Emotions, Learning and the Brain

Where were you on September 11, 2001? Chances are very good that you have vivid memories of that day especially if you were in the United States. Why? Because we tend to remember emotional events. Although our memories of that day may not be completely accurate, it is unlikely that we will ever ‘forget’ where we were when we learned of the attacks because memory and emotion are inextricably linked.    

Many people think of teaching and learning as intellectual endeavors that engage the head more than the heart. However, in her book Emotions, Learning and the Brain, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, an affective neuroscientist and former teacher, argues that we only think deeply about things we care about and that it is impossible for students to think deeply about a topic unless they are emotionally engaged. Immordino-Yang relates the link between emotion, memory and learning to the fact that the brain mechanisms that regulate emotion evolved to aid survival. “Emotions such as anger, fear, happiness, and sadness are cognitive and physiological processes that involve both the body and the mind.”

She tells the story of a college-aged participant in a study who watches a video about a mother in China who finds a coin on the ground and uses it to buy warm cakes for her son who had been all day at school with nothing to eat. Although the son was very hungry, he offers his mother the last cake, which she in turn declines by lying that she had eaten already. The student is clearly moved by the story and describes the visceral reaction that he had as “a balloon or something just under my sternum”. As he reflects on it, he relates it to his own parents and the sacrifices that they made for him and how he does not thank them enough. (Note to self, find this video and show it to my kids.)

Immordino-Yang points out that the student only made the connection between the story and his own life because he was given adequate time to reflect. She believes that allowing time for constructive internal reflection is key to helping students make connections between material they learn in class and their own lives. This reflection time allows them to engage in cognitive perspective taking, i.e. seeing something from another’s point of view. It is also during reflective moments that students develop social awareness and the capacity for moral reasoning. One of the most common ways to build reflection into a class is through reflective writing activities such as logs and journals either in-class or out-of-class.  

Let’s Exchange EDvice!

Given that learning is an emotional and social experience, how do you help students emotionally engage with material that you teach? 

Open Educational Resources: Good for Affordability; Better for Learning

Steven J. Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University

Despite a growing conversation in higher education about open educational resources (OER), the fact remains that many faculty know little about OER or encounter various barriers keeping them from integrating these learning materials into their courses. We know this thanks to a recently published survey, Opening the Textbook: Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2015-2016, from the Babson Survey Research Group. According to the report’s introduction:

Survey results, using responses of over 3,000 U.S. faculty, show that OER is not a driving force in the selection of [learning] materials – with the most significant barrier being the effort required to find and evaluate such materials. Use of open resources is low overall, but somewhat higher for large enrollment introductory-level courses.

Higher education media reporting on this study focused on two findings:

·       faculty remain largely unaware of OER

·       cost is a primary factor for faculty in choosing learning materials.

Only 25% of faculty indicated awareness of OER, still a slight increase from 2014-2015. One way to increase faculty awareness of OER is to…well…write an EDvice Exchange post to discuss what OER are, promote the value of OER as affordable learning material and address concerns faculty share about OER.

What Makes it OER?
What exactly makes an educational resource open? It takes more than being freely available on the Internet. To qualify as OER learning material should pass the Five R’s Test. That is, can you determine if the content can be:

Retained – you have the right to retain the content by virtue of downloading, storing and managing it;
Reused – you have freedom to use the content as you wish for reuse on the web, a course site, etc.;
Revised – you can adapt, adjust or otherwise modify the content;
Remixed – you can merge the content with other material to create something new;
Redistributed – you can share copies of the original or revised/remixed content with others.

“Openness” happens when faculty create and share learning content they develop for their students, be it a quiz, a video tutorial, course notes, slides or even entire monographs. How can educators be intentional in giving their materials OER status? One way is to contribute the resource to a repository of open and sharable learning resources, such as MERLOT. Alternately, assign a Creative Commons License to the content. This signals the material is available for any of the Five R’s without needing the author’s explicit permission. It looks like this:

The symbols indicate this content requires anyone using it to provide attribution (BY), refrain from using it for any commercial application (NC) and must share it freely with others (SA). The Creative Commons website has a license generator that simplifies the process of assigning a license to content.
  
