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December, 2009

The Teaching Professor - December, 2009 - Full Audio MP3
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Using Post-Test Analysis to Help Students See Correlation Between Effort and Performance
One of the student engagement techniques (SETs) described in Elizabeth F. Barkley’s new book on student engagement (see a review of the book elsewhere in this issue) has students predicting and reflecting on their exam preparation and performance. It’s a technique that helps students see the correlation between their efforts and their exam scores, as well as one that helps them assess the effectiveness of the study strategies they use.

Teachers Who Improved
Two researchers used end-of-course ratings data to generate a cohort of faculty whose ratings in the same course had significantly improved over a three-year period. They defined significant improvement as a 1.5-point increase on an 8-point scale. In this cohort, more than 50 percent of faculty had improved between 1.5 and 1.99 points, another 40 percent between 2.0 and 2.99 points, and the rest even more. They surveyed this group, asking the faculty members to respond to several questions, including this most important one: “Your student ratings have increased for at least three consecutive semesters during the last three years in your [Course Name] class. What factors led to this change in your teaching performance?”

Assessing and Developing Metacognitive Skills
Metacognition is easily defined: “[It] refers to the ability to reflect upon, understand and control one’s learning,” (Schraw and Dennison, p. 460) or, even more simply, “thinking about one’s thinking.” Despite straightforward definitions, metacognition is a complicated construct that has been the object of research for more than 30 years.

Word Sort: An Active Learning, Critical-Thinking Strategy
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.

Cool Calling: A Creative Way to Start Discussions
Yesterday I was rereading Bill Welty’s great piece on “discussion method teaching.” As you can see by the reference, it was published 20 years ago. If you are a veteran reader of this publication and have one of those steel-trap memories, you will remember that in the November 1989 issue of this newsletter I summarized key ideas from that article. What I missed in Welty’s article (or maybe forgot) and never mentioned in the TP piece was a very creative suggestion for calling on students.

Teacher Anger: When Does it Violate Expected Norms of Teacher Behavior
Do you ever reach a point where you’ve just had it with your students—they still aren’t following directions you’ve repeatedly delivered, they’re still talking not so quietly in the back of the room, and too many of them are still turning in work that has been dashed off at the last minute? So what do you do?

Developing Problem-Solving Skills via Online Discussions
As regularly noted in this publication, developing sophisticated but essential learning skills is especially challenging in large classes. That’s why we regularly report on strategies that faculty members have developed and are using in large classes. The cases in point here are three different biochemistry courses in which faculty members have been using online, asynchronous discussion groups to develop problem-solving skills.

Book Review: New and Noteworthy - Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty
The book in a nutshell: “Student engagement is a process and a product that is experienced on a continuum and results from the synergistic interaction between motivation and active learning.” (p. 8) That’s how Barkley defines engagement. It’s more than just motivation and active learning overlapping.

Discovering and Developing Teaching Skills
“Self-knowledge is the beginning of all knowledge,” writes C. Roland Christensen, one of the true masters of discussion teaching. He is referring to his development as a teacher—how he arrived at the techniques that made him so effective. Most teacher accounts of growth are not as instructive and insightful as this one. Best of all, the approach he used to develop his discussion leadership skills is one that can be used to develop many teaching skills.