Monday, November 26, 2012

From faculty focus


Get Visual: A Technique for Improving Student Writing

By: in Effective Teaching Strategies
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One of the ongoing challenges for my composition students is the task of narrowing a broad, generalized topic into a more particular, focused topic for a short research essay. To help them develop this skill, I now prescribe a broad topic for everyone to use in the first research essay. Over several class sessions, we work collaboratively to explore the general topic, identify more particular subtopics, and develop research strategies to investigate these subtopics as possible subject matter.
This semester I required all of the students to write about our city, Anderson, Indiana. In addition to all of the other “process” assignments I use to teach my students inquiry, research strategies and drafting techniques, I recently added an art project to the mix. The assignment was simple: create a poster that gives a “face” to the city of Anderson. I told the students to be creative in their design and to represent visually the key discoveries they’ve made about their specialized topics. I also encouraged them to suggest the focus and purpose for their essay through the content or design of the poster. I promised to give each student 30 seconds to offer comments about his or her poster to the class.
In “Design Principles for Visual Communication,” Maneesh Agrawala, Wilmot Li and Floraine Berthouzoz insist that communication through visual images is “fundamental to the process of exploring concepts and disseminating information.” Because I teach writing, I tend to be preoccupied primarily with discovery and communication through language. However, the liberal arts academy in which I teach reminds me that the relationship between the humanities, the sciences and the arts is intimate and profound. “The most effective visualizations capitalize on the human facility for processing visual information, thereby improving comprehension, memory, and inference” (Agrawala, Li and Floraine 60). That’s exactly what I was trying to accomplish with my students: capitalize on their ability to “comprehend” their own discoveries and to communicate those discoveries and rhetorical ambitions to an audience clearly.
The posters students created in response to the assignment were impressive—not in their artistic design but in their clarity. Nearly every student was able to articulate an appropriately narrow focus AND a specific purpose for the essay project. Making the poster seemed to help them identify the key ideas or categories of information they would include in the paper.
Using words, symbols, clip art, photographs and drawings (some very crude, some skillful), the students successfully identified relationships among the bodies of information or ideas they had generated through research and exploratory writing. Many of the students even reflected on their research process in their comments about the poster, using phrases like “I thought X was true about Anderson, but I discovered . . .” or “I think readers would be surprised to learn X about this city . . .” or “My goal for the essay is to persuade readers that . . . .”. Though I gave specific instructions for the poster, I gave no specific instructions for the commentary. The students’ statements suggested to me that the act of translating ideas and information into a visual “essay” helped them take control of their own writing goals.
For the next essay, I plan to use this poster technique in lieu of a traditional outline. Organizing content visually and symbolically may be just the trick to helping student “comprehend” a logical structure for their arguments.
Reference: Agrawala, Maneesh, Wilmot Li and Floraine Berthouzoz. “Design Principles for Visual Communication.” Communications of the ACM 54.4 (2011): 60-69. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 3 Oct. 2012.
Deborah Miller Fox is professor of composition, creative writing and literature at Anderson University, a liberal arts college in central Indiana.
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Monday, November 19, 2012

Faculty Focus -Deep vs. Surface Learning



November 19, 2012

Deep Learning vs. Surface Learning: Getting Students to Understand the Difference

