Teaching in Higher Ed

Teaching

The four agreements of teaching

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the four agreements of teaching

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with Doug McKee and Edward O'Neil on episode #32 of their TeachBetter podcast.

The designated topic was teaching freshmen, but we discussed everything from Baskin Robbin's taster spoons, to retrieval practice, to memory palaces, to Evernote, to metacognition. In the episode notes, they also included a link to Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching‘s Teaching First Year Students guide, which is well worth a look.

As I have reflected more about our conversation and what I would want to tell people who are teaching first year (or, really any year) students, I see strong parallels with the principles illustrated in the book The Four Agreements () and teaching well.

The four agreements

Below are the agreements as articulated by don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements, along with a few thoughts about how each one relates to our teaching:

Be impeccable with your word

Stephen Covey defined trust as consisting of both character and competence ().

We can show students our character by providing meaningful and moral feedback. We can have kindness at the core of our teaching. Our exam grading practices can also exhibit fairness and integrity.

We can maintain our competence by having a robust personal knowledge management system and by building effective habits. Ultimately, we want to use the strength of our words to show respect for our students and to demonstrate our own commitment to lifelong learning.

Don't take anything personally

For a long time, this was the only agreement I could recall from the book, because I wrestled with it so often. And that was even before I became a college professor.

“Nothing others do is because of you” (). In the past, when I discovered that students had shown a lack of academic integrity, I thought it was a direct affront to me. Now, I have come to realize that I'm really not anywhere near as much of the center of my students' universes as I once had believed.

James Lang's Cheating Lessons () really helped me depersonalize plagiarism and academic cheating. On episode #19, he stated, “You’re the last thing on their mind. When a student is cheating… their cheating isn’t an assault on your and your values” ().

Don't make assumptions

As I shared in the Engaging Difficult Students episode, I have shown a great ability to completely misread students. It is so easy for us to ascribe intent in situations and establish fertile ground for power struggles, instead of for learning.

We can observe a student on his/her cell phone and immediately assume that they must be attending to something nowhere near as important as whatever it is that we are doing/saying. We forget that his sister may be in labor, her Mom may have had her car break down on the side of a busy freeway, or no one ever really attended to him well when he was younger, so he has nothing to emulate in social or learning contexts.

Mahan Khalsa () describes what he calls “yellow lights” in selling, but I see them as coming up regularly in my teaching and relationships with students. He says that yellow lights are “signals the client may buy something that won't give them the results they want or expect; that they may not buy at all; or that may not buy from us,” but those signals may be that a student is being disrespectful and not buying in to what you were hoping for in the learning environment are also a form of yellow lights.

Khalsa's three steps for responding to yellow lights also apply to a broader context:

  1. Slow down – don't increase the potential for conflict by becoming aggressive. Instead, remind yourself that there's a lot you don't know here and maintain your composure.
  2. State it – name whatever you is that you observe, without anger or defensiveness.
  3. Hand the “yellow light” to the client – ask them how to handle the situation and let them turn the light red or green/

Always do your best

The hard part about always doing our best, is that our roles are so often in conflict with one another. Those of us who are teaching are also pursuing some next step in our educational journey. Some of us are parents. We may be struggling to balance research, teaching, and university service. We may be struggling with our health, or with the health of someone we love.

Or some of us may just consider ourselves bad female academics.

Teaching is incredibly hard. Yet, I imagine even harder still, when done without a care or concern about doing it well.

References

[reminder]Which of the four agreements resonates with you the most in your pursuit of teaching well?[/reminder]

Going public with our learning

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My mind is still invigorated from my conversation about public sphere pedagogy with Thia Wolf on episode 101 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Something special happens when we have our students take their work public in some way.

Whether I reflect on this past semester's experiments with poster sessions in my Consumer Behavior classes, or when my sales students role played a complex sale with someone they hadn't met before, the excitement of what these learning opportunities present energizes me.

My students were so engaged with the idea that their work could take on a more significant role than an exchange solely with me through the grading process.

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The most fertile ground for significant learning experiences takes place within multiple disciplines.

Our educational system seems to be starting to figure this out at the preschool level, but I rarely see examples like this in higher ed. Our son's preschool writes about their curriculum this way:

Learning in preschool is hands-on and integrated. A child’s time outside chasing insects in the garden, for instance incorporates all the ‘dispositions for learning’ as well as cognitive development: science (“What kind of bug is this?” “What do they eat?”); math (“Is it larger or smaller than the other one?” “How many did you find today?”); language (“Monarch Butterflies are orange and black.” “Let’s make up a poem about butterflies!”); social skills (“How can we all see?” “You can have a turn next.”); physical development (running after the butterfly, carefully stepping around plants, manipulating the butterfly net); and creative (painting a picture of the butterfly in its habitat. Dancing and moving like one.)

There is no “math time,” “science time,” or “language time.” Learning is everywhere and happening all the time supported by teachers skilled at looking for and creating moments of discovery and learning based on children’s needs and interests.

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I wish there was more of a push to have this paradigm in higher ed.

When we think of our students as producers of knowledge, the vision of higher education is magnified.

I recently came across the theme of Vanderbilt's Course Design Institute and was trying to figure out if there was a way I could attend, even though the application deadline has passed (oh yeah – and I don't work there).

Their site explain the Students as Producers theme as follows:

“Students as Producers” is shorthand for an approach to teaching that helps students become not just consumers of information, but also producers of knowledge, engaging in meaningful, generative work in the courses they take.

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[reminder] Were you inspired by something that Thia Wolf shared about public sphere pedagogy, or have you tried something similar in your teaching? [/reminder]

Behind the curtain

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Behind the curtain

The Chronicle recently re-posted a 2015 article by Carol Holstead about her experiences requiring her students to take notes by hand. One important distinction she made was that laptops aren't very good for note-taking, leaving a lot of room to conjure up ideas as to how she might use technology in other ways in the classroom.

There have been many articles out in the past few years about hand written note taking:

Just to cite a few…

I have been primarily laptop free in my classes for years now. The exception to the ban is when the learning activity involves something that would be enhanced by having access to research tools, or if I want to transform the students' cell phones into “clickers” using PollEverywhere.

One thing has changed, though…

I'm much more cheerful when I ask my students to put away their laptops/cellphones, even if I need to remind them of the request multiple times during the semester.

Here are my reasons:

Kindness. I continue to be inspired by Jesse Stommel on episode #057, as he shared how integral kindness is to his pedagogy. Whenever there are opportunities to show kindness to my students, I take them. Or at least I aspire to…

Rationale. It gives me an opportunity to reinforce my rationale behind the request to put away their laptops. I can remind them about the research that shows that, yes, taking notes by hand will slow them down, but that it will also often lead to greater retention.

Purpose. Jose Bowen shared this on episode #030: “Nobody uses a laptop while doing yoga or playing tennis.” By demonstrating to the students the function of a classroom community, the benefits of presence, I can better help them see that I care deeply about their learning and that is the purpose behind the restrictions.

When we let our students see “behind the curtain” a bit, we help them better understand our pedagogy, as well as our care for them as learners.

[reminder] How do you let your students see “behind the curtain” into your pedagogy? [/reminder]

The first few weeks

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I continue to be encouraged by people like Doug McKee who “teach out loud.” I thought that I coined that phrase, but it turns out that other people have had the same idea.

When we work out loud, we:

…[start] with making [our] work visible in such a way that it might help others. When [we] do that – when [we] work in a more open, connected way – [we] can build a purposeful network that makes [us] more effective and provides access to more opportunities.” – John Stepper

The definition fits well with teaching out loud, too.

