LEARNING MADE EASIER
IDEA provides some great tips on how you can help your students learn fundamental principles, generalizations, or theories. How can students show they “comprehend” a principle, generalization
or theory? Bloom describes three ways. First, they can restate the
principle, generalization or theory in their own words, which Bloom
calls translation.
When asked what is Newton’s third law of motion, the student might
answer, “It’s when two things hit each other, they push each other
equally in opposite directions.” Bloom states that translation can take one of three forms:
translation into the student’s own words, as we’ve just seen;
translation into symbolic form e.g., from verbal to graphical form
(inserting arrows into a picture to depict the forces operating on the
chair in the example above); translation from one verbal form to
another, e.g., metaphor, analogy. Read more here.
DOES LEARNING STOP
Most of us can describe what good teaching looks like and many of us accept the premise that learning occurs when student accept the new knowledge and are able to apply it to different contexts. But when does learning end or does it have to? That is the basis of Dr. Maryellen Weimer's latest blog post. She writes, "With courses ending so definitively, it’s easy to think that whatever
impact you or the course might have on students is over. But learning
doesn’t always end when the course does. Some insights and
understandings are iterative and cumulative. Students arrive at them
after repeated exposure, as the evidence mounts and their skills and
experiences deepen. Other intellectual development happens when
students are finally ready to learn.Read more here.
HOW MUCH FEEDBACK IS ENOUGH
Are you sure that the feedback you are providing to your students is really helping them? It is a question that nags at us. We want to provide enough feedback to help our students from repeating the same mistakes. We also want them to learn from what they did right and wrong. But we are always concerned about giving feedback that demotivates our students. Dr. Matt Gomes and doctoral student Noel Turner offer their own take on this dilemma. They suggest that we have students identify a specific outcome or assessment criterion they are concerned with, and respond only to that concern.
When Dr. Gomes uses this strategy, the question becomes “What does this
student need to do in order to perform better along specific project
goals or assessment criteria? What do they need to do to become a more
reflective writer (project goal) or to organize their claims effectively
(criterion)? This strategy has the added benefit of prodding him to
specifically elaborate on his understanding of outcomes or assessment
criteria." Read more here.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
APPLYING NEW KNOWLEDGE
You will get a range of reactions when you bring up the subject of online group activities. As Gregory Wells notes, "The skills learned by participating in a group project are applicable to nearly any career that a student is currently interested in or will be interested in at a future date. It is rare in today’s global economy that an individual will work independently on a project. Therefore, it is important that opportunities are provided to students to not only learn content, but to apply that content in a practical, near real-world environment." So how can you improve the process to satisfy you and your students? Read more here.
THE PURPOSE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Cathy Davidson has a really interesting post on the HASTAC website. She writes that if we cannot change higher education as rapidly as we would like, we can change our classrooms to reflect our values. At a recent workshop, she asked the participants to answer the following questions, "Maybe you cannot change the world but, for most of us teaching in classrooms, [what] are ways of making changes in one's own class that can make a difference--to one's students, to one's own role in replicating inequity, and as a model to our institutions seeking to "transform higher education?" She admits that "what we are advocating is almost the opposite of 'outcomes' thinking; it is structuring empowerment at the input level, designing a syllabus that acknowledges structural inequality by countering it." Read more here.
STOP CHEATING
Taylor Massey writes "Detecting plagiarism may be an endless battle for instructors, but avoiding it is sometimes easier said than done for students. For many college students, knowing when and how to cite correctly is the biggest challenge. With only so many hours in a semester, writing and citation instructions are not always able to be covered in-class. To give students an idea of where to begin, share these tips with them for easily avoiding plagiarism." Want to see tips offered to help prevent and catch plagiarism, click here.
You will get a range of reactions when you bring up the subject of online group activities. As Gregory Wells notes, "The skills learned by participating in a group project are applicable to nearly any career that a student is currently interested in or will be interested in at a future date. It is rare in today’s global economy that an individual will work independently on a project. Therefore, it is important that opportunities are provided to students to not only learn content, but to apply that content in a practical, near real-world environment." So how can you improve the process to satisfy you and your students? Read more here.
