by Michaella Thornton, Assistant Director for Instructional Design

Penn State University’s “Faculty Self-Assessment: Preparing for Online Teaching” and “Web Learning @ Penn State”

developed by the Faculty Engagement subcommittee of Penn State’s Online Coordinating Council

Links: https://weblearning.psu.edu/FacultySelfAssessment/ AND http://weblearning.psu.edu/resources

The summertime is a great time to reflect on the course design process, especially if you are preparing to teach an online or blended course.  If you are at that particular point in your teaching, I highly recommend taking Penn State University’s “Faculty Self-Assessment: Preparing for Online Teaching” and checking out the resources for “Web Learning @ Penn State,”; while this page contains some resources only for PSU faculty, the  page also contains open links to an e-learning glossary and several journal and research articles centered on online teaching and learning.

The quick “Preparing for Online Teaching” self-assessment takes no more than 5 minutes and asks respondents to assess themselves on the following four categories: organization and time management; communicating online; teaching and online experience; and technical skills. After you’re done taking the self-assessment, you receive an emailed report with detailed, evidence-based, and confidential feedback on areas of strength and development that you may want to consider before teaching online.

Quest Garden

Link: http://questgarden.com/

This link came to us from a faculty member who designed a first-time WebQuest this summer.  If you’re interested in creating an inquiry-based online lesson, Quest Garden gives you a free 30-day trial subscription to experiment with the pedagogical format and technical set-up of a WebQuest and is of note because you can also embed other media, such as images, video, and Google Docs, into the process.

Iowa State University’s “A Model of Learning Objectives”

Link: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html

Instructional Designer, Sandy Gambill previewed a super helpful learning objectives builder in The Notebook in October 2012 [Radio James Objective Builder was gone for a brief blip -- hosted no more by James Basore, of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, but then re-hosted by Arizona State University (ASU) Online in January].  Iowa State’s interactive model, created by Rex Heer of Iowa State’s Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching, is a great follow-up to the Radio James Objective Builder resource highlighted earlier.  What makes this interactive model appealing is that it helps folks see how learning objectives may be crafted to meet the needs of the cognitive process and knowledge dimensions.

For four years I have taught blended, accelerated, and linked first-year composition courses at another learning institution.  Despite having several years experience teaching face-to-face college-level writing and online educational technology courses before teaching a blended course, I had to teach myself a lot about the educational nuances and practicalities of blended, or hybrid, pedagogy.

While I immersed myself in the learning theory of connectivism (Siemens, 2005), determined how to best facilitate online writing conferences (Hewett, 2010), and navigated the most effective ways to design an integrated writing class that wouldn’t encumber students with lots of unintuitive technology or unnecessary online interactions, I wished then for a more comprehensive yet succinct overview of some of the most effective blended course design practices, especially for those new to teaching a blended course.

A year ago in June 2012, Dr. Patricia McGee and Abby Reis, both of The University of Texas at San Antonio, published their qualitative meta-analysis of 67 public narratives on the “best” or most “effective” practices in blended learning in the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. This summer as I read McGee and Reis’ meta-analysis of existing literature (see below for some of the recommended resources they discuss), oh, how I wished this journal article had been available when I first began teaching blended courses in early 2009.

McGee and Reis’ qualitative research, which focuses on exploring the collective wisdom of teaching blended courses via publically available online resources and the “pedagogical patterns” common in instructional design theory and strategies, underscored the importance of re-designing one’s blended course and not just trying to Frankenstein or simply add-on to an existing face-to-face course with a narrated PowerPoint here or a wiki there (p. 10).  The “course-and-a-half phenomenon” McGee and Reis discuss reflects what many teachers often do, myself included, when first teaching a blended course with little to no instructional design support or adequate time to develop a blended course (p. 11). (Please note: All SLU faculty and graduate students, however, are welcome to have an instructional design consultation with members of the CTTL.  Just drop me a line at mthornt7@slu.edu to schedule a time to talk.)

