http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/	$
Flash	Creation of animation, interactive forms, games. http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/	Free
Camtasia	Screen video capture software. Record on screen activity; captioning. http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp	$
Prezi	Live and on web presentations. http://prezi.com/	Free, $
OmniOutliner	Flexible program for creating, collecting, and organizing information. http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/	Free, $
iStockphoto	Member-generated image and design community with over 4 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage, audio tracks and Flash files. http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php	Free, $
Flickr	Online photo management and sharing application. http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/	Free
SlideShare	Web-based slide sharing application. http://www.slideshare.net/tour	Free
LecShare	Creates accessible PowerPoint files. LecShare Pro has audio/video capabilities for $20 upgrade. http://www.lecshare.com	HSU License

ePortfolios

--contributed by Riley Quarles on 10/22/2009

Our CELT Teaching Tips generally present concepts or tools that you can immediately apply to your teaching to make incremental and manageable positive change during a single semester. However, this week we are presenting an idea that will take several semesters of implementation to realize the full benefit. We are talking about electronic portfolios, more commonly known as ePortfolios.

The use of portfolios for assessment is not new to higher education. Art portfolios and writing portfolios have been employed for decades. So what is so special about electronic portfolios, (commonly known as ePortfolios)? ePortfolios extend this concept beyond the classroom by mapping student learning artifacts (assignments, quizzes, etc.) to a systematic series of learning outcomes at the course level, program/department, college, and university levels. In many cases this mapping extends to reflect national learning outcomes (LEAP http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm).

The benefit of aligning the assignment level learning outcomes all the way to the national learning outcomes is that the information collected on student learning on a daily basis right within the classroom then becomes directly applicable and valid for use in program assessment at all levels above the classroom level. This alignment takes the value of traditional print-based portfolios which have been primarily for student benefit, and extends its worth to the entire institution.

Students continue to benefit by having a repository to collect all of their learning artifacts (assignments, etc.), a method to reflect and think critically upon what they have learned, and a way to assemble and present themselves to future employers.

Faculty members benefit by having one task accomplish two goals, thereby reducing workload. When well defined learning outcomes are presented to the students, they will more fully understand the assignments and will likely develop higher quality products. And when these same learning outcomes are in alignment with departmental outcomes, program assessment then becomes a nearly automated process.

Administrators benefit by measuring student learning across the entire university using the same instrument, thereby generating consistent and reliable data aggregation for analysis and decision making (evidence of learning). Additionally, the reports generated from within the ePortfolios have a direct, one-to-one relationship to the regional accrediting entities requirements.

For more information on the process of using ePortfolios to map assignments to higher level learning outcomes, please visit this video recorded at the recent CSU “ePortfolio Day of Planning” (http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/eportfolio/resources/dop/mapping.html).

If you are interested in having more information on how we might get from here to there, that is, from zero use of ePortfolios at HSU to creating a conscious “ePortfolio Culture”, you may want to watch this video from Dr. Maggie Beers (SFSU) (http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/eportfolio/resources/dop/culture.html).

Twitter for Faculty

--contributed by Gretchen Keer on 10/15/2009

Even if you haven’t used Twitter yet, it’s very likely that you have seen or heard reference to the social networking website at some point over the last year. That’s because Twitter is increasing in popularity, especially among educators. According to Twitter in Higher Education: Usage Habits and Trends of Today’s College Faculty, published this year by Faculty Focus, around 30% of the 2000 higher education professionals they interviewed use Twitter either in a personal or professional capacity.

Part of the appeal of Twitter is that it is very easy to use. You can use a cell phone, a smartphone (like the iPhone or Blackberry), or downloadable software to update your Twitter account, in addition to sending messages by logging in to Twitter.com. Your updates, or “tweets,” can then be viewed by your followers and you can also see a stream of recent tweets from the people you follow.

How faculty are using it

According to Faculty Focus, nearly a third of the 2,000 higher education professionals they surveyed use Twitter. Those educators reported that they use the microblogging service in several important ways. Their responses reflect the fact that Tweets must be 140 characters or less, which means that this tool is most useful for quick updates rather than in-depth written analysis.

Networking is a very common reason faculty use Twitter. Faculty members follow colleagues in their field to discover URLs of interest or announcements for events they might be interested in. Educators also use Twitter to arrange meet-ups and participate in the Twitter “back channel” at conferences. You can also follow conferences you are unable to attend. You might also use Twitter to poll your followers for quick input on research questions, job searches, and teaching problems.

Some faculty also use the service to communicate with students. You could use it to take attendance, post reminders about assignments, or offer extra credit assignments. Foreign language instructors have used it as a way to get their students to practice their written language skills.

Concerns

Nearly 13% of the Faculty Focus report respondents said that they tried Twitter but no longer use it, and more than half said they have never used Twitter. Faculty respondents had many reasons for not using Twitter, including doubting its educational relevance, not having time to use it, or simply not knowing how to use it. Others want to learn more about the possible educational applications before forging ahead.

Learn more

The best way to learn more about Twitter is to sign up for an account at http://twitter.com. You can use the site’s search function to look for individuals and organizational representatives to follow, either by name or email address, or you can search for topics to monitor.

In addition to hands-on experience, take a look at the resources below for more information about how faculty are using Twitter:

Micro-lectures: Just-in-time teaching for critical topics and skills

--contributed by Joan Van Duzer on 10/08/2009

Attaining competence with some concepts and skills requires repetition and practice. Instructors can use class time more efficiently if they create short digitized learning objects that describe a particular concept or demonstrate a skill that students struggle to learn. Create an out-of-class assignment in which students view the micro-lecture and then complete an activity, small project, or written assignment that entails applying the concept or using the skill. Micro-lectures can be as short as 60 seconds to 5 minutes or as long as 15-20 minutes.

Micro-lectures should focus on a specific concept or skill. The micro-lecture technique works best with content that can be explained in small chunks. An advantage is that narrowly-focused micro-lectures allow students to access instruction on a specific concept or skill they need to practice. They do not have to wade through a longer presentation to review one specific topic. Students can return to a micro-lecture any number of times to get the practice they need.

Use micro-lectures to:

• Provide an overview for a particular concept or small group of related concepts.
• Demonstrate a single problem-solving procedure (e.g., solving a particular type of problem in physics, chemistry, statistics, algebra, etc).
• Provide step-by-step instructions and demonstrate completion of a task or laboratory procedure.

