Teaching in Higher Ed

teaching

Sticky notes as a teaching tool

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This past week was our start to the semester. I was struck, once again, at how little I knew of the students' individual stories that led them to find themselves in my class. As the week ended, though, I celebrated what I was able to glean about them in that short of a time.

A particularly useful tool in connecting with my students was the sticky note.

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Sticky note exercise: Signs were created using the easy-to-use graphics editor called Canva.com

I'm teaching three sections of Introduction to Business, in addition to one marketing elective. I've taught Introduction to Business over twenty times, previously, just not three times in the same semester.

We started out with an exercise designed to help them get to know each other and start to think about how entrepreneurs come up with ideas.

I shared how many business ideas are the result of attempts to solve problems.

There was recently a story from Wired Magazine about the invention of a gadget that helps solve the problem of doctors not washing their hands thoroughly enough. Another example came from college students looking to reduce date rape incidents through their creation of nail polish that changes color when exposed to date rape drugs.

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First impressions in the higher ed classroom

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Dave and I are in the process of evaluating preschools for our son, Luke. It has been hard for me to separate my feelings about the person in the role of salesperson from the realities about what it would be like for Luke to actually attend school at any of the places. I keep wanting to give the people giving us tours this book, which transformed my thinking about selling. The whole experience has reminded me of the enormous role that first impressions can play in how we perceive a person or environment.

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A college professor makes a good, first impression, building a foundation of trust for the semester.

Shaping First Impressions in the College Classroom

First impressions in the higher ed classroom are crucial. There is even some indication that students' perceptions on the first day will be almost identical to how they will eventually assess the professor on the final course evaluation. Here are a few ideas for starting the semester strong:

Arrive early and set the tone

This recommendation is in every single first day prep article I've ever read. Yet, I'm still including it here, because it is so important. Think about what your students will see, hear, feel, and experience as they enter the environment they will be learning in for the semester. I tend to open up the blinds and let in as much natural light as possible.

Music is also an important start to every class session for me. If you don't believe that music can completely change the mood, this little girl might change your mind:

[The video may not play if you're viewing this on email, but you can view it by opening this post on Teaching in Higher Ed]

Start with a story, statistic, anecdote, or other means of inspiring students

I just received my first email from a student who is going to miss the entire first week of classes, since he will be out of the country. At least he didn't ask the dreaded question: “Am I going to miss anything?” While I could write plenty of blog posts about my frustration about students who choose to miss this crucial time in building a learning community, I also submit to you that some of this is our fault. Any of us who have handed out the syllabus on the first day of class and proceeded to review the assignment requirements and course schedule contribute to students who think they can get everything they need by reading the syllabus on their own. When we have the students introduce themselves and share their majors in a predictable fashion, we forget how repetitive this gets and just how anxious it makes some students feel. There are alternate ways to begin to build students' confidence to engage, without having them do the same thing they're being asked to do in their other classes.

I asked Dave about his memories of classes where he had a great first impression and he shared this anecdote from an experience he had with an incredible teacher. He shared a story about his high school chemistry teacher. The first class focused on the theme that we don't always understand the things around us. Dave doesn't remember the details of the lesson, but he sure remembers how the teacher ended.

A candle was on a table in the center of the classroom. The students hadn't thought much about it, but a candle or light analogy had come up in one or two of the stories, so it didn't seem misplaced. In the few minutes remaining in the class session, the teacher picked the candle up off the table and proceeded to put it in his mouth. He then chewed, swallowed, and said:

Just remember, things aren't always what they seem.

Dave remembers looking at his fellow students in surprise and exclaiming, “This is going to be a great class.” It turned out to be Dave's favorite class in high school, one that lived up to its initial promise. Given my clumsiness, I think it is best if I refrain from any activity that involves having a lit flame in class. However, we can all think about a powerful story, statistic or anecdote that will capture the imagination of our students and getting them excited for the learning that is to come…

Set a culture for self-directed learning and personal responsibility

My classes almost all use a blended learning approach. This format only works well if students understand that they are accountable for more than just what happens in the classroom, but that we need to build a community of learning that will extend to our engagement online. One EdTech tool that really helps build the bridge between online and in-person is Remind (formerly named Remind101). This semester, my introduction to business classes will be expected to complete the online portion of our class before 1:00 pm on Fridays each week. I'll be able to preschedule a message that goes out to them on Friday mornings, reminding them of the deadline and perhaps even using a bit of humor, since Remind now supports sending images, along with the text reminders.

Now if only we could get more of our students to read this article and consider ways they might make a good impression with their professors.

What did I leave out about making a good first impression in the college classroom? What else have you seen make a difference in starting off well in the semester? What powerful memory still remains for you, for what made a good start to one of the college classes you took?

How to respond when students give wrong answers

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We all know just how wrong students can be when they answer a question in class. There have even been entire books devoted to the subject. A student indicates that his favorite hue is “Jackman,” while another submits the following sentence as her essay on the enlightenment:

‘The Enlightenment had many great thinkers, none of which come to mind currently.”

My students have told me that I have a unique ability to not make students look dumb, when they give a completely wrong answer. I think it is probably because I have no doubt given my share of wrong answers throughout my educational experience. Students tell me that I am able to avoid being transparent about just how wrong students are, while still indicating that their answers were incorrect.

wrong student answers

When students have given me this feedback, they have shared how much it both made them laugh (they thought about how hard it must have been for me not to let on just how dumb the student's answer was) and also respect me more (because I didn't just let the wrong answer pass). It wasn't anything I had given much thought to, until the feedback kept being repeated to me.

