It’s summertime, when children all over the country will be squeezing lemons, adding sugar and water and sitting outside on the curb selling homemade lemonade. Think for a moment about lemonade. Isn’t it remarkable how something so sour can turn into a refreshing, sweet drink, one that conjures up visions of relaxing in the sun or picnicking with family? Before you go on that picnic, take a minute to think about how you can make lemonade out of any sour moments that happened in your classes this academic year. Did you have activities that flopped, readings that students just didn’t understand (or didn’t read at all), disappointing results on exams or underwhelming papers written by your majors? Did you experience hot moments in the classroom that you didn’t handle very well, or awkward interactions with students with whom you had trouble connecting? Did you find yourself short on time so that you had to rush headlong towards the end of the semester, dragging students on the ride with you? Were your student evaluations less than encouraging, or perhaps downright painful to read?
We all have times like these in our classes; sometimes, we have whole semesters that feel like this. I remember struggling through a class one semester that I had taught many times before with great success. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t smooth out the bumps and I was exhausted from trying at the end of every class. Those sour moments can be enervating, distressing and confusing. But they can be catalysts to great teaching too. We can reflect on those moments and take action to prevent them from happening again. If we put them in our rearview mirror too soon, we lose an opportunity to make lemonade and we risk becoming perpetually stuck with recurring sour moments.
Here’s my recipe for making pedagogical lemonade:
Identify the issues that are of most concern to you. When you think back on your semester, which issues stand out?
Squeeze those sour moments for information. What went wrong? Can you pinpoint moments when things went sideways? To help you think about it, try reflective writing, reviewing your own notes, examining student work, and reading student evaluations for clues.
Do your research. On almost any teaching topic, there is a wealth of helpful resources to help you find solutions. Start reading! Check out Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching’s resources or those at any number of teaching centers across the United States. Search for assistance in online faculty development sources such as Faculty Focus, or the Teaching Professor newsletter. Think about investing some time this summer in reading some foundational texts for higher ed instructors, such as How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching or Tools for Teaching. (Some of these resources may be available through your university library.) Or just Google it. And don’t forget, your teaching center has consultants available all summer long to help you think out solutions.
Take Action. After doing your research, commit to making one or two changes to your classroom in the fall semester and then do it! Don’t try to change everything at once; incremental change is the best course of action for long-term success.
Not such a tough recipe to follow, right? Before you stretch out with that hard-earned lemonade, start working on this recipe. Perhaps next semester you’ll find that the sweetness of teaching overpowers the sour.
Believe it or not, there’s a lot of humorous research–I mean, research on humor–40 year’s worth, give or take. Everything from theories of humor to the benefits of it in an educational setting has been explored. Too bad I didn’t know about this when I was choosing my dissertation topic. “Sorry I missed your final, professor, but I was out until 4:00 a.m. at the comedy club doing my dissertation research.” Ahh, to dream.
Okay, let’s get serious about humor for a moment. A review of humor in educational settings published in 2011 and spanning 4 decades revealed that appropriately used humor can do a number of pretty great things in the classroom, including:
Creating or strengthening a bond between students and professor
Easing stress or tension
Enhancing students’ understanding of the material
Creating a sense of wonder
Making the content more relatable and helping students remember things better
I’m sure you can think of a time when humor had one or more of these positive effects in your classroom. But what kind of humor has this power? Here we can look to Instructional Humor Processing Theory (IHPT). The theory is two-fold: 1. The mere act of students recognizing the humor will increase students’ attention, and 2. Students need to perceive and then figure out some type of incongruity in the humorous message.
There are many different ways IHPT can be put into practice. Google “types of humor” and you’ll see lists ranging from seven to 20 types. I’m going to pick two that I’ve used in my own classroom that had at least one of the positive effects above (based on comments from my students each semester). Which benefits do you think my students mentioned?
Self-deprecating humor: I would tell my students the story of when I began my dietetic internship program. I was rotating in the pediatric unit and was asked to check out a child’s eyes and nose–or at least that’s what I thought the dietitian had said. I went up to the child’s bed and tried desperately to think of what nutrition-related issue may be affecting his eyes and nose. After a few minutes of not seeing anything wrong with the child’s eyes and nose, I had to confess. Bracing for the worst, the dietitian instead burst out laughing. Know why? She had actually asked me to check his “I’s and O’s” (fluid intake and fluid output), not his eyes and nose!
