Providing Feedback That Will Be Used

You can always tell when the first round of assessment begins in the 16 week classes. That is because we always see a rise in the number of eLearning and accommodated testers in the Testing Center. In addition, after more than three decades in higher education, I know that having enough time to do all of the things we need to do for good teaching and learning is one of the tasks that faculty constantly struggle with. That is why a recent article that ran in Inside Higher Ed caught my attention. Dr. Deborah J. Cohen provides us with what she describes as a faster way to grade in 2020. She writes, "I came of age teaching when students picked up their graded work in boxes outside of professors’ offices. That also meant many students never came to retrieve their final papers after I had spent hours on tedious commenting. Some had graduated, and some simply did not care -- they were fine just seeing the final posted grade. It was as if I were writing long, involved letters to myself. I refuse to engage in that wasted work now. Whatever requires my feedback happens earlier in the semester, so that students have an opportunity to use the comments to improve their work. And on every syllabus, I indicate the following, which sets clear boundaries and places accountability squarely on the student: “You will get much more out of this course, and any course you will ever take, if you concern yourself more with the processes of how to think, how to learn and how to write than on the letter grades. In 10 years, you will probably forget the grade you got in my class, but I hope that what will stay with you are the learning tools and skills that you will acquire." I suggest you read the entire short article to learn more about her time-saving grading practices.

Managing Stress Key to Student Success

What do you know about anxiety related to testing and assessment? Did you experience anxiety when you were in college? Did you find a way to overcome it and succeed? Have you thought to share that with your students? The faculty who teach our College Success Skills course (CSSK 1023) include material about test taking and how to deal with anxiety and other issues that may arise when a student feels stress. Of course we cannot go through our lives without experiencing stress but learning how to manage it allows us to be successful. One of the ways you can help your students to be fully prepared for assessment is to have them think about the process itself. What is being assessed and why? Have them think about the types of test questions you are likely to use. Have them actually come up with questions that they think might be on the test. In this way, they can be more productive when it comes to preparing for assessments. Another method you might want to introduce is using music to set a calm and distraction free environment in your classroom. Using music can help students to focus on the task at hand and block out whatever else is going on in their lives at least for the hour or more that they are testing. I suggest using music like Japanese ambient selections. You can use songs like Still Space by Satoshi Ashikawa or Glass Chattering by Yoshio Ojima. Playing this for 3-5 minutes as your student enter the class on the day of testing will help them to be more mindful of what they have learned and allow them to share this with you. Let me know if you try it or if you have other suggestions of music that will help students perform their best.

Why Do You Teach?

We have all become accustomed to talking about learning outcomes or objectives or something else you might call the knowledge that we want our students to have as they complete our courses. Often we begin our semester very focused on these outcomes. Our assessments may even be calibrated precisely to what knowledge we want to measure. But somewhere along the way the human factor plays a part in changing the linear trajectory of the teaching and learning we are hoping is occurring. This messiness is nothing more than human nature. After all, the education science we are hoping to harness is built on humans and we all know how much we change daily, weekly, and throughout our lives. So I want to suggest something that we have discussed in the past. Take a step back and look to your academic training. Why did you become a teacher of economics, mathematics, theater, or fill-in-the-blank? Think back to the ideas that made you excited to want to continue to attend college and earn a master's or doctoral degree. It is that big idea that you need to introduce to your students at the beginning of the semester. What is the macro-level knowledge that is the most important for each of your students to take with them to the next class? What is something that will keep their focus as they delve in deeper as the semester progresses? Paul Hanstedt calls is a beautiful idea and his recent post may help you think about what you will bring to the first day. Now the trick is you must continue to focus on that idea throughout the semester. After the first assessment test, when you and many of your students are disappointed, is a great time to bring the focus back to this big idea. In the middle of the semester, when your syllabus timeline looks like a suggestion rather than a roadmap, is a great time to pull out the big idea. So that is it. Simple enough right? Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

"A couple of weeks ago, I did something that I have never done before in my classroom: I sacrificed invested a week of instruction to hold a one-on-one conversation with each one of my students. I had always made the excuse that it took up too many instructional minutes, and that I couldn’t sacrifice the time. And after that long-winded week the only regret that I have is that I did not start doing this much, much earlier in my career. That week, was an absolute revelation!" That is how Jeffrey Frieden starts his fascinating blog that explores what his students really think. What he did was simple. He asked them. Continue reading here.

