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Category: Pedagogical Tidbits

Published on Leave a comment on The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Have you considered publishing work in the area of Pedagogical Scholarship or the Scholarship of Teaching? This is highly valued by the university if it reaches the stage of public dissemination. There are many topics we might have in mind to study, but just like any other scholarly endeavor, it must be planned out in advance, not just written up as an afterthought. There are things to consoder beforehand, especially if your discipline scholarship is very removed from the education and social science fields. Planning the project appropriately will help you avoid creating aspects that will significant affect, and even void, your data collection when tracing student learning and opinions. (IRB approval, anyone?)

If you missed the CAT+FD talk given by Megan Osterbur (Political Science) and Charles Gramlich (Psychology), they outlined the steps needed to be taken for successful scholarly teaching projects. The process begins with reflection and questions, then project design and data collection, and finally analysis and publication. The CAT+FD office is also uniquely qualified to help with this process, especially the project design and finding an appropriate journal as the new home for your brilliant work. The quote that Meg shared about this field really stuck with me and was so familiar when I think about my colleagues here at Xavier and what many of us do on a daily basis already.

“Scholarly teaching is what every one of us should be engaged in every day that we are in a classroom, in our office with students, tutoring, lecturing, conducting discussions, all the roles we play pedagogically. Our work as teachers should meet the highest scholarly standards of groundedness, of openness, of clarity and complexity. But it is only when we step back and reflect systematically on the teaching we have done, in a form that can be publicly reviewed and built upon by our peers, that we have moved from scholarly teaching to the scholarship of teaching.” (Shulman 2004, p. 166).

Please do not hesitate to contact the CAT+FD staff if you are thinking about advancing your scholarship in this field. Also, if you missed the presentation and believe this is a topic you would like to see offered again, please let us know in the comments below.
Cheers,
Stassi

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Published on 1 Comment on What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Teach Online

by Janice Florent

Being prepared is a must for teaching online. In addition to using better practices for online course design you should be thinking about how to deliver your online course for maximum success.

globe with a computer mouse and teaching online text

In an IDDblog blog post, Alex Joppie listed a few tips for keeping your online course running smoothly. I’ve combined his tips with a few of my own to provide you with suggestions to help your online course run smoothly. Those suggestions are as follows:

Before the semester starts—touch base with your students

Send an email to your students before the first day of class. In your email,

  • Make sure students know they’re enrolled in an online class. Some students take online classes because they think it will be easy. When in fact, some students struggle in online courses because they do not have the skills to be self-directed learners. You should let the students know that online classes take time and self-discipline.
  • Inform them of technology requirements, textbooks, and other required materials. This will help them hit the ground running.
  • Let the students know when your Blackboard course will be available.
  • Let the students know you’re there. This email can also serve to ensure to students that even though the entire course is going to facilitated by computers and networks, that there is a human being involved who cares about their success.
  • Make sure they got the email (and read it). Ask students to respond to the email. You may need to pursue other means of communication if a student doesn’t seem to be getting your email.

The first week—setting the tone

Follow these steps to set a healthy culture for the course and make sure everyone gets off to a good start.

  • Make sure students log in to your course. Use the Performance Dashboard to check to make sure everyone has logged in sometime within the first few days of class.
  • Create a welcome video for your course. Using a short video clip of yourself helps the students to have a picture of you in their mind. This video will help you to become a “real” person to your students.
  • Add a profile avatar to humanize your course. Humanized learning increases the relevance of course content and improves students’ motivation to log-in to your course week-after-week. Your profile avatar will create an inviting space for your students.
  • Create a more personalized learning environment in your course by using template variables. Template variables allow you to create personalized messages for your students. A personalized welcome message, for example, will make your course feel more inviting to your students.
  • Be active in introductory discussions. Your introductory discussions will set the tone for the entire course. Make sure there’s a positive culture in your discussions by being engaging in the first one.
  • Encourage students to utilize the Global Navigation Menu, Course Calendar, and notifications to keep up with critical and timely course related information and assignments.
  • Utilize Blackboard tools to help students stay on track. Students are more likely to be successful in an online course when they check-in regularly and keep up with their coursework. If a student falls behind early, they may never catch up.

Mid-course—checking in

  • Give your students an anonymous survey to get feedback from them on how the course is going. Do this sometime after you feel your students should have gotten a sense of the rhythm of the course but you still have time to make meaningful course corrections based on the feedback. This is especially important the first time you teach a new course.