Spring 2016

To that end, here are some thoughts about my semester so far…

Failures

Lest I depress myself too much with this post, let me start with some of my failures and then move on to the positives.

Speeding up versus slowing down

I continue to have a tough time with all the “inputs” at the start of a semester. New names and faces. Students wanting to add my classes. Collecting scantrons for the semesters' exams. Getting students set up on the various systems that I use (Remind, PollEverywhere, etc.).

Ideally, I would be able to slow myself down when I felt overwhelmed by the line of students waiting to talk to me after class. Instead, I find myself speeding up. I talk faster. I neglect to capture all the information I need to take action on the requests being made.

Making assumptions

I've already found myself making assumptions about some of my students, something I really wish I didn't do. I have found myself able to curb this a bit when I think about each of my students being someone's child. Then, I push myself to imagine if that person was my child, how I might wish that their professor in college would treat them.

I find myself already wanting to excuse my assumption-making by telling you that I'm not unkind to my students. However, I know that even my attempts to hide my initial impressions of students will only ever take me so far.

There will always be a potential for me to not assume the best of others and react without having an adequate context of a given situation.

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The first week of my business ethics class, I had a series of signs hung around the classroom that asked various questions. The students paired up and discussed each question with a partner and then recorded their answers on sticky notes.

The one in the bottom right broke my heart.

The most ethical person I know is… My Mother

What makes me consider him/her as having such integrity is… She was always considerate and honest. 

That student's mother passed away last year.

I want to be doing everything I know how to do in my teaching and in my life to avoid making assumptions. I suppose that rather than trying to avoid ever thinking something, I can try to redirect those initial thoughts into ones that assume the best of my students.

Successes

It still feels awfully early in the semester to be running any victory laps.

Learning names

I'm surprised that when I relax a bit about names, without absolving myself of the responsibility to learn them, that I actually do pretty good at it. I'm not there yet, but I'm working toward it.

Getting moving

I've been happy that in almost every class session I've had so far this semester, students have been out of their chairs and moving around the classroom. The Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode #085 that airs on 1/28/16 has a write-in recommendation from a listener about a book on the same topic. Getting our students moving in our classes has such positive outcomes.

Playing games

I'm back to playing HeadsUp in many of my classes to help them review key terms. Two of my classes are back-to-back and take place in the same classroom. One of my students from the later classroom was standing outside the class, looking in the window yesterday, chuckling at me holding my giant iPad pro above my head. She also had a look on her face like she hoped we were going to do the same thing in her class.

Discovering a new pencast workflow

Since receiving the iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil for Christmas, I've been looking forward to rethinking my pencast workflow. Doceri came off my someday/maybe technology list and wound up being what I chose to now create them.

I first spend the time drawing the pencast drawing, taking all the time I need as long pauses get edited out in the creation process, automatically. Then, I “play back” the drawing, while I add the narration. I can speed up, slow down, or pause the drawing while I'm talking.

Next steps

The semester is just getting started and there's a lot I need to do to create an effective learning environment. However, we are on our way and I'm enjoying getting to know my students and each class' personality.

[reminder]How is your semester going so far? What's working? What's not working?[/reminder]

More on blind grading

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blind grading

On episode #068 Dave and I discussed the biases that can be problematic when working to grade exams fairly.

One technique that we shared to promote greater integrity in our exam grading was blind grading. Not everyone agrees with this method, since there are some downsides.

David Gooblar stresses that despite the challenges that knowing which student is being evaluated presents, we should have knowledge as to which student produced the work we are grading.

Gooblar writes:

If I were to grade blind, I wouldn’t be able to chart a student’s progress throughout the term, from one assignment to another, nor would I be able to tailor my grading to the specific skills each student is working on. – See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1186-should-we-all-be-grading-blind?

While I tend to grow increasingly depressed each time I allow myself to read the comments section of anything on the internet, I was pleasantly surprised by the nuanced reactions to Gooblar's piece.

One of the commenters describes how s/he attains a balance between the two extremes:

I grade essays blind, but then identify each author when I record grades. So I do know how each student is doing through the course, while still reducing bias in grading.

I realize that, like parents with their children, we should love all of them equally. But, like parents, we are human, and we like some better than others.

I didn't emphasize it in episode #068: my blindness in grading is a temporary thing.

Being able to talk with each of our students, individually, about how we see him/her developing is an important aspect of our roles as teachers. However, doing what we can to ensure that we aren't poorly evaluating their work due to conscious or unconscious biases is also paramount.
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Assessment and instructional design

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luke-pt

My husband (Dave) and I are preparing to participate in a parent/teacher conference about our son (Luke) for the first time. Dave brought home a couple of forms that we needed to fill out about Luke, that included us doing some at-home assessment.

I told Luke we were going to do some games and some experiments and that I needed his help. Many of the questions asked about things that I wasn't sure as to Luke's current level of proficiency.

Sample questions

The questions went something like this:

_____ can jump forward six inches with both feet.

[  ]  Yes  [  ]  Sometimes  [  ]  No

_____ can follow a three-part set of instructions without being reminded of any of the steps (such as move your jacket from the floor to the couch, bring me the red book, and put your cup in the sink…)

[  ]  Yes  [  ]  Sometimes  [  ]  No

Careful consideration in assessment

I was conscientious as I filled in each answer. I didn't want us to be those parents who over-inflate our child's abilities in our own minds.

The directions were quite clear and they seemed to predict my questions about how to rank Luke's skills.

Verifying skills

After I completed the assessment, I kept reflecting on how many of the items I had to double check (by having Luke perform whatever skill it was asking whether or not he knew how to do).

I'm one of his parents and one would think I would already know such things.

How much more, then, is it likely that we as faculty aren't always able to gauge where our students are in terms of their progression in our classes?

Motivation vs competence

Dave and I also joked quite a bit while completing the assessment about the number of times that we were confused about whether we should answer the questions as to whether or not he can do a particular task, or whether or not he will.

How much of the time are we able to assess whether it is a lack of competence that is holding our students back, or whether or not the problem is with motivation?

The Mager Six Pack

The whole experience had me thinking, once again, about my most-often consulted set of books in my home office: The Mager Six Pack.

I was first introduced to Mager's books in the late 90s, when the third edition of the Mager Six Pack was published.

Mager's writing is more geared toward an audience doing any kind of instruction, not necessarily specifically toward those teaching in a higher education context.

However, this does not present a weakness, as far as I'm considered. I'm still amazed that a couple of decades later and in any kind of an educational context, Mager has much to offer.

Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna–How to Figure out Why People Aren't Doing What They Should Be, and What to do About It

The title of the first book in the series speaks for itself. I've used it extensively in teaching managers how to figure out what to do when their employees aren't meeting expectations in some way.

Often, a company asks a training department to offer some kind of workshop to fix a performance problem, when it is way down on Mager's list of steps to potentially take, well after having looked at other potential reasons for things not going as they should.

Preparing Instructional Objectives

This would be the place I would have all teachers in higher ed start, as it relates to Mager's work. I just saw that you can purchase this title on Amazon for $4.00, so it is also an affordable way to get started with Mager's work, if you decide not to purchase the entire Six Pack.

Those of us who are fans of the Choose Your Own Adventure books will like Mager's writing approach in this book. He presents information to you along the way and then gives you little quizzes to assess your learning. He has you turn to a specific page, based on how you answer a question.

If you wind up turning to the page that shows you knew your stuff, he has you skip over additional review. If the page you turned to shows that you need a bit more support in learning about this aspect of instructional objectives, he provides further examples.

Measuring Instructional Results

The prior title looked at how to craft instructional objectives. This book explores how to assess learning and the attainment of those outcomes.

