Making the Most of Classroom Polling

H. Naomie Nyanungo

Polling tools, sometimes referred to as classroom or student response systems, are great for engaging students in virtual or face-to-face learning environments. Polling tools such as Poll Everywhere, Vevox, Mentimeter and others can help faculty to assess how well students are grasping new concepts. Used effectively, classroom polling activities can create opportunities for students to provide feedback, pose questions and share reflections during class. Teachers also use classroom polls to facilitate collaborative learning. In this blog, we share strategies for effectively using classroom polling activities to enhance active learning and student engagement.

  • Plan for execution and follow-up: It is important to have a plan for what happens before and after each polling activity. The plan should include details on what will happen (e.g., lecture, class activity) before the poll is administered, how student poll responses will be used (e.g., to identify learning gaps), and if student participation will be graded. Also think about how you will follow up (e.g. give feedback or address questions) and integrate the polling activity with other activities in the classes.
  • Communicate with students: It is a good idea to communicate the purpose and plan for classroom polling to students so that they understand how this is contributing to their learning. Articulate expectations for participation in polling activities. Doing a few practice polling activities is a good way to get everyone familiar with the tool and process. Be sure to check if all your students have access to the technology required to participate, and offer alternative ways for participation for those that may not have access. 
  • Consider your learning goals when writing questions: Polling can be used to achieve a variety of learning goals, such as recall of foundational concepts or application of concepts. It is good practice to write polling questions that support specific learning goals. Types of polling questions include those that ask students about content, application, individual perspective and progress on specific learning activities. You can read more about different types of polling questions targeting different learning goals.
  • Vary the types of polling activities: Take advantage of the versatility of polling tools by using different polling activities throughout the semester. This will go a long way toward sustaining student engagement and avoid monotony. There is a wide range of polling activities to pick from such as active lecturing, peer instruction, group work, and learning assessments. Look through this list of descriptions and examples of polling activities for inspiration. Feel free to adapt these activities to your specific context.

We hope that these strategies will help you to effectively use polling to increase student understanding and engagement with you, their peers and course content. Should you need any support, the team of consultants at the CAT is here to help. Please visit our website to book an appointment with a consultant or visit our virtual and on-site educational technology labs.

Happy polling!

References

H. Naomie Nyanungo is Director of Educational Technology at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

What’s New in Zoom?

Ariel Siegelman

As we get closer to the beginning of the semester, you may be wondering if there are any new Zoom features that you can use in order to provide a smoother and more engaging online learning experience for your students. Over the past several months, Zoom released some great new features that you can use right away as you dive into teaching your fall courses!

Before you go into Zoom and test out these new features, make sure that you have the most up-to-date version of Zoom, otherwise these features may be unavailable. To do so, you can go to the Zoom program on your computer, click your profile picture in the upper right corner of the window that appears, and select “Check for Updates” from the drop-down menu.

Here are nine of our favorite new Zoom features:

1. Share screen to all Breakout Rooms

If you’ve ever facilitated a breakout room activity where you’ve all had students evaluating the same questions or content, you may have wished that you could share your screen to the breakout rooms while they are in session. Now you can! While the breakout rooms are open, clicking the Share Screen button in Zoom will give you a “Share to breakout rooms” option. You can use this feature to share multimedia or a common list of questions for students to discuss. Note that sharing your screen will interrupt any student screenshares in the breakout rooms.

2. Focus Mode

For instructors who facilitate and proctor quizzes and exams on Zoom, this new feature is an absolute godsend! Enabling Focus Mode will allow only hosts to see participants’ videos and screenshares, and the host can easily switch between different participants. Additionally, they can choose specific co-hosts and participants to also see these screenshares if they wish. This means that instructors can require students to be sharing their screens simultaneously while taking an exam, and then the host can review each student’s screen, without the students seeing each other’s screens. This is also useful if a student wants to share or troubleshoot something on their computer privately with the instructor, without sharing their screen with the entire class. In order to use Focus Mode in a Zoom meeting, you first must go to https://temple.zoom.us/profile/setting and turn on Focus Mode.

3. New annotation tool: Vanishing Pen

This new feature in the Annotation toolbar, which appears when screensharing or using the Whiteboard, allows hosts and participants to use a pen tool whose drawings slowly vanish. This is helpful if you only want to circle or underline something temporarily–instead of having to erase the marking, it will slowly disappear after a few seconds. You can activate the Vanishing Pen by clicking on the Spotlight button in the Annotation toolbar, and then selecting Vanishing Pen.