THE PURPOSE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Cathy Davidson has a really interesting post on the HASTAC website. She writes that if we cannot change higher education as rapidly as we would like, we can change our classrooms to reflect our values. At a recent workshop, she asked the participants to answer the following questions, "Maybe you cannot change the world but, for most of us teaching in classrooms, [what] are ways of making changes in one's own class that can make a difference--to one's students, to one's own role in replicating inequity, and as a model to our institutions seeking to "transform higher education?" She admits that "what we are advocating is almost the opposite of 'outcomes' thinking; it is structuring empowerment at the input level, designing a syllabus that acknowledges structural inequality by countering it." Read more here.
STOP CHEATING
Taylor Massey writes "Detecting plagiarism may be an endless battle for instructors, but avoiding it is sometimes easier said than done for students. For many college students, knowing when and how to cite correctly is the biggest challenge. With only so many hours in a semester, writing and citation instructions are not always able to be covered in-class. To give students an idea of where to begin, share these tips with them for easily avoiding plagiarism." Want to see tips offered to help prevent and catch plagiarism, click here.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
CHALLENGING THE IDEA OF CLASSROOM
Dr. Thomas Fisher has written a thought provoking post about how the physical space of a classroom can inspire or inhibit learning. He and his students spent the semester as nomads, moving from space to space throughout the term. He writes, "We had pedagogical reasons for doing so. The course focused on how the built environment both reflects and affects our ideas about the world around us, looking at how philosophical concepts, cultural constructs, and social, economic, and environmental constraints help shape the spaces that human beings inhabit. Given that, it seemed appropriate to experience a variety of spaces and to reflect upon the relationship of each one to the content of the course. We noted as the course progressed how much the spaces in which we met helped shape the conversation, as we expected, given the focus of the course and the fact that all of the students were either undergraduate or graduate architecture students." Read more about his experience here.
TAPPING INTO THE SOCIAL GENIUS OF ANOTHER
We have discussed the need to have our students think about thinking and how they learn best. Metacognition research continues to grow and new ideas and insights are emerging everyday. Dr. Lori Desautels asks, "What if we could dramatically improve our thought processes and learning strategies by tapping into the social genius of another? What if a classmate, colleague, or friend could help us recognize and claim our strengths, new habits of thought, and strategies from a perspective that we never imagined by ourselves?" Find out what she thinks here.
WORK/LIFE BALANCE IMPORTANT FOR MENTAL HEALTH
It is usually at this point in the semester when we begin to feel overwhelmed by all of our responsibilities. I think the anxiety is heightened because our students become more needy at this point. Many of them are trying to finish out their two year academic journey and move on, either to work or a four-year college. It is important for us to set boundaries so that we can finish out the semester with the same vigor and excitement that we began with in January. Amy Cavender offers her own tips for maintaining a balanced work/life schedule in this short post. Let me know what you think or share some ideas about how you stay focused and enthusiastic.
Dr. Thomas Fisher has written a thought provoking post about how the physical space of a classroom can inspire or inhibit learning. He and his students spent the semester as nomads, moving from space to space throughout the term. He writes, "We had pedagogical reasons for doing so. The course focused on how the built environment both reflects and affects our ideas about the world around us, looking at how philosophical concepts, cultural constructs, and social, economic, and environmental constraints help shape the spaces that human beings inhabit. Given that, it seemed appropriate to experience a variety of spaces and to reflect upon the relationship of each one to the content of the course. We noted as the course progressed how much the spaces in which we met helped shape the conversation, as we expected, given the focus of the course and the fact that all of the students were either undergraduate or graduate architecture students." Read more about his experience here.
TAPPING INTO THE SOCIAL GENIUS OF ANOTHER
We have discussed the need to have our students think about thinking and how they learn best. Metacognition research continues to grow and new ideas and insights are emerging everyday. Dr. Lori Desautels asks, "What if we could dramatically improve our thought processes and learning strategies by tapping into the social genius of another? What if a classmate, colleague, or friend could help us recognize and claim our strengths, new habits of thought, and strategies from a perspective that we never imagined by ourselves?" Find out what she thinks here.