I probably need to pull this one off the shelf more often than I have, as it has checklists and other resources to help you when working to assess learning outcomes.

How to Turn Learners On… Without Turning Them Off: Ways to Ignite Interest in Learning

As I shared with the example of Luke not necessarily always wanting to perform a particular task, this isn't only a problem when relating to almost-four year-olds… Mager gives insight in this title about how to help motivate learners.

Goal Analysis: How to Clarify Your Goals So You Can Actually Achieve Them

Mager leverages his writing approach in this title, as he gives you over 50 practice exercises to help you with goal setting.

Making Instruction Work: Or Skillbloomers: A Step-By-Step Guide to Designing and Developing Instruction That Works

Again, this is a title I could probably pull out more often. This book describes itself as a practical resource for instructional designers. There are all sorts of instructional methods out there, but Mager focuses on proven ones that work and will enhance your teaching.

My recommendation

It looks like the original publisher of the Mager Six Pack is no longer printing them. However, I saw in the reviews that the Mager Consortium still has them available.

Mager does have a playful writing style that may be a source of irritation for some academics. If you can get past that, he does provide a structure for his books that focus on the concrete and practical side of instruction.

I hope you'll consider adding the Mager Six Pack to your instructional library. While you're at it, spend some time thinking about ways that you are assessing your students' learning throughout your course and approaches you're using to address motivation throughout the semester.

[reminder]Are there any books on your higher ed bookshelf that you have referenced more than any other over the years?[/reminder]

Continuous improvement in teaching

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continuous-improvement

My Introduction to Business students just took their first exam of the semester. For some, it was the first college-level test they have ever taken.

I had a couple of goals I was aiming for this semester.

Avoid surprises on the exam structure

Each semester, I have students participate in an online forum, where they reflect on their first exam. They write about what went well, what didn't, what they will do differently next time, and what I could have done differently to support them in their learning.

The most common factor that students have identified in the past as a hinderance to them doing well on the exam was that they didn't know what to expect on the exam. This has frustrated me in the past, because it tends to come from an external locus of control paradigm. However, I now think I was just being stubborn and could have done something much sooner to take away this as a potential challenge for the students.

This semester, I'm using PollEverywhere even more than in the past. In particular, I regularly let them know that the kinds of questions they see (especially the multiple choice and the true/false) are the same types of questions they are going to see on the first part of the exam.

They also take weekly quizzes and I reminded them frequently that those questions were written by the publisher… the same source for the questions that show up on the exam.

Finally, I had them take a non-graded pop-quiz with an essay question that was in the same style / format as the ones that would show up on their exam.

I'm happy to report that not a single one of my 95 students who are in the three sections of the classes I'm teaching this semester indicated that they were unaware of what the exam would be like…

Success.

Prepare students for application-oriented questions

The other goal I had for this first exam was to better prepare students for going beyond memorization, but being able to apply their learning in a given context.

One of the most listened to episodes of Teaching in Higher Ed is the conversation I had with Tine Reimers on critical thinking.

It doesn't surprise me, as I struggle to develop these skills in my students. I had mixed results on the exam in this area.

One of the questions posed to them had to do with defining corporate social responsibility and then giving examples of ways that a particular company might address various stakeholders' needs and wants.

All students in the classes were able to list the stakeholders. The vast majority were able to give generic examples, such as offering benefits to the employees. There were probably 20% who were unable to make their examples specific to the company, however.

When it came to students being able to give examples for the four types of competition in markets, the success rate was much lower. Students were able to regurgitate the definitions from the textbook (which are poor, at best), but the examples they used demonstrated their lack of comprehension of these types of competition.

For monopoly, students were most often able to indicate that this was a market in which there was only one competitor.

However, their examples either had to do with their preference for a particular brand (“Apple is a monopoly, because no other technology company makes products as well as they do and they are one of the wealthiest companies in the world”), or they had answers like that bottled water companies were monopolies (We had discussed many times about how it wouldn't make sense to have multiple pipes going to your house of water and you choosing which one you liked the best). I guess they had water on their mind, but didn't realize how different bottled water is from the water we pay for as a utility.

David Merill always emphasizes that when we are teaching in the phase he calls demonstration, that we should show the learner not just how to do something, but also how not to do something.

The students clearly didn't have enough examples of what wouldn't fit into the category of each of these competitive structures.

The next time I teach this course, I'm either going to decide that this topic just isn't necessary at the level of introductory business and have them learn it in economics, or I'm going to create an experiential exercise in class to hammer home the examples more.

Creating an in-class reinforcement exercise

I'll bring in a bag full of items for each group of 4-5 students. There will be signs hanging around the classroom for each of the type of competition. Students will take each item in the bag and set it on the table under the appropriate competition type sign. Then, I'll have each group go and stand in front of one of the signs and determine whether or not the items that have been set there are correct for their type of competition.

Competition exercise

If I ultimately determine that I don't have enough time in class to go this in depth on this one learning objective, I can always build some kind of online exercise that will accomplish the same thing.

Building an online reinforcement on competition types

I could have a virtual bag in which the items that require sorting could be housed. Then, I could have some kind of a drag-and-drop interaction that has them drag them over to the name of the appropriate type of competition.

Articulate Storyline is a rapid elearning creation tool that has the capability to build drag-and-drop interactions in online courses. We have been big fans of Articulate's eLearning creation applications over the years. However, they are a Windows-only platform and we have now become a Mac-only household.

It looks like Adobe Captivate also now has drag and drop interactions. Captivate is available on the Mac and PC, so makes for a good option.

Both Articulate Storyline and Captivate are high-end applications and have the price tag you would associate with such advanced features.

Continuous improvement in teaching

I am overall pleased with the results of this first exam. Taking the time to reflect on how I can continuously improve this class after each exam is important to me. I'm glad I invested the time today to consider what changes to make, both the next time I teach this class, and as I continue with these students throughout the rest of the semester.

[reminder]Have you had any exams in your classes yet this academic year? If so, what did you discover? [/reminder]

Quick teaching

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quick-teaching

I've often been frustrated at the 50-minute time block for courses.

At our university, morning classes on Monday/Wednesday/Friday are held [typically] in 50 minute blocks, while afternoon classes and those held on Tuesday/Thursday are conducted in an hour and 15 minutes.

Generally speaking, I tend to reserve the first five minutes for an introduction and welcome, while the last five minutes is left open for questions (or more likely because something took longer than I predicted).

That leaves really 40 minutes to facilitate learning.

Let's say I use five minutes to introduce the topic and some key terms and up to ten minutes to show some kind of video.

Now we are down to just 25 minutes to facilitate learning.

I might give instructions on an exercise for five minutes, let them come up with ideas on their own for ten minutes and then work in groups for another ten minutes.

Class is now over.

No feedback has been given on their group work.

There are all sorts of ways to change the time estimates up that I've reflected above.

Students can watch the video before they come to class and answer a few questions on their own. I could combine the giving instructions with the welcome.

However, the fact remains that it is very challenging to invite active learning in a 50 minute class session.

One technique I do is to follow up with some written or spoken feedback after the class session has ended.

My Introduction to Business students did an exercise recently about corporate social responsibility and stakeholders.

Introductory Pre-work

Before coming to class, the students watched a pencast and took a quiz to gain the basic vocabulary.

Activation in Class

In class, we listened to part of an interview with John MacKey (Whole Foods' CEO and founder) about conscious capitalism, in which he discussed some of ways in which he responds to stakeholders' needs. As they listened, I asked them to group the approaches he described under a list of the five, main stakeholders: investors, community members, employees, the environment, and customers.