4. Share and play video files directly into meeting

This feature, located in the Advanced tab of the Share Screen window, allows you to directly choose a video file from your computer to play through screensharing. Instead of having to share your desktop and bring up the file, or share a specific video playback program, the video file will play directly in Zoom for all meeting participants to watch.

5. Full emoji suite & “away” coffee cup for Reactions

If you click on the Reactions button in Zoom, you’ll notice that you have a full array of emojis to choose from in order to express your emotions! When an emoji or icon is selected, it will appear in the corner of your video, as well as next to your name in the Participants window. These Reactions will remain active until you decide to turn them off. Additionally, you will also find the coffee cup icon, which will display an “away” status for you. You and your students can use this coffee cup to include when you’ve stepped away from the computer for a moment.

6. Request Live Transcription enablement as participant

A new feature that Zoom added last year was live speech-to-text transcription, which when enabled by the host, participants can turn on in order to view live generated subtitles of the meeting’s audio. Participants can now click a button to request for the live transcription to be turned on. The host will be notified of this request and then be presented with a button that allows them to enable the transcription immediately. These features are all located in the Live Transcript button in a Zoom meeting. Consider enabling the Live Transcript in order to make your Zoom classes more accessible!

7. Immersive View

Wish a Zoom meeting felt more like a classroom? Immersive View was designed to do just that: Present a virtual space that feels more like everyone is sitting together in-person. To enable Immersive View as the host, click the View icon in the upper right corner of a Zoom meeting, and then click “Immersive View.” You’ll be presented with several options for virtual immersive “rooms” for up to 25 participants.

8. Mute and Video Off when joining a recorded/live streamed Meeting

When participants join a meeting that is currently being recorded or livestreamed, they will be notified, and their audio and video will automatically be turned off. This will allow them to fully opt into being recorded or not, without their face or voice accidentally being recorded if they do not consent to it.

9. Post-meeting survey

Finally, hosts now have the ability to have Zoom prompt participants to take a survey after they leave a Zoom meeting, including through third-party survey tools such as Canvas surveys or SurveyMonkey. After students leave a Zoom meeting, the survey will automatically load in their browser. Hosts can then review the survey results via the Reports feature at https://temple.zoom.us/account/report or through the third-party website. This is a great opportunity to ask students about their experience in your Zoom class and use their feedback to continuously improve as an online instructor. It’s also a great way to facilitate end-of-class active learning activities, such as the Exit Ticket, where students are prompted to provide any questions they currently have about the course, or to answer a series of short questions checking their understanding of the day’s content. To apply a post-meeting survey for a Zoom meeting, you first must go to https://temple.zoom.us/profile/setting and turn on Meeting Survey. Then, after scheduling a Zoom meeting, the Survey feature will be available at the bottom of the meeting confirmation page.

To learn more about how to use these features, you can visit our in-person Educational Technology Labs, our Virtual EdTech Drop-in Lab, or book a consultation with an Educational Technology Specialist. Information and links to these services are available at catbooking.temple.edu.

Happy Zooming!

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

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Use the Pronouns Right For Thee!

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D.

A nod to the late, great Aretha Franklin for inspiring the subject line of this post. Notice I used the pronoun “she” to refer to Aretha. Without giving it much thought, we typically refer to people by the pronouns we think match their appearance. Historically, these chosen pronouns have been the singular “she/her/hers” for women and “he/him/his” for men, and the plural “they/them/theirs” for more than one. Tidy and grammatically correct, the singular pronouns have created what’s referred to as the “gender binary.” The problem is, one’s sex assigned at birth may not reflect one’s internal sense of self, better known as gender identity, and that misgenders those whose gender identity is outside of that binary or is fluid.

In its commitment to providing a welcoming, inclusive environment for all students, faculty and staff, Temple is introducing two new initiatives to allow our community to indicate their pronouns and gender identity.

Our Two Newest Inclusion Initiatives

Faculty, students, and staff now have the option to indicate pronouns that reflect their gender identity, and choose from expanded categories to indicate one’s gender. Instructions for indicating your pronouns and gender identity are available on theTU Portal by clicking on Manage My Account and then Update your Pronoun/Gender. For pronouns, we’re now able to choose from He/Him/His; She/Her/Hers; They/Them/Theirs; Ze/Zir/Zirs; or Refer to me by my name only. For gender identity, in addition to indicating male/female, we’re now able to choose from Nonbinary and Does Not Apply to Me or Prefer Not to Share.