Physical humor: I was role-playing a less-than-professional hospital dietitian pretending to assess a patient (played by a brave student). I “plopped” the medical chart and all my notes on her bed, hitting her leg. I then asked her questions while looking in the mirror combing my hair; I made a ghastly facial expression looking at her pureed dinner, and to add insult to injury, I made sure to trip over her IV lines.
Other types of humor you can try are plays on words (one of my favorites), improvisational, and observational, to name just a few.
“But what if I’m not especially funny?” you may be asking. If you are really uncomfortable using humor when it’s not natural to you, no worries, there are other ways to engage students. But if you do want to try your hand at humor but need a little help, without too much effort, you can find online or print humor that can apply to your course content. You can also harness the humor of your students. However, before turning your classroom into a Comedy Central TV special, note that there are some types of humor that should be avoided in the classroom. Here are some handy guidelines:
When in doubt, leave it out. If there is even the slightest chance that the humor could be perceived as inappropriate or offensive, then leave it out. Think bodily humor, blue humor, and topical humor like political humor. Remember, though, if something slips out that evokes a less-than-desirable verbal or non-verbal reaction, address it on the spot. Sometimes eating a piece of humble pie is just the ticket to show that you are human and can take responsibility for your mistakes.
Too much, Jerry. Too much. This line from the sitcom “Seinfeld” highlights two potential problems: overdoing the humor to the point of distraction, and referring to outdated or obscure sources of humor. Speaking of which, what about the title of this piece? How many of you knew this was a take-off on the classic line, “Take my wife…please!” from the popular comedian Henny Youngman back in 1950’s and 60’s?
I know what you’re thinking: So what’s the big deal if they don’t get the reference?” Well, I’m sure you’ve experienced humor that went over your head. It made you feel a little alienated or even downright embarrassed, right? So let’s avoid putting our students in that situation. You may be asking, “What if I preface or follow the humorous reference with an explanation? Would that help?” It may, but having to explain it kind of kills the spontaneity.
Perhaps the best litmus test for whether to use humor (and what kind and how much) is to ask yourself, “Will the humor enhance learning?” As with many things in life, moderation and thoughtfulness are key, so when you see an opportunity for humor to enhance learning, use it judiciously and respectfully. Otherwise, your classroom “show” may get cancelled.
For more on the benefits of humor and guidelines for effective use in the classroom, check out a few resources here, here or here.
What has been your experience as a professor using humor in your classroom? Humorous minds want to know!
Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University
My first experience teaching an online course occurred in the late 1990s when Drexel University’s College of Information Studies asked me to convert my face-to-face digital research course to an online format. My primary focus was just getting things to work. Quality learning experiences were an afterthought.
Fast forward to 2017 and after a ten-year gap I agree to teach online again, this time for San Jose State University’s (SJSU) iSchool program for aspiring librarians. Despite my prior experience teaching online, I took a mandatory 25-hour mini-course in online instruction. It reinforced much of what I learned in other professional development experiences, but also introduced me to Canvas.
Less anticipated was the robust expectation to achieve continuous learning. SJSU takes online education seriously and the institution requires that all online courses adhere to the Quality Matters ™ framework. Their high-quality standards require instructors to complete continuous learning modules in any semester they teach. One of these sessions got me thinking differently about student evaluations. Instead of perceiving them as a necessary evil, I discovered they can serve as both motivator and shaper of quality instruction.
In the online session “SOTES Strategies and Lessons” I learned that student evaluations, when analyzed in aggregate, help instructors to modify their educational methods to align with student learning needs. SOTES, (Student Opinion of Teaching Effectiveness) is SJSU’s student evaluation system. No doubt every instructor reviews course evaluations seeking clues that lead to substantive learning improvement. Instead of tweaks to assignments or syllabi, SOTES can lead to fundamental pedagogical change.
The SOTES session gave twelve tips – focusing on ways to anticipate what most helps students learn and succeed – to influence how educators can design a better learning experience.
Be Practical to Demonstrate Relevance
Theory is important but these mostly adult learners, often working in the field, want concrete examples and anecdotes. Use practical assignments and explain how students will benefit later.
Create Assignments to Enhance Learning Students want assignments directly relevant to what’s in the lecture. Their top two requests: avoid giving busy work; structure assignments into smaller blocks that build on each other.
Emphasize What’s Important Provide a verbal or written summarization of the top takeaways from a learning module’s content. Keep reiterating key concepts. Share your observations on the best ideas from course discussions. At the start of each week, I summarize what students should know from the prior week, where they demonstrated competency, where improvement is needed, and how it will apply to new content.