Production tips:

• Create the micro-lecture as a narrated power point, audio-only recording, screencast, or short video. The staff in the Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching (Nelson Hall West 237) or Video Production (Gist Hall 205A) can provide guidance and technical support if you need help using these technologies. Most software is available at no cost.
• Prepare a script in advance. Save time by writing what you plan to say and use it to time your presentation. Not only will it help you reduce the number of “takes” but it will be invaluable when preparing the captioning or text equivalent transcript to assure universal accessibility.
• Structure the micro-lecture carefully. Prepare a 15-30 second introduction and conclusion for each micro-lecture to create an appropriate context for the content presented or the skill or procedure demonstrated.
• Include an activity, example problem, or written assignment as a follow-up assignment. Require students to apply the learning from the micro-lecture. Students overestimate their understanding and need concrete feedback to determine whether they have adequately learned the material. If they need to see the demonstration again, micro-lectures are short enough to allow students to view them as often as needed.
• Upload the micro-lectures into your course content in Moodle. Students are more likely to use micro-lectures and complete the application activity if the work is a course requirement that contributes to the final grade. You might be able to construct a quiz for content material that provides immediate feedback to students about the quality of their learning without increasing your grading burden during the term.

Adapted from University of West Florida, Center for University Teaching, Learning & Assessment

Mid Semester Course Adjustments

--contributed by Judy Little on 10/01/2009

The sixth or seventh week of a semester long course is a good time to gather information from your students about their perceptions of what is working and what is not in your course. You may want to use the process of Mid Semester Evaluation that Diane Johnson facilitates. You can find more information about this process at: http://www.humboldt.edu/~dlj1/midsemester.html

While it may be ideal to have a trained facilitator conduct such an evaluation, you can do this your self. At the end of a class session, ask your students to write their responses anonymously to the following questions:

1. What helps you learn in this course?
2. What improvements would you like, and how would you suggest they be made?

If you are implementing a new pedagogy, you might modify the questions to specifically illicit student reactions to that innovation. For example:

1. How is the Team Based Learning helping you learn in this course?
2. What improvements in Team Based Learning process would you like, and how would you suggest they be made?

It is critically important that you report back to the students in your next class session what you have learned from their comments. Discuss with them what changes you plan to make based on their suggestions and why. Also discuss with them changes they suggested that you can’t or won’t implement and explain why.

This seemingly simple process allows you to “catch” impediments to student learning while there is still time to make adjustments in assignments and your teaching strategies. There is evidence that strongly suggests that using and responding to a mid semester evaluation improves end of the semester student evaluations of your teaching.

Writing Student Learning Outcomes

--contributed by Riley Quarles on 09/30/2009

Many institutions of higher education, including Humboldt State University, are now entering the “age of evidence”. This involves evaluating institutional effectiveness by systematically measuring, documenting, and improving what students actually learn throughout their academic career. Defining your courses’ Learning Outcomes is a primary step in the evaluation process.

But where to begin?

First, a definition:

Learning outcomes are the overarching statements of what students will achieve or be able to do as a result of the course. Blooms Taxonomy suggests that cognitive competency in a field begins with knowledge level learning, and advances up the taxonomy to comprehension, application, and then on to the higher order skills involved in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. (1)

Then a quick lesson in grammar.

In order to help you express the distinct performance expectations of your students, you should write your learning outcomes using verbs similar to those found in the following table. (3)

Achieving this Cognitive Competency…	Means your students can do one or more of the following…
Knowledge:	arrange, define, duplicate, know, label, list, match, memorize, name, order, quote, recognize, recall, repeat, reproduce, restate, retain
Comprehension:	characterize, classify, complete, depict, describe, discuss, establish, explain, express, identify, illustrate, locate, recognize, report, relate, review, sort, translate
Application:	administer, apply, calculate, choose, compute, conduct, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, implement, interpret, operate, perform, practice, prescribe, role playing, sketch, solve
Analysis:	analyze, appraise, categorize, compare, contrast, critique, diagram, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, explore, inventory, investigate, question, research, test
Synthesis:	combine, compose, consolidate, construct, create, design, formulate, hypothesize, integrate, merge, organize, plan, propose, synthesize, systematize, theorize, unite, write
Evaluation:	appraise, argue, assess, critique, defend, envision, estimate, evaluate, examine, grade, inspect, judge, justify, rank, rate, review, value

A couple examples.

Here are some examples of Learning Outcomes using verbs categorized by Bloom’s Taxonomy (3)

First Order Learning Outcome (knowledge)

• Given several types of plant leaves, the student will be able to define at least three categories for classifying them.

Second Order Learning Outcome (comprehension)

• Given several examples of each, the student will be able to classify materials according to their physical properties as gas, liquid, or solid.

Third Order Learning Outcome (application)

• The student will be able to demonstrate the steps in facilitating an interest-based mediation.

Fourth Order Learning Outcome (analysis)

• The student will be able to analyze the speech text using the five-part rhetorical framework.

Fifth Order Learning Outcome (synthesis)

• The student will be able to construct a model of a carbon atom.

Sixth Order Learning Outcome (evaluation)

• The student will be able to provide a Marxist critique of consumer culture.

Putting it into practice.

Now that you have the lingo, you begin the task of aligning your instructional activities and appropriate assessment measures with your intended Learning Outcomes.

More to come.

Watch the University Announcements for our related teaching tip on “Embedding Assessment”.

Managing the Paper Load

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 09/24/2009

Many faculty resist adding writing assignments to courses because they fear the extra burden of grading papers. That’s a well-grounded fear. There is no way around some extra work. There is no machine that responds to student writing as you do in the context of your instruction. That said, several practices ensure that you won’t bury yourself in paper grading.

Many instructors spend their time responding to writing after the student is finished. However, we know that students write best when they submit drafts to peers or to their professor that they can revise after receiving feedback. So, if your students write formal papers, you owe it to them to give them feedback on their work (preferably in a draft) and a chance to revise by putting your comments into practice. Drafts are the place to encourage students to dig deeper, to be more analytical, to augment their source material, to consider different organizational patterns— in other words, to make major improvements.

If you are working harder than your students, then something is wrong. Here are some tips for avoiding the paper trap.