If you add your pronouns, they will now be visible to everyone in these university systems:

  • Cherry and White Directory
  • My Courses application in TUportal
  • Canvas learning management software
  • Residence hall resident lists

If you add your gender identity, it will only be visible to you as well as certain administrators in Self-Service Banner. It will not be visible in the Cherry and White Directory, My Courses, or in Canvas.

Getting the hang of it. If you’re a grammar stickler like me, using the plural pronouns “they/them/theirs,” if someone identifies that way, takes some getting used to. The practice has actually become common enough to warrant Merriam-Webster’s dictionary to give a thumbs up to its use in referring to the singular. That’s the wonderful (albeit challenging-to-keep-up-with) thing about language: it’s ever-evolving.

You can do this! It just takes a little mindfulness and practice. Here are some ways you can use and reinforce the practice in your teaching:

  • Add your pronouns to your email signature. You can also link your pronouns to a resource that explains why pronouns are important. Adding your pronouns may help others feel more comfortable in sharing theirs.
  • Refer to your students by the pronouns you have for them in Canvas. If you misgender someone by using the wrong pronouns, don’t fret. Apologize, let them know you care and are trying, and move on. You can also invite students to rename themselves with their pronouns in Zoom.
  • Remember that you can always call students by name. Giving students table tents on which to write their name and if they choose, their pronouns–especially in large classes–is a great way to get to know and demonstrate respect for your students.

For more information about the what and why of pronoun use, check out this resource and youtube video. If you’d like to learn more about LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the classroom, check out this Guide to LGBTQIA+ Terminology and this video on the CAT website, and watch for our upcoming fall workshop offering: Inclusion in the Classroom: Supporting our LGBTQIA+ students. Don’t forget our Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership (IDEAL) offers a fantastic two-part workshop and certificate called the Safe Zone Certification. After completing the workshops, you are considered an Advocate which indicates acceptance of LGBTQIA+ identities and a commitment to working against discrimination directed towards the community. 

As always, feel free to make an appointment for a 1-1 consultation with one of our faculty developers at the CAT for further assistance.

Cliff Rouder is Pedagogy & Design Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

What Our Students Are Saying

During recent semesters many attending college have used social media to share their thoughts on pursuing an education during a pandemic. We went to Reddit, where Temple students were already sharing their stories, and asked for anonymous quotes that we might pass on to you. In this EDvice Exchange entry we’ll be sharing a selection of these posts, to highlight the lengths to which some of our wonderful Temple instructors went as well as how those efforts impacted their students. We extend our heartfelt thanks to these faculty members and the others like them who worked so hard over the last year.

“Dr. Talissa Ford was super understanding about some of us not wanting to be on camera or not being able complete work because of personal reasons.”

“Israel Vasquez is another great professor. Take literally any of his classes and you won’t regret it. He modified his Scene Analysis class in respect to social distancing and the isolation that we were living in. Even when personal issues came up he always made time for us.”

“Professor Michael Klein. I took his honors Soundtrack of the Apocalypse Class and he was super flexible. He didn’t want the class to stress anyone out at all, so he gave out extensions and limited reading assignments in favor of doing more scene analysis in class so that the homework was never oppressive. Even on the final paper he sent us a canvas message the day it was due (after the two day extension he gave us) saying not to stress anyone out but the final paper is due today, so if you have it ready by five that would be great. Felt very little pressure in his class. If you have the opportunity to take a class with him, especially in the foreseeable future, do it. Super chill and super flexible.”

“Professor Roth in psychology. She would take time every class to ask how we are doing and would remind us every class to make time for self care. I loved how on the last day she said ‘I don’t like saying ‘goodbye’ because it sounds so formal, so see you all later.’”

“The man, the myth, the legendary Prof. Mike Hughes. Incredible morale booster and source of motivation. Ended every class with ‘Your friends care about yous, your family cares about yous, and I care about yous.’Genuine gem.”

The theme we pick out from these and many of the other quotes we’ll be sharing is simple: good education begins by acknowledging that students aren’t simply learning machines, but rather our fellow human beings. When we cultivate an ethic of care where we treat them with kindness and respect, great things can happen in the classroom.