We then scrolled through Apple's supplier responsibility site and discussed how challenging it can actually be to live out your company's values when you have a complex supply chain.

Application

Finally, I hung up signs around the room with the names of the various stakeholders. I made the signs on Canva, which is a terrific resource for quickly making gorgeously-designed graphics, without being a graphic designer, yourself.

The students met in groups and had to come up with three ways that Toyota might address each of the stakeholder groups.

Here is one of the class section's stickies.

Reinforcement after class

There wasn't time for me to review their responses in class. However, I was able to quickly capture their ideas via Evernote's iPhone app. Then, I wrote an email to them and discussed areas of strength in their responses and what they will want to improve upon by the time their first exam arrives in a couple of weeks.

Interleaving practice in weeks to come

Even though I would much prefer not to teach in 50-minute sessions, it does keep me from neglecting opportunities for interleaving practice.

Here's Robert Bjork describing the benefits of interleaving practice and how it is superior to blocked practice (even though it doesn't initially appear to be so).

Now that students have had an introduction to corporate social responsibility and they have been able to practice applying their new vocabulary in different contexts, they are ready for unexpected and low-stakes practice in the weeks to come.

I am getting a lot of leverage out of Remind this semester, as I send short messages no more than 2-3 times a day, asking students follow up questions about subjects we have explored in class.  They are not required to respond, but if they do, I will reply to them and let them know if they're on the right track.

[reminder]What approaches do you use when dealing with a short time frame in which to teach?[/reminder]

Calm teaching

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calm-teaching

My former students often tease me, saying that having kids changed me as a teacher.

They reflect on how much calmer I am, in terms of when students aren't necessarily “following the rules” I set in the classroom. [I'll leave the discussion for how creating a culture of compliance may or may not be the best goal for education for another day…]

Both of our children were conceived as a result of many medical adventures. When I was pregnant both times, I worked hard to keep my stress levels low.

It was actually easier than I thought it was going to be…

I vacillated between being somewhat tired to being completely exhausted throughout the experiences. There just wasn't enough energy for getting angry at students.

When something would happen that would normally have frustrated me to the point of stress, I instead just took a deep breath and addressed whatever it was that happened in a patient way.

Despite the fact that we are done having children now and I get 8 hours of sleep most nights, the sense of calm in my teaching has remained.

Behavior does not equal intent

I used to be so incredibly good at ascribing bad intent to a behavior that a student would exhibit in a class.

If they were texting on their cell phone, I made that action somehow about me, specifically. They weren't just being rude, but were specifically choosing to be rude to me.

Now, while I still have times during my classes when the cell phones get put away and we focus on being fully present for one another, my feelings have changed during those times when the cell phones somehow sneak back into the foreground.

I still will ask a student to put their cell phone away, but I'll just mention that we aren't going to be needing them for what we are working on and that I know they don't want to miss what we're experiencing.

I frame my request more like I might an invitation and less like I might an indictment .

Students will often mirror our level of anxiety

Calm teaching certainly creates a better experience for me, but it also creates a calmer learning environment for my students.

Family systems theory is based on the idea that, in psychotherapy, you need to think about the individual you're treating as a part of their overall family system.

Organizational psychology draws from family systems theory and attempts to show the ways that the same dynamics from family systems theory emerge in the workplace.

If you would like to hear a robotic voice explain how this works, check out this video on family systems theory in the classroom.

We can model for students how to keep their anxiety low and reduce it for others by remaining calm when facing a potentially challenging situation with a student.

I have found that taking a deep breath (during which I remind myself that there's a lot that I don't know about this student) and formulating either a question I can ask, or an invitation to that student to engage works well for me.

We've been encouraged by Jose Bowen to Teach Naked… and I'm so looking forward to discovering from James Lang in 2016 more about Small Teaching.

I'm thinking calm teaching is another aim we can cultivate as educators…

 

Choose your own adventure learning (part 2)

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choose-your-own-adventure-learning

I wrote a post about how I provided some Choose your own adventure-style learning for my students last semester. In the comments, Doug McKee indicated that it sounded like it would wind up being much harder than a “normal class” and asked if that was a fair assumption to make.

The question seemed worthy of a follow up post to my prior blog entry about Choose your own learning.

The inherent challenges of course design

I will say upfront that it is challenging to assess what additional time was required, since it was my first time teaching the course at the undergraduate level. Whenever I do that, I spend an enormous amount of time crafting learning outcomes, developing rubrics for each assignment, and on instructional design.

Someone who had taught a class previously, but just wanted to add the component of choose your own adventure would have a lot less work to do than I did last semester.

Questions to address before adopting this approach

Here are some of the areas I've identified that would require additional planning and thinking for a choose your own adventure type approach:

How will you handle exams, when not all students in the class will take them?

  • I taught the course in a three-hour block, so it was easy to schedule the exams as the last activity for the night. Those not taking the exam just left after the first two hours of instruction.

How strict will you be about the class policies you set up for this approach?

  • I had a form that students completed with their points designation, which states that changes could not be made after the fact. I wound up making changes on a number of fronts and would probably figure out other wording to use in the future to reflect what are likely to be my true actions when changes are warranted.

How can you structure the potential options for earning points to be sure that all learning outcomes are assessed?

  • My course had four modules and one comprehensive exam or assignments. I required that students take at least three of the five exams and earn points for some assignment related to the fourth module they potentially wouldn't be taking an exam on.

How will you structure your grade book to show progress toward total points in the class?

  • I was transparent with the students that the way the grade book was set up, they would have to do figuring on their own of how they were progressing toward a desired grade in the class. I didn't have a way to set up individual reports for students, based on the ways they selected to earn points during the semester.
  • This didn't wind up to be too problematic. Half of the class was comprised of accounting majors, who were all quite comfortable with projecting their own grades, individually. The remainder of the students were highly mature and also either kept a close eye on their points, or weren't as concerned about their grade in the class.

How will you track students' selected assignments?

  • I used a form that the students filled our during the second night of class (after hearing about it and receiving the dome during the first session). Then, I made a photocopy for me and handed the originals back to the students. This became problematic when I scanned the documents and recycled the copies.
  • I didn't notice until too late that the items each student had checked did not show up on the scanned copy, except in a few cases. Even then, the documents were difficult to sort through and manage. Some students also lost their originals throughout the semester and had to rely on memory for what they had chosen.
  • Next time I use some kind of choose your own adventure style, I will use a Google form for collecting the students' point selections. I'll have each student include their email address on the form and will set up a mail merge to send each student their selections.

Yes, using a choose your own adventure state of teaching took some additional time, versus having a standard set of assignments. However, I can refine my processes over time and probably carve that down to something almost negligible in the long run.

 

Choose your own adventure learning

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choose-your-own-adventure-learning

When I was a kid, one of my favorite forms of story telling was the Choose Your Own Adventure series. The books were written in a non-linear way, allowing me to grapple with how I would handle a particular situation.

Cave_of_timeEvery couple of pages brought forth a dilemma with two or three possible routes to take. If I wanted to choose option A, I was directed to turn to a specific page. Option B took me to an entirely different part of the book. You could read the book repeatedly and get a different story each time.

Edward Packer created the series of books out of an exchange he had with his daughters. He used to tell them stories each night about a character named Pete. One day, he ran out of adventures to send Pete on and he asked his children what they thought Pete should encounter that night.

When he saw how engaged his daughters became, he decided to extend the idea into written form. The Choose Your Own Adventure series was quite successful, selling 250 million copies between 1979 and 1999.