• Use informal assignments to get quick readings on what students are thinking and learning by collecting short, informal writing for quick review, assigning credit or no credit. These types of low- stakes assignments can be as important to student learning as high-stakes formal writing, and they add a writing and critical thinking component to your course without adding grading time.
• Concentrate on what is most important: Offer high-level comments (dealing with quality of thinking, argument, organization, or use of sources and supporting information). Attend to the success of the whole essay (rather than local or sentence level concerns) as you read the students’ drafts.
• Don’t spend time on post-mortems. Extensive comments on a final draft waste your time; several studies suggest that students don’t benefit from the professor’s comments on a final draft (Kennedy). If you are grading a final draft that students will not be able to revise, keep your comments brief and summative. A grading rubric works well in this instance.
• Don’t become the editor/proofreader who marks every mechanical error. When held to appropriate standards, students can generally correct most of their own errors. If they have major grammar or punctuation problems, explain the problem in general terms (some faculty create grammar hotsheets to hand out when they return drafts to students), refer them to a good website or handbook, and tell them you expect them to fix their errors—your final grade will reflect correctness.
• Set up peer review groups. Have students exchange drafts after you have given them a checklist of what to look for. Even better, devote part of a class to teaching students how to conduct peer reviews. It’s time well spent. Students benefit from reading and critiquing each other’s papers; for many, seeing how classmates have composed an assignment is as useful as the specific feedback they receive on their own composition.
• Distribute a rubric for each assignment to identify the features you want in a piece of writing (or a presentation), and use it as a checklist for evaluation. Have students evaluate their own or each others’ work in relation to the rubric. Students can be surprisingly accurate judges of their own work.
• Use quick evaluations with a “checkmark” for satisfactory/meets expectations, “+” for work that goes beyond expectations, and “-” for work that fails to meet your expectations.
• Encourage students to use the Writing Center which can provide feedback to students developing their drafts or polishing their final drafts. In addition, it is the place for students to learn how to identify and correct many of their own mechanical errors.
• Assign two or three papers; then ask students to submit their best effort for your evaluation. In other words, students choose to revise and submit their best work. This procedure allows students to explore several areas or problems, while you evaluate only one paper per student. (Papers not submitted could be given several points based on a simple rubric.)
• Respond to the class, rather than the individual. As you grade, keep a running log of common problems that can be discussed with the whole class. Don’t mark problems individually; instead, present them to the whole class in a mini-lesson.
• Use web-based discussion tools (bulletin boards): Moodle allows you to post a discussion question and have students respond in writing. They can learn to write thoughtful responses and to engage in written discussion of the issues in your class. You can read these quickly, and they are often of high interest. You can give credit without grading and correcting. Here is a URL for one teacher’s rubric for classroom discussion posts: http://www.delta.edu/annader/syllabus/pta.html

Getting Students to Read

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 09/17/2009

You’ve discovered that many of your students aren’t reading. Why not? Are you spending too much time summarizing the readings so that students think there is no need to read? Are you not holding students accountable for the reading? Do students fail to see the reading as meaningful and worthwhile? If the answer might be “yes” to any of the above questions then read the following to explore what you can do to get students to read…

Pre-Reading Motivation Strategies:

• Pique their curiosity about the reading. Tell them why you’ve chosen each selection. Give them questions to ponder as they do the reading.
• Refer to the readings frequently. Have students turn to the visuals, graphs, and tables in the readings during class.
• Inform the class how you want students to read a particular selection. Do you want them to skim, deep read, take notes, outline, focus on a particular area? Do you want them to read to find the major argument, to define certain terms, to question the author, etc.?

Reading Assignment Strategies:

• Develop reading guides with questions for students to answer while they read.
• Ask students to submit a concise summary of the main points or a personal response to the reading assignment.
• Ask students to bring in 2-3 questions they have about the material read. Have them get into pairs or small groups to decide on the best question to present to the class. Answering these questions can take the place of a lecture and can be more responsive to the students’ needs. Can collect the questions for credit.
• Ask students to mark with a highlighter or post-it the most significant passages and have them share during class as the basis for discussion.
• Require students to use course readings as part of their formal writing assignments. This will minimize the likelihood of plagiarism and use of paper-mills.
• Reading assignments can be long or short, ungraded, or graded credit/no credit or for points. To reduce the grading load, you can randomly select particular items to grade, such as odd-numbered answers on a reading guide, or you can select particular pre-determined days (unbeknownst to the students) in which the assignments will be graded.

Creating Accessible Tables in Microsoft Word Documents

--contributed by Kim Vincent-Layton on 09/10/2009

Working with tables in Word? Tables are very useful for displaying a large amount of data in an organized manner, such as your course schedule, office hours, etc. In order to make a table accessible for individuals who are blind, have a visual impairment, or a learning disability, provide row and column headers. The text-to-speech software by default will read the information in a table horizontally, cell by cell, row by row.

Here are a few important tips you want to consider when creating accessible tables in Word:

• Do not use tabs or spaces to create tables. It may look like a table; however, it does not have the structure, and it will not be recognized as a table and therefore not be accessible or readable by assistive technologies.
• Tables should be used to present columns and rows of data. Simple tables created in Word using the technique described below are accessible without modifications, and current screen reading software reads these simple tables quite well.
• Do not use the Draw Table tool in Word to create tables. Screen reading software continues to have difficulty reading complex tables created in Word using the Draw Table tool because these types of tables usually have cells of different heights or a varying number of columns per row. The screen reading software cannot give the individual context for the table data because it is not possible to associate cells with the row and column headers.
• Add Row and Column Headers to tables to distinguish the heading text from the data area of the table. Screen readers read simple tables efficiently when the column or row headers are clearly defined.
• Repeat Row Headers if the table spans more than one page. Tables that are contained on multiple pages should have the header row repeated on each page.

Inserting a Table in Word 2007:

1. Insert > Expand the Table menu (Figure 1)
2. Select the number of rows and columns using one of the methods below:
   1. Insert Table (Figure 1) > select the number of rows and columns in the Insert Table dialog box (Figure 2)> Select OK
   2. Visually selecting the number of rows and columns from the grid provided (Figure 1)

Figure 1
Figure 2

Header Rows in Word 2007

A Header Row should be added to tables to distinguish the heading text from the data area of the table. Header rows are also important if the table spans more than one page. To repeat the header row when a table spans more than one page:

1. Select the first row of the table > Right click for context menu > Table Properties…> Row tab
2. Select (check) the option “Repeat as header row at the top of each page” (Figure 3)
3. Select OK

Figure 3

Using Universal Design For Learning to Meet the Needs of All Students

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 09/03/2009

Worried that your teaching isn’t reaching ALL of your students? Looking for strategies to meet the needs of students who struggle to learn for a variety of reasons without compromising the rigorous standards of a course? The key to helping all students succeed is to remove barriers from course design, teaching methods, and curriculum materials. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an effective pedagogical approach that removes such barriers and enhances learning for students with varied backgrounds, learning styles, abilities and disabilities. UDL is:

• the process of making our course concepts educationally accessible regardless of learning style or ability.
• a proactive approach to designing course instruction, materials, and content to benefit students of all learning styles so that you can avoid making needed adaptations as an afterthought.

