Category: Course Design

Injustice, Elections, & COVID: Effectively Handling Highly-Charged Class Discussions

Cliff Rouder & Kyle Vitale

Highly-charged discussions around current events can make students from a variety of backgrounds and points of view feel silenced and alienated in class by other students or even by a professor. But if thoughtfully handled, they can be highly productive for students, teaching them how to listen empathetically and actively to other points of view and even collaborate across them, giving them practice in critical thinking, and creating new connections to course material.

Whether your course naturally includes highly-charged topics, or you decide to have a discussion in response to a controversial current event, preparing for these moments can ensure they are enriching rather than distressing. Preparing for difficult class discussions requires us to think deeply about our goals and teaching approaches for students in these moments, while reflecting on our own feelings, biases, and motivations so that we can model and promote desirable behaviors.

Here are some important considerations and strategies to help set class up for productive discourse

  • Note Upcoming Discussions. It will be helpful to let students know they may be engaging in discussions that elicit strong feelings, opinions, and discomfort. Clearly communicate how you will help students “get comfortable with the discomfort” and help them see the benefits of such moments for their intellectual and emotional development.  This strategy can begin with an email pre-semester or open discussion in the first week, supported by messaging in your syllabus and repeated orally throughout the semester.
  • Develop guidelines for civil discourse. At the start of the semester, have students collaboratively generate guidelines for class discussion. These guidelines can be posted on Canvas and referred to throughout the semester. Sample guidelines include: listening without interrupting; not turning the conversation into a personal attack; and avoiding inflammatory language. You’ll be surprised how much tougher students can be about these guidelines than you might be, and how much more buy-in you’ll get when they have contributed to the established rules.
  • Check your baggage at the gate. Before engaging in these types of discussions, reflect on your own biases and triggers. How might you respond verbally and non-verbally to a contrary statement / point of view about which you have strong feelings? Work on modeling desirable skills: show students what it means to actively listen and how to ask clarifying questions. Review some non-verbal skills that demonstrate caring and compassion, and compare the effects to non-verbal expressions of intolerance and anger. If anyone’s feelings cannot be managed effectively in the moment, it may be better to table the discussion and return at a later time.
  • Give students opportunities to practice. Early in the semester, start with discussion topics that are low stakes and won’t trigger strong emotional responses. This allows students to get to know one another and practice listening, evaluate another perspective, and navigate differences of opinion. For instance, you might begin with a reading that (students can evaluate through competing explanations. Whether you have in-person, live, or asynchronous courses, pair work and discussion boards can help students practice listening or reading each other’s takes on a topic. Online, you can use Zoom breakout rooms or private chat to get students speaking with one another. At the end of these discussions, remember to ask students what they learned from the process.
  • When It’s Go Time. The following active learning strategies can serve as a vehicle for practicing and engaging in civil discourse on difficult topics:
    • Start with prompting activities. Rather than throw a difficult topic wide open, lead into discussion with exercises or questions than help students warm up, sort out their thoughts, and confront their initial reactions. A 1-minute reflection paper before discussion can help students order their thinking. Questions that start with a third party, like “what did x source have to say on this topic?” or “where does this topic currently fit in the national landscape?” give students time to find their feet. A variety of other strategies exist for designing questions that engage students critically while helping them to manage their passions.
    • Consider structured discussion techniques. These strategies structure discussion to ensure fairness, inclusivity and focus. In the Circle of Voices activity, each student gets a chance to speak uninterrupted for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on class size. In Circular Response, each student is required to build their comment from the prior comment, or at least address it constructively before adding their own thoughts. In Snowballing, students debate a topic in pairs, then pairs join one another, becoming progressively larger until  the whole class reunites. This approach helps students learn that discussions can be developmental as it pivots to incorporate new ideas. Make sure that students also get opportunities to practice the skills they glean from structured discussion in more open discussion scenarios.
    • Own the difficulty by setting up a debate. Some topics may be best served through debate, where students are invited to take sides and argue, but interact through established rules. Debates work best when students are asked to reverse opinion and consider opposing views. Check out these guidelines for ensuring an effective debate experience.
    • Be prepared for tension. There is always the possibility that a difficult discussion gets out of control. In these “hot” moments, the following strategies can help: remind students of your class discussion agreement; affirm the emotions in the room while rerouting the energy through further questions; ask students to write their thoughts quietly for a moment; in the Zoom environment, remove a student who is overly aggressive or violates policies. Many other strategies also exist for managing these hot moments.

If you’d like to develop a game plan with a CAT faculty developer, or if you would like a developer to sit in on a discussion to give you feedback, don’t hesitate to book a consultation. With some thoughtful planning and some practice, incorporating difficult discussions into your course can be a highly successful pedagogical strategy and may not be that difficult after all!

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy and Design Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Kyle Vitale, Ph.D., is Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Designing Writing Assignments to Defeat Cheating

Jeff Rients

Designing Writing Assignments to Defeat Cheating

Although plagiarism detection tools can assist instructors to catch cheaters, a better alternative is to design writing assignments that discourage such behaviors in the first place. On top of that, each of the techniques discussed below can result in better writing from all students, not just those who might be tempted to cheat. By adopting three simple principles, not only will you find yourself dealing with fewer plagiarism cases, but you’ll also provide more opportunities for your students to become better writers!