Respond, Respond, Respond
We are told to quickly and comprehensively respond to students’ questions and comments, in discussions or emails. The SOTES clearly confirm that. Respond in a variety of communications formats (audio, video, email, etc.) and keep it cordial and respectful. Avoid putting students on the spot or making them feel regret over their question or comment.
Set the Atmosphere Online learning is about more than content and assignments. Students expect a patient, positive and encouraging instructor who is present, well organized and gives students opportunities to interact and learn from each other. The right classroom culture facilitates learning.
Easy to Approach If the atmosphere is right, students will feel they can easily contact and communicate with their instructor. My course was asynchronous, but I offered a weekly synchronous office hour (varying days/times) in order to create connection and elevate students’ comfort level in reaching out to me.
Appreciate Student Diversity Students respond poorly to an instructor who plays favorites with respect to differences in age, gender, race or work experience. Pay attention to differing backgrounds in student’s self-introductions and commit to treating students equally.
Passion Speaks Loudly Set the tone by being the champion for the course topic. Instructor enthusiasm is contagious. If the instructor lacks excitement for the topic, students will too.
Challenge Them Intellectually Students want “make us think” activities that require more than answers to rote questions. Encourage creative thinking by allowing students to develop multimedia projects in which they apply course concepts to their own experience.
Fair Grading Matters Creating clear assignment instructions and rubrics to guide students is no easy task, but taking time in advance to think through the details of assignment grading will minimize grading disputes or claims of unfairness.
Make the Complex Understandable Students expect their instructor to make the abstract concrete through the use of realistic examples. Communicate your personal experience in lectures, assignment instructions and discussions.
Provide Meaningful Feedback Give praise for work well done as well as constructive criticism. Be specific in pointing out what students get right and where they need to improve. Add comments to graded assignments and return them to students while they can benefit from feedback.
Whatever personal opinions online instructors hold about student evaluations, it feels much better when they reflect a uniformly successful learning experience. Learning those factors that lead students to judge a course as successful and an instructor as competent, organized and responsive, greatly shift the odds of a positive outcome in the instructor’s favor. The SOTES session changed how I think about student evaluations. I now see them as a valuable resource for course design, not simply an after-the-fact measure of “How’d I do?”. Though mostly applicable to online learning, these dozen tips could work equally well for face-to-face courses. I encourage you to put them into your practice.
The 16th Annual Faculty Conference on Teaching Excellence was held January 10th at Temple University, and Dr. Freeman Hrabowski delivered an energetic and inspiring keynote address combining passion and personal memoir with larger lessons about higher education and inclusive excellence.
In his compelling presentation, he wove together three stories. First, he told his personal story of growing up as a Black man in the segregated South, including his experience with Dr. Martin Luther King’s Children’s Crusade. From those beginnings, Dr. Hrabowski has gone on to become a scholar, university president and higher education leader who advised President Obama on higher education policy and who was named by TIME in 2012 as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
But his presentation was about more than his inspiring personal story. He also described the culture of inclusive excellence at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), the institution he has led for over 20 years. UMBC was founded in 1966 and unlike most universities in Maryland which were founded during segregation to serve students of one race, UMBC has been integrated since its inception. Today, UMBC has a strong culture of mentorship and undergraduate research which has helped make UMBC one of the nation’s leading universities for graduating Black undergraduates who then earn doctoral degrees.
Also woven throughout his presentation was reference to the generations-long struggle to make higher education accessible to people from less privileged backgrounds. He recounted how after World War II, influential college presidents fought against the GI Bill fearing that veterans attending college would tarnish higher education. Instead, the middle of the 20th Century saw educational attainment soar, not just through the GI Bill, but through the spread of financial aid and community colleges.
However, he reminded us that “change is not distributed equally.” While the overall college attainment rate in the United States has increased significantly since the 1960s, there are still wide racial and class disparities in terms of who attends college, which institutions they attend and whether or not they graduate.
Inspired by Dr. Hrabowski’s call for inclusive excellence, participants headed to breakout sessions which explored how specific practices related to Hrabowski’s four pillars of college success such as active learning, undergraduate research, formative assessment and co-curricular activities, can be used to bring inclusive excellence to their classes.
Thank you to Dr. Hrabowski and UMBC for showing us that inclusive excellence is possible!