One last thing: See a colleague mentioned above? Consider sending them a quick note of thanks for going the extra mile. Instructors need words of kindness and encouragement, too!

On the Importance of Breathing and Reflection

Stephanie Fiore

We are almost at the end of an incredibly unusual year, one that caused no small amount of  stress, exhaustion, and sense of loss, but which we hope also engendered creativity, agility, and a heightened sense of empathy. All of these by-products of the sudden and persistent changes we have experienced over the past year—whether negative or positive ones—can lead to burnout. It takes an incredible amount of effort to push through exhaustion and loss; it also takes an incredible amount of effort to be continually creative and empathetic with others.

In her Temple Talks video, Self-Compassion (It Feels Weird, Right?), Dr. Annette Willgens from the College of Public Health reminds us of the importance of practicing self-compassion, especially in times like these. Professor Willgens points out that it takes practice – and stillness – to become aware of our own self-criticisms and then to become more compassionate with ourselves. I like especially how she emphasizes that, while we may continue to strive for  excellence, perfection is not attainable, and exhorts us to “make the ordinary the new extraordinary.”

This past year, we’ve understood even more clearly how imperfect teaching can be, perhaps even should be. When done well, responsive teaching requires that we constantly assess how our students are learning, make adjustments and then tweak our approaches yet again. I often tell faculty that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for teaching,  because the situational factors of each class—things like class size, time of day, modality (online, hybrid, in person), type of course (required, intro or capstone, honors), chemistry of the students in the class, whether there is a pandemic going on—affect us and our students, sometimes changing the dynamics of a class in profound ways. This is why the course you have taught successfully a number of times can suddenly feel harder than it ever has, even in “normal” times. Add to that the unexpected switch to online learning this past year. You were learning how to teach online, continually trying new things, refining ideas that almost worked, and seeking solutions for failed experiments, all while ramping up support for students grappling with their own uncertainty and inexperience in the online space.

So give yourselves a pass if you’re exhausted and you can’t wait for the last day of the semester to come. My greatest wish for you, my dear colleagues, is that you are able to find some time to practice self-compassion, breathe, and regain the energy we all need to move forward.

After you have regained some of that energy, an important next step is to take time to reflect on the past year’s teaching experiences with a critical eye and then to ask yourself: “Where do I go from here?” Resist the urge to fall back onto old ways of doing things in your classrooms and letting everything you have learned fall by the proverbial wayside, even if you are going back to in-person teaching. These reflective questions will assist you in discovering how to forge a new way forward that leverages the best of old and new experiences. If you are teaching this summer and feel that you have no time to carve out time for this exercise, consider that even a few minutes to reflect in this way before planning your fall semester can make a difference in decisions you’ll make about your course.

  • What are some realizations you came to about your identity as an instructor and about your students? Are those realizations still pertinent as you move forward? If so, how will they affect your actions?
  • Did you make changes to your teaching methods or teaching tools in order to teach online? What did you discover in making these changes? Are there elements of those changes that you would like to retain moving forward? How will you operationalize them in a new teaching environment?
  • What did you learn about community and connection during this year, both with students and with colleagues? How might you want to bring what you’ve learned to bear on your learning environments moving forward?
  • What changes did you make to your class policies? Might you want to retain some of those changed policies moving forward if you found they served student needs better? How can you balance supporting student needs with managing your own professional and personal needs?
  • Did you make changes to your curriculum or to your classroom practices in an effort to create a more equitable, inclusive, and just space for learning? Which of these changes made a real difference for your students? Is there more work to be done in this respect?
  • What did you learn about how events happening outside the classroom influence what happens in the classroom? How did these events present opportunities and/or challenges in teaching? How will you interact (or not) with current events in future classes?

And remember that we are here all summer to talk through your ideas with you in one-on-one consultations. You can also get timely help with educational technology questions at the Virtual Drop-In Ed Tech Lab.

A final word from all of the CAT staff to you. We admire the work and thoughtfulness you put into teaching this year, and the care for your students that we observed time and time again. We also appreciate the collegiality you have shown to us this year as we worked with you to navigate uncertainty and constantly changing needs. This connection with faculty is the foundation of the CAT’s mission, and helped us to keep going in sometimes overwhelming times. Here’s hoping for some moments of rest, reflection, and connection this summer for all of us.