Choose Your Own Adventure Learning

The idea for using a choose your own adventure style of instruction for my business ethics course came, initially, from my desire to incorporate some type of undergraduate research into the class. Bethany Usher was on episode 27 of Teaching in Higher Ed and was such an inspiration to me to begin to engage in the messy work of leading undergraduate research.

I wound up failing in my ability to get traction with any kind of formal research projects, but I did start to think more about approaching the class in a more flexible manner than my typical syllabi afford students.

Goals

As I started to put together a framework for the assessment for the learning, I kept a few goals in mind.

1) Offer varied methods for demonstrating learning

I wanted to be sure that students were assessed on each, main, learning outcome for the class. However, I also wanted students to be given choices as to how they might demonstrate their learning.

2) Help students discover their strengths

Instead of having students focus on improving their weak areas, my desire was that this course would help them identify and amplify their strengths.

3) Ask students to take responsibility for their learning

I also hoped that students would be more autonomous in their learning and have some of their childlike curiosity sparked.

Structure

I started by putting together a graphic that showed the students the various ways they had to demonstrate their learning throughout the semester and the associated potential point values.

busn435-pointsdistribution

In order to ensure that students demonstrated learning in each of the four primary learning outcomes, they were required to take at least three exams (out of a possible five).

Each student chose a combination of points that added up to 1000 and only contained one project worth 250 points (the service learning or research project).

Then, I showed them how the various assignments were timed throughout the semester.

module-timing

Some assignments were based on the four modules, each around 3-4 weeks apart. I had students use the scheduling service, Doodle, to sign up to give their in class presentations.

The timing of the exams was not flexible, as they occurred in class and were only offered on a single night of class. The timing of the weekly assignments was also not flexible, as they were designed to be reinforcement for before the class sessions were held.

There were a series of comprehensive assignments, which were assessed in the last few weeks of the semester. Some of our graduating accounting majors put together this video on how to create more ethical business practices through internal controls, as their service learning project.

The intent was that it could help people with limited business experience reduce their risk of fraud. One area that I know I need to improve on the next time I teach this class is to have more measurable outcomes surrounding what “done” looks like for these projects. While I was incredibly impressed with the video, I had hoped that they would have a particular group of individuals who could be helped by it.

I'm disappointed that I didn't outline my expectations more effectively, but am also reminded of what my friend, Doug McKee, says:

If you aren't failing at teaching, you aren't trying hard enough.

Results

On the final week of our class, I asked the students to give input as to what worked and what didn't about the way the class was structured. I had been candid with them in the beginning about my experimentation with this format and we had made some tweaks along the way as we discovered problems with my initial design.

The students were excited to share their feedback with me on how much they liked the class structure.

Here are some of the notes I took that relate directly to the Choose Your Own Adventure learning approach:

We got to play to our strengths.

I could schedule the assignments around my other classes' exam and assignment dates.

It shifted the responsibility for learning from you, as the professor, to us, as the students.

I liked being able to decide whether or not attendance was going to be a factor in my grade for this class.

The flexibility of this structure was great.

Planning out which assignments I would do when also helped me do a little thinking about my learning, in advance of right around when the assignment was due, like I do in so many of my other classes.

It was rewarding to discover that the goals I had set out for this experiment were achieved. I also found other aspects to the approach that I hadn't even anticipated as a potential benefit.

Other ideas

I wasn't surprised when I discovered that I'm not the only person to have had the idea to make a class in to a Choose Your Own Adventure format. Here are 20 ideas for ways you might use a similar format in your classes.

[reminder]Let us know what ways you have given your students more control over their own learning. [/reminder]

 

 

The treasures of a teacher

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The treasures of a teacher

I took our kids to the beach the other evening. Our 3 year-old, Luke, found a penny while we were walking toward the pier. He was thrilled with his find and wanted to put it in one of the parking meters we kept passing.

It was difficult to try to explain to him the errors in his logic.

First off, paying for parking at the beach is only required until 5 pm and we were there after that time. Second, I tried to explain to him that there really wasn't much that a penny would do for him these days. A penny wouldn't even be accepted in the meter, let alone result in any minutes of parking time.

After I told him these things, this was his response to me:

Mommy, this penny is my treasure.

It was one of those “in the eyes of the beholder” moments. I loved that he took such delight in something so seemingly insignificant.

It got me to thinking about the things I treasure the most in my teaching.

For me, its the letters and emails I receive from former students. They remind me of the ways in which I've been some small part in helping another person grow. They remind me that even though students will likely be challenged beyond what they would choose for themselves in the short term, that they have the potential to reap rewards that extend well beyond that final week of classes.

During the stressful final days of the semester, I like to read former students' words of encouragement that remind me of the longer arc of learning we are striving for…

My most treasured letter came from a student who failed her first class with me. She was devastated. At the time, she suspected that she was going to be unable to return to the university the following year.

I listened to her and had her talk through the possibility of not coming back. She was prepared to accept that outcome, though of course she was saddened that it would set her back so much in her life.

The following year, she was able to return. She took the class, again, and this time earned a C. Each class she took with me, she told me she worked harder than she ever had in college.

I would sometimes stay late in the evenings to study with her and others in the classes. It was rewarding to watch her put forth such effort, despite the fact that she wasn't able to accomplish the specific grades I know she wanted.

As is so often the case, her graduation seemed to come so quickly. She dropped a letter off for me in my office as the last week of classes was ending.

In it, she wrote about how much I had meant to her as a professor. She said she appreciated that not only did I challenge her to do more than she ever thought she was capable of, but that I believed in her more than anyone else ever had.

Most of the letters that students write wind up getting scanned and put in to a folder on my computer for my post-tenure review or future promotion portfolio. While I have scanned hers, just in case something were to happen to it, the physical copy of it has remained in my desk hutch all this time.

I can see the lines of the back of the piece of paper paper all the time when I'm sitting at my computer, knowing the precious treasure of words that sits inside those folds.

Yes, Luke, I understand what unexpected treasures we might find on our journeys. Thank you for reminding me of that with your penny the other night.

Speaking of which, I don't think I took the penny out of my pocket. By now, it has probably gone through the wash. Sigh. 

[reminder]What is a treasure in your teaching that you've collected?[/reminder]

How to apologize [as a professor]

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I'm not having a very good semester at setting quiz dates in one of my classes.

HOW TO APOLOGIZE

Almost all my classes have the same hybrid structure: We meet on Mondays and Wednesdays. Students also have online assignments that are due anytime that week before the time our class normally would have met on that Friday. I encourage them to get stuff done by Wednesday night, but there are always some who wait until the last minute and find themselves scrambling.

In 11  years of teaching, it is the first time I've had a Tuesday night class (at least at the undergraduate level). I've been having their quizzes due before our class meets on Tuesdays, except on nights when we have exams. Since the way I have the quizzes set up, the deadline has to have passed for a given quiz, for them to go back in and see how they scored. To review the correct answers and assess why they may have gotten a question wrong, that deadline has to have passed.

So, I've been making the quizzes on those weeks due the Friday prior to the Tuesday night exam. Let's just say that today a student gently called it to my attention that, once again, I had set the quiz due date for a different date than the pattern we have been working off of all semester. I'm pretty sure this may be the third time this has happened, much to my dismay.

The whole experience got me thinking about apologies.

I'm a firm believer that when we mess up, we need to apologize. I've been taught that an apology typically has three components to it:

  1. The actual words: “I apologize,” or “I'm sorry.”
  2. The naming of what has occurred: “I didn't set the quiz date on the day we had agreed upon.” (A classic non-apology is a statement such as: “I'm sorry you feel that way.”)
  3. A commitment to what will happen differently in the future to avoid a reoccurrence, or some statement about how you plan on rectifying the situation: “I have set this week's quiz back a week, because of the confusion, and emailed all the remaining quiz dates for the semester, so we can be sure we're on the same page.”