Establish a baseline

Early in the semester ask students to write a page or two. This assignment should be low stakes, either for no grade or worth just enough points to incentivize participation. No research should be required for this piece. Instead, it can be either a response to an initial reading or an autobiographical essay describing the student’s relationship with the course content.

An assignment like this provides you with two important things. First, you’ll have some vital information on the students’ preparation for your course which can help you tailor your lessons for them. Second, you now have a sample of the student’s writing. If you find yourself investigating cheating down the line, you won’t need to analyze the suspected writing against some database. Instead, you can pull out this piece from the start of the semester to see if the grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, and other elements of styles match up to the suspected piece.

Use checkpoints

Some instructors place unnecessary focus on the final product of the assignment, as if that were the only object worthy of the instructor’s attention and feedback. Instead, cheat-resistant assignments consider writing as a process, a series of steps, each of which merits its own scrutiny and feedback.

To achieve this sequencing, many instructors will find it necessary to cut down on the total number of final deliverables. Instead of, for example, students producing three papers over the course of a semester, you might have them write only one or two final products. In turn, what previously you might consider to be “the paper” becomes the last link in a  sequence of submissions.

A typical example of sequenced assignments might be something like the following:

  1. Each student writes a very brief proposal of the topic they wish to write about.
  2. Students then create an annotated bibliography or other evidence of their research process.
  3. A rough draft of the paper, or at least a substantial portion of it, is then submitted.
  4. The final draft of the paper completes the process.

Going through each step with your students will result in better final drafts, as it allows you to intervene earlier in the process. You can, for example, warn off students who select overly broad topics in their proposal. Or you can steer students towards better avenues for research if you see that their annotated bibliography is weak.

Additionally, this method makes it easier to see when a student makes a sharp left turn. This allows the instructor to look for things like a sudden deviation from the proposed topic, the reliance on research outside what appears in the bibliography, or a final draft that looks nothing like the first draft. None of these are necessarily proof of cheating; they could be evidence that the student is taking the project seriously enough to make major revisions before the final submission. However, if this major shift also produces writing that is stylistically different from your baseline as described above, then you know that you have a situation worth discussing with the student.

Prompt explicit revision plans

Sometimes when we write feedback for our students it can feel like we are sending it out into the ether. Whether what we have to say reaches their ears and whether they actually respond to it can be a mystery, especially if we only communicate feedback to them at the end of the paper-writing process. Feedback shouldn’t be about looking back at what students did wrong. Rather, proper writing feedback looks ahead to what students can do to make sure they succeed at their next writing task.

In the case of a sequenced writing assignment as described above, the feedback from the proposal should be written with advice for the research needed for the bibliography. The bibliography feedback should be aimed at what the student does in the first draft and the first draft feedback should inform the final draft. This is the difference between condemnation and critique; your feedback should be about equipping the student with what they need to succeed in the future.

Don’t assume that the students will take up your feedback and incorporate it in later steps. Instead, the incorporation of that feedback should be an explicit component of completing the assignment. You may even want students to hand in a short narrative of how your feedback from the previous assignment was used to shape the current one. This creates a formal relationship between steps in the assignment.

With such a relationship established, it becomes much easier to spot unusual writing activity from a student. If you suggested a particular strategy for the next assignment in the chain and instead they adopted a completely different approach that also seems significantly more sophisticated than the baseline writing assignment, you may have reason to suspect something has gone wrong. Of course, your suggestion may also have sparked a new, and different, idea in your student. You’ll need to use your discretion to determine the nature and cause of any drastic changes.

Ultimately, we need to be open to the possibility that the student has made significant progress as a writer since you last checked in with them. That is, after all, the point! That’s also why open and clear communication about your expectations for student behavior is important. By adopting these three principles, you can build writing assignments that not only discourage cheating, but that also help students improve their writing skills. And isn’t that why we are assigning them papers in the first place?

Jeff Rients, Ph.D., is Senior Teaching & Learning Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Four Ways to Cultivate Community in your Online Class

Cliff Rouder

We all know how empowering and motivating it feels when we’re part of a community working hard toward a common goal–perhaps now more than ever. That feeling of connecting and belonging; having a voice and knowing you’ll be heard; knowing you’re supported and supporting others: this is what community can feel like in an online course. But community is more than a feeling. Indeed, the research tells us that these are key ingredients to student success in your course, and by extension, to retention in the major and in college.

Understanding that community can look different depending on class size, here are some ways to build that foundation early on:

1. Make your goal of creating community transparent.

Tell your students the reasons why it’s important, what you will do, and what you expect them to do, to help build that community. You might even make this one of your course goals. By the end of the semester, what will students need to demonstrate to know whether they’ve met this goal, and how will you get them there? Perhaps it will be through successful collaborative work. Perhaps it will be through participating in discussion boards. Consider these other ideas below.

2. Build in different ways of presenting content and demonstrating competence.

If we proactively do this, then we will have met the learning needs of as many students as possible, which can reduce the need for individual student accommodation. Think about representing content via audio and visual means in addition to text. Think about alternative assessments besides exams and papers. We call this proactive approach to course design Universal Design for Learning, or UDL. As always in course design, we start with our course goals first and then work backwards to design assessments and learning activities.

3. Build in social opportunities for students.

How about creating a space where students can connect on a social level? Think of them gathering around the water cooler to talk about non-course related topics. Can you connect them to former students who are now working in their fields of interest? 