Universal Design for Learning asks educators to:

• REPRESENT information in multiple formats and media,
• provide multiple ways to ENGAGE students’ interest and motivation, and
• provide multiple pathways for students to EXPRESS what they have learned.

Visit the ELIXR website (http://elixr.merlot.org/) to hear from an experienced professor about her utilization of the principles of UDL in order to remove barriers and better meet student needs. In the ELIXR Universal Design for Learning digital case story, you see examples of, and will learn strategies for, embracing the principles of UDL.

Given the central role of teaching and learning in our professional lives, faculty need concrete ways to enhance effectiveness in the classroom in support of greater student achievement. Explore the following resources on Universal Design for Learning and consider adopting principles of UDL to better meet your students’ needs.

Embedding Assessments

--contributed by Judy Little on 08/27/2009

Once you have your course Student Learning Outcomes (see previous Teaching Tip), it’s time to think about what activities you will ask your students to complete. It just makes sense to construct your assignments and test questions so that they elicit student performances that provide you with evidence that they know or can do what you specify in your SLOs.

At the risk of sounding insulting, too many of us do not stop and ask: “WHY am I giving my students this assignment or putting these questions on an exam?” This can be especially true when we rely on test banks or other assignment suggestions provided by text publishers. It may be useful to ask colleagues if your assignment prompts or test questions are actually constructed in a way that students’ responses to them will give you good evidence of whether they know or can do what you want them to.

You should be able to map your entire set of individual assignments (learning artifacts) and assessment measures to each of your learning outcomes, an example of which might look something like this:


You are now able to be more focused and purposeful in the planning and development of your course, aligning your instructional activities and appropriate assessment measures with your intended learning outcomes.

An additional benefit of this thoughtful approach is that when your course outcomes are aligned with your program’s major outcomes, then there will be a rich array of evidence available for assessing student learning at the program level.

How to Make the First Day of Class Set the Stage for Success

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 08/13/2009

Ever feel like your first day of class is full of dreaded administrative tasks and boring syllabus review? In the ELIXR First Day of Class digital case story (by Joe Grimes and Cynthia Desrochers), you will see exemplar first day of class sessions and hear the rationale from faculty about their class session designs.

In addition, you will see activities, and learn strategies for, addressing first day of class goals including:

• Motivating students about the course and its outcomes

• Framing course content within a larger curriculum

• Developing expectations about workload and work processes

• Determining students’ prior experiences and capabilities

• Creating a comfortable and respectful working environment

• Completing essential administrative tasks

Don’t let your first day of class be a day that students dread. Rather, visit http://elixr.merlot.org/ and gain some useful strategies on enhancing a foundational day for your courses.

-By Tasha Souza, Faculty Development Coordinator, Humboldt State University,
ELIXR Faculty Development Lead

Five Criteria of “Good Course” Design

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 05/22/2009

These five simple concepts will help achieve student learning outcomes by engaging students with the materials and providing course structure and consistency.

1. Challenge students to HIGHER LEVEL LEARNING: All courses require some “lower level” learning, i.e., comprehending and remembering basic information and concepts. But many courses never get beyond this. Examples of “higher level learning” include problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, and creative thinking.
2. Use ACTIVE FORMS OF LEARNING: Some learning will be “passive”, i.e., reading and listening. But “higher level learning,” almost by definition, requires active learning. One learns to solve problems by solving problems; one learns to think critically by thinking critically; etc.
3. Give FREQUENT and IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK to students on the quality of their learning: Higher level learning and active learning require frequent and immediate feedback for students to know whether they are “doing it” correctly. “Frequent” means weekly or daily; feedback consisting of “two mid-terms and a final” is not sufficient. “Immediate” means during the same class if possible, or at the next class session.
4. Use a STRUCTURED SEQUENCE OF DIFFERENT LEARNING ACTIVITIES: Any course needs a variety of forms of learning (e.g., lectures, discussions, small groups, writing, etc.), both to support different kinds of learning goals and different learning styles. But these various learning activities also need to be structured in a sequence such that earlier classes lay the foundation for complex and higher level learning tasks in later classes.
5. Have a FAIR SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING AND GRADING STUDENTS: Even when students feel they are learning something significant, they are unhappy if their grade does not reflect this. The grading system should be objective, reliable, based on learning, flexible, and communicated in writing.

Learning Communities

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 05/14/2009

Learning Communities have a statistically significant impact on student persistence to graduation – particularly when combined with cooperative/collaborative learning that can foster the kind of student/student and student/faculty interaction that is found to be the most powerful predictors of student success in the college experience.

Careful planning of both curriculum and pedagogy around a limited number of central, thematic constructs and pedagogy stressing interactive learning has great potential in fostering student achievement, persistence to graduation, educational citizenship and other cognitive affective outcomes.

Who’s working harder?

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 05/11/2009

Check all the statements that apply to you:
___ I am exhausted after teaching.
___ I often lose my voice while teaching.
___ Teaching is like a stage performance.
___ Teaching is like an athletic event.
___ Students find me entertaining, but I am not sure they are learning.
___ My students yawn a lot.

If you checked more than a couple of boxes, you may want to re-examine who is doing most of the work in your classes. The harder you work, the less your students work, and students learn best when they are active.

Energetic, inspiring, entertaining teachers are a gift to a classroom. If you are lucky enough to be one of those teachers, you should always use those skills to present your material in a way that is memorable and that holds students’ attention. But be sure to also “get out of the way” so that your students have space to create, hypothesize, make mistakes and otherwise funnel their energy into producing something.

Here are few ideas to shift the workload from teacher to students:

• Do a quiz or practice activity (for material you have not yet covered) at the beginning of the lesson and see how students do. Tell them they don’t have all of the tools yet and that you expect them to make mistakes. Follow up with a “lecture” that you give in response to students’ questions.

• Insist that students start a critique. Save your own comments for last.

• Instead of lecturing, hand out notes with all of the information and a task that students have to complete, using that information.

• When a student asks for clarification, redirect the question and have another student answer.

• When sharing something that excites you, save your input until the students have had a chance to respond to the question: What do you notice about this work? Give them a chance to get excited first, then join in.

By shifting the workload, you are not abdicating your responsibilities to students. You are merely giving them space to take responsibility for their own learning and to internalize the knowledge and skills you are teaching.

Grading Tips

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 05/04/2009

These tips can help faculty work more efficiently without sacrificing the quality of feedback to students. These tips are effective for any classroom subject, particularly those that use essay or short answer exam questions, and work equally well in large and small classes.

1. Develop a standard comment sheet to distribute to all students in a particular course. Instead of writing comments on the students’ individual papers, write them on your computer as composite feedback. This approach is far quicker, and you can turn frequently made comments into a boilerplate response.