Johanna Inman, Director of Instructional Technology for Teaching and Learning, CAT
I have a confession to make: I used to think nothing of substance could be accomplished on the first day of class. Instead, every semester I engaged in a first-day ritual that included taking attendance, reading the syllabus, and facilitating an icebreaker to help me learn students’ names. But over the years, I’ve come to realize that the first day of class can be an essential part of setting up a successful semester. Implementing an icebreaker on the first day of class is a step in the right direction, but research suggests additional ways to use that time to engage and motivate students through activities and strategies designed to accomplish more than basic introductions. On your next first day of class, consider using these strategies to take advantage of the first-day energy and get your course and semester off to a great start!
1. Use a positive tone in your syllabus.
A common complaint among college instructors is that students don’t read the syllabus. And yet, our syllabi are sometimes more challenging to read than the fine print on credit card applications. Over the years as we experience issues or problems in a course, we tend to add a policy or a note about it in the syllabus. Then the next year we underline it, maybe bold it the following year, then the next year we make it red. We keep stressing various parts of the syllabus until students aren’t quite sure what to do with it. Although there is no denying that the syllabus is a vital tool to communicate information about the course, learning goals, assignments, grading policies, and other university policies, it is definitely underutilized as a tool to build rapport and motivate students.
The good news? Small changes to your syllabus can have a big impact. For example, simply altering terms like “instructor” and “students” to “I” or “me” and “you” or “we” can personalize the writing and help build a connection. Also, adding a few questions the course will explore can pique students’ curiosity, getting them excited about the semester to come. If you’re looking for a more dramatic change to your syllabus, you might consider writing a “Promising Syllabus,” one that revises the goals, assessments, and evaluation language into promises and discusses how the instructor and students will both fulfill the promises throughout the semester.
2. Communicate the value of your course.
In How Learning Works (2013), the authors of explain that one of the factors contributing to student motivation is value for the task at hand. Generating value for a course can be fairly easy or extraordinarily challenging depending on several variables including the course content, and whether the course is a first-year university requirement or an upper-level course within a major. Regardless, the first day of class is a perfect time to begin intentionally aligning your course with students’ personal, professional, and academic goals. To do this, implement an activity that you plan to use throughout the course such as a small group discussion about course expectations or an individual reflective writing activity about students’ hopes for the class–you might even add a few clicker questions about the way the course will be taught. Not only will these activities help students focus on the value of the course, they begin to prepare students for what is to come. In addition, explicitly outlining the relevance of course activities and assignments also helps students answer that ever-present question, “Why are we doing this?”
New websites or applications often become successful in part because their user interfaces need no explanation: A user can visit the website and use it for its intended purpose without needing much assistance. However, if that experience is difficult, it can lead to a lot of frustration, and the user might give up on what they were trying to do in the first place.
It is easy to forget that setting up a course on a learning management system (LMS) is essentially creating a website for students, and that is an important component of creating a student-centered learning experience. Research shows that student-centered teaching, in which an instructor seeks to understand the students and shape the learning experience based on their needs, leads to higher student performance. To that end, a well-structured LMS course designed with students in mind can help students stay on track of their tasks, engage with the course material, communicate with other students and the instructor, and receive timely, helpful feedback. However, an LMS course has just as much potential to hurt student performance as it does to help it. For example, if students need to spend more time trying to figure out where materials are located in the course or what their required tasks are for the week, it wastes precious time that they could otherwise be dedicating to learning. Additionally, instructors may need to devote a significant amount of time responding to frantic emails from students who do not know what to do.
Below are three strategies for creating a more student-centered LMS course:
1. Make all of your content accessible in one place and organize it sequentially.
One of the easiest ways for students to become frustrated while navigating within a course is if the location of materials is unclear. A way to make this straightforward and also mobile-friendly is to make all course content–including readings, PowerPoints, assignments, and quizzes–easily accessible from one place. A best-practice to further organize this content is to present it in a sequential order, usually by week or unit.
A first instinct might be to organize it by type, such as placing all of the readings or quizzes together, but chronological order makes it simple for students to know which materials they need and when. The Modules feature inside of Canvas, for example, makes it very easy to accomplish this. This organization method also allows students to see the progression of the course content and how each piece of material fits into the overarching themes of the course. Additionally, here at Temple University, professors who present content in this way often tell us that they receive less emails from students asking what they have to do for the week and where it’s located in the course. Ultimately, it’s a time-saver for both the instructor and the students.
