When you love your work that much… the only way to get out of trouble is to go deeper in. We must enter, not evade, the tangles of teaching so we can understand them better and negotiate them with more grace, not only to guard our own spirits but also to serve our students well.
Teaching
The dip
A long-time professor at the university where I teach once shared with me something we both had in common. I had thought for the first five years of my teaching that I was alone in my feelings of discouragement at this point in the semester. My life and my relationships are mostly fairly constant (to the extent that anyone's are…). The manic nature of the few weeks before finals left me exhausted and lacking a sense of purpose at times.
When I shared “the dip” that I had experienced in wrapping up each semester, he shared that he, too, had that pattern throughout all of his years of teaching. He has been teaching more than 25 years and said that every class he taught had the frustrating time toward the end of it, when it seemed like the end just couldn't get here fast enough.
Tuckman and Jensen (1977) describe the stages that a team encounters, as they develop together and tackle a common goal. Drexel University has a wonderful overview of how this process takes shape. The graphic below depicts the stages of team development.
Teaching seems to follow a similar pattern, though I've observed that there can be some additional storming that takes place before the adjourning stage arrives.
Just knowing that “the dip” is normal helps me to cope better with it. However, following are some other ways I have found helpful in maintaining the rewards that come with the vocation of teaching, despite the bumpy end-of-the-semester road:
Keep an encouragement folder
Start a folder where you keep letters and cards from students that help to remind you of the difference you have made in the lives of your students. Create a similar folder or tag in your email program, so you can review past emails that have encouraged you.
Ask students to inform you of the purpose of meetings they schedule with you
I use an online scheduling tool called TimeTrade, which is a huge time saver for me and also helps my students prepare for the business world in which the vast majority of appointments today are scheduled electronically. In it, I require that all students indicate the purpose of any meetings they schedule with me. This additional step also shapes their behavior toward more professional communication and allows for me to communicate more proactively with those students who are clearly attempting to negotiate regarding their grades.
My syllabi are clear about the lack of opportunities for extra credit or assignment “do-overs,” while attempting to pass one of my courses. I let students know that while I am willing to meet with them to discuss their status in one of my classes, or to discuss strategies for future courses (in the case of them failing), but that it is not a good way to maximize our collective time to discuss the desire that they may have to save their grade in the final stretch of a semester.
Use humor or some other means for providing the unexpected to lower everyone's stress
I recently showed this clip of the cutest 911 call you may ever hear, from the Bonnie Hunt Show in class.
It was great to watch the reactions of my students. They at first were not sure that I was truly showing them something funny (I assured them that the Dad was ok following this call). The initial tension then seemed to trigger even more heightened emotions, which quickly made the laughter that much louder when they heard the girl's conversation with the 911 operator.
One caution I have about using humor is to always connect it to your class content (or teaching) in some way. In the case of this particular video, I showed it in my Introduction to Business class and tied it in to how to know if they were at the “so far, so good” part of their business plan projects. I also discussed how easy it is in life to worry about what you're going to wear, as the ambulance is on their way to your house.
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What ways have you found beneficial in minimizing the effects of “the dip” that can sometimes make us question our effectiveness in a particular class?
Efficiency and effectiveness with rubrics
I'm the chair of our university's Faculty Development Committee. We recently conducted a survey of our faculty members, in part to discover what were perceived to be the most valuable breakout sessions to offer for our Fall 2013 faculty development kick-off.
As I reviewed all the responses, one theme emerged, in terms of what breakouts ranked highly. It was apparent that the majority of us feel the squeeze of wanting to accomplish more tasks in limited time. I plan on doing a series of posts about faculty personal productivity in the coming months. In this post, however, I start with one way to both save time and provide more meaningful feedback to students: creating and using rubrics.
GETTING STARTED
When I first began developing rubrics, I followed my Mom's tried-and-true method of finding a book on the topic. Stevens' and Levi's Introduction to Rubrics proved invaluable in establishing a process for speedy rubric creation.