• Give advice on how to solve or correct commonly missed points or problems

• Provide brief examples from anonymous student papers to illustrate the best responses

• List important feedback about your grading process, such as how you determined partial credit

2. You can also provide quick individual feedback.

• Attach a sheet of paper, if necessary, containing some brief individual comments

• Provide checkmarks or brief symbols on the actual paper to indicate errors that students can correct themselves to regain some of their lost points

3. Remember to use your timer as you grade!

Helping Students Meet Professional Expectations

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 04/27/2009

We strive to make our classrooms safe havens of learning and growth, places where our students can apply what they are learning and not fear making mistakes. However, we know that once our students leave the academic world they will be entering a professional environment that has high expectations. These are expectations that we as professionals encounter daily: punctuality (showing up and meeting deadlines on time), being able to present and discuss concepts articulately and respectfully, and more. What can we do to teach these skills and enable our students’ long-term success?

Here are four ideas:

1. Share with students what employers and clients expect from you at your workplace. Maybe you’ve shown students your work; now it’s time to let students know how your presentation skills, ability to work collaboratively and to problem-solve helped you beat the competition, and achieve and maintain your position.

2. Encourage students to view your class as a design studio that is dependent upon clients. Remind them that you are modeling a professional environment. If possible, invite a guest to class—someone from your industry—to view and possibly critique the students’ work.

3. Make being punctual something to strive for. Recognize students who are on time. You probably stressed the importance of punctuality at your first class and possibly reminded them that being late for work can get them fired; this gives the same information a more positive twist.

4. Demonstrate a professional presentation. We sometimes assume that students know what we mean by ‘professional,’ but for many who don’t have actual industry experience, this is a nebulous term. Make it a teachable moment. Give a presentation (including professional visuals!) and then ask students to describe what made it professional. If time permits, have the students role play. Later, have them discuss which presentation skills they want to master by semester’s end and give them opportunities to practice.

Notetakers

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 04/20/2009

Utilizing “notetaker” handouts can be effective in large and small classes and is a concept easily adapted to online teaching.

Purpose: a.) present concepts; b.) promote higher-order thinking; c.) assess knowledge & mastery; d.) make information relevant; e.) link content to previous material; f.) engage students in learning content.

Process: A notetaker is a handout given to students before class by which they receive and interact with an organized (but incomplete) body of information intended to promote learning. By deliberately building in learning activities, students engage with the content and become active agents in their own learning. Notetakers emphasize the structure and connections between your content. To use the notetaker as the class progresses, have students work individually or in small groups to complete the activities. Out of class, have students complete the notetaker and bring it to class.

Typical learning tasks that might appear in a notetaker:

• Check which attributes of … are correct (excellent assessment)

• Label the diagram, which direction will forces act on this…

• Select, pick out, identify, classify or categorize

• Mark the line on the graph that represents…

• Circle parts of the mathematical formula

• Mark on the map/diagram…

• List factors that inhibit/promote…

• Make a scale drawing (great to assess misconceptions/preconceptions)

• Balance the chemical equation

• Provide words that link these 2 concepts

• Predict what will happen if…

Potential Learning Benefits to Student

• Reinforces recall of lesson content

• Promotes higher-order thinking skills

• Assists students in learning how to learn

• Models selecting and organizing information

• Provides a product for later review

Potential Teaching-Learning Benefits

• Reinforces student preparation

• Introduces concepts & their connections

• Focuses student attention on a learning task

• Injects your personality into the lesson

• Telegraphs what is important

• Allows teachers to show students what they will learn

Potential Teaching Benefits to Instructor

• Prevents you from inadvertently skipping information or objectives

• Allows you to inject humor into the lesson

• Creates a time-flexible lesson

• Produces clear, easy-to-follow lesson plan

• Puts effective questions into lesson

• Allows both direct and indirect questioning

• Assesses student understanding

• Builds variety of learning tasks into lesson

• Allows for individual to group learning

• Helps students make up work when absent

• Makes productive use of class time

• Facilitates transition from one concept to the next

• Builds closure into lesson

• Helps new instructors become better teachers

Cooperative Learning - The 5 Basic Elements

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 04/13/2009

Cooperative learning is much more than simply having students work in groups. Professors who try group work without building in the primary elements of cooperative learning usually have experiences that range somewhere between disappointment and catastrophe.

Common complaints with group work are:

• Students in the group having conversations that have nothing to do with the lesson or the class;

• Students becoming impatient with others in the group and ceasing to work cooperatively;

• One bright student doing most of the work and the other students in the group putting their names on it.

These activities do not occur during true cooperative learning. True cooperative learning has 5 elements that prevent such problems:

1. Positive Interdependence – The task must be structured so that members of the group sink or swim together; one member cannot succeed at the expense of others.

2. Face to Face Interaction – This exists when students assist and support one another’s efforts to learn. This occurs as students actively teach one another to solve problems and understand concepts.

3. Individual Accountability – This prevents a member from getting a free ride on the work of others and prevents low quality of work being accepted from an individual by peers in the group.

4. Social Skills – Groups improve as members learn to contribute positively, acquire trust and manage conflict. These skills are not innate; they must be learned by the teacher and taught to the students.

5. Group Processing – Processing time is usually the most neglected aspect of classroom teaching. In an effort to “cover the material” we forget that our objective is students’ learning, not just presenting material. Processing is essential to insure understanding. Talented students often have learned to do this effectively on their own; average students can be taught to be more effective. If questions such as, “What was the central underlying concept of today’s class?” or, “What is the step-by-step procedure through which we applied this concept to arrive at a successful solution?” are reviewed by the group as well as the aspects of how restating the concept or altering the process might lead to improved understanding, then students leave the class with more comprehension of the material than they would have without processing.

Roundtable

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 04/06/2009

This brainstorming technique can create an active learning environment in small and large courses.

Purpose(s): To brainstorm ideas about a given topic in a way that gets students actively involved. Roundtable can be used for review and recall, for predictions, for practicing a skill, or for idea-generation. It reinforces the value of teamwork.

Steps: Students in a small group (3-5 in number) respond in turn to a question or problem by writing their ideas on a single sheet of paper that circulates rapidly among them. As they write, students say the idea out loud because: a.) Silence in a setting like this is boring, rather than golden; b.) Other team members need to be reflecting on the proffered thoughts; c.) Variety results because teammates learn immediately that someone has come up with an idea they can’t repeat; and d.) Hearing the responses said aloud means that students do not have to waste valuable brainstorming time by reading the previous ideas on the page. Team members ideally should not skip turns, but if their thoughts are at a standstill, it is better to say “Pass” rather than to turn the brainstorm into a brain drizzle. To encourage more equal participation, the “Pass” option can be limited to one round. As the paper circulates clockwise, or to the students’ left-hand sides, team members record ideas as rapidly as possible, resulting in the quick generation of a number of ideas. As with other brainstorming activities, students should not slow the flow of creative ideas by stopping to explain, question, or evaluate.