As we approach the end of another semester, we turn our attention to a final assessment. Something that will allow us to determine if our students learned and (maybe even more importantly) can they apply their learning and solve problems. Once again, Dr. Maryellen Weimer gives us a great article that illustrates insight into how and why students should study. She notes that " Students’ success as learners would advance if they had a larger repertoire of study strategies, if they could match study strategies with learning tasks, and if they constructively confronted how they studied with how they performed. Students need help on all three fronts, but courses are already packed with content. Most teachers have time to do little more than admonish students to study hard, avoid cramming and memorizing minutia, and abstain from any sort of cheating." She goes on to provide some recent research on the matter. Take a look at the entire article here.

Sarah Jones, a doctoral student at Michigan State, reminds us in her insightful post that giving more low-stakes assessments has a multitude of benefits for our students. She writes that providing your student with low-stakes testing will "produce large improvements in student final exam scores, help narrow the grade gap between poorly prepped and highly prepped first year college student, and might even result in more positive course reviews." She cites research by Scott Freeman, David Haak, and Mary Pat Wenderoth (Published in the Life Sciences Education edition of The American Society of Cell Biology) who wrote "We found no evidence that points from active-learning exercises inflate grades or reduce the impact of exams on final grades. When we controlled for variation in student ability, failure rates were lower in a moderately structured course design and were dramatically lower in a highly structured course design. This result supports the hypothesis that active-learning exercises can make students more skilled learners and help bridge the gap between poorly prepared students and their better-prepared peers." Some may be worried that their already heavy workload will be further burdened by more assessment. But the use of Canvas can actually reduce the amount of grading you have to do if you set up the quiz or analysis using the LMS. You can also use peer review, a great active learning tool that enhances learning for all students.

David Gooblar has a new post that represents what many of us are feeling right now. He writes, "It’s been a long semester. We’ve all worked hard, tried out new things, adapted on the fly, managed to keep our heads above an ocean of work while still being present for our students. We’ve made it through the mid-semester doldrums. Depending on how much grading we’ve got left, we’re now within sight of the end. If you’re anything like me, to say that you’re looking forward to the end is an understatement. Does anyone else visualize entering that last grade, closing your folder of class notes, and then throwing that folder into the sea? Today I’d like to suggest that you not be so quick to move on from this term, no matter how desperately you long for a summer away from teaching. So this year, maybe when your students are filling out their evaluation forms, take a little time to evaluate yourself. What worked well? What didn’t? What would you change if you could teach the course over again? Answering even these few questions will pay dividends well worth that slight delay in getting you to your much-deserved summer break." Continue reading here.

In our most recent discussions at the Mid Day Musings sessions last week, a theme emerged about testing and assessment. It is very clear to us as instructors why we have to assess student learning. What we seem to agree on about this subject was that the testing and assessment process is less clear for our students. Sure they get a grade and are either happy, sad, or neutral. But what happens next can lead to either deeper learning or the promotion of surface learning. When students merely regurgitate facts and figures back to us, the learning process has probably not occurred. You can check this by including questions from the most recent test on the next assessment you give. If they are able to use the knowledge again (in a different context perhaps) then they really learned. If they give you a look that says "we already used that information and I purged it from my brain" then we have a problem. So getting students to understand that the assessment process is as much for them as it is for us is a great teachable moment. Jared Cooney Horvath and Jason M Lodge have posted a series of articles on the assessment process. One of the most interesting to me was their exploration of how and why the mind goes blank during testing. Their post is targeted at students and begins, "You prep for an exam and all the information seems coherent and simple. Then you sit for an exam and suddenly all the information you learned is gone. You struggle to pull something up – anything – but the harder you fight, the further away the information feels. The dreaded mind blank." Continue reading here.