McGee and Reis note several key patterns and discoveries in their research:

• While the terms “blended” and “hybrid” are often bandied about as synonymous, the authors point out the limitations of the latter descriptor by pointing out “hybrid suggests that one mode is unused while the other is used” (p. 8).  Blended is the preferred term by the authors largely because a blended course is designed to be “seamlessly operational where the transition between classroom meeting and online component is minimal” (p. 8).
• The authors also tackle the “seat time” conundrum that is often omnipresent when first creating online or blended programs, especially for those programs intent on meeting accreditation standards.  The distribution of time between face-to-face or online modalities was often not explicitly broken down in the sources the authors surveyed; however, even when looking at ratios of between “30 to 79% in either online or face-to-face” interactions, the authors find many of the ratios too limiting, especially when “focusing only on the context and environment in which learning occurs rather than course roles, pedagogy, and functions of meetings that, for us, are what makes the blended course unique” (p. 9).
• A key tenet of many guides to designing effective blended courses is that these courses often shift “from a teacher-directed to a learner-centered paradigm” (p. 11).
• How long does it take to design an effective blended course?  McGee and Reis found that the oft-cited “time to redesign courses is reported to require three to six months in advance of implementation” (2012, p. 11).  An important logistical consideration for faculty members interested in redesigning a course in a blended format.
• Two notable factors related to increasing student engagement in blended courses include “varied interactivity and prompt feedback” (p. 13).  These factors, of course, are also essential to face-to-face or wholly online classes.
• Not surprisingly, “blended courses provide a fertile environment for metacognition as students are involved in learning within and outside of the classroom” (p. 13).  The authors point out that many online discussions, due to the medium and the wait time afforded to all students participating in asynchronous conversations, often elicit a more “discursive” and democratic discussion and prompt higher-order level of thinking for students beyond “completion-based” or clarification conversations often found in face-to-face classes.
• A finding from the study I double-underlined and plan on posting prominently on my desk and referring to often: “Using technology for technology’s sake is distracting and does not motivate the learner.  Student motivation decreases when technology is at odds or superfluous to instructional outcomes” (p. 15).
• While there are so many gems in McGee and Reis’ research, one that I think bears repeating focuses on how we frame the blended courses we teach to students: “[I]t would seem that setting expectations is of the utmost importance so that learners understand how the course works, and whether or not they are equipped to be successful” (p. 16).  This is a truism for any course one may teach, but especially so when talking with students who are taking a blended course for the first time.

All in all, this article serves as an informative yet targeted synthesis about what has been written publically in higher education about how to best design blended courses.  The authors also highlight where additional research on creating effective blended courses could be done (and how such research might be initiated and vetted).  Also interesting to note, the authors point out that actual examples of blended courses are often hard to come by – at least in the public literature they reviewed (perhaps due to the shrouded or proprietary nature of many Learning Management Systems).  Recommendations for how more of us can capture and share examples of blended courses are also included in the authors’ concluding remarks.

For what this journal article covers about designing effective blended courses in 22 short pages (not to mention the instructive course-alignment table provided in The Design Process section), I highly recommend reading, and then re-reading, McGee and Reis’ findings.  Their meta-analysis is well-organized, helpful, and straight-forward – a must-read for anyone interested in designing a blended course for the fall or spring semester.

A few helpful online resources mentioned in McGee and Reis’ (2012) study:

• The Blended Toolkit: http://blended.online.ucf.edu
• Pennsylvania State University: http://weblearning.psu.edu/blended-learning-initiative
• University of Central Florida: http://online.ucf.edu
• Simmons University: http://at.simmons.edu/blendedlearning/learnhow/simmons_case_studies.php
• EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative: http://www.educause.edu/library/blended-learning
• Sloan-C: http://sloanconsortium.org/blended

References

Hewett, B. (2010). The online writing conference: A guide for teachers and tutors. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.