2. Make all important dates, including due dates, easy to find and accurate.
Inevitably, a few due dates may change over the course of the semester because of circumstances such as inclement weather or shifting lesson plans. If due dates are listed in multiple places across a course, it can be difficult to ensure that they are all up to date, especially if they change. To prevent potentially contradictory dates in a course, it’s a good idea to limit due dates to being listed in just one or two easy-to-find places, or to use features built into the LMS that will update the due dates in multiple places automatically. For example, in Canvas there are a few features that help students stay on top of important dates: The Course Summary on the Syllabus page, which lists all due dates and events created within the course, and the Calendar feature, which can sync all events and due dates seamlessly with a student’s external calendar, such as Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook. Additionally, after the due date of an assignment or quiz is changed within its respective settings, the due date will automatically update in both the Course Summary and the course’s calendar. This can help ensure that all listed due dates are accurate, and thus students will be able to easily stay on top of their schedule.
3. Update the gradebook regularly to provide quick and helpful feedback.
Research shows that one of the best ways instructors can help students be successful in a course is to give them helpful feedback on their performance so they can keep track of their progress in the class and work to maintain or improve their grades accordingly. Many learning management systems, including Canvas, have features that allow instructors to provide frequent, immediate, and instructive feedback, as supported by the research-based “FIDeLity” feedback model. For example, posting grades in the LMS gradebook as soon as possible allows students to confirm their performance so far and note where they need to make improvements. An LMS often has additional quick feedback features, including automatic grading for online quizzes and exams, as well as tools such as Canvas’s SpeedGrader that allow you to make comments and suggestions within students’ submitted essays and projects for students to review as soon as they’re graded. Canvas also allows you to sort graded assignments into groups, and the gradebook will show each student how they are doing in each assignment group. This allows the students to monitor their overall progress in assignment categories such as exams, homeworks, and projects. Rubric features are also useful to communicate assignment criteria to students, to quickly and effectively grade assignments, and they can assist in ensuring that the grading criteria is consistent if there are multiple graders.
Ultimately, building an LMS course that is well-organized, straightforward, and provides quality feedback is a fantastic way of creating a positive and supportive learning environment for students. It is one vital step that instructors can take in order to increase the likelihood of their students’ success.
Let’s Exchange EDVice!
What strategies do you use to create a student-centered LMS website in your course?
Patricia Moore-Martinez, Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies, Spanish and Portuguese, Temple University
I am rather inclined to silence – Abraham Lincoln
We take it for granted that our students can speak. They have successfully enrolled in an institution of higher learning and presumably have talked to a few people along the way. Some speak more and some less; some dazzle with their rhetoric; others lull you into a soporific daze as you wait for the pause and some need to be cajoled into a one-word answer as reluctant to speak as if they had been asked to turn over a treasure map or their puppy. But regardless of their proclivity, all speak. And so, we, as educators, ask them to speak and answer and we may include oral communication as a goal in our syllabus, or we might expect that students can articulate course concepts – but do we do anything to make that speaking productive? Are we the quintessential diplomat, knowing when to speak, when to listen, how to advance our goals – or are we mere messengers, transmitting, and hoping for reception?
As a language teacher, I am always maneuvering, steering and compelling speech. We know that there is difference between receptive proficiency (reading and listening) and productive proficiency (speaking and writing). I also know that when I speak, my students do not. And thus, I can’t gauge their understanding, so I’m rather inclined to silence.
We use silence – for seconds, for minutes, for a class and we decide what and how students speak in that time. The simplicity of our silence and their speech is that it does not require new lesson plans or elaborate preparations. It only requires that you know what you want to elicit from the students and why.
180 seconds of silence in a large class
When to use: You explain, with examples, images and clicker input, a new concept.
Students nod, take notes and the clicker practice indicates some understanding. Use
your silence to help students deepen understanding, moving from passive to productive.
How to use: Use your silence to allow students to articulate, with their words, the
concept. This verbalization teaches the student what they did (and did not) grasp
and helps them more effectively identify the holes in their knowledge.
Instructions:
1. Ask the students to review their notes. After three minutes tell them to close their notebooks.
2. Tell students they have one minute to explain a concept to a classmate who was absent.
3. Provide students with a logical procedure to follow. For example, suggest students organize the explanation into four sentences, each with a specific gist. (Varies depending on concept).
Step 1 – Describe the problem/purpose.
Step 2 – Explain starting point for the concept.
Step 3 – Continue with the next important point.
Step 4 – Complete explanation.
4. Ask students to avoid imprecision, for example, using words such as “thing”.
5. In groups, students verbalize their explanation.
Follow-up: In a follow-up lecture, repeat the exercise with a slight variation. Ask
half the students to quickly bullet-point a concept. Then, ask the other half of the
class to succinctly explain it. Allow them time to debrief to ensure that the oral and
written versions coincide. Present a problem which uses the concept.