We are deep into mid-terms week at BRCC. The signs are everywhere. Like the number of eLearning students cheeking into the Testing Center and the increase of students visiting with a tutor in the Academic Learning Center. You will also notice study groups meeting in the library. This is an important week for teaching and learning but what happens when the tests are returned to the students? That is a great teachable moment to help students understand what assessment is all about. Yes, they receive a grade but it is also very important for students to realize what the assessment results can tell them. Remind them that the questions they missed indicate a gap in their learning. Encourage them to use the results to revise or repeat their preparation habits. Ask them to jot down how they prepared for the assessment and to use that to make adjustments for the future. Share with them that testing and assessment should not be a one-and-done type of activity. It is a useful tool that helps them connect their new knowledge to the past and sets a firm foundation for the future. If you have students who are unhappy with their mid-term grades, now is a great time to encourage them to join a study group. There is a simple sign-up process using Canvas here. If they need additional help related to creating or joining a study group, ask them to contact Academic Support Specialist Barbara Linder by email or phone (216.8228). 

NEW CANVAS CAPABILITY
Canvas, our open online learning management system, recently announced the immediate availability of a new annotation feature in its mobile application. This new functionality allows students to open, annotate, and submit an assignment directly within Canvas. Historically this has been accomplished through a third-party app, which can create an additional expense for our students. Providing one platform where all of these capabilities reside eliminates the need for students to buy additional software and reduces the need for paper, both cost saving actions. The mobile annotation feature allows instructors to spend less time demonstrating procedures for moving and transitioning digital assignments and more time teaching. Digitizing assignments inside Canvas also allows instructors to grade assignments using the Canvas SpeedGrader. Read more here.

ENGAGEMENT IN THE ELEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Learning is about personal relationships. Deep learning doesn’t happen through reading or rote memorization online any more than in the physical world. It is the experiences and meaningful conversations (or maybe human interactions) within a course that enable students to critically reflect, and deepen their learning. All too often, online students feel isolated, which can decrease motivation and increase attrition. When learning occurs entirely through computer-mediated instruction, professors often overlook simple steps like asking participants to introduce themselves. Details like asking your students to create a video introduction to a class can have a powerful impact. Video-based introductions can help develop a community of learners more quickly than simply posting text on a discussion board. Students who are in courses with introductory videos have been shown to actively participate in online discussions very early in the course. And research shows that learners who are more engaged and have higher levels of interaction, have higher success rates. Read more here.

THE FEEDBACK IS FOR YOU
The classroom is a non-stop hub of feedback: test grades, assignment scores, paper comments, peer review, individual conferences, nonverbal cues, and more. Feedback is essential for student learning. Still, students’ ability to process and use feedback varies widely. We have some students who eagerly accept feedback or carefully apply rough draft comments, while many others dread or dismiss their professors’ notes or reject exam grades as “unfair.” Although feedback is integral to our classrooms and work spaces, we often forget to teach students how to manage it. Two Harvard law professors, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, argue that identifying different kinds of feedback is a good place to start. Continue reading here.

AN ARMY OF ONE
Karin Fischer says if you want to find a model that works for low-income students, look no further than the armed services in the U.S. Was Daniel M. Piston college material? A decade ago, as a high-school student in Syracuse, N.Y., Mr. Piston didn’t think so. He lacked focus. His grades were so-so. And it wasn’t like he was surrounded by college graduates; of his family, only his mother had earned an associate degree. "The truth is," Mr. Piston says, "I didn’t think I was smart enough for college." After finishing high school, he signed up for an automotive-technology program at nearby Onondaga Community College — a similar course his senior year was the first thing he had been any good at, he says — but, still unmoored, he dropped out after two semesters. He found himself on the doorstep of the local Navy recruiter. The Navy promised excitement, and it offered something else: a life path. Continue reading here.

PLEASE SEE ME
It all began with a simple message that I wrote on the tests or assignments of students who were struggling: “Please see me so we can discuss your performance on the test (or assignment). Let’s see what we can do to improve your grade.” Although initially I was not collecting data on the effectiveness of my “invitation,” I soon realized that most of students—about 80 percent—responded to it. Notably, those who met with me began to do better on future tests; their assignments improved as well. When students did not respond to my invitation, after about a week I reached out to them with a simple email. Some responded, some did not. Over time it became difficult to ignore the benefits of having those meetings with students who were struggling. I think the most important message of these meetings was to convey to them that they were not simply a name in my gradebook but that I really cared about their learning and their success. Continue reading here.