Why Do So Few Faculty Use OER?
The Babson Survey asked faculty to indicate important factors in choosing learning materials. 87% of faculty ranked “cost to the student” number one. If cost is a prominent decision factor why aren’t more faculty choosing OER to eliminate the cost to students? Another survey question offers some insight. When asked about the barriers to adopting OER faculty cited numerous concerns. The top five were:

·       insufficient resources in my subject

·       too difficult to find resources

·       no comprehensive catalog of resources

·       not used by other faculty I know

·       not high quality

These are certainly valid concerns, but far from insurmountable obstacles to introducing OER into many courses across the disciplines. The successful integration of OER into nearly 50 courses participating in Temple Libraries Alternate-Textbook Project demonstrates this. In exchange for receiving an award of $1,000, faculty agree to eliminate their traditional commercial textbook. Courses from the humanities, social sciences and physical sciences have all managed to identify and adopt OER as learning material.

While there is no single finding tool for all OER, subject specialist research librarians are well versed in locating OER and can assist faculty across the disciplines to identify OER. While only faculty can determine the quality of learning material, librarians can point to peer-reviewed open content.
  

Are You Getting the Results?
When it comes to learning materials, what matters most is whether students are achieving course learning goals. Even the highest quality learning materials are of limited benefit to students if they are unable to afford it. Seven out of ten students reported that they have not purchased a textbook at least once because of the expense. Faculty participants in our Alternate-Textbook Project, in their final project evaluations, typically report high satisfaction with student learning with OER and supplementary licensed-library content. When all students have equal access to learning materials they are better prepared for class. When faculty have greater control over learning content they find students are more engaged with the learning materials.
 

While there will always be courses for which a commercial textbook is the best choice of learning material, the increase in and improved discoverability of OER make it a more realistic option for faculty who wish to provide their students with affordable learning content. Your colleagues at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching  and Temple Libraries are available to assist you in exploring OER for your course. You may also learn more and explore OER resources with Temple Libraries’ Guide to OER.

Let’s Exchange EDvice!
Are you using OER resources in your course? Tell us more about how OER are working for you and your students! If you aren’t using OER, what do you see as the most convincing argument for implementing them? 

Make Your New (Academic) Year’s Resolutions

Stephanie Fiore, Senior Director, Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Fireworks Image

Happy new academic year, everyone, from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT)!

We often start a new calendar year in January with a list of resolutions. I was committed to making more time for myself. I’m sure you said you were going to exercise more, stay in closer contact with friends, or just not stress the small stuff. I know when I make those resolutions, I do so with the best of intentions, but I also know that even small changes require that I make them a priority, or I may not succeed in pulling them off.

Now that we are starting a new academic year, what are your resolutions, and how are you going to make them happen? Have you reflected on your professional practice and how you are going to continue to grow? Have you thought about changes to your teaching that you might want to implement? My resolution is to reach out to as many departments as I can this year to discuss with faculty how our wonderful staff at the newly renamed Center for the Advancement of Teaching can support them with their pedagogical and instructional technology needs.

My challenge to you is to consider making a commitment to incorporate new reflective practices into your teaching. In his landmark work on reflective teaching, Stephen Brookfield argues that we should reflect on our teaching practice using four lenses. Most of us already use two of these lenses. We look at ourselves through our students’ eyes when we read our SFFs, (although I suggest also checking in with your students throughout the semester to get feedback on your teaching). We may also use our own experiences as learners and as teachers (what Brookfield calls our autobiographies) to inform our practice.

But there are two lenses that we rarely use and that can add richness to our work, and here’s where a teaching center can help. The third lense is to look at our teaching through our colleagues’ eyes. That can be done through peer review of teaching, but it can also be done simply by discussing our teaching with other faculty, something we rarely have the opportunity to do. One of the greatest benefits to attending the teaching center’s seminars and workshops is the opportunity to talk to other faculty from across the university about what is happening in the classroom, online, in the studio, or in the lab.