4. Personalize and humanize your online classroom.

There are many ways you can do this:

  • Welcome them into your home space. Show them your pet, your child, your environment, and encourage them to do the same. Be mindful though that some may be hesitant to appear on webcam, so encourage, but don’t require. Students can always use their audio, the Zoom chat tool, discussion boards, or photos if they don’t want to turn on their webcams.
  • Ask them to come to virtual office hours. You’ll be amazed at how a 10-minute “getting to know you” session can decrease their hesitation about coming to you for assistance. Then, check in frequently with the whole class in your synchronous or asynchronous sessions.
  • Do some interesting ice-breakers. Try on for size “Three truths and a lie,” or “What are you binge-watching?” This gets students talking about themselves, but also comparing their experiences to their peers.
  • Have them send you the pronouns they use and be mindful about using them. Everyone has a need to feel validated and this is a simple step that can greatly assist some of our most vulnerable students.
  • Create guidelines together for communicating respectfully when their points of view differ. An online course is an artificial space where the rules of interaction don’t always seem obvious. Inviting the students to participate in setting the ground rules for civil discourse gets them involved in building community from the ground up.
  • Purposefully connect course content to their lives and future ambitions. Remember, your course does not exist in isolation, but it can feel that way to students. Always look for opportunities to connect your course to recent events, their past experiences as students, and/or their personal and career aspirations.

With just a little effort–and some humanity–you can create a community of learners in your online course. As always, the CAT is here to help you in this endeavor, so don’t hesitate to book a consultation with one of our amazing faculty developers or educational technologists at catbooking.temple.edu. We’ve also compiled a great collection of resources to help you design your online course, which you can access at teaching.temple.edu/design.

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy and Design Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Bringing Mindfulness to the Classroom

Wellness Resource Center

Mindfulness is becoming more popular in American culture. As the large body of research about its benefits continues to grow, increased attention has been paid to integrate mindfulness into educational institutions, from K-12 schools to colleges and universities.

What is mindfulness, exactly?

Mindfulness is the capacity to be aware of the present moment (rather than getting caught up in the past or future); it is both innate and a skill that can be honed through regular practice. Mindfulness can be practiced by bringing focused attention to the present-moment experience with kindness and free of judgment. The more we practice this skill, the better we can become at recognizing our thoughts, emotions, and bodies and better manage stress. Even a couple of minutes per day can help someone (especially students with busy schedules) prioritize their well-being. Mindfulness can be practiced formally through meditation exercises, and also informally during regular daily activities by bringing attention to the present moment experience. Anything can be done mindfully, from eating to moving and even washing the dishes!

Organizations and researchers have found many benefits:

How can mindfulness be useful as an instructor?

The American College Health Association found student well-being impacts how they are showing up in the classroom. By acknowledging their lives outside of academics and taking a “whole person” approach, we can cultivate a community where students feel more open to take care of themselves as a way of supporting their goals and well-being.

It is important to consider how mindfulness shows up in your own life. Having your own mindfulness practice can benefit your well-being and performance as an instructor. It can also help you integrate some of these approaches and strategies into your classroom. Mindfulness can be quite personal; how much you share about your own experience is always at your discretion.

How can mindfulness be implemented?

There are a few things to note about your approach to bringing mindfulness to your classroom:

  • Explain why you’re introducing this to your classroom and relate it back to the course (e.g. when students are well, they do better in class).
  • Make it accessible. Use simple, neutral language to avoid jargon or terms that may not feel as relevant to students. For example, students may be more receptive to the term “mindfulness” rather than “meditation.”
  • Make it optional. It’s important for folks to be open to mindfulness and approach it with curiosity. If it feels forced, it probably won’t go well. Let’s students know that it’s an invitation and not a requirement.

You can integrate mindfulness and related approaches by:

  • Taking a few mindful breaths together at the beginning or end of each class.
  • Setting aside 5-10 minutes to do a guided mindfulness practice together as a class. You can find free recordings online.
  • Including assignments that align with a mindfulness approach.
  • Acknowledging that you care about student well-being and providing periodic reminders about self-care, especially during high-stress times of the semester.
    • Remind students that grades do not define their worth and that they deserve to take care of themselves.
      • Students can take care of themselves by building routines around food and meal times, sleep and rest, movement or physical activity and leaving even a few minutes of “you” time to do things that help them feel well.
    • Spending a minute or two talking about this at the beginning of class can be a helpful way to cultivate community in your classroom. It can also serve as a reminder that self-care is important for well-being, and can benefit their academic performance.

Encourage students to access mindfulness resources on campus:

The Wellness Resource Center (WRC) is Temple University’s health promotion office. The WRC offers a variety of intentional learning opportunities to promote well-being and cultivate community. Services include peer-led workshops, campus-wide events, staff and faculty training, wellness consultations, and safer sex supply sales. Learn more about these services and how to request programming at wellness.temple.edu or connect with the WRC on social media (Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) @BeWellTU.Image credit: “Body of Water and Sunlight” released under Creative Commons CC0 (public domain) by PeakPx.com.