Stephanie Fiore is Assistant Vice Provost of Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Seeing and Welcoming Your First-Generation Students

Cliff Rouder, Linda Hasunuma and Jeff Rients

Going to college is an exciting opportunity for every student; It’s a time filled with pride and hope. Imagine how strong those feelings must be for our first-generation (first-gen) students, that is, students whose parents either did not go to or did not graduate from college. You might be surprised to learn that, according to the 2020-2021 Temple University Fact Book,16% of our students had neither parent attend college, and 31% had neither parent graduate.        

Along with feelings of pride and hope, however, some of our first-gen students may feel a sense of apprehension not knowing the “rules” of college that generational knowledge brings, and may face academic, economic, and emotional hurdles as well. For instance, Kamina Richardson, faculty advisor to Temple First (the first-gen student org) and a first-gen college student herself, explains that first-gen students are more likely to be caregivers of the home, so they juggle the goals of an academic education along with family obligations. (To hear firsthand from the students themselves, check out #FirstGenTempleMade.)

Temple helps our first-year, first-gen students acclimate to campus culture with a host of resources. In addition to the Temple First student club, Temple offers the powerful First to Fly program, including a glossary of terms with links to resources.

Let’s look at what faculty can do in our learning environments to build on these efforts and welcome our first-gen students.

  • Send a message of welcome pre-semester and create an inclusive learning environment. It is important to introduce yourself, connect with them as a human being, and assure them at the start of the course that you have designed a learning environment that they can succeed in. If you were a first-gen student yourself, let them know! Throughout the semester, serve as a model by sharing how you felt as a first-gen student and your experiences and advice navigating the college experience. Be a resource for them by familiarizing yourself with campus resources.
  • Learn about students’ individual assets and needs and respond accordingly. In getting to know all of your students, why not do a pre-semester survey? Ask questions that assess demands on their time or other barriers to learning such as their access to technology.  Find out their comfort level with things like negotiating Canvas, coming to student hours (aka office hours), and with the content of your discipline. Then find ways to meet students’ needs, wherever possible. For example, because many students work or help their families in other ways, flexibility with due dates makes a real difference. Work with one of our research librarians in your field to investigate whether there are open educational resources that can reduce the cost of materials for your course. One way we can “see” our first-gen students is by explicitly asking them. Be sure that you describe exactly what you mean by first gen so they can answer accurately.
  • Make what you’re asking them to do (and why!) transparent. Help your students see the value of the course. That means writing and articulating clear, meaningful course goals and coming back to them throughout the semester to continually link them to the “what” and “why” of your course content. Organizing your Canvas course in a logical, consistent way, providing rubrics, and giving motivating and frequent, actionable feedback are other ways you can help students see the “whats” and “whys” of your course.
  • Provide opportunities for students to learn from and get to know each other. To reduce feelings of isolation and marginalization, be sure to incorporate multiple and varied activities that enable students to work together, everything from think-pair-share activities all the way up to sustained semester-long projects. Providing a class Zoom room where they can meet without you is another great way to build those connections.
  • Help them become self-directed learners. We often think students already know–or should know–how to take notes, study effectively, and reflect on and adjust their learning strategies when what they’ve tried isn’t working. So with your guidance, take some time to have them share effective note-taking and study strategies with each other. Use exam wrappers (aka cognitive wrappers) to help them formatively reflect on their performance and develop a plan for improvement.

You’ve probably noticed that all the strategies above will work for all kinds of learners, not just first generation students. In our in-person and virtual classrooms, we can take a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach to help everyone succeed. UDL asks us to consider how we can provide students with multiple ways of accessing and learning content, expressing their understanding, and engaging with you and their peers. Taking a UDL approach means that you’re proactively creating a course and learning environment that provides benefit to as many students as possible.

November 8 is National First-Generation/College Celebration Day. Watch for information from Jennifer Johnson, Assistant Professor in the College of Education and Human Development and Juliet Curci of the College Access Community of Practice group, who are spearheading various events in celebration of Temple’s first-gen students.

As always, if you’d like to learn more pedagogical strategies and educational technology tools that can benefit our first-gen as well as all students, reach out to a faculty developer or educational technology specialist for a consultation or email us at cat@temple.edu.