The fourth lense that Brookfield cites is to look at our teaching against what the theoretical literature tells us about how people learn. There is a wealth of information out there. If you join us at our seminars, workshops and trainings, we’ll give you resources to explore, or you can join us and your colleagues to read and discuss a book on teaching. You can also peruse the many resources we have available for you online. Some good reading can get the ideas flowing and make us sit back and think about whether there might be alternative paths to helping our students be successful in our courses.

Join me in making a commitment for the new academic year. Choose one way of reflecting more deeply on your teaching and make that resolution stick! I think you’ll find that it enriches your work and helps your students to learn.   

Flip the Switch: Making the Most of Student Feedback Forms

Johanna Inman, Assistant Director, TLC

“Johanna is really nice.”

“I hated the readings.”

“I learned a lot.”

“Some discussions were pointless.”

“I enjoyed this class.”

These are typical comments I used to get on student feedback forms. Unfortunately, these aren’t very helpful. They are vague and lack the answer to that ever-elusive question: why?

When I began my teaching career as an adjunct instructor, I cared a lot about student evaluations mostly as a means to job security. Over the years, I came to value my students’ opinions as a way to improve my teaching and my courses for future students. However, as I’m sure many of you have experienced, it was rare that I actually received a thoughtful, constructive, and useful comment.

Now as Assistant Director of the Teaching and Learning Center, I often hear faculty raise similar concerns I’ve had about student evaluations. Of particular concern is how student evaluations are used for personnel decisions. In addition, faculty point out that students aren’t trained to evaluate teaching or that they evaluate factors outside of an instructor’s control. Sometimes I hear faculty repeat common misconceptions about student evaluations such as, it’s only the angry students that complete SFFs, or it’s all just a popularity contest anyway. And then there are comments like I can’t bear to read my evals anymore, students are just plain meanIt also doesn’t prompt a lot of faith in student feedback when recent research uncovered that evaluations can be influenced by students’ hidden biases.  

So, do student feedback forms have any real value for faculty? Absolutely!

In Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, Stephen Brookfield suggests that reflective teaching includes seeing our teaching through multiple lenses or perspectives, one of which is our students’. Student feedback forms give us a window into this lens and they allow students to have a voice in forming and improving learning experiences. That said, in order to get the most from our students’ perspective, we need to improve both the quality of feedback we receive from them, and the way in which we respond to it.

Here are strategies to help students do a better job providing constructive feedback, as well as ways we can better receive student feedback in order to improve ourselves and our courses.

Teach students how to provide effective feedback

Preparing students to be more effective and objective evaluators of teaching helps improve the quality of feedback that they provide. First, let students know that you read their student feedback forms and take them seriously. Encourage students to include specific and constructive feedback such as aspects of the course and/or instruction that helped them learn. Overall, make sure students understand ways that you plan to use their feedback to improve the course for future students.

Consider implementing the following strategies:

  1. Provide students with examples of useful feedback. Students may not know what is helpful and what is not. Give students examples of targeted comments that you have found helpful in the past. Before they complete SFFs, remind them to be specific, give supporting examples, and most importantly explain why they feel the way they do.
     
  2. Explain to students exactly how you plan to use their feedback. Share examples of what you have changed previously as a result of student feedback. Are you already thinking about making a change in the future? Ask them to weigh-in. Don’t forget, you may also want to let them know what elements of the course you can and cannot change.
     
  3. Use strategies to improve your student response rates. Add a link to the e-sffs in your course’s Blackboard site. Alert students when evaluations are first available and send them a reminder when the deadline is close. Let them know what percentage of students have already completed them and share your goal for a higher response rate. If you haven’t had success with these strategies, reserve some in-class time for students to complete evaluations on their mobile devices, or better yet reserve some time in a computer lab.
     
  4. Implement a mid-semester evaluation earlier in the semester. Set up an online survey using Blackboard or Google Forms and ask students to complete it around week 5 or 6.  This strategy gives you an opportunity to make course adjustments mid-stream.  Students will also learn that you value their input and get practice providing constructive feedback. If you ask the right questions, it’s also an opportunity for students to reflect on their own performance in the course, not just yours.