Trauma-informed Teaching: A Lens to View and Help All Students Succeed

Cliff Rouder & Linda Hasunuma

We and our students are experiencing a time of powerful social transformation amidst a global health crisis. The physical, social, and emotional toll that we all may be experiencing brings into focus the need for an awareness of trauma’s impact on learning. The Center for the Advancement of Teaching recently sponsored a three-part workshop on trauma-informed teaching in which Temple faculty and representatives with expertise in this area from Temple’s Wellness Resource Center, Office of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership (IDEAL), and Tuttleman Counseling Services helped us understand what trauma is, how it can impact student learning (and us), and the scope of our role to help students succeed. We have gathered key ideas and helpful information from these sessions in this blog post to guide you in creating spaces for learning that support student success. 

What is Trauma and Why Does It Matter? 

The classic/traditional definition is “psychologically distressing event involving “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence…” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 261).

It involves a sense of fear, helplessness, and horror. Childhood trauma occurs whenever both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope with an external threat (van der Kolk, 1989). As instructors, it is always helpful to keep in mind that trauma can affect the students in our classroom and us, but in the time of a pandemic and an intense struggle for racial justice, this trauma can be exacerbated. 

While most people understand the effects that trauma can have on a person, they may not realize that trauma can also affect cognitive, social, behavioral, and physical functioning. Students, and you, bring all of these effects into the classroom with you.

© Amy K. Lynch and Kelly Mahler

How Might Trauma Manifest in the Classroom? 

An awareness of the ways in which trauma can manifest for students can serve us as educators in class and during office hours. These include, but are not limited to: 

  • Inappropriate interpersonal boundaries, such as demanding additional information and/or participation in processes. 
  • Emotional responses that are not typically acceptable as “professional behavior.”
  • Rigid thinking/cognitive inflexibility.
  • A loss of self-agency and coping strategies.

It is important, too, to be aware of the ways in which forces of oppression, such as anti-Black racism, can impact students:

  • Psychological Impact: attentional/focus difficulty, feelings of helplessness, chronic stress, apathy, hypervigilance to discrimination/oppression, and perfectionism/burnout.
  • Physiological Impact: somatization (e.g., headaches, rapid heartbeat), sleep difficulties, and disconnection.

What Steps Can I Take to Help All Students Succeed?

Faculty are not therapists or counselors, nor should they be. Within our scope of practice as faculty, however, here are several concrete strategies that you can employ: 

  • Be aware of and manage your own trauma response so that you don’t negatively impact the dynamics of your class. 
  • Be clear about your goals and maintain a routine and structure in a simplified and organized way in areas like your Canvas course design. 
  • Work intentionally to build trust:
    • Assess students’ needs before the semester begins to identify what learning challenges they may be facing. A simple (private) survey asking students their name and major, and if they’re comfortable, asking if there are things about their identity that would be helpful for you to know. In addition, asking them to share any barriers that might impact their learning can help you proactively meet their diverse needs.
      • Recognize ways in which our own biases (both explicit and implicit) are reflected in course content or policies and may activate a racial trauma response. Make changes accordingly. For more information about implicit bias, view this resource. 
      • Create a welcoming and supportive space where students can share and take risks to decrease the likelihood of feeling marginalized. 
      • We can also create that supportive space by setting expectations for engagement and accountability and working through strategies for meeting those expectations. Please see the section titled, “Setting Community Standards for Online Discussions” in this resource.
      • Acknowledging the impact of racism and racial stress is a critical step in creating a learning environment where students can feel heard and affirmed. One way we can do this is by addressing microaggressions (unintended things we and other students say or do that can be hurtful). 
      • Check in frequently about what’s working and what’s not; take the “temperature” of the class.
    • Offer options in your assignments and assessments as to how students demonstrate what they’ve learned. Choices support a sense of autonomy.
    • Take a team approach! Resources like Tuttleman Counseling Services, IDEAL, Disability Resources and Services, and the Wellness Resource Center can support your efforts to promote student well-being.
    •  
    • What are the Boundaries of my Role as Instructor?If a student’s behavior is proving detrimental to themselves or to the effective functioning of your class, you can speak to that student privately to empathetically express concern about the behaviors and attempt to find workable strategies to address those behaviors so they do not impact the functioning of your class. Faculty are often concerned about how to manage this type of conversation. Here is some helpful guidance to consider:  Validate student feelings “That sounds like a lot to be experiencing.” Start from a place of caring. Be compassionate as you frame the need for the discussion. Communicate that the intention of this discussion is to help rather than to punish. Appreciate the courage it took to share “Thank you for sharing this with me–I know it takes a lot of courage.” “Thank you for trusting me enough to share this experience.” If a student does share something as personal as past trauma with you, it’s likely because you have created an environment of trust and caring. So, kudos for that! You can first express appreciation that the student has shared this with you.  Refer to skills and supports  “What supports or resources have worked for you in the past?”“There are folks available who can help. Could I share some information with you?” If a student shares a traumatic experience specifically about sexual misconduct since they have been a student at Temple, let them know you must report that to the Title IX Coordinator, and that they can be a part of the reporting process. Learn more at sexualmisconduct.temple.edu. If a student shares a plan to harm themselves or others, please contact TUPD (215-204-1234) or 911. There are resources available for students in non-emergent crises, such as the Crisis Text Line, or hotlines for interpersonal violence and sexual violence.  Remember that the key to great teaching, no matter the challenge, is communication, empathy, flexibility, and the willingness to see our students as the complex, wonderful human beings they are.  We are deeply grateful to the facilitators of the trauma-informed teaching workshops:
      • Crystal Austin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Instruction, College of Education and Human Development
      • Hillary Black, LCSW, Assistant Coordinator of Sexual Assault Counseling and Education (SACE), Tuttleman Counseling Services
      • Valerie Dudley, Ph.D., Director of Multicultural Education, Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (IDEAL)
      • Amy Lynch, Ph.D., OTR/L, Associate of Professor of Instruction, College of Public Health
      • Aisha Renee Moore, MSW, LCSW, Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Counseling and Education (SACE) Unit at Tuttleman Counseling Services
      • Nu’Rodney Prad, M.S., Director of Student Engagement, Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (IDEAL)
      • Jessica S. Reinhardt, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Practice, College of Education and Human Development
      • Liz Zadnik, M.A., Associate Director, Wellness Resource Center