Every week—the routine

Provide students with weekly communications that recap the previous week’s activities and prime students for the following week:

  • Highlight insightful discussion posts – Draw students’ attention to important points made by their classmates. It’s positive reinforcement for students and shows that you’re engaged.
  • Respond to gaps in student learning – Did everyone miss a question on the quiz, or skip over an important point in a discussion? If so, address it.
  • Contextualize the week’s main topics – Tie the week’s activities back to the learning goals of the course. Why is what we did this week important?
  • Prime the students for the next week’s main topic – Give some context about why they should care about what’s coming up next.

Here are a few more ideas to keep your online course interesting.

End-of-semester evaluation—develop your teaching persona

  • An end-of-semester evaluation is a good opportunity to get feedback from your students to help you develop your teaching persona. Getting a “learner-sighted” view of the course-experience can add to your understanding of the learning environment, including aspects of your teaching persona that have framed it.

Studies show that students withdraw from online courses at a higher rate than in face-to-face courses. There are many reasons for students withdrawing from an online course. Some reasons are beyond the instructor’s control. Educators do not like to see students withdraw from courses for the wrong reasons. The suggestions in this blog post will help you to improve retention and reduce attrition by making sure that your students are prepared, that they get off to a good start, and that they’re engaged.

Published on Leave a comment on Adventures in the Library Part 2-primary sources

Do you require your students to write a research paper for your course? How do they do? Are they full of Wikipedia references or do your students have a good handle on primary sources?

For years I have struggled with that issues in my senior level Drug Design and Synthesis course. Despite lengthy talks and handouts on the subject, I would get a whole lot of WebMD in the final papers. Years ago, I had the students go to the library one class period for research and reference instruction. At some point, students started telling me that they have heard that lecture several times in other courses, so I stopped requiring it. But the papers got worse and worse.

I then contacted the science librarian, Mary George, and discussed the assignment with her. She set up a personal website for my students that had many of the resources they needed for that paper. Check it out:
http://xula.libguides.com/c.php?g=383560

It has the best search engines for our topics, links to online journals that we have subscriptions to, links for inter library loan, etc. It is AWESOME!

We then had a class in the computer lab in the library where we all used the website and became familiar with it. I had the students pull a reference for a literature reading assignment so they could a) walk through how to access those journals and b) leave that day with that paper in hand. I then had them begin searching for their research paper topic. Mary and I were there to help them trouble shoot and by the end of the class period they were all on their way to gathering sources for their final research papers.

It was a huge success. But the real benefit came when I read the papers. There was not a Wikipedia or WebMD reference to be found. The students used real primary sources and the paper quality was much improved.

I highly recommend you contacting your division/department librarian to set up this tool for your course. It is a fabulous resource for all faculty.
Cheers,
Stassi

Published on Leave a comment on 7 Tips to Motivate Millennials

by Janice Florent

millennials working together on a project

Many educators feel frustrated that millennials are especially difficult to reach and to motivate, yet motivation is one thing that can drive millennials to succeed. Student engagement is the key to academic motivation, persistence, and degree completion. Educators must find ways to get students' attention and get them actively engaged with the course material and with their peers.

In a recent Pulse Learning blog post, Christopher Pappas listed seven tips to get millennials excited and fully engaged in the learning process. Those tips are:

  1. Stress real-world applications – Millennials need to know why they are doing something and how it will serve the greater good.
  2. Empower them - Give millennials a way to share their opinions and insights so that they can feel as though they are making a difference.
  3. Track their progress - Millennial learners like to be able to track their progress as they go along. They must be able to immediately determine where they are at and what they still need to accomplish.
  4. Encourage collaboration - This generation of learners thrives in social environments. They enjoy sharing personal experiences and skills with their peers, as well as learning new things from other members in their group.
  5. Offer immediate feedback - Millennial learners crave feedback and recognition. They like to be congratulated on a job well done and praised for their achievements. You should offer feedback that is specific and that helps them learn.
  6. Focus on flexibility - Create a flexible schedule that allows learners to complete online projects and exercises when it’s most convenient for them.
  7. Offer mentoring or other online support services - The millennial generation likes to have control, but they also like to be able to see the direct path they need to take to achieve success. In other words, they require guidance from time to time. Educators should provide mentoring for student success.

If this has piqued your interest, you can read more in Christopher’s How To Motivate Millennials: 7 Tips For eLearning Professionals blog post.