Reflect on students’ feedback objectively

If you care at all about your teaching, this is not an easy task. However, the most effective way to use evaluations to improve our teaching is to remove defensive or visceral reactions to student feedback. Although it seems like an impossible exercise, here are some strategies that may help:

  1. Give it some time. You may not want to wait too long after the course is over to review student feedback, but perhaps at least a few days. When you’ve had a chance to take a deep breath and feel ready to review student evaluations, make sure to give yourself enough time for a thorough review. Read through all of the evaluations once, then go back a second time in order to better digest and analyze the information.
     
  2. Track feedback quantitatively. How many students are commenting about the lectures?  How many about the discussions? How many are positive? Negative? Often faculty get stuck on that one hurtful comment and forget that there were many other positive remarks. At the same time, if you see a common theme emerging from students it is clearly an area that should be addressed.
     
  3. Read evaluations as if they were not yours. This is a great strategy if you tend to take student feedback personally or get defensive. Ask yourself: What if this feedback was about a colleague? Then, what advice would you give them? How would your response be different?
     
  4. Don’t panic; get support! All instructors receive negative feedback at some point in their careers, including the very best! Schedule an appointment at the Teaching and Learning Center for a consultation to help you interpret your evaluations. TLC consultants can help you make meaning of student feedback and provide an objective point of view. Research suggests that instructors who discuss their evaluations with a colleague are more likely to have improved evaluations than others who do not discuss them.
     
  5. Reflect and make at least one improvement. Once you have reflected on your student feedback, think strategically about some changes you can make to your course or to your teaching based on the feedback you’ve received. Don’t try to change everything at once and definitely don’t change what isn’t broken. But make a commitment to improve something. Then, make a plan for that change.
     

Let’s Exchange EDvice!

Are there specific strategies you use to make student feedback forms more effective? Let us know!

6 Tips for Creating Engaging Video Lectures That Students Will Actually Watch

Simuelle Myers, Instructional Designer, TLC

Image for Creating Engaging Video Lectures That Students Will Actually Watch

How do I get started creating video lectures? How do I engage students from a distance? How do I know if they understand the concepts in my lecture if I can’t see their faces? How do I know students are even paying attention? These are common questions asked by faculty when preparing to create a video lecture. As both online and flipped classroom formats grow in popularity, the number of faculty creating video lectures is increasing. However, many of these videos are recorded as straight lecture, limiting students only to the role of observer.  The six tips below will help you create videos that also engage students in active learning, while giving you information to assess their understanding of course concepts.  

1. Keep it Short!

Break lessons into segments of about 7-10 minutes. This allows students to digest every part of the lesson,  quickly revisit what they may not have understood and provides a meaningful place to pause if they need to return to the lesson later. This can also become invaluable if you need to update a video later. It is much easier to re-record 10 minutes than 50 minutes!

Tip for implementation: If you are used to longer lectures, review your lessons and identify where the natural breaks in the material might be.  Use these as a guides to decide where every recording should begin and end.

2. Use visuals, images and animations

While students greatly value being able to see and connect with their instructor, a lecture consisting only of a “talking head” can be hard to follow.  Visuals can enhance your presentation and make material more accessible. Screencasting software (e.g. Camtasia Relay) allows you to share your screen with students so they can see your presentation, graphs, figures, drawings  and your face all at the same time. These tools can also be used to create video demonstrations for students in your brick and mortar classes.

Tip for implementation: Text-heavy slides can make it difficult to pay attention to what a speaker is saying.  Mix it up and try slides using a single large image. This creates a need for students to listen more to what you are saying instead of just reading the words behind you. This also gives students a reason to take more detailed notes.

3. Create guided or embedded questions

Pause to ask students a question, provide a worksheet that they need to complete as they watch the lecture, or create a task for them to do in between videos. There are also several programs you can use to create questions that are embedded directly into a video that students must answer before they continue watching. Similar to an in-class activity, these allow students to work with the material in the midst of the lesson and add variety to help keep them engaged.

Tip for implementation: How do you make sure that students complete guided questions or worksheets? Have them submit their answers as an assignment. This can also help you assess your students’ understanding of the material.   