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy & Design Specialist for the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Linda Hasunuma, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Teaching International Students Abroad

Stephanie Fiore

Dymaxion Projection World Map

This fall, some of the international students in your classes may be located abroad in their native countries because travel restrictions have prevented them from coming to campus. Your international students are an asset to your class, bringing important diversity of experiences, cultural perspectives and learning methods. They are also eager to participate in the classes at Temple University despite the situation that has prevented them from coming to Philadelphia. Thinking intentionally about the barriers they may face and the contributions they may add to class can help all your students gain from this complex situation. Communication with your international students is key in helping them overcome challenges these conditions may pose to their learning. Here are some issues you may encounter and suggested strategies to overcome them. 

Time Differences

If your students are in a different country or some US states, they may be in another time zone, sometimes as much as 13 hours different from Philadelphia time. This difference may hinder their ability to feel engaged in your class, especially if you hold synchronous class sessions that meet when it is the middle of the night for them. How can you help them participate and engage with your class community? 

Strategies That Can Help:

  • Make sure you ask your students at the beginning of the semester if they are in a different time zone. We recommend administering a short ‘get to know you’ survey to the entire class in which you ask students where they are currently located. 
  • Solicit students’ ideas for how to participate effectively in class.
  • Record your synchronous Zoom classes to allow students to access your class content at a time that makes more sense for them. This strategy will also allow all of your students with technological access or illness issues to access your course content asynchronously.
  • Make sure to have all of your course materials (syllabus, assignments, required and additional reading) available in Canvas so that students can access them at any time.
  • If you are doing active learning activities during your class time, offer an alternative way to complete work for your students in a different time zone. This alternative may look different than the in-class work but should accomplish the same goals.
  • Consider time differences when setting deadlines for assignments or when setting up times for exams. If a specific deadline is important, make sure all of your students understand ahead of time how to plan, and check in individually with your international students to ensure deadlines make sense for them. 
  • If assigning group projects, determine if you can form a group of students who live in similar time zones in order to facilitate more seamless collaboration. If students in different time zones must work together, encourage them to use effective collaboration tools (such as Teams or Canvas Collaborations) in order to communicate without having to have in-person meetings.
  • If you have scheduled virtual office hours, provide alternatives that are convenient for students in different time zones, or provide an asynchronous way for them to reach you.

Inability to Access Technology

Internet connectivity and access to technology tools could be an issue for some students both in the US and abroad. Stable high-speed internet and access to equipment such as webcams or laptops may not be available to some students, which makes it difficult for them to participate fully in remote synchronous class sessions. For other students, the issue is not internet connectivity but internet restrictions. China, for example, has restricted access to websites and applications that include Zoom and all Google applications (including Gmail) that are widely used for teaching, as well as YouTube, Twitter, Dropbox, Skype and more.

Strategies That Can Help:

  • Remind students, especially new ones, to complete the TUID Photo Verification process in Portal Next Steps. Having a verified photo on file will allow IT Help Desk to provide expedient assistance. 
  • You can test to see if particular domains are blocked in China using a site like Comparitech. First, however, a simple conversation with your students to identify any barriers to learning they face can reveal sticking points and additional insights you might not otherwise have known. 
  • Zoom may not work in certain countries, which may make it impossible for students to attend your Zoom session and to watch your Zoom recordings. Teams, a collaboration software with similar capabilities, will also work in most countries and is available to the Temple community. However, remember that the most important thing, particularly during this time, is to make sure students can reach your course goals, not that they all reach those goals in the exact same way. Talk to your students with these issues and brainstorm together how to help them.
  • Some websites, social media, and streaming platforms are also blocked in other countries, and some sensitive content may also be blocked. Ask students to review class material and let you know which ones they cannot access. In some cases, you may be able to download content and post it directly to Canvas. Post videos to open directly in Canvas rather than requiring students to download videos.
  • If students need alternative methods for receiving and delivering materials and class assignments, consider whether email will help. ITS is working to migrate overseas students’ email accounts from Gmail to Outlook 365 in order to allow them access to email. Regardless, it is essential to communicate with them through your Canvas course announcements and messages.
  • Students with slow bandwidth or limited allowance of bandwidth are likely to experience slow logins, page loads and forced terminations. For synchronous online sessions, allow students to participate without video, which will increase their bandwidth, and remind them to be present through chat or voice participation. 
  • In certain cases, students may be able to join Zoom by phone if they are having connectivity issues. Be sure to provide the complete information for the Zoom session, including how to connect to your Zoom session by phone. Note that this may not be possible in some international sites, and the phone call may have a fee attached. Check with your students if calling into your class is a possibility.
  • Think about bandwidth when selecting course materials such as videos. Students with low or limited bandwidth, whether in the US or abroad, may not have easy access to this material, so consider alternative ways to deliver any essential video content (audio transcription, outline, key points). 
  • Check the technology needs for your assignments and assessments. For instance, if you use a proctoring solution that requires a webcam and a laptop, find out if your students have access to that equipment. If not, consider offering alternative assessments for those students or, better yet, provide alternatives for the entire class.