I followed the pattern stated above with my students regarding their quizzes and got a kind message back from one of my students that put it all into perspective for me. I get it “right” most of the time with them and strive for excellence in all aspects of my teaching (including the online assignments and communication piece). I've earned the right to make some mistakes along the way, without coming across as not respecting their investment in the course, or making them think that it is ok to not do what we say we're going to do.

I do think there are times when apologies aren't a good idea, however.

The most common situation that I can think of where apologies can be a distraction is when technology in the classroom isn't going as planned. In those times, I do everything I can to avoid saying anything to the students about what's going wrong. Is there a way I can proceed with class without the technology?

I try to always have backup plans for those times when the technology will inevitably fail. Apologizing to students just magnifies the problem and can sometimes give them the impression that they didn't get the value out of the class session that they were expecting.

[reminder]Do you find there are times when apologies should be avoided in your teaching? Is there anything else you would advise we do for those times when an apology is warranted?[/reminder]

Course evaluation reflections

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I've been inspired by Doug McKee (past guest on the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast and co-host of the Teach Better podcast) on a number of occasions.

In this case, I've been inspired by his courage to share his course evals online and reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what changes he will make in each course he teaches.

His recent post describes how he extracts value from course evaluations. I will follow a similar process below.

Fall 2014 course evaluations

At our university, we don't typically get our course evaluations back until well into the next semester. I received mine on February 20, 2015, which is sooner than they've been in past years, but still not soon enough for me to have made any significant adjustments to this semester's courses.

Those of us with tenure only have half of our courses evaluated each semester, creating a bit of a gap in the feedback process. Still, there are lessons to be gleaned each time I review the evaluations.

Quantitative results

In both classes that were evaluated (Introduction to Business and Sales and Sales Management), the evaluations were rated higher than the national average. This feedback is typically not very valuable to me, since having my institution's data to compare myself to might be a better data set to use.

However, there are some detailed questions toward the end of the quantitative section that tend to help me put things in perspective. The items that typically help me remember who is was who was providing me feedback include:

  • What grade are you anticipating in the course?
  • How much effort did you put into the course?
  • The workload for this course was _____ (heavier, about the same, lighter than) other courses you took this semester.

Sometimes, there will be one or two students who anticipate earning a D or an F in the course. In those instances, there are also anomalies on the quantitative results such as one person that marks that I didn't have a command of the English language, or that I treated people unfairly, based on their gender. I haven't ever been marked down for not speaking English well, or treating people unfairly, except in those cases where one or two students anticipate not earning a passing grade.

I realize it is correlation, not causation, that I'm describing here. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps in those cases, it has less to do with me needing to work on my ability to speak English and more to do with me needing to keep a pretty thick skin during the course evaluation process for those students with more of an external locus of control who aren't likely to pass the class.

Introduction to Business quantitative results

outcomes

communication

interaction

outcomes

effort

Sales and Sales Management quantitative results

m-organizationm-communicationm-interactionm-courseoutcomeseffort

 

Qualitative results

I find the qualitative data on course evaluations to be far more beneficial for me. I often wonder if a simple net promoter score might be able to take the place of all the other quantitative data.

Of course, I recognize that I don't have access to any institutional data. I just see my raw scores and the national mean. It seems like a whole lot of time and expense that goes into data that isn't very actionable in my case. However, perhaps it is more beneficial for my institution than I realize.

Our quantitative data essentially gets to the question of what worked and what didn't, though it isn't phrased in those exact works. Here are the results from my fall classes.

Introduction to Business (n=29)

What worked:
  • Pencasts (n=6)
  • Everything (n=5)
  • EdTech tools (n=4)
  • Interactive teaching style (n=4)
  • Business plan project (n=3)

I am not including those comments that only came up once or twice.

One of the most humorous comments to me was when one student said what helped her learn was “Dr. B's calmness.” Wow. That's not something I get every day. Enthusiasm? Yes. But, calmness? That's a first.

What didn't work:
  • Everything worked (n=9)
  • Case studies (n=4)

I am skipping the two other comments that only came up once, though if you're interested, one student didn't like that I had them use Zotero and another didn't like that I had reading assignments in the course. Can you imagine that? A professor who assigns reading?

What I think is interesting about the case studies is that there were a number of comments on those items about them not being graded. Therefore, the students indicated that they didn't take them as seriously and didn't learn as much from them. I feel a bit stuck in my thinking between Ken Bain's advice to have there be opportunities for feedback before any grade gets assigned to something… and the accountability that comes from a stricter grading process.

I do look over all the students' cases in the class and there are points associated with them. However, the vast majority of the time, the students walk out with the full points and they don't feel the pressure to perform well.

Sales and Sales Management (n=16)

What worked?
  • Role plays (n=3)
  • Real-world scenarios/experiences (n=9)
  • Sales challenge #3 (where they visit a company and do a final role play with a business professional they've never met) (n=7)
  • Increased confidence (n=3)
  • Relationship with the professor (n=3)

I skipped those comments that only came up once or twice.

What didn't work?

There weren't any items that came up more than once. However, I do plan on making changes as to the accountability on the blogging assignments when I teach this course in the future. I've started using a Google doc form to track submissions and my first trial run was a success.

Next steps

I've taught both of these courses many times (Intro to Business 30+ classes and Sales and Sales Management 10+ classes). I write new exams each semester, in an attempt to lower the opportunities to cheat. I also bring in fresh examples of what's happening in the business world each class session.

There are many affirmations in the assessments above that encourage me in my teaching. I commit to making the following changes next time I teach these courses:

  • Use a Google doc form to track blog submissions, as described above, and do not waiver in the slightest on the due dates/times.
  • Consider being more stringent in my grading of the cases and perhaps having the students be required to complete them as a group before they come to class on the day they are being discusses.
  • This one isn't related to the evaluations, but I also want to start showing students a TurnItIn.com originality report before they submit their first assignment. It can be just one more way I can minimize the potential for academic dishonesty.

[reminder]Have you received your course evaluations back from last semester yet? What changes are you implementing for the next time you teach those classes?[/reminder]

 

The struggle is real (group projects)

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The struggle is real

I've been thinking a lot about group projects.

Back in episode 25, Chrissy Spencer introduced us to the CATME team maker and other group project tools. I also recently became aware of Babson's group project survival guide, which offers students many tools to set a solid foundation for their work, not to mention resources for when they run into trouble.

While I've been thinking a lot about what to incorporate, my actions have been limited (read non-existent) in making any changes.

I keep succumbing to the faulty logic that if I introduce just the right set of tools to students, that they won't have as difficult of a time working on group projects. If I can tweak the processes I use just a bit more, I'll identify a magic combination of approaches that will make everything run smoothly.

I've been getting discouraged, thinking that I'm in my tenth year of teaching and when it comes to group projects, it might as well be my first.

Then I settle myself down a bit and revisit letters and emails from former students. A friend had once advised me to have a folder in my filing cabinet where I keep words of encouragement to serve as fuel for the days in teaching when I find I have little left to give.

When I look at those letters, they remind me that it is the very messiness that I attempt to remove from the process of group projects that enabled these individuals to learn the most.

The struggles students encounter that they so very much want me to save them from will have the most value if I don't step in. My desire to be helpful and supportive has the potential for blocking opportunities for deep learning to occur.

I keep wanting to make things seamless. When my mind realizes the impossibility of that, I lose all motivation to make the ongoing changes I've been considering.