I own the first edition of the book, though the current version appears to have gone through some important revisions since then. I highly recommend getting a copy of the book and discovering the steps of rubric creation. Having a framework to use each time you come up with a new rubric will ultimately be faster and will lead toward rubrics that are easier to comprehend.
You can also facilitate groups in developing rubrics, which can be helpful when teaching non-foundational courses and more advanced learners. Departments can also develop rubrics together for class and program assessment purposes. Introduction to Rubrics has a recommended process that facilitates rubric creation by both individuals and groups.
FINDING SAMPLES
While much of the content focuses on K-12 resources, Kathy Schrock's Assessment and Rubrics page (http://www.schrockguide.net/assessment-and-rubrics.html) is worth a visit. In particular, she has a section devoted to rubric builders and generators that is a big time saver. While it is possible to build a rubric that automatically calculates a point value as you select various parts of the rubric in Microsoft Word, it is by far a quick process and requires advanced word processing skills.
DePaul's Teaching Commons site also has a page (http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/Feedback_Grading/rubrics.html) devoted to rubrics that is great for finding samples. The top portion of the page has general rubric tools, while the bottom portion has samples for particular topics or skills.
I continually update my bookmarking site of choice (Pinboard.in) with new rubrics and related tools as I discover them (https://pinboard.in/u:bonni208/t:Rubrics/).
One recent site that was recommended by a list serve I am a member of was the Association of American Colleges and Universities' LEAP program. They have established a set of essential learning outcomes and related rubrics for twenty-first-century college students, as a part of their Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) campaign (http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm).
REFINING RUBRICS OVER TIME
My husband recently wrote a post that emphasized the use of the question “Is good enough best for this?” (http://coachingforleaders.com/articles/be-more-flexible/) as a means for being more flexible in life. I have found that with rubrics, it is always better to have one published, than to wait until I have refined it well enough to consider it done. My class preparation checklist has an item to evaluate and, if needed, modify the rubrics for a given course each semester.
When I am in the process of grading assignments for a given course, I make note of any gaps that exist in the students' submissions that were not addressed in the rubric's construction. Then, I create an entry in my task management system to revise that rubric once the semester is over.
SHARING YOUR CREATIONS WITH OTHERS
Once you have come up with a set of rubrics that are working well for you, why not share them with others in your field? Consider generating a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/) for your work, so you can comfortably share it in a way that is acceptable to you.
Please feel free to post links to rubrics you have created in the comments section, or to pass on other rubric tools that have benefitted you.
Google releases new research tool
Google has released a new research tool to help students capture and cite information, images, and quotes related to a particular reseach problem. The tool is available on the right-hand side of your window when composing a document on Google Docs.
Below is a screenshot of some research I plan on having my Introduction to Business students do in the Fall on launching a food truck business. Note that the citation is made as a footnote at the bottom of the page and only requires two clicks to create.
Creating measurable learning objectives
The first time I taught at the college level, I received a call to teach a course exactly five days before it began. I have now taught the same class seven times and each time I teach it, the objectives of the course change. Sometimes these differences have been dramatic, while other times I make a few minor changes to the wording.
Learning objectives are a crucial part of ongoing improvement to my course curriculum and teaching methodology. They steer the direction of a course and help gauge our progress throughout the semester.
What is Important to Learn?
Learning objectives help us to ask, ‘What is most important for students to learn in this class and how will I know when the learning has occurred?’ While there are many definitions used in clarifying learning objectives, the one I have found most useful comes from an expert in the corporate training world.
Mager (1997) defines a learning objective as (p 3):
… a collection of words and/or pictures & diagrams intended to let others know what you intend for your students to achieve.
- It is related to intended outcomes, rather than the process for achieving those outcomes
- It is specific and measurable, rather than broad and intangible [Read more…] about Creating measurable learning objectives