By: in Teaching Professor Blog
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Sometimes our understanding of deep learning isn’t all that deep. Typically, it’s defined by what it is not. It’s not memorizing only to forget and it’s not reciting or regurgitating what really isn’t understood and can’t be applied. The essence of deep learning is understanding—true knowing. That’s a good start but it doesn’t do much to help students see the difference between deep and surface learning or to help persuade them that one is preferable to the other.
Those differences are further obscured and rendered unimportant when teachers use superficial measures (e.g. multiple-choice questions that test recall) to assess understanding. Why do students memorize isolated facts that they don’t really understand? Because, in many courses, that approach has rewarded them with good or at least decent grades. Until teachers stop relying on questions that can be answered with details plucked from short-term memory, there isn’t much chance that students will opt for the deep learning approaches.
Most teachers (especially those who read a blog like this) recognize that test formats directly affect the choice of study strategies. We are committed to preparing questions that require higher level thinking skills. Our students discover they can’t answer those questions with the easy information bits they’ve memorized and so they start studying differently. The problem is that without teacher guidance, students end up selecting deep learning strategies more by accident and less by design. That challenge is answered by knowing what constitutes a deep learning strategy.
In an article reporting on the success of certain test question formats to promote higher-level thinking skills, faculty researcher Kathrin Stanger-Hall includes a list of study strategies characteristic of surface and deep learning. Because students can be physically active (doing things) but without much cognitive involvement, her list differentiates between cognitively passive learning behaviors and cognitively active ones. She includes references to the literature justifying this distinction. Below are some samples from each list. The full list can be accessed via this article: www.lifescied.org/content/11/3/294.full
Cognitively passive learning behaviors (surface learning approaches)
I came to class.
I reviewed my class notes.
I made index cards.
I highlighted the text.
Cognitively active learning behaviors (deep learning approaches)
I wrote my own study questions.
I tried to figure out the answer before looking it up.
I closed my notes and tested how much I remembered.
I broke down complex processes step-by-step.
Lists that are this behaviorally focused do oversimplify complex processes like deep learning, but they are still enormously helpful at making clear what deep learning might look like when you try to do it. Researcher Stanger-Hall included both kinds of behaviors on a survey that she had students complete at the beginning, during and at the end of the course. Her students identified which of the behaviors they were using as they prepared for course exams. It’s a creative assessment technique she used to document whether having to answer some test questions not formatted as multiple-choice questions changed the approaches students said they were using to study. Her data show that it did. (Look for highlights from this study in an article in the December issue of The Teaching Professor.) Not only did students in the experimental group use more of the deep learning approaches, but their exam scores were significantly better than those in the control group. When you can show students that certain approaches to studying improve exam scores, you’ve given them a compelling reason to try them out.
A final thought
Maybe I’ve been writing this blog for too long. I’m starting to repeat points made in previous posts. But it is terribly important that in explicit and concerted ways we make students aware of themselves as learners. We must regularly ask, not only “What are you learning?” but “How are you learning?” We must confront them with the effectiveness (more often ineffectiveness) of their approaches. We must offer alternatives and then challenge students to test the efficacy of those approaches. We can tell them the alternatives work better but they will be convinced if they discover that for themselves.
Reference: Stanger-Hall, K. F. (2012). Multiple-choice exams: An obstacle for higher-level thinking in introductory science classes. Cell Biology Education—Life Sciences Education, 11 (3), 294-306.
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Thursday, November 15, 2012

From Faculty Focus

From



November 13, 2012

A New Way to Help Students Learn Course Vocabulary

By: in Effective Teaching Strategies
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Most college students struggle with the vocabulary of our disciplines. In their various electronic exchanges, they do not use a lot of multisyllabic, difficult-to-pronounce words. And virtually all college courses are vocabulary rich—unfamiliar words abound. Most students know that the new vocabulary in a course is important. They use flash cards and other methods to help them memorize the words and their meanings for their exams. Two days later, the words and their meanings are gone.
Word Sort is a strategy that helps students learn and better remember new vocabulary. Students work in small groups, with each group given an envelope containing key terms on separate slips of paper. Students are instructed to discuss what they think the words mean and then organize them into different categories based on what they think the relationships among the words might be. The strategy was developed for use in science courses, where terms have more precise meanings and fit more readily into categories. Students do this initial sort before reading about the terms or hearing them defined and discussed in lecture. After exposure to the words in the text or lecture, students get back into their groups and re-sort the words, comparing their new arrangements with the ones they first constructed.
A lot of iterations of the basic strategy can be used. For example, individual students can be given the collection of terms and told to define and relate them after having done the reading as a homework assignment. Before turning their work in for some modest number of points, students might share with other students in a small group what they’ve done. Or the instructor might use a particularly good categorization in a final review of the material or position that chunk of content with what’s to be learned next.
As might be expected, some students (in this article it was a small group) object to the approach. These are the students who think that the instructor should just tell them the definitions and their relationships. Having to figure it out for themselves means that the students are doing the work the teacher should be doing. What these students fail to understand is that the process of discussing—saying the words aloud and using them in sentences—makes the words more familiar and therefore easier to remember. Exploring how the words relate to each other means that the students are building a framework that puts the words in context, also making the words easier to remember in both the short and long terms.
If students work with the terms and their relationships before being given their definitions and relationships, they are forced to draw on their prior knowledge and experience. Students discover that they often do know something about the terms and their relationships, and teachers need to include more activities in courses that challenge students to draw on their prior knowledge. Students do not arrive in college courses as blank slates—they have taken (in this case) science courses previously. That tasks like these challenge students is a good thing. Students benefit when they are put in situations where figuring out answers is up to them.
Reference: Nixon, S. and Fishback, J. (2009). Enhancing comprehension and retention of vocabulary concepts through small-group discussion: Probing for connections among key terms. Journal of College Science Teaching, May/June, 18-21.
Reprinted from Word Sort: An Active Learning, Critical-Thinking Strategy, The Teaching Professor, 23.10 (2009): 4.
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Monday, November 5, 2012

