Teaching Strategies

Today was the final day of the teaching teaching spring class. We’ve been at it since January and have met 14 times. This means folks have devoted some serious time to coming together as a group to talk about their teaching and hopefully learn a few tricks. I started today talking about my design for the course, though of course, Roz designed too, and everyone who participated helped shape the course, either through conversations outside of the class or by their participation.

The design of this course was two fold:

1. To make the best use of the 14 hours we would have with everyone. (Aiming for active, meaningful classes.)
2. To not have any assignments or assessments. The goal here was to save time, since we were already taking so much, but also to help limit anxiety. Everyone starts things with the best of intentions, and several people mentioned that they wouldn’t mind assignments to help further their learning. However, knowing how semesters go, I didn’t want to put added pressure on anyone and I wanted to remove any barriers to attending class. This is because attendance was important for this particular course.
   1. This was because the design of the course required classroom participation. Everyone who teaches has something to say about teaching. I, as the one leading most of these sessions, was guiding the conversation through an instructional design lens. But everyone has something valuable to add and made the class richer. So, it was important to create an environment in which people would come, and limiting out-of-class work was a strategic decision to encourage attendance and participation.

The goals of the course were:

• To help create confidence
  • In the teaching we’re already doing.
  • For publishing in the SoTL; we’re doing really interesting and innovative work, and anyone teaching at ZSR has the ability to publish something in the SoTL. Hopefully this course helped give a framework and vocabulary for how to do so.
• To introduce some theory
  • Enough to be able to know why things the thing you’re already doing work (or don’t).
• To provide some tools
  • New strategies and ideas
  • Sharing information from different courses
• To let people know I’m here to help!
  • Really! If you want to chat about designing your course or class, or just adding in a few active learning exercises, I’d love to talk with you. If you have an idea for a professional development opportunity, I’d do that, too! And if you’ve heard enough from me, you know who is doing what from our course discussions, so you know who else on staff could help.

We also went through the list of topics covered in this course (which you can find in this blog) and discussed a few things people are interested in seeing in the future.

This “class” has been a fun one for me, and really rewarding. Thanks (again!) to everyone who participated and contributed to the program. I think we’ll see the benefits of our work over the next several semesters!

Today’s session was on the scholarship of teaching and learning. I really wanted to make sure to include it because this is something we’re all capable of doing right now and is nice to address after covering most of the content. I’m also saving the last class for wrap up and synthesis.

So, here are the slides:

If you have any questions, a lot of us have published and presented in this area. Feel free to ask for advice or collaboration!!

Today’s class focused on the practical, down and dirty, aspects of classroom management. Since I knew this was a topic of interest for several people, and that we had already covered IGI and Conversation Theory a bit in another session, I decided to focus our attention on the classroom aspects of teaching. If anyone’s particularly interested in that, though, I’m happy to chat.

A reminder: Roz and I are meeting next week to discuss this project and next steps. If anyone has feedback, questions, ideas for future teaching initiatives, please let one of us know!!

I also mentioned Central Michigan’s FaCIT Take 5 For Teaching website. It’s a great resource for practical tips if you have a spare five minutes and an area you’re interested in learning more about.

Okay! The things we discussed:

First Day

• Student Tours
• Discussion of how students currently use the library (perhaps followed with student led tour)
• Students fill out card about what they want to get from the class (to be used in refining the syllabus)
• Showing the library website and how to do useful things (place a hold, reserve a study room, etc)
• Clickers to get demographic information and introduce the tool
• Learning style inventory

Getting Students To Talk

• Room and layout makes a difference. Giz volunteered to help rearrange for a few hours this summer to see if there are any good solutions. I’m in. Anyone else?
• Worksheets and in class assignments in lieu of discussion
• Pair work

Group Word

• No one currently lets students choose if they want to work alone or in a group
• Students might resist group work, but it’s good for them (they’ll have to do it for the rest of their life)
• Service learning as a way to do group work with one large class group

Getting Comfortable with Speaking

• Practice with an audience
• The shift between the reference librarian’s role as a helper/expert to a teacher’s role as the one in charge is a hard one
• Praise in public, chastise in private
• Set ground rules

Multitasking Students

• Ignore it
• Ask how what they’re doing is applicable (if blatant)
• Teach from in front of the multitasking student, wherever they’re sitting

Attendance and Tardiness

• Quiz grades: that they count towards attendance, that they start when the class starts so their grades reflect tardiness
• Tick off each comment as class participation
• In class graded exercises
• Shut door when class starts
• Stop and comment when people come in late

Learning Names

• Name table tent by each student
• Assigned seats

Establishing Class Rules

• As a class
• List that is modified each semester based on previous experiences

So, those are the comments I managed to record during our discussion. If I missed something or you think of something else, please add it! If you have any other Q&A, please leave them here!!

Our tenth day focused on active learning, something several people had requested to know more about. Active learning is an umbrella term that includes many different schools of thought within education, and I’ve tried to incorporate some level of it into each class we’ve had.