10 minutes of silence in medium-size class of any discipline
When to use: Either through classroom discussions or assessments, you notice that
students have a cursory understanding of a topic and you would like to strengthen
and deepen that understanding as well as instruct students in how to present
additional points so that others take notice.
How to use: Give the students the task of identifying the complexity or mitigating
factors of a topic.
Instructions:
Organize the students in groups of three to five.
Review the outline of the topic.
If feasible, assign each group a different perspective to examine.
Instruct the groups to consider how their perspective impacts the topic.
After two to three minutes of conversation, tell the groups someone must summarize the discussion succinctly in three sentences. The group should decide the point to be summarized and the speaker should practice.
Give dos and don’ts for the summary. (Don’t read. Don’t digress. Do make eye contact with classmates.)
Provide the groups with models of a summary or language. For example, When considering XX from XX, the following factors XXXX……
To ensure that students not only practice speaking, but also listening, ask another group if their conclusion aligns with the previous group.
Follow-up: Repeat as time permits. Clear oral expectations with defined parameters will result in richer, more precise, more confident language.
15-30 minutes of silence in any class
When to use: Use your silence when the objectives of small student discussion
groups are a) to educate the class and b) to hone the oral presentation of complex
ideas with accessible, comprehensible language.
How to use: Use when an article or topic is multifaceted and you want students to
engage with the ideas. Use to prep students for workplace discourse such as
summarizing a meeting, their research or educating a client or patient.
Instructions:
Organize the students in small groups of three to five.
If feasible, assign each group an aspect of the topic to discuss and the resources needed (article pages, notes, etc.) to thoroughly analyze it.
Establish goals for the activity and assign the students roles: discussion leader, critic, fact-checker, hypothesizer, summarizer.
Brainstorm the language each role requires: lead-ins and techniques the leader uses to coax participation; approaches the critic utilizes to disagree; succinct examples of in-discussion sum-ups which signal close listening.
Give the students five minutes notice that final summaries of the group’s discussion are coming. Emphasize that the summarizer should practice with their group verifying that a) the content is important b) the order is logical c) superfluous and distracting language are eliminated d) there is a clear beginning and end.
Ask “the summarizer” from each group to report. To underscore to the summarizer and their group that their presentation matters and to the class that listening is important, require the class to take notes on the summary, listening for specific kinds of information.
Follow-up: Reassign roles and repeat with different oral communication goals and different student summarizers.
If you teach at one of the many universities that are switching from one Learning Management System (LMS) to another or are simply pushing faculty to explore more fully what they can do with their LMS, you may be saying, “Why all the fuss?” Instructors do not need an LMS to be effective, so why bother with all of the work needed to get a good course site on the LMS up and running? Perhaps you see its usefulness as a repository of documents, but all of those other LMS features seem to be more trouble than they’re worth. Or, you see the necessity of an LMS for online courses, but you teach in a bricks-and-mortar environment, so the LMS is not crucial to the work you do with students. I get it. I’ve been teaching since the dawn of time (well, not exactly, but close) and I think I was a pretty great teacher without an LMS at my disposal. I led class discussions without a discussion board, assigned papers without a plagiarism detection tool, gave paper and pencil quizzes, and assigned group projects to students, fully expecting them to figure out how to collaborate outside of class on the project’s completion.
But here’s the thing. If you use it to its full advantage, an LMS can serve an integral role in student-centered teaching and learning practices and support robust learning outcomes for all students. How so, you say? Your LMS can “afford a plethora of teaching and learning possibilities around communication, interaction, collaboration, ‘real-world’ or authentic learning, independent learning, feedback and flexibility.” In our new LMS, for instance, students working in groups have a whole suite of collaboration tools available to them so that they can work as a group more effectively and efficiently. They can collaborate on a document together and edit each other’s work, talk to each other to plan the project, and invite the professor to eavesdrop on these interactions, all without having to arrange meetings in person. There simply are no more excuses for why group work can’t get done as the flexibility these kinds of remote collaborations afford is unparalleled.
Other powerful tools in the LMS are the calendar and syllabus features that keep students abreast of changes in due dates or assignments and so keep students on track. One student in a focus group at our university claimed that he did more homework because of the calendar notifications feature. That made sense to me. I always say that if it’s not on my Google calendar, it doesn’t exist. Without my alerts telling me what’s coming up, I would probably miss half of my meetings! Students are no different. And, of course, there is the convenience and flexibility factor. Students can access course materials from all devices, including their mobile devices, whether they are on or off campus. Winter storm interfering with your ability to hold class? Communicate with your students through the LMS, upload work for them to do, and keep your semester on track.