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Published on 2 Comments on Twitter Cheat Sheet for Educators

by Janice Florent

Twitter is an excellent tool for consuming and for learning. Twitter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for many educators venturing into the world of education technology. Some educators are harnessing Twitter as a part of their PLN (personal learning network) to connect, share, and network. If you are interested in using Twitter, here is a Twitter Cheat Sheet for educators to get you up to speed.

Also, follow us (CAT+FD) on Twitter @xulacat.

twitter cheat sheet for educators

Published on Leave a comment on Plan for Potential Classroom Disruptions Redux

by Janice Florent

Snowmageddon 2016 should be a reminder that course delivery is vulnerable to unplanned events. Potential interruptions to class activities include but are not limited to natural disasters, widespread illness, acts of violence, planned or unexpected construction-related closures, severe weather conditions, and medical emergencies. Whatever the event, an instructional continuity plan will help you to be ready to continue teaching with minimal interruption.

It's not too late to consider developing an instructional continuity plan for your current courses.

For those who missed our workshop and for those who want to learn more about instructional continuity you will find a link to the PowerPoint presentation above. Also, please visit our Instructional Continuity web page, where you will find planning guides, resources, and a recording of the workshop presentation.

image with the wording

Do you have a plan? If so, we would like to hear about it. If you had a classroom disruption and found a way for students to continue to make progress in your course, we encourage you to share it with your colleagues. Please email a brief description of what you did along with your reflections on how it worked for you, and we will post it to our Instructional Continuity web page.

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Published on 1 Comment on Give Students Feedback That Helps Them Learn

African American female looking at laptop computer screen

In a recent Teach Thought blog post, Justin Chando writes,

To tell a student “great job” or “this needs work” is a missed opportunity.

Hearing that you did a great job is wonderful. However, the problem with “great job” or “this needs work” is that it is not specific. There is no indication of what was done that was successful, and no information about how to replicate this success in future assignments.

In the blog post, Justin goes on to explain Grant Wiggins’ key characteristics of better feedback. Helpful feedback is:

Goal oriented: Goal referenced feedback creates a roadmap for students; it shows them how far they can go in the mastery of a subject or skill by outlining specific places for improvement or highlighting successful behaviors/techniques.

Transparent: A useful feedback system involves not only a clear goal, but transparent and tangible results related to the goal. The feedback needs to be concrete and obvious.

Actionable: Great feedback begs an obvious action/response from a student. It provides a clear course of action for the next time around or outlines a new plan for moving forward.

User-friendly: Feedback is not of much value if the student cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it. Quality feedback should be accessible to the student, clear and concise, using familiar language from the lesson/course.

Timely: Vital feedback often comes days, weeks, or even months after. Give students timely feedback and opportunities to use it in the course while the attempt and effects are still fresh in their minds.

Ongoing: One of the best ways to give great feedback is to give it often. Ongoing formative feedback helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work.

Consistent: Keeping guidance as consistent as possible allows students to hone in what needs to improve in their work and focus on making it better.

For more information on these key characteristics of better feedback including strategies to give better feedback, read Justin's Teach Thought blog post, How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn.

Photo credit: photo by #WOCinTech Chat is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on Formative Assessments and Fitness Bands

by Janice Florent

In a recent Faculty Focus article, Dr. Karen Buchanan, associate professor of education at George Fox University, compared formative assessments and fitness bands. In the article, Dr. Buchanan explained how a fitness band changed the life of a colleague because of the continuous feedback provided about her progress toward her fitness goal.

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

  • Help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
  • Help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

person wearing a fitness band

Fitness bands are popular because they work. The fitness band:

  • Provides clear, timely data on users progress
  • Helps users see where their current data sits in relation to their goals
  • Provides users with feedback and/or tips aimed at improving their performance
  • Celebrates milestones using a variety of electronic methods

The continuous feedback and progress toward goal is formative assessment.

Can instructors be as effective as a fitness band? Here are two suggestions for providing students with helpful feedback:

  • Be detailed in your feedback - Be specific and give examples. How can students implement your suggestions if they are missing, minimal, or vague?
  • Stay current in grading - How can students implement your suggestions if they are not given in a timely manner?

Embracing the power of formative assessment will help you increase the quality of your teaching and help students to improve their metacognitive awareness of how they learn.

For more information read Dr. Buchanan’s article What Fitness Bands Can Teach Us about Classroom Assessment.

Image Credit: Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

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Published on 1 Comment on Use Color to Enhance Learning

by Janice Florent

abstract colorful artwork

Do you intentionally choose some colors over others because of their effect on the brain? There have been a number of studies on the influence of color on brain performance. These studies have yielded some interesting results.