Since you’ve been in a class that’s been lead by Roz and me, you’ve learned our active learning styles. My goal for this class session was to see other approaches. To do this, I turned it around for different groups to come up with active learning exercises and to do them for the class. This was so that you could see how quickly you can come up with an exercise, and that you oculd see different interpretations of incorporating active learning into the classroom.

Four groups came up with something to teach, and an active way to teach it. We had:

1. Knitting: demoed knitting with video, and in person; taught one person who then had to knit a stitch on their own; that person passed it to the next and taught the next person; continued down the chain. This was an excellent example of how to incorporate motivation (you know it’s coming to you at some point) and the student-as-teacher model.
2. Yoga: group demonstrated three poses and named them; had the class do the three poses as named them; group did poses and asked class to recall the name. This exercise was a great way to engage kinesthetic learners. Though you might agree easily that doing yoga poses is an obvious way to teach yoga, the same concept could be applied to any case where a student has to memorize a form/image and a name.
3. Cooking Salmon: pairs had to find a salmon recipe, then come up with reasons their recipe was best; each group made their case; the class voted on their favorite. This exercise helped participants learn various ways of cooking salmon and weigh the relevant benefits and drawbacks of each. In this case, the teacher didn’t have to teach anything, but facilitate the class discussion to guide them to relevant points.
4. Differences in classical composers: this group divided the class into three groups and assigned areas to listen for: melody, harmony, and rhythm; we then listened to two clips of music; then filled out a chart as a group of the characteristics of both composers. This was an excellent way of getting students to realize the answers on their own and document the answers you want to make sure they remember. It also brought up several other areas of discussion, where people were really interested in the answers, rather than just listening to a lecture.

I, personally, had a great time seeing what people chose to teach and how they taught it! Thanks for sharing!

Today we talked about several types of learning theories, really quickly. We’ll go into several of them in greater depth in the next few classes.

Because I used a very “meta” approach, I’m rolling the two posts into one here.

We started with a Q&A exercise that Kevin, Craig, and I have used in Lib100. Everyone (who wanted to) wrote questions they have in the course, and after it was over everyone (who wanted to) added tick marks to the ones they also shared. This will help Roz and me make sure to cover what you want by the end of the course.

We started with Active Learning, and used a case study as an example. The case study could be approached with an active learning strategy, but that wasn’t necessary. The point of the exercise was to experience an active learning activity.

Next up we addressed Problem Based Learning. In this case each pair had a problem they chose (how to teach a specific skill) and had a minute to find a way to solve the problem. The pairs shared out with the larger group, reflected and discussed some more, and had the opportunity to share their solutions again.

The third method we explored was Inquiry Based Learning which is perhaps the most student-driven solution. Pairs (again!) explored some aspect of IGI (how it’s related to the other subjects we’ve covered, if it is effective, how to incorporate it into instruction, etc) and shared out to the class.

Service Learning was our fourth topic, were everyone reflected individually on a project that they were very involved in. After reflecting we shared with the group.

The final category was conversation theory, in which the group would make connections as a whole. However, I had a meeting scheduled right up to that moment in class, so I had to leave at this point. If someone wants so share how that went… feel free to comment!

So, the big meta of the day:

• It was fast! It was designed to be fast to get through a lot of content for those who wanted a taste of a bunch of things. The speed also allowed us to demonstrate that there will be a lot of content about the specific topics we’ve singled out for future classes so that participants would know it’s more than just what is covered on the surface at conferences, in mainstream education literature, etc. Finally, if someone’s really busy and having a hard time making it to the classes, there was enough content to know if it’s something you want to know more about in the future. Of course, we hope you’ll come, though!
• I tried to fit in pair work leading to discussion, pair work that informs discussion that informs pair work, and personal reflection. Each of these approaches has strengths and weaknesses and a combined approach allows you to give more people a chance to do something that resonates with their own learning style.

If you have questions, please leave them here!

On day 5, we discussed learning styles and multiple intelligences. As there are many theories on both these issues, and both overlap, we spent the first 15 minutes discussing trends between the two, and how to incorporate activities for people with strong learning preferences in each category.

From there, Roz took the helm, putting a chart on the white board so that people could mark their preferences accordingly. (I think she’s going to post a photo!)

updated:

Today’s PowerPoint is much more informative than the last ones, as an illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of different styles of presentations. Please see today’s “meta” post for more information on this topic.

Here is the information from the presentation:

Educational Psychology - Presentation Transcript

1. EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY February 13, 2009
2. Educational Psychology Studies how people learn in educational settings. Tends to focus on the classroom. May often focus on specific groups such as gifted students or those with disabilities.
3. An analogy perhaps? Educational Psychology : Psychology :: Medicine : Biology :: Engineering : Physics
4. Aspects We Won’t Address Today Individual differences (too much!) Social, moral, or cognitive development (we’ve touched on this!) Research methodology (we’ll talk about this later)
5. Four Important Ideas Behavioral Cognitive Social cognitive Constructivist Connectivist (a bonus!)
6. Behaviorism Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning (late 1890s) BF Skinner’s radical behaviorism (1930-1950s)
7. Behaviorism Focus on behavior outcomes Systematic rewards Operant Conditioning
8. Behaviorism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
9. Cognitivism The idea that traits, beliefs, memories, motivations, and emotions can determine how information in perceived, processed, stored, retrieved, and forgotten. Dual coding theory Cognitive load Spaced Learning Effect Mnemonics Problem solving as fundamental to learning Involves long term memory, mapping between problem and pre-existing schema
10. Cognitivism Allan Paivo’s Dual-Coding Theory (1970s-80s) John Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory
11. Cognitivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
12. Social Cognitivism (Social Learning Theory) Blends behavioral, cognitive, and social thinking Observational learning: watching others and change own behavior as a result of observation Last few decades: self-regulated learning and metacognition These both hypothesize effective learners are active agents who construct knowledge by setting goals, analyzing tasks, planning strategies, and monitoring understanding Those who are better at goal setting and self- monitoring have a greater intrinsic task interest and self-efficacy
13. Social Cognitivism (Social Learning Theory) NE Miller and J Dollard’s Social Learning Theory (1941) Albert Bandura (1977)
14. Social Cognitivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
15. Constructivism Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural learning focuses on internalization based on interaction with adults, more capable peers, and cognitive tools.
16. Constructivism Places emphasis on agency and prior knowledge of the learner and often on social/cultural determinants of the learning process Related to Piaget’s individual/psychological constructivism from social constructivism Learners socialized through social interactions within community of practice
17. Constructivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
18. Connectivism George Siemens (2000s!) Learning in a digital age Builds on previous models Community of Learning
19. Connectivism How do you use this? When might it be useful?
20. Four Important Ideas Behavioral Cognitive Social cognitive Constructivist Connectivist (a bonus!)
21. MOTIVATION!
22. Motivation Internal state that activates, guides, and sustains behavior. Will, interest, intrinsic motivation, personal goals, belief about the causes of their success or failure
23. Motivation Bernard Weiner’s Attribution Theory: Focuses on students’ beliefs about their success level
24. Motivation Goals: Mastery goals increase ability and knowledge Performance approach goals strive for high grades and seek opportunities to demonstrate their abilities Performance avoidance goals driven by fear of failure and where abilities are exposed
25. Motivation Issues in motivation?

The groupwork went so well in the last class that I wanted to do a slight modification in today’s. Lest anyone get too settled, we’ll do another type of activity next week.

Today’s main goal was for everyone to learn a little about taxonomies; enough so that you can think back on it later if there was something that struck you. The secondary goal was for everyone to be able to think through how these taxonomies could influence their teaching. If we’d had time for a 15 minute discussion, we would have focused on how these taxonomies could interplay in your teaching, and how you can pick the best ones to focus on for a given topic. If that’s interesting to you, feel free to start the discussion in the comments!

The group task of the day was for each group to learn about their taxonomy, to contribute to the “handout” for the class, and to discuss, as a group, three ways that you do (or can) use this understanding of learning to encourage a stronger learning environment. The concluding presentation included an explanation and one example of how these models could include your teaching.

You can find the handout here.

After an understanding of Instructional Design, we moved into talking about different models Instructional Designers use. As everyone indicated they had a high priority for learning more about active learning and group work, instead of a lecture (or even a facilitated discussion), we used groups to get to the content.

The layout of the class was:

1. Why models are important
2. Divide up into groups and pick models to investigate
3. Groups researched their models, created a PowerPoint slide (aka poster) on their topic
4. Each group sent a representative to present their slide and explain their concept
5. We talked about what the models have in common, how they inform our teaching, what we already do using these models (without knowing them), and how these models could improve what we do.

The main points (I had) for the group:

• Models give us a vocabulary for what we do and a framework to use when approaching a big task. This allows us to identify areas that need work and make improvements.
• ID Models can apply to a curriculum, a 3 hour course, a one-shot session, or even a handout. They’re macro and micro.
• The models are all really simple, so picking one and running with it isn’t a bad thing. I use ADDIE.
• These models are cyclical, so the evaluation from one phase feeds into the analysis of the next phase.

Interested in the posters? They’re here:

This morning kicked off the 15 week “class” in teaching for librarians. To make sure we are all on the same page, and to give a broad overview of the course, we started with a presentation introducing Instructional Design:

The handout included the following:

Frameworks for Instructional Design:

• Reality
• Process
• System
• Discipline
• Science
• Instructional Technology

Who does it?

• Teachers
• Librarians
• Distance Educators
• Instructional Designers
• Content Developers
• For-profit Educators
• Corporate Trainers

What does it do?

• Needs assessment
• Goals and objectives identification
• Audience and setting analysis
• Content development
• Delivery development
• Evaluation
• Redesign

Where does it happen?

• In your office
• In the classroom
• In your inbox
• Wherever you get your evaluations

When does it occur?

• All the time: before, during, and after the class

Why does it happen?

• To meet required objectives
• To anticipate student needs
• To meet the needs of unique audiences
• To clarify your intention
• To speed up the process
• To demonstrate continued improvement

A lot informs this process. In this “course” we’ll discuss: instructional design models, taxonomies of learning, educational psychology, educational theorists, multiple intelligences, learning styles, teaching styles, learning theory, problem based learning, active learning, inquiry learning, classroom management, and assessment.