Author: Emily Barber

Devshikha Bose

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

• Evidence-Based Strategies and Practices
• How to Instruct and Motivate Through Feedback: A Top 1 List
• Pinkcast 2.16: This is how to give better feedback in just 19 words
• The Science of “Wise Interventions”: Applying a Social Psychological Perspective to Address Problems and Help People Flourish
• Cohen, G.L., Steele, C.M., & Ross, L.D. (1999). The mentor’s dilemma: Providing critical feedback across the racial divide. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(10), 1302-1318.
• Yeager, D. S., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., . . . Cohen, G. L. (2014). Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804-824. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033906

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.

Paul Blaschko

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.

Angela Bricker

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.

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Genevieve Amaral

As a newly-hired full-time faculty member at Temple in 2015, naturally I agreed when my Associate Director asked me to join a weekend-long teaching workshop. When I looked more closely at the email describing the event, however, I was a little daunted: I had committed to training to use “Reacting to the Past” (RTTP), a role-playing pedagogy in which students become immersed in elaborate, multi-week games set at major historical and ideological junctures. According to the email invitation, the best way to learn to use the method is to experience a game directly, so faculty would be playing an accelerated version of Greenwich Village, 1913. Players would assume the identities of women’s suffrage leaders, major figures in the Industrial Workers of the World union battles, or the artists who peopled the cafes of New York City at the start of the twentieth century. I was to be Emma Goldman, the anarchist firebrand.

Suspicious of what seemed like a gimmick and terrified of making a fool of myself in front of all my new colleagues, I spent the week before the workshop feverishly reading the gamebook, researching Goldman, and preparing for my (or rather, Emma’s) speeches to the bohemians of Greenwich Village (that is, Temple faculty in the Intellectual Heritage Lounge in Anderson Hall). When I began playing the game that Saturday morning, I was surprised to discover how much I had learned and retained about a thinker I had known almost nothing about a week earlier. By the end of the workshop, stunned at how engrossing and exciting RTTP could be, I was sold.

Since then, along with faculty in the Intellectual Heritage program and others across campus, I have committed to using RTTP games regularly in my classrooms each semester. We draw from the dozens of games published by the Reacting Consortium, each of which asks students to react to critical historical moments ranging from the collapse of democracy in ancient Athens, to the trial of Anne Hutchinson, to the succession crisis in 16^th-century China.

Most games take between three and four weeks to complete, during which students are tasked with the traditional seminar work of reading critically, writing, and presenting in class. The twist with RTTP is that students do so entirely in role. The goals and ambitions of their historical figures and factions become the “victory objectives” that drive active learning and cultivate ethical reasoning, including the capacity to understand the perspectives of others removed by a (sometimes vast) geographical and temporal distance.

When I asked some of my colleagues why they use the method, they pointed to active learning, among other motivations. IH Professor Jim Getz does it for “two reasons: first, I’m convinced by the peer-reviewed data of the effectiveness of the pedagogy in teaching not just the what but the why and how of history. Second, I find it much more rewarding as an educator than simply standing in front of a lectern giving lectures or leading seminars.” For IH Professor Susan Bertolino, “Students complain endlessly about boring lectures. The games are not boring, plus they have to listen to their peers in order to construct arguments. If the group is cohesive, there is community, friendship, and a lot of fun.”

RTTP does present unique challenges. Professor Getz admits that “it is distinctly unnerving to cede the classroom to students. There is a lot that can (and does) go wrong. There is a robust community at Temple and online to help when things go sideways, but part of the beauty of this pedagogy is that it is often exactly when things go off the rails from the historical situation that students can learn the most—it’s at these moments when students are most able to see their own twenty-first-century biases.” Similarly, according to Professor Bertolino, “the games are wonderful to use, but they demand a lot from the instructor as students have to take active roles. Many are not used to this. They regard education as passive in which they receive information from the instructor.” “However,” counters Professor Getz, “the natural competitiveness of students mitigates this. Once RTTP starts and students start to perceive they are ‘losing,’ student investment shoots up.”

While RTTP began as a liberal arts initiative, many STEM games have recently been developed, teaching topics like epidemiology and germ theory through the 1854 cholera epidemic in London, or nutrition science and public health policy through the invention of the USDA food pyramid in 1991. Instructors interested in trying the method might begin with a one-class “micro-game,” available for free download on the RTTP website. With the support of CAT and GenEd, Temple is a Consortium member, giving all faculty access to the Consortium’s online resources after creating an account. Those new to RTTP can also join the growing community of hundreds of faculty across the country who meet annually at Barnard College (where the method was invented by history professor Mark Carnes) to train and share strategies. If you’re looking to increase active learning and inherent motivation among your students, consider RTTP. Just prepare for things to get active; as Professor Getz recalls, “I have never had students flip tables while talking passionately about the importance of democratic principles in a non-RTTP classroom.”