Effective use of color is important and is often overlooked and under-utilized. Colors can affect mood, have different meanings in various cultures, and bring immediate things to our minds. The right color can put your students in the right mood for optimal participation.

Here is a breakdown of commonly accepted psychological effects of colors from a Using Color in Learning article:

Red is a stimulant. Red can evoke passion and excitement, increase blood pressure and metabolism. Use it to draw attention to key points, but don't overdo it as it could turn your students off. Red is a good color for pointing out things not to do.

Orange is an antidepressant. Similar to red it can be used as a stimulant. It is seen as warm and welcoming and can be beneficial when used in relation to food or creative processes. Use it to appear more personable to your students, particularly when dealing with boring content that just has to be presented.

Blue is in many ways red's counter--it lowers the pulse and encourages serenity. Use it to calm students when presenting information that may initially seem complicated or overwhelming.

Green is known to bring tranquility and peacefulness. It is seen as refreshing and is the easiest color on the eyes. Green helps to relax muscles and deepen breathing. Use it wherever you want, as much as you want. With good design, green can be a very effective eLearning color.

Yellow is a brain stimulant and promotes memory, clear thinking and decision-making. Yellow should be used sparingly as it is the harshest color on the eyes. Use it to highlight points that should be memorized or that are often forgotten in your content.

Purple is a mind-balancer that promotes good judgment and spirituality. Purple is traditionally the color of royalty. It can be used to express any number of moods depending upon the color with which it is paired (with blue it becomes calming, with red it becomes stimulating). Use it in conjunction with another color to achieve your desired mood. Purple is a very well-rounded color that could be used to express anything from lightheartedness and fun in learning to sophistication of a company or brand.

Pink is usually associated with sweetness, warmth, and energy. It’s often described as a color of playfulness and fun. Use it in your courses to convey a light-hearted or positive message. Also, consider using pink if your primary audience is women, as there is a strong correlation between this color and femininity.

Black is technically the absence of color and typically elicits feelings of power, formality, mystery, fear and sexuality. Use it for fonts. There are a lot of jazzy things you can do with font colors but sticking with traditional black is often the best choice for the bulk of text.

White is technically the perfect balance of all colors and is seen as pure and clean. Use it all over. Don't be afraid of well-thought-out white space. White is also a strong color contrast choice for fonts when text is on a darker background.

Here is an interesting color emotion guide:

color emotion guide

Companies often select colors for their logos based on what the color conveys. The Hidden Meaning Behind Famous Logo Colors article explains how the main color of company logos has a serious impact on how people perceive it.

When using color to enhance learning, present content with carefully chosen colors. However, don’t get too crazy with the colors.

It is important to remember that people who are color blind cannot distinguish the differences between certain colors. Therefore, for accessibility do not use color alone to convey meaning. Also, when selecting colors, you should make effective color contrast choices to make your content accessible.

Image credits:
Image by geralt from Pixabay
Color Emotion Guide by The Logo Company from Visual.ly

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Published on 1 Comment on Metacognition: The Gift That Keeps Giving

by Janice Florent

the thinker statue

Students who succeed academically often rely on being able to think effectively and independently in order to take charge of their learning. They are thinking about their own thinking; mastered the knowledge about their own learning. This is referred to as metacognition. Metacognition is the ability to think about your thoughts with the aim of improving learning.

Students who do not learn how to "manage" themselves well as they proceed through school experience more setbacks, become discouraged and disengaged from learning, and tend to have lower academic performance.

In an Edutopia article, Dr. Donna Wilson, provided the following steps for helping students learn how to be more metacognitive:

  1. Explicitly teach students about this essential learning skill by defining the term metacognition.
  2. Ask students to describe the benefits and supply examples of driving their brains well.
  3. Whenever possible, let students choose what they want to read and topics they want to learn more about.
  4. Look for opportunities to discuss and apply metacognition in a variety of lessons so that students can transfer it for the most benefit.
  5. Model metacognition by talking through problems.

If this has piqued your interest, read the Edutopia article, Metacognition: The Gift That Keeps Giving.

Additionally, incorporating metacognitive strategies into your Blackboard course design can help to create autonomous and self-starting learners, who are responsible for their own learning and are willing to share the synthesized version of their knowledge with peers. For more information read my Metacognition for Effective Online Learning blog post.

Image Credit: Image by 139904 from Pixabay