WORK/LIFE BALANCE IMPORTANT FOR MENTAL HEALTH
It is usually at this point in the semester when we begin to feel overwhelmed by all of our responsibilities. I think the anxiety is heightened because our students become more needy at this point. Many of them are trying to finish out their two year academic journey and move on, either to work or a four-year college. It is important for us to set boundaries so that we can finish out the semester with the same vigor and excitement that we began with in January. Amy Cavender offers her own tips for maintaining a balanced work/life schedule in this short post. Let me know what you think or share some ideas about how you stay focused and enthusiastic.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
ASSIGNMENT DESIGN AFFECTS LEARNING
"We can more effectively shape learning outcomes if we start with objectives that force us to get specific about what we want students to know and be able to do. Most of us write objectives for the course approval processes and they appear on many of our syllabi, but are they front and center when we make assignment decisions? If not, we can come at this from the other direction. We can look at the products produced by the assignment to make some determinations about what and how students are learning. I can hear some being adamant that the better way to start is with objectives, and that may be right. I’d rather be adamant about all of us understanding the relationship between assignment design and the learning that results." That is just part of Dr. Maryellen Weimer's post about how the design of assignments affect student learning. Read more here.
DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE ELEARNING COURSES
Since we are migrating to Canvas as our new LMS, now is a great time to look at the design of your course material. Take a look at this free ebook. You will have to create an account first. There you will find a great explanation of what accessibility means in the e-learning setting. Course navigation is also discussed as well as the use of audio and video. Here is one of the tips from the ebook, "Make sure that every activity, object, and element in your course that conveys meaning is keyboard accessible. And just what does 'keyboard accessible' mean? It means you shouldn’t include any activities that require a mouse—such as drag-and-drop assessments and rollover effects. If visually impaired learners can’t use their keyboards to access content or an activity, they’ll miss it."
INCREASING STUDENT SUCCESS
The excellent folks in our Academic Learning Center recently sent us some reminders about the services they offer for all of our students. As we enter the home stretch of the spring semester, it is a great time to make sure that your students are aware of all of the academic support available to them. For instance, Smarthinking is an online tutoring service that provides assistance 24/7. Our students can access it through their Blackboard account. If your students would rather work individually, the peer-tutor program in the ALC is the best option. The program was developed using the best research available and the ALC staff continue to update their strategies and intervention methods. If you are looking for more information on the ALC, visit the website or contact them at 216.8300.
"We can more effectively shape learning outcomes if we start with objectives that force us to get specific about what we want students to know and be able to do. Most of us write objectives for the course approval processes and they appear on many of our syllabi, but are they front and center when we make assignment decisions? If not, we can come at this from the other direction. We can look at the products produced by the assignment to make some determinations about what and how students are learning. I can hear some being adamant that the better way to start is with objectives, and that may be right. I’d rather be adamant about all of us understanding the relationship between assignment design and the learning that results." That is just part of Dr. Maryellen Weimer's post about how the design of assignments affect student learning. Read more here.
DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE ELEARNING COURSES
Since we are migrating to Canvas as our new LMS, now is a great time to look at the design of your course material. Take a look at this free ebook. You will have to create an account first. There you will find a great explanation of what accessibility means in the e-learning setting. Course navigation is also discussed as well as the use of audio and video. Here is one of the tips from the ebook, "Make sure that every activity, object, and element in your course that conveys meaning is keyboard accessible. And just what does 'keyboard accessible' mean? It means you shouldn’t include any activities that require a mouse—such as drag-and-drop assessments and rollover effects. If visually impaired learners can’t use their keyboards to access content or an activity, they’ll miss it."
INCREASING STUDENT SUCCESS
The excellent folks in our Academic Learning Center recently sent us some reminders about the services they offer for all of our students. As we enter the home stretch of the spring semester, it is a great time to make sure that your students are aware of all of the academic support available to them. For instance, Smarthinking is an online tutoring service that provides assistance 24/7. Our students can access it through their Blackboard account. If your students would rather work individually, the peer-tutor program in the ALC is the best option. The program was developed using the best research available and the ALC staff continue to update their strategies and intervention methods. If you are looking for more information on the ALC, visit the website or contact them at 216.8300.
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