STUDENT SUCCESS IN INNOVATIVE LEARNING
As we continue to broaden the innovative learning opportunities, it is always important to remember that student success is as important as providing scheduling options for our students. Rob Kelly has written an interesting article on this topic. He says, "Offering different kinds of courses is not a simple matter of taking the content and dividing it in ways to fill an unusual time slot. Imagine converting a lecture-based course that normally meets three times a week to a block format that consists of a single four-hour session. The instructor might be a great lecturer, but it’s unlikely that he or she could engage students for hours at a time. “There is a world of difference, or there should be a world of difference, between teaching a class that meets three times a week for fifty minutes, teaching that same class that meets once a week from eight until noon, teaching that class in an accelerated format that meets three or four days a week, or teaching it online,” Glenn says. “As we get better at offering these different formats, hopefully we get better at delivering the instruction in these formats.” Continuing reading here.

Joshua Kim asks, "Is there really a war on lecturing going on across higher ed?  Do learning professionals want to kill the lecture? Read Christine Gross-Loh’s Atlantic piece, Should Colleges Really Eliminate the College Lecture?, and you would be forgiven in thinking that there is and that we do. The anti-lecture cadre is characterized as comparing the traditional lecture to "bloodletting—an outdated practice that has long been in need of radical reform". This story makes for a neat argument. Who has not experienced the power of a transformative lecture?  Who would not support the need for professors to “model the art of argument”? And who is not critical of the tendency of educational pundits and administrators to blindly follow the latest educational fads? Let me be very clear.  There exists no campaign - no organized plot or plan - to eliminate the college lecture.  There is a movement across many schools to improve learning.  The lecture is, and always will be, part of the mix of a rich and varied learning ecosystem." Continue reading here.

Now that you’ve finished assessing your students, it’s time to turn the assessment process around by looking in the mirror. If you limped across the finish line last semester, it may be time to identify some new strategies for self-care. In our “Tending the Teacher” session at the recent Teaching Professor Conference in Washington, D.C., we presented a menu of ideas to help faculty design a balanced and productive work life.  Here are our top tips.

Aubree Evans writes, "Let’s face it, most faculty were good students and always did well in school. For students, having a professor who is adept at learning can be inspiring. But what if academic work comes so naturally to faculty that they have trouble relating to the average student? I’ve worked with several faculty members who fall into this category. “Rose,” a business professor, stands out in my memory. When I suggested that she break her online course into modules to make the weekly tasks more manageable for students, she was baffled. “Everything is in the syllabus!” she responded. She then explained that when she was in college, she began each course by carefully reading the syllabus and organizing the assignments into a schedule that she diligently followed throughout the semester. It didn’t make sense to Rose to repeat that information again in modules. When I suggested that school must have come easily to her, she agreed. However, our university serves many students who don’t have much experience with academic learning strategies that may come naturally to faculty." Continue reading here.

TECHNOLOGY PROMOTES REAL WORLD SKILLS
Meg Conlan has a good article about how using technology in the college classroom (F2F and virtually) is preparing students for the real world after graduation. She writes, "Landing that first post-grad job may be difficult, but many college seniors think they’ve got the digital skills employers want, thanks to their time on campus. That insight comes from McGraw-Hill Education’s third annual Workforce Readiness Survey, which states that 52 percent of students surveyed believe that their use of technology during college classes and study sessions will help them secure a job."

HOW TO WRITE THAT PERFECT TEST QUESTION
Assessment tools offer tremendous advantages to both the instructor and the learner, and are thus an important part of instructional design. Despite their importance, developing quality assessments is not as simple or straightforward as one might think. A great deal of care needs to go into developing quality assessments to ensure that the question actually assesses the target knowledge rather than something else, such as test-taking skills. Additionally, the instructor needs to remain open to revising questions based on learner performance—if all students get a single question wrong or right, both are considered poor questions and both should be removed from the test because they’re actually not testing anything. Thus, instructors need to pay attention to student performance on each individual testing item to ensure each one is doing its job of actually assessing the target knowledge. Are you looking to improve your test-question writing skills. Here is an article with some basic tips.