4. Test knowledge with quizzes and self-assessment

Frequent, low stakes quizzes encourage students to pay closer attention to video lectures and allow you to assess their knowledge. Self-assessments are typically ungraded, but provide students with diagnostic feedback that  encourages them to re-visit areas of the lesson based on  questions they may have missed. Both methods give students quick feedback so they can gauge early on which concepts or problems they may need help with.

Tip for implementation: Ask students what they are having trouble with. At the end of a unit, have students assess themselves by asking what their “muddiest point” is or what they would like to learn more about and have them submit their responses via the Learning Management System (LMS) as a private journal entry.

5. Use pre-existing videos

You do not always need to create original videos.  Many great videos exist that already do a good job of explaining specific topics. This also creates more variety in students’ learning experience and can be less time intensive for the instructor.

Tip for implementation: Explore what resources are available before you begin recording your own videos to gain an understanding of what currently exists and what you need to do yourself.

6. Be Yourself!

Lastly, remember that this is not a Hollywood production! One of the most important things to do in a video is to be yourself and act natural. It is okay to stumble over a word or quickly correct yourself when you make a mistake. This allows students to truly see your personality and connect with what makes you unique as an instructor.

Tips for implementation: Record a test video, then go back and watch it (bonus points if you have someone else watch it too!). Evaluate what you do well and what needs improvement. Feel free to experiment with environment and style until you feel that you are able to convey yourself in a way that is comfortable and genuine.

Let’s Exchange EDvice!

Are you already creating video lectures? What strategies do you use to keep students engaged?

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Additional Resources:

Ho, Yvonne. “Seven Steps to Creating Screencast Videos for Online Learning.” Faculty Focus. Magna, 15 Mar. 2013. Web.

Mayer, Richard E. Multi-Media Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.

Do you know the Five Rs?

Pete Watkins, Associate Director, TLC

You have probably heard of the three Rs—“reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic”.  But have you heard of the “Five Rs” for engaging and motivating modern learners?  You do if you were one of the over 200 people who braved the impending blizzard to attend the 14th Annual Faculty Conference on Teaching Excellence sponsored by Temple’s Teaching & Learning Center.

In case you were at the supermarket stocking up on bread and milk, let me recap.  Dr. Christy Price, the 2012 Carnegie Professor of the Year, has developed the “Five Rs” as a handy mnemonic for remembering ways to engage modern learners.
 

1.     Research-based pedagogies of engagement

Use active learning techniques as problem-based learning, team-based learning, undergraduate research, and community engagement which have been shown to increase learning.


2.     Relaxed environment

Create a more caring and less rigid environment. Share a little information about yourself such as your hobbies, research interests, or why you enjoy teaching this course.  You do not need to reveal deeply personal information, but students like to know that their professor is a real person that they can relate too. 
 

3.     Relevant

Make assessments and activities relevant to students’ lives and their futures.  Help them to understand why it’s important that they learn something. Try to find natural connections between the course material and something that is important to them such as current events, popular culture, or future career plans.  If a student asks, “When are we ever going to use this?”, you should have an answer. 
 

4.     Rationales

Provide rationales for policies.  “Because I said so” just won’t cut it.  Help students understand that your policies are not arbitrary, but are there to create a safe and supportive learning environment for everyone. 
 

5.     Rapport

Building positive rapport with students has been shown to improve student learning. Try to arrive a few minutes early and/or stay a few minutes after class so that you can interact informally with students.  Ask students about their interests, career plans and hobbies?  Try to know your students’ names when feasible.  When students feel valued, they are more likely to participate in the learning experience and take risks. 

Let’s Exchange EDvice!

These seem like winning strategies for working with students of any generation. What strategies do you use to engage modern learners?

Creating a Positive Climate for Learning

Stephanie Fiore, Senior Director, TLC

On the first day of Italian I class, I tell a story about my own experiences learning the language while studying abroad. During a conversation with my host family about the movie “Gone With The Wind”, I meant to say that whenever I saw that film, I cried and I cried (“piangevo e piangevo”); instead, I said that I rained and I rained (“piovevo e piovevo”). My hosts laughed wholeheartedly and responded “Do you snow in the winter too?” This little story never fails to get a laugh from students, but more importantly, it communicates what I want them to know – nobody has ever died of embarrassment because they made an error when trying to speak a foreign language. Errors are part of learning, so everybody just relax!