Teaching & Learning - Brain-Based Online Learning Design - Magna Publications

Teaching & Learning - Brain-Based Online Learning Design - Magna Publications
Great article on brain-based learning design

Abreena Tompkins, instruction specialist at Surry Community College, has developed a brain-based online course design model based on a meta-analysis of more than 300 articles. In this study, she distilled the following elements of brain-based course design:How to Implement Brain-Based Learning Strategies in Your Courses
  • Low-risk, nonthreatening learning environment
  • Challenging, real-life, authentic assessments
  • Rhythms, patterns, and cycles
  • Appropriate chunking or grouping
  • Learning as orchestration rather than lecture or facilitation
  • Appropriate level of novelty
  • Appropriately timed breaks and learning periods
  • Purposeful assessments
  • Learning that addresses visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners
  • Active processing with mental models
  • The use of universal examples, analogies, and parallel processing
Tompkins offers the following succinct definition of brain-based: “instructional strategies designed for compatibility with the brain’s propensities for seeking, processing, and organizing information.”
Tompkins’ model uses the acronym IGNITE.

Intervals: Tompkins recommends using an interval of intense focus for approximately 15 to 20 minutes followed by a two- to three-minute break. “Physiologically, your neurons are keen and alert for no more than 20 consecutive minutes. At the end of those 20 minutes, your neurons have gone from full-fledged alert to total collapse, and it takes two to three minutes for those neurons to be completely recovered and back to the total alert state. If you break longer than three minutes, you’ve redirected your attention,” Tompkins says.

Shifting from intense focus need not be a radical change. It can be as simple as posting to a discussion board.

Grouping: Present information in groups of three or five. “The brain can process no more than nine items in a sequence, and it actually does this much more efficiently with three or five. Odd numbers work better than even numbers. If you’re going to give students a list of six things to do, make it one, two, three, whitespace, four, five, six. The brain responds to whitespace because the brain processes things in groups. Students will be better able to focus as they look at this group of information. You’re providing the same amount of content. It just makes it more learner-friendly,” Tompkins says.
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Novelty: When students are bored they tend to not pay attention to information that is present. Tompkins recommends injecting novelty to prevent boredom. “If there’s no announcement to make, post a good joke for the day. If you’ve got a header picture, change it once a week. Insert pictures with each unit. Do something to get their attention. You want students to go in and say, ‘What’s new today?’”

Interconnectedness: Learning needs to be connected to students’ reason for taking the course. Tompkins recommends making these connections by providing experiences and demonstrations and revisiting those experiences. Constant review is essential because people learn through two mechanisms: repetition and connecting to prior knowledge, Tompkins says.

Technology and time: Select the appropriate technology to suit the needs of your students. For example, podcasts may be effective for master’s-level students, but they are not a good choice for teaching developmental-level students.

It's important to provide enough time for students to process what they’ve learned. “Don’t put so much work in there that there’s no time to process what you’re asking them to learn. I think sometimes instructors fill their courses with all kinds of things that there’s no way students will have time to do everything,” Tompkins says.

Environment: Keep the affective aspects of the online learning environment in mind. Welcome student emails. Understand your learners’ needs.

This model does not require sophisticated high-tech solutions. “It can all be done with a very simple course design,” Tompkins says. “I recommend using visuals all you can because over 90 percent of us are visual learners.”
 Rob Kelly is the editor of Online Classroom. 
This article originally appeared in the newsletter
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Teaching & Learning - Brain-Based Online Learning Design - Magna Publications

Teaching & Learning - Brain-Based Online Learning Design - Magna Publications

This article has some excellent ideas on learning activities
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