GROUP WORK PROVIDES GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Dr. Lindsay Doukopoulos notes, "Teaching first-semester freshmen presents some unique challenges. You are teaching them not only your subject, but also how to be college students. One of the best strategies I have found is to begin with a collaborative project that asks them to research their new home: the campus." Read the entire article here.

STEM LEARNING CYCLE
Most of you are familiar with the active learning paradigm that encourages students to listen, write, read, discuss, and apply new knowledge so that it becomes part of their long-term memories. Dr. Rodger Bybee and his colleagues have come up with a similar pedagogy based on teaching in the sciences. It is called the 5E Learning Cycle and is based on the constructivist view of learning. The five E's are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. Using this process allows the instructor to identify and challenge students' misconceptions and provide students time to explore, investigate, and reconstruct their knowledge. You can learn more about this process in the article Which Comes First-Language or Content? in the Science Teacher magazine (April/May 2016).

HELPING STUDENTS LEARN ONLINE
When teaching in a traditional classroom, we are often able to assess how our students learning best through observation, low-stakes feedback, or by using active learning methods. So how does that work in an online environment? Adrienne Erin has an interesting post about just that. "Different Learning Styles: How to balance your eLearning program" describes the way different learners might be motivated to learn. She notes, "Learners work alone, in groups or with instructors. Interactions with others are either synchronous or asynchronous. Because of its open-ended nature, eLearning has exceptional advantages. Learners can be located anywhere in the world, as long as an ISP is available." Read more here. To learn more about the dual coding theory, click here.

IT'S JUST A TEST
With the final exam period beginning on Monday, you may notice that your students are more tense and anxious. This is certainly understandable as they struggle to indicate to you what they have learned and how they can apply it. Dr. Maryellen Weimer has posted an informational piece about how you can help your students lower their anxiety and produce their best work. She writes, " Teachers can’t cure test anxiety. But they can offer remedies that students should be encouraged to try. Information about good study strategies should be included in every course. Sometimes that information is more persuasive if it comes from fellow classmates. Discussion of the study strategies used for the test ought to be part of the debrief session." Read more here.

ADDING RELEVANCE TO INSTRUCTION INCREASES RETENTION
There are many reasons for incorporating real-life situations into instruction. Foremost are that applications of theoretical material in real-life situations make content easier to understand and that the relevance of content is demonstrated by real-life examples. If we are trying to connect content to real-life situations, our assessments must demonstrate face validity. That is, they have to model the situations in which the new knowledge and skills will be used. If we only test for knowledge the opportunity to demonstrate that learning is relevant is missed. The preceding comments are from Dr. Michael Theall's paper Related Course Material to Real Life Situations.

FIRST GENERATION STUDENTS FACE MANY CHALLENGES
Adam and Jaye Fenderson have released their new documentary chronicling the lives of several first-generation college students. The makers of the film are a married couple who said that they found it difficult not to help the students they were covering. “We actually made a decision when we started thinking about the film that we were not going to intervene in the students’ lives,” Mr. Fenderson said. “It was very difficult to sit there and listen to them talk about what their counselor told them when we knew that it was wrong. It was difficult to even sit in some of the counselor meetings and hear the counselors be so brief and quick with these students and these students not get answers that they really needed.” An absence of college graduates in a family can  result not only in a lack of financial support — many economic studies have suggested that college graduates make more money over time than high school graduates — but also a shortage of knowledge about the college admissions process. In the film First Generation, one of the student’s mothers is depicted as having no idea how to pay for college, and not knowing whether the cost is required to be paid in full upfront. The students, themselves floundering through the process, make misinformed financial decisions that limit their college choices and may even stifle their academic potential.