Sensitive Topics

Students may be in countries or communities where certain topics are not safe to discuss. Depending on the country, students may be reluctant to engage in conversation about topics that may be sensitive to their government or community for fear of retribution. 

Strategies That Can Help:

  • In the first week of class, invite students to review topics on the course syllabus and flag any topics that could potentially be sensitive. 
  • Remember that even writing to you about flagged content can prove unsafe, and students may also be reluctant to discuss any barriers publicly in class. Invite your students to speak with you privately (at a time that works for their time zone) to discuss any issues they might anticipate.  
  • Work with your students to find creative alternatives that allow students to engage with the class content without compromising their safety. You can still, of course, teach the content you were planning to teach in the class, but perhaps your student can write about less controversial topics that will not jeopardize their safety.

The essential key to helping your international students abroad or students in another time zone is communication. Talk to students and work together to find solutions. 

References:

Cox, Michelle. 2020. Guidance for Faculty: Getting and Staying Connected With Int’l Students. John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University. Retrieved from: https://knight.as.cornell.edu/guidance-faculty-getting-staying-connected-intl-students

The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2020. Teaching International Students Remotely [Blog post].  (n.d). Retrieved from https://writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty-resources/teaching-international-students-remotely/

Stephanie Fiore, Ph.D., is Assistant Vice Provost at Temple University and Senior Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Dymaxion projection world map by Justin Kunimune published to Wikimedia Commons and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Image resized and cropped.

Wise Feedback: Using Constructive Feedback to Motivate Learners

Devshikha Bose

open books

How many of us have thought about giving useful feedback to our students and fallen short? Moreover, how many times have we given what we thought was extensive feedback, and seen no improvements in student performance? Or that some students were utilizing our feedback while others did not? How can we provide constructive feedback which will be useful to all learners in that it serves to both instruct as well as motivate students? One way might be to provide “wise feedback.”

What is Wise Feedback?

Wise feedback is targeted feedback which conveys high expectations, the instructor’s genuine belief that those expectations can be achieved by the student, and provides concrete information to help the student meet the expectations. Here, “wise” does not necessarily mean smarter or better. Instead, wise feedback refers to psychological interventions which are attuned to how people make sense of themselves, others, and social situations which may affect their learning.

How do I provide Wise Feedback?

“I am giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” or “The expectations in this course are high and I know you can do great work. The feedback here is designed to help you get there.” Using this framing when providing feedback to your students helps to build trust, signal belonging, and combine high standards with the assurance that people can reach them. Obviously, simple assurances and trust in the abilities of others are in themselves not sufficient to guarantee success. It is therefore essential to also include constructive criticism, clear pathways/specific directions, and guidance on how students can achieve success.

Who can benefit from Wise Feedback?

While all students can benefit from wise feedback, studies have shown that students from cultures which have traditionally suffered from race-based stigma, seem to get additional benefits from wise feedback (Cohen, Steele, & Ross, 1999; Yeager et al, 2014).

Communicating high expectations and providing students with the support to meet them is crucial. Students can thrive when they are challenged. But they need to understand the expectations, know how to meet them, and feel that the instructor believes in their capabilities.

References

Devshikha Bose is an Instructional Design Consultant at Boise State University’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. Image from pxhere released to public domain under Creative Commons CC0 license.

Put the Library Where Your Students Are Learning

Olivia Given Castello and Nicole DeSarno

The Course Navigation link to the Library

The library is a critical learning support for college students, but the challenge is to make students aware of all the library provides. Since many students are learning partially or fully online, Learning Management System (LMS) integration is a handy way to bring library resources and librarian help to your students where they learn: in your LMS course.

Integrating library resources into the LMS can make your students more successful by giving them easy library access. Linking to library content within a course has been shown to increase students’ use of materials. Including information about library services gives them access to learning support when and where they need it, in a way they can refer back to throughout the semester. This can be especially useful for connecting the library to distance students and hybrid online learners, many of whom seldom visit the library in person.

LMS platforms can connect automatically with systems used by academic libraries. Two common ones are Research Guides and Course Reserves. There are also simple best practices you can follow when linking to library resources that will improve your students’ connection to the library.

Research Guides

Research guides are librarian-authored web pages recommending library resources to help students get started on research for particular disciplines, courses, or assignments. At Temple University, research guides are automatically integrated into the LMS via the “Library” link, an item in the default Course Navigation menu located in the left-hand column of Canvas courses. When clicked, this link shows a matched guide from Temple Libraries’ Research Guides system. The guide shown varies depending on the Canvas course. In most courses, the Library link shows a generic guide that highlights commonly sought information and tools, such as building hours, book and article search, a chat widget for live librarian help, and an online scheduler for research appointments. 