The willingness to take risks is an essential component of learning. And yet, students are often worried about making mistakes or believe they are just not good at learning languages, math, science (really anything). They may also lack confidence and are therefore anxious about the participation that may be necessary in a learning environment. I know that if I create an atmosphere that encourages risk-taking behavior in my class, these students will more likely thrive.  This fits with the literature on creating a positive climate for learning:

“Learning is not merely a cognitive process; it is substantially affected by emotional factors. Teaching can thrive only in an environment of trust that encourages students to attend, think and learn. Students need a supportive climate that provides generous room for trial and error, enables them to learn from mistakes, encourages them to take risks in overcoming difficulties in learning, and promotes their confidence in their ability to learn.” (Hativa, 255)

So how can we reduce student anxiety and increase their willingness to take risks?  

1.  Be intentional about your messages

  • Express confidence to students that they can do well in your course.
  • Encourage students to ask questions by explicitly telling them that questions are welcome and expected.
  • Take the time to compliment a student on something specific that he or she has done well. The key here is specificity. Praise, reinforcement, encouragement and acknowledgment have all been shown to increase motivation (Gage & Berliner, 1998).
  • When delivering criticism, be specific and state the critique in changeable terms – that is, make clear that improvement is possible.

2.  Clarify that learning is a process

  • Admit when something is difficult to master and then work with the student to develop specific strategies to improve performance and reach mastery.
  • Self-disclosure, that is, speaking from personal experience about your own learning trajectory, can remind students that expertise is developed over time.
  • Help students evaluate their progress by encouraging them to critique their own work, analyze their strengths, and work on their weaknesses. For example, consider asking students to submit self-evaluation forms with one or two assignments. (Cashin, 1979; Forsyth and McMillan, 1991).

3.  Provide opportunities for trial and error

  • Give students opportunities to talk about their thinking in low-stakes situations, such as asking students to brainstorm ideas in teams or making informal ungraded presentations in class.
  • Provide early opportunities for success (Forsyth and McMillan, 1991).
  • Allow students to write drafts of major assignments and provide targeted, clear feedback that will help them make substantive changes where necessary.

Faculty often feel the pressure to move forward quickly, as a semester is short and there is so much material to cover. But by spending a little time to create a positive climate of support, the truth is that we may find that students learn more efficiently and more effectively.

___________

Cashin, W.E., “Motivating Students”, IDEA Paper no.1, Manhattan: Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development in HIgher Education, Kansas State University, 1976.

Forsyth, D.R., and McMillan J.H. “Practical Proposals for Motivating Students.” In R.J. Menges and M.D. Svinicki (eds.), College Teaching from Theory to Practice. New Directions in Teaching and Learning, no. 45. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.

Gage, N. L. & Berliner, D. C. (1988). Educational psychology (4th Ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Hativa, Nira. Teaching for effective learning in higher education. Springer Science & Business Media, 2001.

Let’s Exchange Edvice

What strategies have you used successfully to reduce student anxiety and encourage them to take risks in your classes?

Engaging Modern Learners? Game On!

Pete Watkins, Associate Director, TLC

Engaging Modern Learners? Game On! Image of students on IPads

As the parent of two pre-teens, I find myself constantly having to pull my children away from their video games. I watch commuters on the train engrossed in video games on their phones and tablets. From casual games such as Candy Crush, to complex games such as Civilization, these games seem to have a hold on people. So as a teacher, it got me thinking  “What is it about video games that make them so engaging, even addictive?” and “What can teachers learn from game designers about how to increase engagement among learners?”

Here are three characteristics of video games that have direct implications for teaching:

1. Video games are active.  

Most people play, not watch, video games. Occasionally, one of my children will watch another child play, and some people will even pay to watch highly skilled gamers compete. But overwhelmingly, people play video games. So the lesson for teachers is: Make your classes interactive. Have students do something! Of course, teachers will use some lectures and demonstration to impart foundational knowledge, but active learning will increase engagement and deepen learning.

2. Video games adjust to the skill level of the player, getting progressively more
    difficult as the player gets better.  