USING QUIZZES TO MEASURE LEARNING
One of our most valuable resources, Dr. Maryellen Weimer has a new post about quizzes and the many ways you can use them in your classes. She writes, "I’ve been rethinking my views on quizzing. I’m still not in favor of quizzes that rely on low-level questions where the right answer is a memorized detail or a quizzing strategy where the primary motivation is punitive, such as to force students to keep up with the reading. That kind of quizzing doesn’t motivate reading for the right reasons and it doesn’t promote deep, lasting learning. But I keep discovering innovative ways faculty are using quizzes, and these practices rest on different premises." Read the entire post.

HOW AM I DOING
It is about that time when we begin to give some sort of assessment, whether it is tests on the first 3-4 chapters, a writing essay, or some other formative assessment that is usually medium to high stakes. So I thought I would spend some time on this topic. First, I would like to urge you to strongly encourage your students to partner with a study-buddy or to create a study group for each of their classes. Research proves over and over again that these types of collaboration are significant. If they are looking for study space, send them to the Academic Learning Center first. They can also access tutors to help them in their review. You might even ask them what day and time they are meeting so that you can stop in and answer any questions they may have.

LET'S START A STUDY GROUP
Dr. Maryellen Weimer has written a nice synopsis about ways we can help students improve their study sessions. She writes, "How should I be studying for the exam? Students tend to be pretty generic in their thinking about study strategies. “I’ll go over my notes” and “I’ll reread what I’ve highlighted in the text.” If your students don’t have stellar study skills, a list of possible study strategies might be helpful in guiding this discussion in small groups or with the whole class. Recommend what research in cognitive psychology has shown promotes learning and test performance: studying for shorter periods across several days, testing knowledge with questions (those in the book, provided by the teacher, or made up on their own), working on different types of problems, reviewing with a study buddy, and reworking (not recopying) class notes." Continue reading her article here.

POST-ASSESSMENT IS CRUCIAL
We know why we are giving assessment tests, papers and the like but are you sure your students truly understand the purpose? Any type of graded material that provides good feedback will allow the student to understand just what they have or have not learned. It can be an indication that they have learned the material well enough to move on or they may need to return to some of the resources to better understand the material. Pointing that out to them is vitally important. Lolita Paff has a good post on her blog about other types of assessment follow-up that can be beneficial for your students.

THE POWER OF YET
I often include #teachingmatters on the tweets of the Teaching+Learning Center's twitter account. But it's not just a hashtag that may be trending from time to time, it is something I believe in wholeheartedly. A great teacher brings so much to a class. Students respond to someone who is engaging, caring, organized, and committed to their success. I have posted about how grading and motivation are linked but I want to share with you an article by Amy Conley that synthesizes the research on this topic. I especially like the grading suggestions chart that draws on Carol Dweck's work, among others.

WHY THE FIRST EXAM ISN'T JUST THE FIRST ASSESSMENT
It is that time of the semester when we may be giving students an assessment of some type. It may be a quiz, full-blown exam, essay, or formative assessments in the class. Of course we are doing this to judge the students progress and to see how effective our teaching has been. I always spend some time explaining that the assessment is also a time for them to reflect. How did they do? Did their study effort equal their grade expectations? Have they learned the material yet? Dr. Maryellen Weimer has a post on this topic that you might find useful.

CREATING MINDSET MOMENTS
Bill Ferriter writes, "I've got a student this year -- let's call her Aliyana -- who just plain makes me smile.  She's unique times ten -- comfortable being different and always ready to think creatively.  She's also super funny and super kind -- which means she's super well-liked by her peers.  In a lot of ways, she's the kind of kid that I hope my own daughter will become. But at times, I think she doubts herself as a learner. She not the first to raise her hand in classroom conversations -- and when she does, there's a hesitance in her voice that hints at an intellectual insecurity that surprises me.  It's almost like school hasn't been kind to her over the years and so she's just not sure that being a thought leader is a role that she's supposed to fill in our classroom.  In her own mind, she's the funny kid -- not the smart kid.  She makes us laugh.  Other kids help us learn." Continue reading

CUMULATIVE EXAMS HELP LEARNING RETENTION Now is a great time to begin revising your final exam. If you are like me, your finals are cumulative and that means it is time to remind our students (again) that the material they learned at the beginning of the semester will be needed again soon. Dr. Maryellen Weimer tells us, "The evidence that students retain content longer and can apply it better when exams and finals are cumulative is compelling. When I pointed to the evidence in a recent workshop, a faculty member responded, “But I can’t use cumulative exams. My students would revolt.” Students don’t like cumulative exams for the very reason we should be using them: they force regular, repeated encounters with the content. And it’s those multiple interactions with the material that move learning from memorization to understanding." You can read more here.