Variations: Rather than circulate a blank sheet of paper, students can circulate a sheet containing “prompts” or a diagram, (e.g., In an architecture class, the paper contains three subheadings: “Doric, Ionic, Corinthian” and students in turn add the distinguishing elements of these types of Greek architecture.) Several rounds can occur: in a biology class, for example, students identify the components of the respiratory system and then in another round, add their functions.

Assessment and follow-on: You can determine how well students understand concepts by collecting the Roundtables and reviewing them. Roundtables usually form the basis for later discussions, projects, or assignments.

Examples from various disciplines: Government: describe the various international roles played by the United Nations; Art: identify the defining characteristics of impressionistic painting; Medicine or Psychology: list the various symptoms of schizophrenia, AIDS, or co-dependency; History: summarize the most important events of 1918 or any other significant year; Engineering: provide examples of well-known engineering trusses.

A Few Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 03/23/2009

Wondering if your students are learning course concepts? Here are a few examples of classroom assessment techniques that you can use to collect data from your students in order to help you think about how to improve your teaching. You will notice that techniques at the beginning of the list are fairly general and easy to use. Techniques later on the list are more specific, more complex, and likely to require more time for you and for your students.

Minute paper: Give students three to five minutes to answer two questions: (1) “What was the most important thing you learned __?” (you fill in the blank: during today’s class, while doing the homework, while reading the assignment, etc.), and (2) “What important question remains unanswered?”

Students hand in their answers before they leave class. Use this information to find out if students are understanding the material in the same way that you intend them to. If they’re not, this information will help you make changes in what you present or how you present it.

Muddiest point: This technique is similar to the Minute Paper. It follows the same procedures, but focuses on what students DON’T understand. Near the end of class, ask students, “What was the muddiest point in __?” (you fill in the blank: today’s class, this week’s lecture, the reading assignment, etc.)

Allow students 2-3 minutes to write their answers on an index card or piece of paper, which they hand in to you before they leave. Use this information to help you decide what to emphasize or how much time to spend when you review material with students in future sessions.

Focused Lists: Identify a key point or concept that you expect students to know, and ask them to make a list of words and ideas associated with it. Give them a time limit (3-5 minutes) or an item limit (5-10 items), and collect their lists when they are done.

Use this information to help you understand how well students know and use the common vocabulary of the subject you are studying, to see what concepts they associate with one another, or to check their preconceptions before you introduce a topic in detail.

Defining Features Matrix: Ask students to distinguish concepts in terms of a single set of features. List the features on the side of the page, and the concepts across the top; ask the students to indicate (+) or (-) under each concept to show the presence or absence of each feature.

Use this information to help you determine students’ grasp of apparently similar concepts which may be easily confused with one another, or of apparently unrelated concepts which may share important characteristics.

Application cards: Ask students to write one possible real-world application of a theory or concept that has recently been covered. Use this information to see how thoroughly students understand and appreciate the importance of relatively abstract information that have been presented in class. Collect the cards directly, or if you have more time, allow small groups of students to compare their applications and comment on one another’s before they hand them in.

NOTE: Students who come up with poor or incorrect applications are likely to remember and learn those bad examples unless they receive feedback and examples of good applications. Other students’ applications might provide useful good examples for later class discussions.

Feedback forms: Like the forms commonly used for Student Evaluations and other opinion surveys, prepare your own brief survey focused on specific information that will be useful to you. Possible areas to focus on include class activities, assignments, quizzes, and the use of office hours.

Like other classroom assessment techniques, maintain a narrow focus on issues or concerns that will be useful for you. Use this information to quickly assess easily measurable features of what happens in your classroom (for example, satisfaction with the amount of time spent discussing the homework, perceived usefulness of small group activities, etc.).

Student-generated test questions: Ask students to prepare for an upcoming test by writing possible questions which they think could be on the test. By seeing what information they emphasize as most important for the test, you will see how they perceive what you are trying to teach them. Use this information to help you choose what to emphasize in review sessions (for example, if students are failing to notice some things that are very important). You can also use students’ questions to make a practice test. (Some instructors even use their students’ questions on the actual test.)

Writing-To-Learn projects: Students often turn in written projects for a grade. However, if you only collect their written work at the end of the term, it’s too late to use the insights that you gain from their work to help them improve their learning. Instead, collect early (ungraded) drafts of written work, learning journals, or other short written comments from students in order to get information about what they are learning and how they are organizing the information.

NOTE: If students do written work for you, they usually expect written feedback from you about what they have written. They probably will not appreciate taking time to write things for you if they don’t get written responses, especially because they’re not receiving grades for this work.

By Tasha Souza, Faculty Development Coordinator, Humboldt State University,
ELIXR Faculty Development Lead

“Vocabulary Across the Curriculum”: Word of the Day

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 03/16/2009

Wishing your students had more powerful vocabularies? Want to get the students engaged in the subject matter in the first few minutes of class?

Pick any word that you feel a college graduate should be familiar with or should know for your class. Write the word on the board as soon as you enter class.

Ask students to turn to their neighbor and see if each can explain the meaning to the other. Then poll the class for a meaning. Supply the meaning yourself if answers aren’t forthcoming. The entire exercise should take less than 90 seconds. One can use variations of this to introduce discipline-specific content. For instance “Geography Across the Curriculum” (place of the day) or “History Across the Curriculum” (historical character of the day) are fun themes that can broaden students’ general education.

In addition to teaching vocabulary, this exercise gets students’ minds actively involved and provides a kind of jump-start to the class. If the word is carefully chosen, it can be the start of an entire discussion about the concept or topic that you intend to teach that day. The accumulated knowledge that results from a tiny investment of time at the start of each class can be impressive over a semester.

Importance of Students’ Prior Knowledge

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 03/09/2009

A logical extension of the view that new knowledge must be constructed from existing knowledge is that teachers need to pay attention to the incomplete understandings, the false beliefs, and the naive renditions of concepts that learners bring with them to a given subject. Teachers then need to build on these ideas in ways that help each student achieve a more mature understanding. If students’ initial ideas and beliefs are ignored, the understandings that they develop can be very different from what the teacher intends.