This is key to helping the learner sustain engagement. Sherman and Csikszentmihalyi (2008) state: “Optimally engaging activities were therefore neither trivially simple nor impossibly hard; rather, the appropriate match between challenge and skill led to higher quality learning experiences in terms of perceived engagement, intrinsic motivation, mood, and self-esteem.” Both gamers and students will disengage if the task before them is too easy or too hard. So adjust your lessons to the level of your learners and stay in what Vygotsky called the ‘zone of proximal development‘. This may mean having bonus or challenge questions, or readings for students who are more advanced as well as extra support or scaffolding for beginning learners.  

3. Video games give the player frequent, immediate feedback which helps them
    improve.  

Anyone who plays video games knows that games give you frequent feedback about your performance through losing lives, unlocking levels etc. Similarly, as teachers, we can use frequent, low stakes formative assessments to gauge students’ progress, give them corrective feedback and keep students motivated and engaged.  

For more ideas about how to engage modern learners, the Teaching and Learning Center invites you to attend the 14th Annual Faculty Conference on Teaching Excellence to be held at Temple University on January 22, 2016. This event will feature plenary speaker Dr. Christy Price, the 2012 Carnegie US Professor of the Year, delivering an address titled “Why don’t my students think I’m groovy? Engaging the modern learner”.

Helping Students see the Big Picture with Integrative Learning Strategies

Johanna Inman, Assistant Director, TLC

This semester the TLC and the General Education Program are co-sponsoring a faculty Teaching Circle on the topic of Integrative Learning. This teaching circle is an opportunity for faculty who teach General Education courses to come together and discuss the significance of GenEd, how to motivate students in these courses, and how to help students connect learning in these courses to courses in their majors, their careers, and their personal lives. Johanna Inman is an Assistant Director at the TLC and co-facilitates the Integrative Learning Teaching Circle.– – – – –

Anyone who has taught a general education course at Temple University, or at any university, is familiar with the “just get through it” attitude students often arrive with on the first day of class. Many students do not value these courses and as a result, see them as a fairly low priority.

Yet, GenEd equips students with the information literacy, communication and critical thinking skills they will need for university-level work. Most of us teaching these courses also recognize the long-term impact that liberal education can have on our students’ professional and personal lives. In a recent survey conducted on behalf of AAC&U, an overwhelming majority of employers surveyed said they seek to hire graduates with the abilities to innovate, think critically, communicate clearly, solve complex problems, and draw on a broad range of knowledge—all learning goals commonly found in general education courses.

AAC&U and higher education leaders across the nation are working hard to change students’ perception of general education, while improving curriculum to make certain it actually helps students improve skills they need to be successful. Curricula nationally are undergoing re-evaluation in order to intentionally build in integrative projects, assignments, and learning experiences. This approach to learning helps students “connect, reflect, and apply learning so that the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts.”

While higher education leaders work towards improving integrative learning across the curriculum, faculty play an instrumental role in helping students value learning in all courses, make meaningful connections between them, and develop a holistic view of their learning experience throughout their entire academic career.

Strategies you can use to help students value and make meaningful connections across all learning experiences.

1. Teach transparently.

As Linda Nilson points out in her book Creating Self-Regulated Learners, students see value in assignments when “they believe it will help them receive a good grade in the course, obtain a job, achieve success in a career, or learn about something important to them.” On the contrary, they will not work hard on tasks they believe to be meaningless busywork.

What does your course promise to students? What will they learn? How will it help them be better learners, professionals, and citizens? First, make sure you know the answers to these questions, and then tell them to your students!

For every assignment, help students clearly understand the task, purpose and criteria. Students are more motivated when they know what is expected of them and there is a clear pathway to improvement. However, they cannot know these things unless we explicitly tell them.

2. Model integrative learning.

Modeling—thinking, demonstrating, or problem solving out loud in front of students—is one of the most simple, yet effective, teaching techniques. It has been proven to improve students’ metacognition and critical thinking skills and it can be an effective strategy to help students make connections among general education courses, courses within their major, and their personal experience.

Heard something in the news that relates to a course discussion? Is there a link between a lecture topic and your current research? Did you have an interesting conversation about a course reading with a colleague in another department? Tell your students! Explain the connections. When students hear faculty making these connections, they are more likely to do so themselves.