Nevertheless, this semester I plan on using the CATME team charter, instead of the one I've been using. Also, after the students select their groups, there will be a place for teams to post agendas and minutes each week inside our LMS, using the CATME agenda and minutes template.

Then, I'll remain confident that it is going to get messy.

And messiness isn't always such a bad thing…

Cupcake kiss
Cupcake kiss

 

Let's get moving

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We had a little visitor come in to my night class this week.

I haven't seen students move that fast in the ten years I've been teaching.

get moving

Traditional gender roles were played out, perfectly, as the young women raced to the side of the room without a lizard, and the young men ran toward it with glee.

I'm proud to report that I just stood there, completely entertained.

Even though they are an engaged class, this incident brought about a whole new level of energy for the rest of the evening.

I particularly enjoyed how the presenters who went immediately after our lizard friend was evicted from the classroom, were able to incorporate the reptile into an example on Rawls' theory of justice.

There's just something that happens when we all get moving, students and faculty alike. To that end, here are some ideas for getting physical movement happening inside and outside the classroom:

Tape signs on the wall and have students give input via sticky notes

I've written previously about an exercise that uses sticky notes and gets students moving around the classroom.

There's also a PostIt Plus app that will allow you to capture the data, virtually, and then let you sort and move the individual sticky notes on your screen, as needed. As with any good app, there are plenty of sharing options made available.

Have students walk and talk

When I'm reviewing a concept that can sometimes be difficult for students to apply, I often have them take a walk around the building, while they talk to someone else in the class about the topic.

I make it clear that when they return from their walk, that I will be randomly calling on students, so that they feel a bit more pressure to stay on task during their walk.

I also always join with a group for the walk, or go with a student who doesn't have a partner. This always gives me one more opportunity for one-on-one interaction.

Use a FitBit

Fitness trackers are becoming all the rage these days. Those of us who use them know that they have the power to get us making all sorts of seemingly small changes that add up to signifiant change.

We take the stairs, park further away, and run around more with our kids.

The FitBit device tracks steps and flights of stairs. Dave and I both use one, though he likes the FitBit charge that goes on your wrist and I prefer the one you wear on the waist of your pants.

Consider a treadmill desk

When we finished off an extensive consulting project about a year ago, Dave and I decided to reward ourselves with a treadmill desk. He had wanted one for a while and I was ambivalent (but not opposed to spending the money, necessarily).

I didn't think I would use it that much, since I thought it would be too hard to maintain a train of thought.

It wound up being just the opposite experience. I find that I'm able to get into a flow and work longer and stay focused more than when I'm sitting at a desk.

We have a LifeSpan treadmill desk and both absolutely love it.

[reminder]What do you do to get your students (or yourself) moving?[/reminder]

Let’s get moving

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We had a little visitor come in to my night class this week.

I haven't seen students move that fast in the ten years I've been teaching.

get moving

Traditional gender roles were played out, perfectly, as the young women raced to the side of the room without a lizard, and the young men ran toward it with glee.

I'm proud to report that I just stood there, completely entertained.

Even though they are an engaged class, this incident brought about a whole new level of energy for the rest of the evening.

I particularly enjoyed how the presenters who went immediately after our lizard friend was evicted from the classroom, were able to incorporate the reptile into an example on Rawls' theory of justice.

There's just something that happens when we all get moving, students and faculty alike. To that end, here are some ideas for getting physical movement happening inside and outside the classroom:

Tape signs on the wall and have students give input via sticky notes

I've written previously about an exercise that uses sticky notes and gets students moving around the classroom.

There's also a PostIt Plus app that will allow you to capture the data, virtually, and then let you sort and move the individual sticky notes on your screen, as needed. As with any good app, there are plenty of sharing options made available.

Have students walk and talk

When I'm reviewing a concept that can sometimes be difficult for students to apply, I often have them take a walk around the building, while they talk to someone else in the class about the topic.

I make it clear that when they return from their walk, that I will be randomly calling on students, so that they feel a bit more pressure to stay on task during their walk.

I also always join with a group for the walk, or go with a student who doesn't have a partner. This always gives me one more opportunity for one-on-one interaction.

Use a FitBit

Fitness trackers are becoming all the rage these days. Those of us who use them know that they have the power to get us making all sorts of seemingly small changes that add up to signifiant change.

We take the stairs, park further away, and run around more with our kids.

The FitBit device tracks steps and flights of stairs. Dave and I both use one, though he likes the FitBit charge that goes on your wrist and I prefer the one you wear on the waist of your pants.

Consider a treadmill desk

When we finished off an extensive consulting project about a year ago, Dave and I decided to reward ourselves with a treadmill desk. He had wanted one for a while and I was ambivalent (but not opposed to spending the money, necessarily).

I didn't think I would use it that much, since I thought it would be too hard to maintain a train of thought.

It wound up being just the opposite experience. I find that I'm able to get into a flow and work longer and stay focused more than when I'm sitting at a desk.

We have a LifeSpan treadmill desk and both absolutely love it.

[reminder]What do you do to get your students (or yourself) moving?[/reminder]

Seeing the gorillas through the trees

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Our friends, Sandie and Jean came over for dinner last night. Jean was doing some recording with Dave for the Carnegie Coach podcast, while Sandie and I hung out with the kids.

attention-blindness

Our son, Luke, was pretty antsy from an exciting day with his Grandparents, who are visiting. A book seemed in order, to calm him down and possibly also to entertain Sandie.

I had recently bought him the book Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, by Jeanette Winter. Here’s the book’s plot, from the publisher’s description:

This true story of Wangari Maathai, environmentalist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is a shining example of how one woman's passion, vision, and determination inspired great change.

The author makes the story accessible to kids as she describes Wangari's opposition to the trees that were cut down in Kenya, to make room for buildings.

An entirely different meaning

Since this was not the first time Luke was hearing the story, I asked him questions, as we went along, about what was about to happen next. I inquired as to what had happened to all the beautiful green trees in Kenya, as we flipped to a page with lots of tree trunks, but no lush green branches.

Someone trimmed them,” Luke replied.

He was using the most commonly-used vocabulary around here for what happens to trees. It’s actually quite an exhilarating event, for an almost three year-old.

Landscapers from our community come around every few months and trim the trees.

I found out that we have nearly double the amount of trees where we live than they do in Central Park. The tree trimmers climb up on tall ladders and make quite a ruckus.

It’s got everything that Luke loves in life: noise, green, climbing, and people.

Of course, in Kenya, they weren’t doing trimming. Their work was not designed to make the trees more beautiful and healthy, but to destroy them. They had cut down all the trees, to make room for new construction.

I didn’t correct Luke’s use of the word trimming, but replaced it with the accurate word as I repeated back to him mostly what I had heard him say.

I responded to Luke that, “Yes, they had cut down the trees and now the green was gone, and so were the birds who had made their homes in the trees.”

After a few times of me using the word “cutting,” he seemed to be able to distinguish between trimming and chopping down trees. I never would have realized that there was any confusion, if I hadn’t been asking questions along the way.

This happens to us all the time in the classroom, though the potential for us to completely miss it is significant.

Attention blindness

Dr. Cathy Davidson, my guest on episode 28, shared with us about the experiments done on attention blindness. As Dr. Davidson describes on Inside Higher Ed:

…this famous experiment is a video of six people passing a basketball, half in white and half in black shirts.

Subjects are asked to count how many times the ball is passed only to and from those wearing black, not white, and then are quizzed on the number of passes they counted. What over half of subjects in a normal testing situation miss is a woman in a gorilla suit who walks in among the tossers for a full nine seconds, stares into the camera, and walks away.