SAVE THE DATES
There are some exciting faculty development opportunities planned for November. First up is the The Millennial Learner: Greatest Generation or Generation Me? workshop being held at 9:30 AM in room 100 at BRCC-Frazier. Registration is now open. The Canvas Series continues on November 19 with Creating Reports Using Gradebook. That workshop starts at 1:00 PM in 311 Magnolia Building at BRCC-Mid City. You can register here. Our final event in November occurs on Friday the 20th beginning at 2:00 PM. Copyrighted Materials: How to Analyze Any Copyright Question in Five Steps will be facilitated by Ms. Peggy Hoon, J.D., Director of Copyright Policy and Education for the LSU Libraries.  Ms. Hoon serves as a campus-wide copyright resource for LSU faculty, staff, and students, providing education, information, and assistance for both the lawful use of copyrighted materials as well as the responsible management of authors’ rights in their works. This event is co-sponsored by the BRCC Magnolia Library and the Teaching+Learning Center. You can register here.

BEING A GOOD TEACHER
At this point in the semester, Dr. Maryellen Weimer reminds us that caring for our students is very important for their success and their drive to complete their studies towards a degree or certificate. She writes, "Good teachers care about their students. We all know that, but sometimes over the course of a long semester, it’s easy to forget just how important it is to show our students we care about them. I was reminded of this importance by two recent studies, which I read and highlighted for the December issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter. In terms of research design, the studies couldn’t have been more different. In terms of results, they both came to the same conclusion. The interactions students have with their teachers and the kind of relationships that teachers establish with students profoundly affect students’ learning experiences. And it’s a finding that’s been established in study after study." Continue reading

TECH VERSUS INNOVATION
Matt Read writes a blog titled Confessions of a Community College Dean. His most recent post provokes us to think about technology versus innovation, specifically as it relates to teaching. "My grandmother collected absurd kitchen technology, which made visits fun. There wasn’t an inside-the-egg-scrambler or fry baby on the market that she didn’t have. She had a microwave oven back when nobody did; I remember watching her “nuke” a hot dog, and both of us enjoying its twisty death throes. As an adult, I realize that I inherited the gadget gene from her. My platform agnosticism -- I’ve had phones that ran Android, iOS, and even webOS -- is only partially about comparison shopping or avoiding cultism; it’s largely an excuse to try all sorts of new stuff. PC at work, Chromebook on the road?  Why not?  On Wednesday, though, I had two separate conversations about innovation on campus that I realized later had a common theme: tech and innovation aren’t the same thing." Read more here.


WHY DID YOU GIVE ME A BAD GRADE
Feedback that is both affirming and corrective is necessary for people to learn. Defined as information on the results of one’s efforts, feedback that is clear, specific and timely motivates students to improve. Since feedback is most often connected to grading that follows assigned work or assessment activities, Walvoord and Anderson say that grading “…encompasses tailoring the test or assignment to the learning goals of the course…offering feedback so students can develop as thinkers and writers, communicating about students’ learning to appropriate audiences, and using results to plan improvements in the classroom…”. Thus assessment provides feedback for both learners and teachers. Read more here. 

WIKIPEDIA AS A SOURCE
The battle to stop our students from using online resources like Wikipedia is long over. What we must do now is help our students to understand how best to use Wikipedia. Matthew Vetter, an academic specializing in digital rhetoric and humanities, has a nice post about his efforts in this area. He writes, "Working with Wiki Ed opens up possibilities for how we teach, how that teaching engages the world, what our students accomplish in the classroom, and what kinds of conversations we can have about critical issues related to humanities and digital culture." Read more here.

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.