Instructional Strategies
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Seeing the Beauty
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler There is something exciting, captivating and intriguing when working through an analysis and seeing the ideas crystalize or flip through the writings of colleague and see the connections to other papers, and to other ideas. The experience of excitement, in my case over a well-selected and implemented statistical analysis or assessment, draws us deeper into our fields of study and expertise. There is something intrinsically motivating (Ryan & Deci, 2000) about such exploration and devotion to learning and discovering more. Sure there are moments that seem like struggles when shopping an article or book for publishing, wrestling for time for deep critical thinking, or…
- Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies
Self-Belief and Student Success
[social_share/] [social-bio] I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of not performing to our potential at given points in our life due to anxiety, illness, the physical environment or just because we were having an off day. The importance of context on our ability to perform should not be underestimated. One factor that can greatly impact our ability to perform is our belief that we can achieve what we want to in a given context. If we believe we can do something we are far more likely to succeed. It could be argued that believing we can do something is simply a matter of knowing ones own strengths and weaknesses. …
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Being Enthusiastic About So-Called Mundane Stuff
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler My higher education teaching journey began as an upper-year undergraduate student teaching evening sessions about APA formatting: A seemingly dry topic about commas, alphabetical order of last names, single versus double space etc. As a necessity for undergraduate psychology paper, students’ motivation for signing up seemed to be extrinsically connected (Ryan & Deci, 2001) to the 10% of marks tied to correct use of APA formatting in most 3rd year papers. I could have started the session off with just those basic facts and the pressure-filled reminder of that 10%, but talking about why APA is useful set a better tone. Did you know…
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What’s In a Name? Pronouncing Students’ Names Correctly
By Tereigh Ewert What’s in a name? For all of us, I would argue, our name is deeply connected to our very identities. There are often stories around how we came to have the name we do, perhaps we’ve been named after a beloved family member, friend, or important person, perhaps it’s a name we’ve chosen for ourselves (but sometimes, a name that has been foisted upon us, as in the case of many First Nations peoples when dealing with the newcomers). Personally, with a train-wreck of a spelling for my name, I hear my name mispronounced all the time (it’s pronounced “terra”). When I first meet someone, it is…
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You’ve Got Teaching Problems? This Site Has the Answers!
[social_share/] [social-bio] When I was recently scouring the Internet for good teaching resources, I came across an exceptional site. The Solving a Teaching Problem webpage from the Eberly Center: Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation takes teachers through three steps to find practical solutions to teaching problems. As I walk through the process, Step 1 asks me to identify a problem that I am experiencing in my teaching. For example, “Students don’t seek help when they need it”. In Step 2, I am provided with a list of possible reasons for this problem. In this case, some possible reasons are “Students overestimate their understanding and ability Students may perceive you as…
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Turkey Dinner Causes University Student Career Planning! What’s the relationship?
[social_share/] [social-bio] A career counsellor once told me that appointment requests by first year university students increase dramatically after the Thanksgiving weekend. She knew from talking with many of these students, that it had been conversations with parents that weekend that had led to their making of appointments. Students (and parents of students) care deeply about their future and finding fulfilling and interesting career paths. While different degree programs make differing claims about achieving job preparation goals, students in all programs are right and wise to be anticipating their futures. Rarely, however, will the first six weeks of the first year answer many questions for new students—a fact that may…
- Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Program Evaluation, SoTL
Being More Efficient
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler “efficient |iˈfiSHənt| adjective (esp. of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense (of a person) working in a well-organized and competent way [ in combination ] preventing the wasteful use of a particular resource” –(New Oxford American Dictionary”, 3rd Edition, 2010, Oxford University Press) Efficiency focuses on the level of relevant output achieved relative to the amount of effort. Perhaps it is like the phrase “Work better, not harder” or “lift smarter, not harder”. So what does being efficient mean for teaching? What does being efficient mean for curriculum renewal? Set your goals: Focus energy on the…
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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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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…