In courses where a faculty member works with a librarian to create a course-specific research guide, that guide is shown. In our pilot study at Temple, we learned that students engaged most with the Library link when it showed a course-specific library research guide! 

Having library resources in the LMS helps students build research skills and get help, and automatic integrations like Temple’s Library link bring these resources to students without any extra work for the faculty member.

Beyond automatic integrations, faculty can also manually add smaller portions of research guides in other areas of a course. Once you identify a single box or page from a larger research guide that would help your students, you can manually embed it in the area of your course content where students will find it most useful. At Temple, this type of content can be added to Canvas as an “External Tool.”

Course Reserves

Another common library integration concerns course reserves: high demand materials related to a specific course that you can make available to students via your library. E-reserves are downloadable in the LMS, while physical reserves are available for short term lending at the library. 

At Temple, faculty members can add the Course Reserves tool, which is separate from the default Library link, to Canvas’ navigation menu in the course Settings. You then request items be placed on reserve from within the tool by adding new requests or importing Reserves items from a previous semester. Library staff see and process the requests, and arrange any necessary document scanning, purchasing, or other additional steps. Once processed, the active reserve items show in the Canvas course.

Persistent links to library e-resources

Academic libraries offer many types of content that you can integrate directly into the LMS as course materials: articles, ebooks, videos, databases, and more — but use persistent links, not the URL in the browser window. A persistent link (a.k.a. durable link, stable link, permalink) is a URL that connects directly to a specific full-text source in a library database or electronic subscription. Using the persistent, library-linked, URL ensures all students (on-campus and off) can access the source. These links are stable over time, and they also eliminate the need to worry about potential copyright issues since students will be directed through the institutional login page if necessary for access. Different databases offer varying options for getting a persistent link to an item, depending on their interface. 

At Temple, persistent links can be added to Canvas as an “External URL.” Intentionally linking to library e-resources is the way to make optimal use of your library’s collections. It also creates a bridge for students to library research support services, since many library e-resource platforms include embedded librarian help.

Want to get started connecting to the library in your LMS?

To explore options for integrating the library into your LMS course, contact your institution’s library staff. Librarians will consult with you on how to integrate library resources, and can let you know what automatic integrations are available on your campus.

At Temple University, start at our guide to embedding library resources in Canvas. It includes step-by-step instructions and short video tutorials on the options described here. Contact your subject librarian to discuss the best library resources for your class, request a course-specific library guide be created, or change what shows on the Library link in your course. Consider adding a librarian to your course in the Designer role. We are happy to help with library-related Canvas options. Have other questions? Need additional help? Email us at asktulibrary@temple.edu!

Olivia Given Castello and Nicole DeSarno are members of the Learning & Research Services unit of Temple University Libraries.

Are Your Lesson-level Learning Objectives S.M.A.R.T.?

Paul Blaschko

S.M.A.R.T. goals

There are many ways in which in-class instructional time can seem overwhelming, especially to first time teachers. During my first TA experience I remember opening up a word document with the intention of writing up an agenda for the first week’s discussion. I kept staring at the document like it was a vast open prairie, or an empty stage in a sold-out theatre. The time and space I had seemed expansive, full of possibilities and opportunities, but also shapeless and unstructured. In that moment, I found myself wondering: how am I supposed to fill every moment of face-to-face instructional time with meaningful, interesting, and valuable content, and how am I supposed to know after the fact if I’ve succeeded in this goal? In this post, I’ll argue that you can go a long way towards answering these questions for yourself by carefully crafting S.M.A.R.T. learning objectives, and by using these objectives to design and implement daily assessments.

First off, a learning objective is a brief, descriptive statement of one thing that a student will take away from a day’s lesson. They are typically determined by (and fit into) the broader “learning goals” that you set in your syllabus at the beginning of the semester, but are more specific, concrete, and active. Examples include: “By the end of class, each student will be able to distinguish between examples of substances and accidents, and to give an intuitive definition of each.” You might have just one learning objective for a class period, or, if you have more time or if the objectives are less ambitious, you may break it down into two, three, or even more. (For more helpful information on learning objectives, and the difference between a learning objective and a course goal, see this helpful handout. For a taxonomy of different kinds of learning objectives, and how to incorporate these into your course prep see this handout on class prep from the Kaneb Center.)

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym often associated with productive goal-setting in general, and I forget where I even first came across it (see here, here, and here). The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, and Time-bound, and I find these criteria immensely helpful in crafting good learning objectives. I won’t go through detailed descriptions for each criteria (for such descriptions see the links above), but to get an intuitive sense, consider the following two objectives:

  1. By the end of class students will be able to analyze philosophical texts well.
  2. By the end of class, students will be able to isolate Singer’s “Obligatory Giving” argument and distinguish its major premises, and give one reason why they agree or disagree with each premise.

Objective 2 is clearly better along each of our five dimensions.

S.M.A.R.T. objectives can help structure in-class time in at least two ways. First, they can help you determine what information you need to present and what sorts of activities you need to have your students engage in, and what to prioritize in the distribution of class time for any given meeting. If objective 2 was one of your objectives, for instance, you’d need to make sure to leave time for the students to read and mark-up a paragraph of text (3-5 minutes), share their thoughts with a neighbor (2-4 minutes), and collaborate on reconstructing the argument as a group (5-8 minutes). If you have three or four other objectives for that day, you might think about simplifying the task, or about giving them a little more help along the way.