Here are a few thoughts on how to approach incorrect answers in the classroom: [Read more…] about How to respond when students give wrong answers

The Breaking Bad of boundaries in the classroom

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I'll admit that I'm a bit behind. I've been doing the “parents-of-young-children” version of binge-watching Breaking Bad. It's like regular binge-watching, in that you consume a lot of television. But, it's a bit slower of a route than some of my undergraduate students go through tv series. If you're not familiar with the premise of Breaking Bad, a high school teacher gets cancer and feels compelled to do whatever it takes to rescue his family from a life of paying off his medical bills, long after he's gone. Don't worry. There was no need for a spoiler alert there, as that's pretty much how the show begins.

Serious woman breaking a cigarette against white background

Exercise to get students engaged and increase retention

Getting my students to engage in the classroom is something I regularly strive to achieve. Early in my introduction to business class, I do a group matching exercise, to try to solidify the key terms from the first few chapters. Once the students are in a group, they are asked to come up with a hand-drawn picture that will stick in everyone's minds as representing the overall concept and definition of terms.

A recent semester, one of the groups had to describe how price gets set in an environment of perfect competition and use the terms supply, demand, and equilibrium price. A guy in the group (let's call him Mike) seemed like he might be a bit mischievous (though I am always working on not making assumptions). The group got up to the white board to draw their picture.  Mike was puffed up like he couldn't be prouder of his great contribution to his early college experience, while at the same time, looked like he was quite interested in my reaction.

They had drawn a bunch of drug-related paraphernalia and their example was how price gets set for illegal drugs. I was actually quite impressed with the way they articulated their ideas. They illustrated the push and pull between supply and demand and how prices get set in an economic system without regulation. I asked them to sit down and then started asking the rest of the class questions about their example, starting with whether or not their example was a good illustration of how supply and demand works.

The room was quieter than it had been when prior groups had presented. At first, I couldn't figure out if the silence was because they didn't understand the terms, or if it was something else. I asked if perhaps they had questions for me, since they didn't seem to be able to answer mine. One very quiet young woman raised her hand and responded, when I called on her.

Dr. Stachowiak. You see, uhhh, we go to a Christian school. Drugs are bad. We aren't supposed to talk about them.

It was actually a pretty adorable response, like somehow I wasn't aware that drugs are frowned upon at our university. I talked a bit about how indeed, illegal drugs wreaked a lot of havoc for individuals and communities. I told them that if they didn't think using or selling them could result in some pretty terrible consequences, we certainly wouldn't have to work very hard before we could find ample examples to tell us otherwise.

We talked about that no one was advocating using drugs. However, using a memorable example, like the one the students had used, meant that it was highly likely that people would remember the concepts and the vocabulary, by the time the exam came around. Indeed, the students did superbly on related questions on the first exam.

Benefits

This experience was early in the semester and resulted in a number of positive benefits.

Positive reinforcement for a boundary-tester

My boundary-tester, Mike, got to feel like he was a part of the class and could actually engage with me without having to worry too much that I would make him look bad. There were a couple of times that semester that I did have to rein him in a little, but I've found that if students who are apt to try to shock me early in a course get shot down, they decide they are “too cool for school” the rest of the term. Instead of alienating him early on, I drew him in to our class community, but also earned the right to insist that he adhere to the class norms built upon respecting each other.

Method to demonstrate that I am interested in students' feedback

The students discovered that I did want to know what was going on “behind the scenes” with them, and they could feel comfortable participating in my “check-ins” throughout the semester when I would ask about why things were quieter than usual, for example.

Improve students' visual thinking capabilities

Students got to begin the practice of becoming better visual thinkers. Visuals don't have to be just for entertainment's sake, like this one (spoiler alert) of Breaking Bad: The Uncertainty of Walter White, or these famous movie quotes as charts . Instead, increasing visual thinking skills can be a powerful way to increase retention. Wesley Fryer, PhD, provides a great overview of visual thinking and some tools for those of us who use iPads. John Medina, author of Brain Rules (affiliate link), stresses:

…the more visual the input becomes, the more likely it is to be recognized – and recalled.

Questions

In what ways have you seen your students try to test the boundaries a bit, but you wound up creating more of a culture and positive risk-taking in the classroom? How have you helped your students become better visual thinkers?

 

 

The danger of making assumptions as educators

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I've fallen victim to it many times. I think I understand a situation completely and discover that I was missing some fundamental pieces of the picture.

male college student sitting in a classroomA couple years ago, I had a student who seemed like a complete jerk. He regularly came in late and seemed so disengaged. He seemed like someone so resistant to learning. Toward the end of the semester, he emailed me and asked to meet with me. I prepared myself for the typical end-of-semester conversation, where all the excuses come out and the dreaded requests for do-overs.

He actually wasn't even doing that poorly in the class, so I'm not sure why I felt so primed for him to ask me for favors. He showed up and started his story out slowly. He hadn't wanted to come see me that day, but his Mom had encouraged him to have a conversation with each of his professors. It turned out that he wasn't there to make excuses, but to share that his Dad was in a hospital bed, dying of cancer. He thought I should know, but didn't want to get pity from me. That had been the biggest thing that had held him back from making the appointment with me previously.

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