Genevieve Amaral is Assistant Director of Special Programs for Temple’s Intellectual Heritage Program.

Ariel Siegelman, Senior Instructional Technology Specialist

If you’ve read about or attended workshops on approaches to teaching and learning with technology, chances are you’ve come across a few different terms to describe classes that have an online component. What are blended, hybrid, and flipped courses? Are they all describing the same approach to teaching, or are they different from one another? Are they just teaching-with-technology buzzwords–just fads–or are they worthwhile approaches to structuring your courses?

While these terms are often used interchangeably, in fact, they each have fundamental differences. However, all three of these approaches do involve teaching and learning online, and they are all legitimate approaches that have a track record of student success. Read on below to learn more about these approaches and their benefits for student learning.

Blended Courses

A blended course involves face-to-face class sessions that are accompanied by online materials and activities–essentially a “blend” of both live and online learning. A fundamental component of a blended course is that these online materials are not intended to “replace” face-to-face class time; rather, they are meant to supplement and build upon the content discussed in the classroom.

With the widespread use of learning management systems such as Canvas, the blended course approach has become very popular since class materials are easily accessible to students. (You may already be teaching a blended course and not even know it!) Instructors will often use their online courses to post articles, videos, podcasts, quizzes, and interactive online activities for students to engage with outside of face-to-face class time. Since these materials are readily available via multiple devices, students can independently review course content at their own pace, on their own time, and as many times as necessary. This is a key reason why students not only often perform better in blended courses, but they also often have higher motivation and lower anxiety.

Hybrid Courses

“Blended courses” and “hybrid courses” are the terms most likely to be used interchangeably, but hybrid courses differ in that their online components are intended to replace a portion of face-to-face class time. Online interactions can either be synchronous, meaning that students are interacting online in real time, such as through class sessions conducted via Zoom, or asynchronous, meaning that students interact online at different times, such as through online discussions or VoiceThread.

In addition to having many of the benefits of a blended course, the hybrid approach is ideal for students who are living in different locations or are part-time due to a busy schedule or a full time job. Students do not have to travel to the face-to-face classroom as often and can complete coursework when and where it is most convenient for them. As opposed to a fully online course, however, maintaining the face-to-face component of the course can also help support students’ sense of class community, one of the biggest struggles an instructor faces in a fully online course.

[Editor’s note: for on Hybrid teaching, visit this page.]

Flipped Courses

A flipped course also typically includes both face-to-face and online components, but the way in which students interact with course content is different than in a traditional course. In a traditional course, students learn fundamental concepts in the classroom, either through lecture or class activities, and engage with materials that build upon that knowledge outside of the classroom. In a flipped classroom, this approach is inverted: Students learn fundamental knowledge prior to class, such as through readings, podcasts, or videos, and expand upon that knowledge through activities conducted in-class with the support of the instructor. Flipped courses are thus usually also blended courses, since materials are often provided online, and they can also be hybrid courses, if some of the class interactions take place online. However, blended and hybrid courses are not always flipped.

A host of research supports the flipped course approach. It has been found to allow students to learn fundamental knowledge based on their preferences and strengths, provide more class time for active learning, increase opportunities for peer-to-peer collaboration and teacher-student mentorship, and encourage the instructor to consistently monitor students’ progress. A flipped course thus allows both students and the instructor to take full advantage of both online resources and class time.

[To learn about how one Temple engineering professor flipped his classroom, check out this EDvice Exchange post from September. -Ed.]

The Takeaways

Now that you know the difference between blended, hybrid, and flipped learning, you can accurately describe the format of your course, or perhaps explore a format that would better suit your course! If you are a Temple instructor and are interested in improving, designing, or converting a course to one of these formats, our team at the CAT is here to help! You can book an appointment with one of our teaching and learning specialists to talk about planning and reevaluating a course, as well as with our instructional technology specialists to strategize ways to maximize your use of online technologies to support your course. Visit catbooking.temple.edu or call us at 215-204-8761.

Resources

Blended Learning, Hybrid Learning, The Flipped Classroom… What’s the Difference? (2017, April 7). [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.panopto.com/blog/blended-learning-hybrid-learning-flipped-classroom-whats-difference/

Poon, J. (2013). Blended learning: An institutional approach for enhancing students’ learning experiences. Journal of online learning and teaching, 9(2), 271-288. Retrieved from http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30057995/poon-blendedlearning-2013.pdf

Roehl, A., Reddy, S. L., & Shannon, G. J. (2013). The flipped classroom: An opportunity to engage millennial students through active learning strategies. Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences, 105(2), 44-49. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/daa3/b94cdc7b52b3381a7c7e21022a7a8c005f84.pdf

Ariel Siegelman is a Senior Instructional Technology Specialist at Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

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