Instructional Strategies
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Peer-to-Peer Writing Feedback: That’s what friends are for!
[social_share/] [social-bio] Peer-to-peer writing feedback is a process by which students judge other students’ written work and produce and provide feedback to them and then, in turn, also receive feedback on their own work. By feedback, I mean commentary of a formative kind: that is, students have the chance to consider and incorporate the feedback received from their peers. Peers are not assigning grades (that would be “peer assessment”), but they may be evaluating the work using a set of provided standards or a rubric. The process can be anonymous, but it does not need to be. This fall, I will be trying out peer-to-peer writing feedback in a course…
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Students’ expectations are formed early
[social_share/] [social-bio] I have been enjoying a series of blog posts written by the acclaimed UK based higher education researcher Professor Graham Gibbs (you can start with the first of the series here). The blogs have been drawn from a comprehensive publication called 53 Powerful Ideas All Teachers Should Know About, with one idea presented on the blog each week. I was particularly struck by the blog post from a few weeks ago as the ideas presented resonated with the approach of the University of Saskatchewan’s undergraduate research initiative. A key approach has been embedding such experiences in large first year courses which addresses Professor Gibbs’ key take away message;…
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Tamarind, Teaching and Undergraduate Research
[social_share/] [social-bio] For the first time today, I tasted tamarind. I felt like I had discovered something so surprisingly delicious and interesting that I wondered why I had gone this long without knowing about it. This fruit’s benefits are wide-ranging and well known apparently—they just hadn’t been to me. I wasn’t introduced to it through family or friends, but I found information about it as I was searching for ways to reduce fluoride accumulations in the body—I was trying to solve a problem and it was one of the possible solutions to the problem. New teaching strategies—or new-to-you teaching strategies—can be similar to discovering the tamarind fruit. Billions of people…
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Co-teaching, Co-writing, Co-learning: 5 amazing things that happened when I stopped talking
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler In 2014, I have co-taught a course twice, co-facilitated one workshop and one conference session, collaboratively wrote several papers (including based on my dissertation results), and learned a few things along the way. What happened when I traded in my solo controls for a tandem system? 1. I saw old material in new ways when we integrated our distinct viewpoints. Each collaborator brought his or her own beliefs and knowledge. Our backgrounds then resonated to clarify ideas, contrasted to highlight details, or merged to create new ideas. 2. I could glimpse multiple parallel realities (or at least other possible directions or wordings). When preparing…
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Be Authentic In Your Teaching
[social_share/] [social-bio] Almost two decades ago, I spent four months interning as a teacher in a Grade 2 classroom. My supervisor was an interesting (some might say eccentric) middle-aged woman who believed that a good teacher needed to “compete with the effect of video games on children” by entertaining students in the classroom. She would literally sing and dance her lessons and she insisted that I do the same. She would tell me time and time again that I planned wonderful lessons and units, but I needed to be “more of a performer” in my delivery. More singing! More dancing! More joke-telling! So in my supervisor’s presence I awkwardly sang…
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‘Driving’ the Lesson: The Pre-Assessment (Part I)
[social_share/] [social-bio] In my last post, I wrote about objectives and the value of pausing in the “everyday” experiences of learning. In a lesson, one place to really pause and pay attention is during the pre-assessment. This is the part of the lesson when instructors can assess what students already know and where students contribute their own experiences or ideas to the lesson. Daniel Pink, the author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About what Motivates Us, suggests that all human beings have a need “to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.” He claims three principles are central…
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Participatory Learning: Transfer so the ideas stick longer than popcorn on shoes
[social_share/] [social-bio] As Eric Mazur comments “You don’t learn to play piano by watching someone else play” in his presentation about using peer instruction in physics courses. If we want the knowledge and skills we teach to be used later rather than wasting 30+ hours, learning needs to occur. Instructors can be effective role models and offer students the opportunity to observe a master at work. A useful approach to teaching a process when accompanied by explicit description of the choices, rationale, solution steps and other metacognitive knowledge, particularly when involving dangerous procedures requiring expert skill for safety reasons. Such metacognitive pieces are key for students to see why a…
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Objectives: Pausing in the “Ordinary” Experiences of Learning
[social_share/] [social-bio] When planning to teach, I like to create an overall road map that helps me discern not only where I’m headed but reminds me of where I’ve been and the places I stopped or struggled along the way. Let’s face it, almost all teachers have some degree of “content-itis.” We love information, and lots of it. Yet we often fail to realize when information is too much, when thinking foregoes feeling, analysis foregoes creativity, or when teaching foregoes learning. In her book, On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes, Alexandra Horowitz discusses how our inattentiveness to the world around us stops us from seeing the “joy of the…
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Risk Taking in Teaching
[social_share/] [social-bio] I had the extreme pleasure of attending a panel conversation as part of the 4th Annual SoTL symposium last week. Panel members were Dr. Murray Drew from Agriculture and Bioresources, Dr. Jay Wilson and Dr. Michelle Prytula from Education, Dr. Daniel Regnier from St. Thomas More, Philosophy, Dr. Tracie Risling from Nursing and Dr. Mike Bradley from Physics/Engineering Physics. The panel discussion was incredibly thought provoking as would be expected from this line up of faculty from diverse disciplines and different points in their academic careers. The risks they undertook varied from teaching a course with an undergraduate to flipping a class, using social media to develop relationships…
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Objectives: Drum Roll Please…and setting a high bar together
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler Once students and I know what the class knows pre-assessment, I share the draft objectives listed on a screen and together revise them. The objectives are not just my talking points, they represent the skills, knowledge and value I will be expecting of them in future assessments, what they want to walk away with, and what we both are willing to engage in. There is also a second sneaky motivation I have based on my background in psychology: I want to use the social pressure for good (not evil). Through pubic agreement with the objectives, I want students to feel a sense of commitment…