In both bricks-and-mortar and online classes, the LMS allows for enhanced student engagement with the instructor and with peers, and customized student pathways through the curriculum. A well-organized LMS site leads students through the course in a logical way, framing the work that needs to be done in units that show the overall structure for the course and the scaffolding of assignments and assessments for each unit. It also allows for the delivery of supplemental instructional opportunities, such as video lectures, virtual discussions, and automatically-graded quizzes that can help prepare students for team-based and collaborative activities that deepen learning and clarify complex concepts. A recent study of LMS users found that “the use of the LMS, and more importantly specific tools within the LMS, are significantly related to student achievement.”
I invite you to explore your LMS with an instructional technology specialist on your campus. If you’re new to using an LMS, I think you’ll find it more intuitive and easy-to-use than you think. If you’re already familiar with the LMS basics, think about how you can use the powerful tools available to you to supplement or to directly deliver your already great teaching. You have the tool; just use it!
N.B. Parts of this blog post are taken from work done by the author and Nicole Westrick, Associate Vice Provost, on the LMS Evaluation Report written as part of the evaluation of the Canvas LMS at Temple University.
Do your students struggle to remember key points from your lectures? Research suggests that learners need to revisit information multiple times and in different ways to move it from short-term to long-term memory. Research on how the brain learns suggests that learners must visit information multiple times and in different ways and repeat practice of learned material or skill to move it from short term to long term memory (Hattie and Yates, 2014). Research also suggests that spaced instruction is better for the memory than massive instruction, and therefore, learning should be spaced out over time.
Microlearning is a teaching strategy that utilizes small, well-planned units or activities in the form of short segments of content combined with micro activities. It is also known as bite-sized learning. Research on microlearning indicates its various benefits. For instance, a study by Giurgiu (2017) revealed that smaller chunks of content improved students’ retention of information and performance in an end-of-course test. Similarly, Liu, Wei, and Gao (2016) found that students’ interest in learning and understanding the material significantly improved.
Here are some steps for you to create effective microlearning and consolidate learning in long-term memory:
Break down your content
When creating microlearning, one of the main steps is breaking down the content into small bites. Microlearning is designed to avoid cognitive overload by delivering material in short, focused bursts. It has been shown to be more effective than longer sessions for retaining information and learning new material/skills, as supported by Hattie and Yates’s (2014) research. The goal is to introduce new information, immediately revisit it, and actively use the material to engage students and deepen their understanding, ultimately moving the information into long-term memory. Microlearning is achieved by creating micro activities for students to engage with. These activities can be used to start a class or unit, reinforce difficult concepts, revisit information in different ways, or end a class or unit..
When creating micro activities, it is important to keep them focused, small, and short:
Keep it focused: Each micro activity should focus on a single learning goal, with a specific desired result in mind.
Keep it small: Content should be broken down into smaller units containing micro activities that can be followed by short comprehension checks or low-stakes quizzes.
Keep it short: Micro activities should be kept short, typically taking learners less than 5 minutes to complete on their own and less than 10 minutes for group activities. This approach forces instructors to focus on the most essential must-know information and identify what can be eliminated.
Examples of short micro activities:
When implementing microlearning, it is important to engage students with a variety of short micro activities. Some examples of micro activities include
Introduction to a new concept (5 minutes)
Think-Pair-Share (5 minutes for thinking and pairing, and 5 minutes for sharing)
Jigsaw (5 minutes for individual reading, 5 minutes for group discussion, and 10 minutes for explaining to other groups)
Mini-lecture or watching a video (5 minutes)
Rotating stations (5 to 10 minutes at each station)
Check for understanding quiz (5 minutes for the quiz, 5 minutes for post-quiz discussion)
Wrap-up: Muddiest Point (5 minutes)
A useful resource for implementing micro activities is the paper titled “Mindful Moments: 50 Micro-Activities for Energizing the College Classroom”. This paper provides 50 techniques for engaging students in classroom learning, categorized into 5 minute papers, visual learning, critical thinking, assessment, encouraging student interaction, discussion and debate, and pop culture. Assessments in microlearning should be “for learning,” providing low-stakes mini-assessments to help students improve their learning. These assessments should be short but challenging and followed by feedback to reinforce knowledge, correct misunderstandings, and influence learning.