To determine if your students understand, and to possibly uncover misconceptions, use the following strategies:

1. Have students put in their own words a key concept. You might even identify a particular audience. (Examples: Explain the concept of “corporation” to high school students; Explain an “irrevocable trust” to a group of retirees.)

2. Have students offer their own applications and/or examples for a key concept (Examples: Stephen Covey recommends “Win-win performance agreements”: give two specific applications, one related to current news and one related to your own life. Give a concrete example of the concept “due process.”)

3. Have students formulate ways to show relationships (Example: concept maps)

Test Construction for Closed-Answer or “Objective” Tests

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 03/02/2009

Objective tests have the advantages of allowing an instructor to assess a large and potentially representative sample of course material and allow for reliable and efficient scoring. The disadvantages of objective tests include a tendency to emphasize only “recognition” skills, the ease with which correct answers can be guessed on many item types, and the inability to measure students’ organization and synthesis of material.

One way to write multiple choice questions that require more than recall is to develop questions that resemble miniature “cases” or situations. Provide a small collection of data, such as a description of a situation, a series of graphs, quotes, a paragraph, or any cluster of the kinds of raw information that might be appropriate material for the activities of your discipline. Then develop a series of questions based on that material. These questions might require students to apply learned concepts to the case, to combine data, to make a prediction on the outcome of a process, to analyze a relationship between pieces of the information, or to synthesize pieces of information into a new concept.

Here are a few additional guidelines to keep in mind when writing multiple-choice tests:

• The item-stem (the lead-in to the choices) should clearly formulate a problem.

• As much of the question as possible should be included in the stem.

• Randomize occurrence of the correct response (e.g., you don’t always want “C” to be the right answer). Statistically, B and C are the most common correct answers. After you have constructed the test, go back check that the answers are distributed randomly across all choices.

• Make sure there is only one clearly correct answer (unless you are instructing students to select more than one).

• Make the wording in the response choices consistent with the item stem.

• Beware of using answers such as “none of these” or “all of the above.”

• Use negatives sparingly in the question or stem; do not use double negatives.

• Beware of using sets of opposite answers unless more than one pair is presented (e.g., go to work, not go to work).

• Beware of providing irrelevant grammatical cues.

Using Threaded Discussions to Build Community in a Course

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 02/23/2009

Lang (2008) argues that building community can be difficult if the only opportunity for interaction occurs during regularly-scheduled class time. In contrast, threaded discussion in the online environment provides access to asynchronous discussion 24/7.

However, this technology will only be effective for community building if students are engaged in the discussions. If participation is optional, students won’t participate.

One way to quickly create an engaging and relevant threaded discussion is to require that students post a 2-paragraph response to the reading for a given week and respond to at least one classmate who has not yet received a reply. Be sure the deadlines for posts and replies are staggered to facilitate exchanges before the class meets on the assigned topic.

If the discussions and student postings are not used during regular class meetings and discussions, students will perceive threaded discussions as “make work.” Skim the postings before class to identify specific topics or questions common to many students. At the beginning of class, briefly discuss common comments and address any important misconceptions or questions included in the posts so students can see how their input enriches the class.

Metacognition (Or, Thinking about Thinking)

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 02/16/2009

Metacognition can be an invaluable tool to help students focus on the learning process itself and help themselves find the best ways to learn.

“A ‘metacognitive’ approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress towards them.”

Teaching and Learning Implications:

• Challenge students to share their thought processes, particularly as they problem-solve. Think-aloud paired problem solving works well in many disciplines such as math and reading.

• Ask students to submit an assessment paper answering questions such as, “What challenged you the most about this assignment?” “What did you learn that surprised you?” “What would you do differently if you had two more weeks?” or “What would you change, if you could?”

• As you lecture, stop and ask questions such as, “How fully and consistently were you concentrating on the lecture during these few minutes?” “Did you get distracted at any point? If so, how did you bring your attention back into focus?” “What were you doing to record the information you were receiving? How successful were you?” “What were you doing to make connections between this “new” information and what you already know?” or “What did you expect to come next in the lecture and why?”

• Help students learn to think in your discipline. Students should learn to approach a physics problem differently than they would approach the analysis/interpretation of a poem in a literature class.

Making Ideas Stick

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 02/09/2009

Are you having problems getting those classroom ideas to attach themselves to the seemingly Teflon-coated brains of your students? While active learning, deep learning, and critical thinking approaches offer effective help, so too does a recent bestseller in the business world.

The Heath brothers’ Made to Stick explains why some major political slogans (e.g., “It’s the economy, stupid”) and advertising campaigns (e.g., “Where’s the beef?”) have become part of our collective consciousnesses. Importantly, the book’s key concepts can be adapted to instructional strategies you can use.

According to Chip and Dan Heath, ideas that stick—i.e., are “understood,” “remembered, and have lasting impact” (Heath & Heath, 2007, p. 8)—fall into six categories, templates, or principles. As the authors explain, “here’s our checklist for creating a successful idea: a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story”—S.U.C.C.E.S. (Heath & Heath, 2007, p. 18).

Simple. Every course and every classroom session has many ideas to get across, but the key, the Heaths claim, “is finding the core of the idea” (Heath & Heath, 2007, p. 27). Critical thinking guru Gerald Nosich concurs, calling the core “fundamental and powerful concepts” (Nosich, 2005, p. 104-107). And if you can keep the idea short and compact it is more memorable. For instance, when we were teaching Romantic poetry, we derived our core concept from a Wordsworth quote: Romantic poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion.” Every poem we taught was then explained through this simple, compact idea.

Unexpected. To hold your class’ attention, you need to occasionally surprise them, generating interest and curiosity by thwarting expectations. Literature classes, for example, are supposed to be serious, but we surprise our students with an easy way to remember the definition of Romantic poetry: think of it acronymically as S.O.P.E. opera. The popular form of a television soap opera (which they do watch) produces a similar overly emotional impact as Shelley’s “I fall upon the thorns of life/I bleed” (“Ode to the West Wind”), and the unexpected juxtaposition of a popular and serious art form makes the key concept memorable.

Concrete. As the Heaths assert, we “must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information” (Heath & Heath, 2007, p. 17). Rendering an abstract literary concept in terms of a popular weekday (or night-time) visual format helps the audience retain the information. Moreover, as students learn by attaching new knowledge to old, we have reminded them of something with which they are familiar (soap opera) and attached to it something new (the definition of Romantic poetry).

Credible. Making an idea credible can involve details, statistics, or examples. We can prove our Romantic definition by having our students randomly pick any poem in the Romantic period and then examine it to spontaneously discover overflowing emotion. That exercise gets them beyond merely accepting a Ph.D.’s words as a credentialed authority.