Cliff Rouder, Linda Hasunuma, and Jeff Rients are staff members of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Discussing National Events in Your Classroom

Linda Hasunuma and Naomie Nyanungo

Discussing National Events in Your Classroom

When there is a major national event, such as the Chauvin trial and verdict or the mass shootings in Atlanta and Indianapolis, students may look to us to provide greater context and perspective as they process these difficult moments. Students appreciate when faculty acknowledge what has happened. Acknowledgement can come in many forms, and can range from a moment of silence or allowing space for written reflection to class discussions (Huston and DiPietro 2017). Even if you are not an expert on the issue or it feels like it is outside of your discipline, your acknowledgement of the event and the emotions around it signals to your students that you care about them. Engaging students in discussions about these events can deepen learning and contribute to your students’ intellectual and emotional growth as they consider perspectives different from their own, and learn how to engage in these dialogues in a productive way. To prepare for these deeper discussions, we recommend that you make a plan and create ground rules with your students for respectful discussion together. To make space for these critical conversations with your students, we offer some helpful practices about how to prepare for them and manage any hot moments that may arise in our Equity Blog Series.
 

We also recommend directing your students to resources at the Wellness Center and, Temple’s Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Leadership (IDEAL). IDEAL has several programs such as their Black in America series and Timely Topics, for those seeking deeper conversations and community on matters related to race and justice. Please see their latest email in response to the Chauvin verdict for more information.

If you would like to discuss any of these issues further and think through how you can create brave and inclusive spaces for such conversations in your classes, we invite you to make an appointment with one of CAT’s faculty developers for a one-on-one consultation.

Linda Hasunuma and Naomie Nyanungo work at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

How to Read Those SFFs

Kyle Vitale

Read for patterns, ideas, and humor

The Student Feedback Form can be a valuable source of information about your teaching and your courses. As often it can be a site of frustration, confusion, and irrelevant non sequiturs. How do you read your SFFs with an eye to learning about your teaching? We at the CAT would like to share a few approaches that can help you cut through the noise, find that helpful information, and even laugh off those cruder moments.

Read for patterns

The SFF is an inherently subjective object: students typically fill them out with their own personal experiences of your course in mind. While that doesn’t invalidate their observations, it does mean handling them with care. In this context, it makes more sense to look for patterns, where multiple students signal a shared experience about your course. Most of us have experienced that one student who had a terrible time and lets you know about it in the SFF. That single student’s strong language says far less than two, ten, or twenty students arriving at the same conclusion.

So, read for patterns. Do multiple students comment on course organization, or how accessible you are? That probably means a majority of students found you and the course to be clear. This kind of reading is broad, not deep: you resist getting mired in a single comment and instead survey your responses and start picking out keywords or subjects that recur. Make a list of those subjects, and only then return for deeper reading. This approach ensures you maximize your time with material that obviously deserves attention (either for compliment or revision).

Read for ideas

SFFs are not a statement of adequacy. We’ll repeat that so you can read it out loud to yourself and anybody nearby: SFFs are not a statement of adequacy. Research indicates that students sometimes respond to questions for a variety of reasons having little to do with your teaching ability, and of course, SFFs are not built to include evidence and citation. It is therefore best to enter them with an eye toward small ideas for improvement, rather than with your self worth on the line.

Do students share anything they wish they’d seen more of? Do they mention (and remember, look for those patterns) activities they liked? Are there any particularly kind and thoughtful comments that offer suggestions for changes to in-class activities or assignments? Treat these not as personal critiques, but as free advice for you to consider and (maybe, if it makes sense) adopt.

Read for humor

The internet has made us all familiar with the dangers of the “comment section,” and we have seen some crazy things in SFFs: professors accused of knowing nothing, ruining a major, and picking the wrong career. There are only two possible responses to such claims: believe them, or laugh them off. Comments like these prey on our innate insecurities, and almost always come as one-offs, not patterns. While they can hurt and be difficult to forget, keep in mind that they are almost always groundless and operate on an emotional, rather than curricular, level.

So, find a friend and laugh it off! Tell someone “they just have to hear this.” Have a party where you try to beat each other for the funniest, oddest, or worst comment out there. We promise that the moment you hear those statements hanging in the air, they’ll lose their power and you’ll find them easier to dismiss out of hand. If no one comes to mind, reach out to us — we’d love to share a chuckle with you!

