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Using Google Forms for Student Feedback
[social_share/] [social-bio] My colleague here at the GMCTE, Kim West introduced me to integrating formative feedback into my classes. Through this I get some valuable feedback from students about my teaching and the course in general, and it goes a long way in helping to build rapport between me and the students. Following Kim’s lead I would print out sheets of paper that had four instances of a feedback form asking questions like, “What’s one thing you learned today?” or “What questions do you have after this week’s classes?”. I would cut them into four and take them to class. They were voluntary, but students completed them in high numbers. Students…
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Recipe for SoTL
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler Many a metaphor is used to make new ideas feel more familiar. I’m an avid baker, so I wanted to share this alternative sweet way of seeing the elements and processes involved in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Let me know if you’ve got something cooking. 1 cup questions, concerns or new possibilities 2 cups curiosity and excitement for your teaching and your students 1/2 cup reading literature inside your discipline about teaching courses and students like yours (see for example the list at http://pod.nku.edu/sotldisc.asp) 1/2 cup reading literature from educators in other disciplines with similar questions or approaches (see the list at…
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When ‘Better’ does not equal ‘Easier’
[social_share/] [social-bio] Often conversations about active learning eventually come around to discussions around “push back from students” and comments about resistance to “doing more work” in class and that students don’t like to work harder. I wonder about that. I wonder if students might feel better about doing more work if they knew that this might mean they would learn more and retain more. I wonder if we could highlight for students that engaging actively in class often results in learning more. I wonder how things would change if “better” could come to mean learning more because one has made an effort and that greater skill development might occur because…
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When in Doubt, Write it Out!
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler When I mentioned university teaching, a friend of mine told me the story of sitting in a class for many weeks diligently reading the textbook about “z-scores” and listening to the professor talk about “cee-scores”, only to realize a few weeks in that the two terms both referred to the same statistical test. Knowing that there was only one computation made deciding which to use no longer an issue and simplified assignments and tests. A common challenge in teaching statistics is the uses of Greek letters that may not familiar to English-speakers: a Chi-square test and the symbol χ² seem very unrelated. A similar…
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Why ‘Student Learning Objectives’?
[social-bio] So why is a curriculum development person commenting about learning objectives—the unit of planning that occurs at the individual lesson level? Usually you’d hear me going on about program goals and outcomes, and graduate attributes—the big picture! I wanted to highlight the importance of having clear, explicit learning objectives because it is all of these learning objectives that collectively create and contribute to an aligned and unified program of study. Paying attention to what happens in each lesson makes for a more successful learning journey in the long run. There are good official, technical, and pedagogical reasons for having student learning objectives for each lesson and lab, but the…
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Curriculum Change in a Time of Transformation
[social-bio] This piece was previously published in the GMCTE publication Bridges. As the University of Saskatchewan wrestles with program prioritization and all academic programs are thoroughly scrutinized, analysed, and criticized, there is a temptation to hunker down, do nothing, and wait for better times. Academic units have just completed a major self-assessment of their core programs and naturally have put forward a strong case for continued support (and perhaps worked hard to justify the status quo). It is risky to openly contemplate curricular change in an environment where admitting the need for change may risk resource loss or even program elimination. Yet if the self-examination of academic programs has revealed…
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The Importance of Technology Integration Across a Program
[social-bio] At the recent EdMedia conference in Victoria, BC, I noted a recurring theme around the integration of learning technologies. Many people were talking about the ongoing issue of these technologies being used in a course here and there as opposed to being integrated across programs. There are a number of problems with this approach to learning technologies. Blogs and ePortfolios can both be useful tools for students to assemble evidence of their learning, reflect and show their growth. When these are only used in a course or two throughout a students program, the blogs and ePortfolios are often incomplete, interrupted (if used in two courses at different points in…