Summary
Microlearning, also known as bite-sized learning, is a teaching approach that involves presenting content in small, focused chunks to engage students. In a live online or onsite class, consider breaking up lecture time every 15 to 20 minutes. For asynchronous classes, divide content into small chunks and follow them with micro activities. Microlearning environments use easily digestible content to help information move from short-term to long-term memory. The aim is not only to engage students in small activities but also to help them retain information in the long run. So, remember to keep it brief, concise, and focused, and those micro steps will eventually lead to macro results!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Temple’s tool for recording and sharing “bite-sized” video content is Panopto.
When I talk about my teaching, there are certain stories that I like to tell. One of my favorites is the story of two of my male students in Italian III who decided for their presentation to demonstrate how to make homemade pasta and sauce (with instructions narrated completely in Italian, of course) and then serve the completed dish to the class. By the time we had finished eating, they had received at least three offers of marriage from the women in the room. I also tell the story of the student in my Readings in Italian class who read 700+ page Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in Italian for her required free-reading when she could have chosen shorter, less complicated books. I would see her at all hours of the day with her nose in that book, just drinking in the sense of accomplishment she gained from reading it. On the other hand, I tell the story of the student who, after completing the written draft for his oral presentation, announced to me matter-of-factly that he would not be doing the actual presentation. He had done the math and figured out that he didn’t have to complete this assignment in order to pass. I was taken aback by his hubris, and his actions made me change my course policies to prevent this kind of shenanigans in the future.
When it comes to teaching, many of us are storytellers, weaving narratives of shocking or amusing or satisfying anecdotes from our lives as teachers. Because our work deals so intimately with students, we have a wealth of stories to tell. In my role at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, I hear enlightening and inspirational stories from faculty, as well as stories of frustrating and disappointing moments. In Linda K. Shadiow’s engaging book,What Our Stories Teach Us: A Guide to Critical Reflection for College Faculty, the author points out that these stories can be useful as reflective guides for our teaching selves. They are more than sentimental musings, and are instead integral to the lived process of creating a professional life. Says Shadiow: “I have learned that the process of recalling, retelling, scrutinizing, and analyzing these stories sheds new light on my teaching.” This idea of reflecting on our teaching as a way towards continual improvement and refinement of our craft is not a new one. But Shadiow’s three-step process for using our stories as a launching pad for reflection on our teaching is an intriguing way in.
Stage One involves gathering the stories we tell about ourselves and our experiences as teachers and then highlighting those which tug at us emotionally – what Shadiow calls “critical incidents.” Did these critical incidents rise to the top because they were unexpected moments? Exhilarating? Frustrating? Unsettling? Satisfying? Stage Two invites the teacher to consider these critical incidents in unexpected ways, positioning them so that you can view them from the four vantage points of teacher, learner, content, and context. By examining them in new ways, our perspectives are broadened, themes may emerge and assumptions may become visible. Stage Three asks us to examine these stories in light of the assumptions we bring to them. What expectations, values, and beliefs infuse your teaching and contribute to those moments of surprise, disappointment, exhilaration and satisfaction that are your critical incidents?
In reflecting in this way on my stories mentioned above, I realize that what the first two stories reflect is my belief that providing some freedom of choice to students can result in surprising moments of motivation and engagement. In both cases, students were motivated to go above and beyond the assignment, and the reaction of others (and of myself) was to revel in those moments of joy. The third incident, conversely, was one of frustration and puzzlement. Why did my assumptions about what it takes to motivate students have no effect on this student? Providing choice to students cannot mean a choice to do nothing, to take no risks, to choose not to learn. More than an indictment of this student’s willingness to take shortcuts, the story expresses my sense of failure as acknowledgment that my quest to encourage deep student involvement is clearly not yet perfected. What that leads to is a useful question: What can I do differently to motivate students like him to want to participate? Reflecting on this question may lead to teaching solutions that were not available to me before.
As the semester winds down, I invite you to start collecting your stories so that you can use the summer to turn them over, examine them, and begin the process towards finding useful teaching solutions. As you reflect, remember that the Temple Center for the Advancement of Teaching staff is here all summer and available for consultations. If you are a faculty member at another institution, check to see if there is a center dedicated to faculty development that can support you as you think about your teaching. From our staff to you, may the summer be restful, productive and full of rich moments of reflection and discovery.
Let’s Exchange EDvice!
What stories do you tell? What do you think they say about your teaching?