Keep it in context 

Remember that SFFs are just one perspective on your teaching. Many others exist including peer observation, your own reflections, more informal conversations with students, or asking a CAT staffer to come visit. SFFs are not comprehensive, and should be digested in concert with other evidence for a fuller picture of your ongoing development as a teacher. As always, the CAT is here to help: if you’d like us to help you decipher your SFFs, feel free to make an appointment and we’d be happy to read them with you.

Kyle Vitale, PhD,  is Associate Director of Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Two Strategies that Promote a Growth Mindset

Claudia J. Stanny

Direct instruction on effective study strategies and concrete feedback about the quality of learning

The consequences of fixed or growth mindsets (Dweck, 2006) have been a powerful influence on thinking about teaching and learning. Dweck found that successful students have a growth mindset and advocates using teaching strategies that promote a growth mindset.

Individuals with a growth mindset believe that expertise emerges from practice. Students with a growth mindset perceive difficult tasks as opportunities to stretch and learn new skills. They try tasks that challenge their current level of skill and accept the risk of making mistakes as an opportunity to learn. Constructive feedback from mistakes helps them improve.

In contrast, students who believe talent is an innate characteristic have a fixed mindset and avoid challenging tasks. Students with a fixed mindset fear that mistakes made on a difficult task expose their lack of talent. They believe that mistakes expose their weaknesses and reveal that they are overreaching or studying the wrong discipline. Students who believe performance depends entirely on talent prefer tasks for which they are confident they will excel. When learning gets difficult or they make mistakes, they tend to give up.

Dweck notes that many teachers and students falsely claim to have a growth mindset (Gross-Loh, 2016). Because a growth mindset is the socially correct attitude to espouse, people believe they ought to subscribe to a growth mindset. However, their behavior suggests that they believe performance is really determined by fixed talent. Instructors with a false growth mindset place too much emphasis on rewarding effort and too little emphasis on providing specific guidance on effective strategies for completing challenging tasks. They may fail to provide diagnostic feedback about errors to guide future efforts. Dweck argues that teachers who subscribe to a “false growth mindset” offer empty praise for effort as a sort of consolation prize, given to students they believe lack the talent required to perform well on a task. They fail to provide the constructive feedback students require to correct errors and improve learning. Empty praise for effort without constructive feedback perpetuates the notion of talent and promotes a fixed mindset.

What actions will nurture a genuine growth mindset?

The hallmark of a genuine belief in a growth mindset is students who seek challenging tasks that stretch their skill. They risk making mistakes to obtain beneficial feedback from difficult learning experiences. Their persistence and effort are rewarded with personal growth and development of expertise. Thus, although effort and persistence are necessary, they are not sufficient to achieve benefits for learning. Students need more.

Complex learning seldom occurs in one trial or through a single insight. Expertise, particularly expertise with cognitive skills (critical thinking, professional writing, problem-solving) develops when practice is repeated over time. Persistence is important and must be encouraged. But persistence is effective only when combined with practice guided by formative feedback from a skilled expert.

Instructors who want to encourage a growth mindset and develop expert skill in their students need to offer more than praise for effort or simply give “lip service” (empty endorsement) to adopting a “growth mindset.” They must offer specific, concrete, constructive feedback to guide future efforts and correct errors.

  • Teach students about specific study strategies that are known to be effective. Don’t simply encourage students to persist, try harder, or study longer. Too many students believe (erroneously) that spending more time studying (exerting more effort) will improve their learning. They waste time re-reading, highlighting, and engaging in mechanical rote repetition study tasks that produce little benefit for long-term retention. Instead, advise students to change the way they study and adopt strategies known to produce good long-term retention. Dunlosky et al. (2013) identified six strategies that have been shown to produce superior long-term retention, based on substantial laboratory evidence. Sumeracki and Weinstein (2017) created a one-page, open access infographic that describes these six strategies. Instructors can distribute this infographic to their students as a course handout, discuss it in class, and refer to it again when advising a student who is struggling in class. The infographic describes the following strategies: retrieval practice (using self-tests), elaborative interaction with course content (posing and answering “why” and “how” questions), practice distributed over multiple sessions, interleaving practice on different topics, frame abstract content in terms of concrete examples instead of memorizing textbook definitions, and use multiple methods (visual, verbal) to represent and encode information.
  • Provide specific formative feedback about the nature of errors in performance. Describe concrete actions students must take to correct errors and produce more skilled performance. Students need more detailed feedback than simple identification of errors (what they did wrong). They also need to know what they should do. Describe new strategies students should use and the actions they should take to correct errors and meet expectations for skilled performance.