The experiment is designed to show us what we normally cannot see about ourselves: how paying attention in a focused way requires us to shut out everything else — even a gorilla.

If you would like more information about attention blindness, including a video of Harvard’s invisible gorilla experiment, Brain Pickings did a nice job overviewing Dr. Davidson’s book and research.

When we learn about the gorilla experiment, or watch the video, having already received the spoiler, it’s easy to think that we are somehow different. That we wouldn’t have been among those who would have missed the gorilla, if we had been one of the subjects in the study.

But that kind of thinking can limit our potential and hinder our growth. Dr. Davidson has inspired me to dig in even more than usual on what I might be missing in my teaching throughout 2015.

Now what?

We read to children far better than some of us teach. Our challenge is to constantly be assessing where there may be gaps in our students’ understanding and help challenge them to apply what they are learning.

If we don’t turn the page and stop to ask them what happens next, we can all to easily be left thinking they have mastered the material in the same way that we perceive we have. I'm thankful for the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast guests who are open to exposing us to new ideas that challenge the way we have been doing things and help us reach new heights.

[reminder]What will you to doing in 2015 to look for the gorillas in your teaching?[/reminder]

Cultivate curiosity in higher ed students

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CURIOSITY

Our son has a new habit. He points at something he hasn't seen before and says, “Whaaaaaaaassssshhaaaatttt?”

For many parents, I know this stage is frustrating. I also recognize that there may well come a time when I'm not amused by it, either.

However, I'm delighted by it now. It's interesting to see what captures his attention and what things are new to him. The whole experience also makes me wish I could bottle his curiosity and administer it, when needed, in the higher ed classroom.

Dr. Mark Carnes joined me for the most recent episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast (episode 21). He described how the role playing immersion game, Reacting to the Past, is transforming the way students engage in the college classroom. In Minds on Fire, his book on the same subject, he talks about his early experiences having students play one of the games.

He describes:

Never had students been so engaged and in such a weird way.

Someone piped up, ‘does anyone realize that class was supposed to end seven minutes ago?'

…We had lost track of ourselves.

Carnes seems to be describing students who are in what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls being in a state of flow. Their curiosity is heightened and they're thinking critically about the class content.

Carnes has found a way to bottle the adventurous nature of a toddler and sparked the curiosity of his college students.

Not all of us will be able to use a Reacting to the Past curriculum for a particular class. However, there are steps we can take to cultivate curiosity in our classes.

Direct students solve a problem

Probably the most influential person on my teaching throughout my career has been Dr. M. David Merrill, Professor Emeritus from Utah State University.

I used to work for a computer training company. We hired Dr. Merrill to do some consulting for us. I remember how vividly he altered my view of teaching.

At the time, I thought I was teaching computer application skills. What I realized was that I was getting people to follow a series of steps that I prescribed and only assessing them on their ability to do what I instructed.

Throughout Dr. Merrill's career, he has emphasized the importance of having learners engaged in solving problems. I'm only skimming the surface of Merrill's principles of instruction here.

Our classes in higher education will promote greater learning opportunities if we direct students to solve a problem and not simply get them to regurgitate facts.

Instruct students to give advice to people (or characters) involved in the situation

I've previously recommended using the podcast Planet Money in teaching about business. One of the most interactive sessions I typically see in my introduction to business students is when I ask them to recommend a solution to the currency problem experienced in Brazil's history.

I play the episode up until the point when they have described the challenges with an unstable currency and how difficult that point in Brazil's history was for them. Then, I press the pause button and ask them how they would recommend that they solve the currency problem.

Resist the temptation to be a know it all

If students perceive that we already know everything there is to know on a topic, we can inadvertently diminish their curiosity about a topic.

The other day, I brought in an example from the NBA for my introduction to business class. There's a running joke about my lack of sports knowledge in just about all of my classes. One student had lamented that I use Apple in my examples too often and he was hoping for more sports.

After receiving his feedback, I changed an entire section of my module introducing various promotion strategies that companies use to be centered around the NBA's promotional efforts.

I shared about a website that the NBA had set up in 2010 to use direct marketing to appeal to Hispanics. Candidly, I admitted that I wasn't sure what had become of the website, or what more current efforts they were putting in to attracting Hispanic fans. It was the best example I had found when I was putting it together late the prior evening.

My lack of knowledge opened the door for sports fans in the class to share their knowledge. One student talked about how players will wear special jerseys to culminate their Latin nights celebrations. Other students piped in with their examples and a few asked questions to extend the scenario a bit further.

If I hadn't resisted the temptation try to know it all, the students have missed the opportunity to apply their newfound knowledge to a topic they are passionate about.

[reminder] How do you cultivate curiosity with your students?[/reminder]

How to make a seemingly boring topic come alive

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It's a boring topic, so of course the evaluations are going to be lower.

Make boring topic come to life

In evaluating the success of various courses, low course evaluations are often explained away by asserting that the faculty member was teaching a boring subject. I have heard this logic at more than a handful of institutions in my ten years in academia and am disappointed that some of us are satisfied with that answer.

I certainly had my idea about what subjects were boring when I was an undergrad. Now, as a lifelong learner, I can't find a topic that can't be made interesting by a teacher who has a passion for the subject and brings it to life.

Here are five ways to make a seemingly boring topic interesting.

Introduce an experience

Speaking of topics I found boring as an undergrad, science can definitely be among those topics that professors find challenging to generate interest in for many students.

Dr.Chrissy Spencer at Georgia Tech uses engaging and creative techniques to help her students actually experience the learning in her courses. This Active Learning in Biology video shows her “teaching evolution by turning her students into chili peppers.”

Despite the over 200 students in that large lecture hall, they are each getting to share in an experience that will help them remember the lessons learned for a long time to come. It is no surprise that she wound up winning a prestigious teaching award from Georgia Tech, based on her innovation in the classroom.

Bring in humor

My sales students were learning about how you don't want to present a solution to a client as soon as you think they know what they need, but to hold off until you explore the challenges further and understand their impact. The textbook author describes the studies done on children where they were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited for five minutes that they could have two more marshmallows.

I showed this video of kids who participated in the marshmallow study. It brought the reading alive in a new and humorous way. I also showed Stephen Colbert interviewing Walter Mischel, the author of a recent book about the marshmallow studies.

These humorous segments brought energy into the class and invigorated the discussion.

Invite some friendly competition

As long as it is done in a way that won't embarrass those who aren't understanding the material as well as others, competition can be a way of bringing interest and energy into the classroom.

Do a quiz using PollEverywhere, or play the HeadsUp game.

Have students create something new from what they have been learning and then have the students vote for their top three new creations. There are all sorts of way to invite a little friendly competition into your classroom.

Reinvigorate your own passion

Perhaps if the topic seems boring to you, it's time to invest in reigniting your interest in the subject. I've found that having a well-established personal knowledge mastery system set up helps to keep breathing new life into what I teach.

If your organization offers professional development funds, perhaps it's time to attend a conference or to start exploring some interdisciplinary teaching and learning opportunities.

Approach the topic from a child-like perspective

To keep my students from memorizing words that don't actually mean anything to them, I often have them explain something as if they were talking to an eight year old.

I also use ridiculous analogies for difficult to comprehend subjects, such as when I use a trip to CostCo to buy toilet paper in an example on the accrual method of accounting.

Astrophysicist Roberto Trotta was quoted on NPR [arguing] that we don't need jargon. In his new book, The Edge of the Sky, Trotta tells the story of how the universe was created without using complicated descriptions. In fact, he conveys his message while restricting himself to the 1,000 most commonly used words in English.

[reminder]What approaches do you use for making seemingly boring topics more interesting?[/reminder]