Emotions. Admittedly it’s difficult to get students to feel about all classroom ideas. However, you can make them emotionally connect with the concrete examples of the ideas you introduce. The former Alabama coach Bear Bryant once claimed that people don’t tie to an English class, but they do to football. Making your examples as concrete as Crimson Tide players and games allows the attachment of emotions. Of course, most Romantic poems contain an emotion to which students can easily tie, whether it’s Wordsworth’s nostalgia “(e.g., “Tintern Abbey”) or Coleridge’s loneliness (e.g., “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”).

Stories. Any time you want to grab your students’ attention, sit on your desk and cross your legs in the manner of the ancient storytellers. Tell the class a tale relevant to a key concept, whether it’s a moment from your childhood or a literary anecdote. We make literary figures very real and memorable by narrating one good story about each. Any student who’s gone through one of our American lit classes can recall Robert Frost’s trying to read the poem he composed for President Kennedy’s inauguration or the Wordsworth-Coleridge walking tour of the lake country.

While we can’t guarantee the Heath brothers’ “SUCCES” approach will work 100% of the time, it’s a worthy complement to active learning, deep learning, and critical thinking approaches. Some studies have shown that 90% of everything students learn in class is forgotten in three months. Using the “SUCCES” methodology might help you improve that rate. We still have students from 20 years ago who come up to us at alumni weekend and shout “FABONSY,” proving they can still remember the silly acronym for the seven conjunctions (For, And, But, Or, No, So, Yet) that require a comma when linking independent clauses.

Ten Teaching Strategies Suggested by Research

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 02/02/2009

These ten simple tips can dramatically enhance student learning experiences.

1. Have students write about what they are learning.

“Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in class listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” (Chickering & Gamson, 1987, p. 3)

2. Encourage faculty-student contact, in and out of class.

“Frequent interaction with faculty members is more strongly related to satisfaction with college than any other type of involvement, or, indeed, any other student or institutional characteristic.” (Astin, 1985, p. 133-151)

3. Get students working with one another on substantive tasks, in and out of class.

“Student’s academic performance and satisfaction at college are tied closely to involvement with faculty and other students around substantive work.” (Light, 1992, p. 18)

4. Give prompt and frequent feedback to students about their progress.

5. Communicate high expectations.

6. Make standards and grading criteria explicit.

7. Help students to achieve those expectations and criteria.

8. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning.

9. Use problems, questions, or issues, not merely content coverage, as points of entry into the subject and as sources of Motivation for sustained inquiry.

“Students learn what they care about and remember what they understand.” (Ericksen, 1984, p. 51)

10. Make courses assignment-centered rather than merely text-and lecture-centered. Then focus on helping students successfully complete the assignments.

Reflection Exercise on a Course’s “Big Question”

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 01/26/2009

In What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain describes how many of the teachers that he studied prepared to teach by devising a “big question,” one that their course would help students address. I use a big question to encourage students to reflect on what they have learned in a course. In the first class meeting of a semester, I present a big question that the course will address and ask the students to write a page or less in which they reflect on the question, and write a response to the question as they would answer it now and indicating what knowledge they used to formulate the answer. This provides me with an understanding of the knowledge base and potential misconceptions that the students bring to the course. At the end of the semester, I ask the students to address the original big question again. I encourage them to revisit their response paper from the first class.

At the time students write the first paper, I indicate that there will be a second part to this assignment, one that will require them to respond to the same question at the end of the semester. I give points for completing this “reflection” assignment, only if both papers have been submitted.

Students use varied approaches when they respond to the question a second time. Some students incorporate comments from the first paper into the second paper, often refuting points made in the first paper with new insights gained through the semester. Other students write the second response and do not look at their earlier response until they have completed the second paper. Still other students start with their first response, and then expand on that first response to create a second response. Regardless of the approach taken, students are much more expansive in the second response than they were on their earlier attempt to answer the question. I have found that having students answer the same big question for the course at the beginning and again at the end of the course serves multiple purposes including encouraging students to reflect on their learning and address misconceptions, while providing a very practical way for me to assess the impact of the course on student learning.

Time-Saving Strategies for Evaluating Student Writing

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 12/15/2008

Praise students for what they have done well. Pointing out strengths is more effective than pointing out weaknesses. Hillocks notes the “great deal of evidence that teacher comments in and of themselves have no effect on student writing except when they are focused on how well the students have accomplished the main point of the assignment and provide further feedback on matters which have already been taught and reinforced.”

Paul Deiderich concluded from his own research on teacher commentary and student motivation that “noticing and praising whatever a student does well improves writing more than any kind or amount of correction of what he/she does badly, and that is especially important for the less able writers who need all the encouragement they can get.”

Some suggestions for commenting on student writing include:

• Focus comments on higher-order concerns—ideas, development, organization, focus.


• Limit comments on higher-order concerns to one, two, or three major changes you’d like to see.


• Avoid (or limit) marking grammatical and mechanical errors


• Engage in “minimal marking.”


• Identify patterns.


• Mark grammatical and mechanical errors in one paragraph only.

What Research Tells Us About Notetaking and Review of Notes

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 11/03/2008

Research on notetaking indicates that taking notes in class and reviewing those notes (either in class or afterward) has a positive impact on student learning. Various studies confirm that students who take notes score higher on both immediate and delayed tests of recall and synthesis than students who do not take notes.

Pausing. The simplest way to engage students and improve their notes is to build in short pauses (two to three minutes) a few times during the lecture when students can review and rework their notes. Further, giving them the opportunity to briefly summarize their notes (or respond to a review question) with a partner increases retention significantly.

Handouts. Faculty can support student notetaking by distributing handouts for students to use while taking notes. Students take better notes and review material more effectually if faculty provide a “scaffold,” such as an outline, an overview, or other advance organizer for students to use while taking notes.

In summary, notetaking facilitates both recall of factual material and the synthesis and application of new knowledge, particularly when notes are reviewed prior to exams.

Cognitive Science/Learning Science Research

--contributed by Tasha Souza on 10/27/2008

The more we know about cognitive science, the more we can adapt teaching to meet the needs of students.

Perhaps the most influential recent work in this area is the 2000 book, How people learn: Brain, mind experience and school by Bransford, et al. Most people can only hold about seven “bits” of memory in short term memory (the kind we use when an operator tells us a phone number and we need to use this information immediately to make a call). If we add more information to this memory, as is often the case in very dense lectures, virtually all information is lost. We also know that even highly motivated students can pay attention to technical material for ONLY 10-20 minutes. This suggests that we break lectures and other presentations into manageable amounts of information frequently inserting active and cooperative strategies into an otherwise passive mode of processing/storing information.

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