Resources

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14, 4-58. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266

Dweck, C. S. (2006/2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success (updated edition). New York: Ballantine Books.

Gross-Loh, C. (2016, December 16). How praise became a consolation prize. [Interview with Carol Dweck.] The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/how-praise-became-a-consolation-prize/510845/

Sumeracki, M. A., & Weinstein, Y. (2018). Six strategies for effective learning. Academic Medicine, 93, 666. https://www.doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000002091

Claudia J. Stanny is the Director of the Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at the University of West Florida.

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

Asset Mapping: An Equity-Based Approach to Improving Student Team Dynamics


Cliff Rouder

Faculty often ask us if there are ways to have students work more equitably and effectively in team projects. In our 2018 STEM Educators Lecture, we had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Elisabeth (Lisa) Stoddard discuss the work she and her colleague, Geoff Pfeifer, have been doing at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to minimize bias and stereotyping in undergraduate student project teams. Her discussion generated interest in our TU STEM community. We know this work is relevant and useful for all disciplines that utilize team projects for deep learning, and thus we are delighted to share an overview of their work with our whole faculty community.

The Issue

We know that student group projects can be a valuable experience for students. However, even  with an equal distribution of work, they may not always be equitable. This can be especially true in disciplines where underrepresented and marginalized groups might be stereotyped as not being capable enough to handle the project. Consistent with prior research in STEM fields, Stoddard and Pfeifer reported that in WPI’s required first-year interdisciplinary project-based learning course pairing one STEM and one social sciences professor, women and students of color more frequently experienced their ideas being ignored or shut down, being assigned less important tasks, dealing with an overpowering teammate, and having their work go unacknowledged or claimed by others.

The Approach

Stoddard and Pfeifer employed an equity-based approach using asset mapping originally developed by Kretzman and McNight in 1993. In essence, asset mapping gives students the opportunity to get to know their and their team’s strengths, interests, identities, and needed areas of growth related to the project. But it goes well beyond that. Asset mapping is just the initial step of a process that enables students to take a deeper dive into bias and stereotyping as they evaluate their own behaviors and the dynamics of their teams. In a paper presented at the 2018 Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference, Stoddard and Pfeifer shared quotes from their students that spoke to improved teamwork by overcoming stereotypes, minimizing task assignment bias, and building student confidence.

As a way to operationalize asset mapping, Stoddard and Pfeifer developed this toolkit containing three modules that include the tools, activities, assignments, and rubrics needed at different times of the semester. Here is an overview of these modules:

  • Module 1: Individual work.  Before teams have their initial meeting, students complete a series of self-assessments about their discussion, presentation, problem-solving, and conflict resolution styles. They then create an asset map. (Students are given a sample asset map and a free asset map-making tool.) Students also choose three areas for growth as a result of completing the course or group project. Having reflected on all of these, they are then asked to write a short critical reflection essay that addresses specific prompts.
  • Module 2: Group work. Teams then meet early in the semester to get to know each other’s assets and growth areas, and complete a group chart that maps these to each task/skill required for the project. Each task can have multiple members working on it, with some using assets and some developing assets.
  • Module 3: Individual and group work. Beginning about halfway through the semester, students are given readings about equity and bias and individually work through a set of questions to assess how the team is functioning in terms of equity and productivity. The second step is a team processing activity to assess what is going well on their team and where their team may be struggling in terms of team dynamics, including whether assets are being used and opportunities for growth are being made available to all. The final step is an individual essay reflecting on whether or not they and other team members are using their assets and creating opportunities for growth, and the effects of bias and stereotyping that may have occurred on their team dynamics.

While there are real benefits that can accrue from this process, Stoddard and Pfeifer recognize that for some students, overcoming biases and stereotypes does not happen as a result of one classroom experience. They see this as a first step in a longer process, and thus recommend that these experiences happen at different times throughout a student’s course of study.

We invite you to explore with your program faculty how you could incorporate this equity-based approach into your curriculum. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to a CAT faculty developer for assistance. Added bonus: Assessing the impact of asset mapping on team dynamics would make a great research project if you are looking to do scholarly work in the area of teaching and learning (better known as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or SoTL), and the CAT is here to help you with that as well!

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