3. Provide opportunities for reflection.

Too often students graduate from college having learned a great deal—but not necessarily realizing what they’ve learned or knowing its value. Students need time and space to consider what they’ve learned, how they’ve learned it, and how they’ve grown as a result.

Provide students the opportunity to reflect on their learning by assigning learning journalsreflective essays, or a learning portfolio. Worried about the extra grading? Create opportunities for students to reflect on their learning in class with ungraded one-minute papers or ask students to submit assignments with reflective annotations or a reflective memo.

4. Reward integrative learning.

If making connections between courses or between course content and students’ personal experience is something you value, it should be included in your grading criteria. When a student mentions a link between your course content and something they learned previously—celebrate it. When students make meaningful connections, point them out and make a big deal about it. Ultimately, the goal of integrative learning is to help students realize that learning happens over time, inside of the classroom and out—to understand learning as holistic, constant, and lifelong.

Let’s Exchange Edvice

What strategies have you used to help students make meaningful connections across courses? What strategies have you used to help students make meaningful connections between learning in your course and their personal experience?

Student Success a Conference Success at Temple University

Dr. Tinto's Keynote

More than 130 instructors from around the region joined over 100 faculty and administrators from Temple University at the Teaching and Learning Center’s 13th Annual Faculty Conference on Teaching Excellence.  This year’s theme, Student Success, focused on ways faculty can support student success inside and out of the classroom.

The conference was designed to reflect the Teaching and Learning Center’s belief in learning-centered teaching and active learning. During the keynote address as well as the breakout sessions, educators were given the opportunity to discuss research-based teaching methods with an interdisciplinary group of colleagues from two-year and four-year schools around the region. Faculty were also given several opportunities to individually reflect on their own role in student success.

Check out Temple Faculty member Jonathan Singer’s recap of the conference through social media on storify.

Keynote Address

TLC was honored to invite Dr. Vincent Tinto, author of the books Leaving College and Completing College as this year’s keynote speaker. Dr. Tinto’s address, Student Success Does Not Arise By Chance began by highlighting the importance of classroom success—“one class, one course at a time,” to a larger institutional goal: student success.  

Dr. Tinto focused the discussion on four key factors to student success:

  • (high) expectations
  • support
  • assessment and feedback
  • engagement

Throughout the general session, Dr. Tinto took questions and examples from the audience of strategies and methods to student success. He highlighted several programs such as early warning systems, learning communities and first year experience courses as strategies that have been successful.  

In closing Dr. Tinto reminded the audience, “the object of education is student learning. Retention is merely the vehicle by which it can arise.”

Breakout and Poster Sessions

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Breakout and Poster Sessions

Morning and afternoon breakout sessions focused on a variety of research-based strategies that lead to student success in the classroom and were facilitated by members of the Temple University Provost’s Teaching Academy. Click here to read summaries of each session.

This year’s call for poster session proposals brought in over thirty-five submissions from educators affiliated with regional institutions such as Rowan University, Philadelphia University, and University of Pennsylvania. Twenty-four posters were selected for presentation.

Conference attendees voted and selected “The Trauma-Informed Classroom: Understanding the Neuroscience of a Student’s Capacity to Learn Following Exposure to Traumatic Events,” by Pierce College’s Kathleen Watson, as this year’s best poster. Her prize was a Google Chromebook.
 

Watson’s poster discussed strategies to assist learners inside and outside of the classroom in a way that is informed by the literature on trauma and the brain.  The poster included a definition of trauma grounded in scientific evidence, rates of trauma among young adults, an introduction to the neuroscience of learning, a discussion of barriers to learning (inside and outside of the classroom) for students who have been exposed to trauma, and teaching strategies that may better serve students who are coping with the effects of trauma.

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Conference Attendees

Looking Forward

TLC is already beginning to plan for our 2016 conference, which will take place Thursday, January 7th! If there is anything you would like to see at our next conference, leave a comment below, email us at tlc@temple.edu, or tweet us @TempleTLC.

Thank you to everyone who made this year’s conference a true success!