The second way S.M.A.R.T. objectives can help you structure in-class time is in a more global, semester-level sense. S.M.A.R.T. objectives — if crafted well — naturally give rise to concrete assessment mechanisms (they are, after all, Measurable, Results-focused, and Time-bound). To expand upon our example: you could ask your students to write down the premises and conclusion of Singer’s argument on a half-sheet of paper and turn it in. If pressed for time, you could cold call on three students and ask each to offer a premise and a brief reason to agree or disagree with it. If the objective and content are crucial to the course as a whole, and directly related to your overall learning goals, you might hand out a worksheet at the end of class, or have students take an online quiz to ensure that they’ve attained proficiency. This feedback is an invaluable resource in helping you to determine where to spend valuable future class time.

As college instructors, we get precious little face-to-face instructional time with our students, so it’s important that we structure the time we have effectively. S.M.A.R.T. learning objectives can help us to do that, and in a way that isn’t overwhelming or overly time consuming. Moreover, I’ve found that pairing my objectives with daily assessment mechanisms, and even using the process of designing such mechanisms to clarify and evaluate these objectives, allows me to foster a more “communicative” classroom experience; i.e. one in which I’m getting feedback from the students that I can use to create future objective-based learning goals that are responsive to their needs.

Links and citations:

“Goals vs Objectives.” University of Iowa Information Technology Services, Office of Teaching, Learning, and Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2017. https://teach.its.uiowa.edu/sites/teach.its.uiowa.edu/files/docs/docs/Goals_vs_Objectives_ed.pdf

“Articulating Learning Goals: A Path to Increased Efficiency and Improved Student Performance.” University of Notre Dame, Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2017. http://kaneb.nd.edu/assets/75457/learninggoalsho.pdf

EDITOR’S NOTE: Looking for more learning design-related EDvice? Check out our Course Design Series!

Paul Blaschko is the Assistant Director at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. Image by Dungdm93 released under Creative Common Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.

Humanizing the Large Lecture: Why It’s Important and How to Start

Angela Bricker

lecture hall

For years I had the standard “come talk if there’s a problem” statement of bonhomie and support on my syllabus. I stated it explicitly at the first class meeting. And no one ever came.

I’ve been thinking about inclusivity in teaching in the context of my large (150 students) lecture. I have participated in a lot of really fabulous CAT seminars, courses, and workshops, and have been exposed to so many wonderful ideas, but let’s face it – lecture halls are not designed for much interaction between students or even, if we’re honest, between student and lecturer. So how do we develop human relationships in a large-scale situation?

It’s difficult to look beyond the limits of the situation, but it’s important to try because the student pool represents a deep resource of experience, a lens through which they can understand the course material and, if you manage well, help each other to understand it as well. Students often are unwilling to share from their own experiences in a large lecture format, and there is no chance that will happen if they are not comfortable interacting with the lecturer. Interaction isn’t automatic, and it can’t happen without trust.

As a result of participating in the Provost’s Teaching Academy, I designed what I now call the Index Card Exercise. I distribute index cards on the first day of class and ask students to take five minutes to write their preferred name, pronouns, and what they are most excited about for class. Like most large lectures, it’s mostly a captive population fulfilling a requirement, so I figure any attempt to limit the adversarial relationship between student and course material (and instructor) is worth the attempt. The final question I ask is: “Is there anything I should know about that might impact your ability to succeed in this class?”

It turns out there’s plenty that students want me to know. I’ve had students with babies, recovering from cancer, taking care of elderly relatives, working full time to pay their bills – in short, students in my class are experiencing a lot of life while they also try to keep up with a full course load. Most of them don’t want to appear to be asking for a favor and would never approach me, and many state outright that they don’t really expect anything, but because I ask, they tell me.

The benefit to me of this exercise is that I am more aware of their struggles, and I’m reminded of their humanity. The benefit to them is the proof that there is substance behind my claim to concern. I may not be able to match every name with a face, but I read those cards and I remember nicknames when we email. I reach out to students whose circumstances seem particularly precarious. And the students respond. I’ve never had a student express their preference for a non-cis pronoun, but quite a few have made a point of conveying their surprise and approval that I ask. Suddenly, with those four questions, I become approachable and relevant.

It’s tough to imagine ways to find common ground with students in a large lecture, but it’s important to try. With my science background, I have to fight daily against the notion that teaching in active ways, employing new pedagogical ideas, is simply babying the students. Building a relationship with them helps on so many levels, though: I see potential problems in time to be proactive, I enjoy teaching more, and I start with the students’ trust that they can come to me early and work with me to avert disaster. Does it work all the time? Of course not. Like all of teaching, there’s an element of trial and error; sometimes a great idea just doesn’t work out. You can tweak it next time, or you can abandon it in favor of a different exercise, but the important thing is to keep actively building those bridges. Even a failed exercise, if you practice transparency about what it was meant to achieve and how it went wrong, can foster a supportive learning environment where students can achieve significant personal and academic growth.

Angela Bricker is Assistant Professor in the Biology department of Temple University’s College of Science and Technology.


Image by Theonlysilentbob from Wikipedia Commons, released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. Image cropped from original version.