McGee, P., & Reis, A. (2012). Blended course design: A synthesis of best practices. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(4), 7-22. Retrieved from http://sloanconsortium.org/jaln/v16n4/blended-course-design-synthesis-best-practices

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved from http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm

One of the frequent conversations that occur when talking with faculty about the Learning Studio is the relationship between classroom space and technology.  While cameras, video walls, projectors, and other educational technology can be successfully utilized to help provide new approaches for teaching and learning, another component to teaching with technology is the understanding of how physical space supports and enhances the learning experience.

Whether the classroom space be a large lecture hall or an open-collaborative learning environment , the physical learning space must be suitable to support both the practice needs of technology (ample electricity, decent lighting, comfortable seating, etc) but the needs of student and faculty users must also be considered.  As a result, the form and function of classroom design becomes an important consideration when looking at instructional design.

Although the topic of classroom and learning space design has been the subject of educational research for nearly a 100 years (Whitehouse, 2009),  in recent years, a multi-disciplined approach incorporating architecture, interior design, educational psychology with learning space design is starting to emerge.

An example of this multi-disciplined focus on learning spaces can be found in the book, The Third Teacher, 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching & Learning (O’Donnell, et.al, 2010).  Created by an international team of architects, designers, and educators, the book strives to offer 79 practice design ideas to transform teaching and learning.

The title of the book is based on a perspective of Italian psychologist Loris Malaguzzi’s work in the schools of Reggio Emilia following WWII. Malaguzzi asserted that students encounter three teachers: (1) the adult instructor(s), (2) their peers, and (3) the school environment itself  (Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J., 2007)

Created through a collaborative project between the architectural firm OWP/P Architects, the German company VS Furniture, and Bruce Mau Design, the book utilizes design thinking found in architecture, interior design, and learning space design to create environments that facilitate 21st century learning.  More than just a prescriptive set of room layouts or profiles on modern furniture, the book combines theories on learning, wellness, design thinking, and creativity into a set group of principles that are clearly explained and complimentary for all disciplines and grade levels.

With a visually compelling layout that is easy to browse, the book is divided into eight sections to relating to learning space design.  Each section is supplemented notable educational theorists like Howard Gardner, Sir Ken Robinson, and David Orr to offer multiple perspectives on using design to help transform teaching and learning.

While the book complements many of the social constructivist theories of John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner, and Albert Bandura it should be viewed as a primer rather that a definitive text.  The book is useful as a quick resource on the emerging area of learning space design for the 21st century.

Although there are several other books that take a constructivist view towards education, technology and learning space design, but The Third Teacher is a nice contemporary primer.  For more information, visit Dr. Flannery Burke’s excellent post titled, Environment As The Third Teacher as well as the following resources:

References:

Oblinger, D. (2006). Space as a change agent. In D.Oblinger (Ed.), Learning spaces (pp. 1.1–1.4). Washington, DC: EDUCAUSE.

O’Donnell Wicklund Pigozzi and Peterson, Architects Inc., VS Furniture., & Bruce Mau Design. (2010). The third teacher: 79 ways you can use design to transform teaching & learning. New York: Abrams.

Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2007). Children and Place: Reggio Emilia’s Environment As Third Teacher. Theory Into Practice, 46(1), 40-47. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4601_6

Whitehouse, D. (2009). Designing learning spaces that work: a case for the importance of history.History of Education Review, 38 (2), pp.94-108.

–

Additional Resources

Barrett, P., Zhang, Y., Moffat, J. and Kobbacy, K. (2013). A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils’ learning. Building and Environment, 59 pp.678-689.

Educause.edu (2013). Pedagogy and Space: Empirical Research on New Learning Environments (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE.edu. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/pedagogy-and-space-empirical-research-new-learning-environments [Accessed: 3 Jun 2013].

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition.

Photo credit: The photograph of the CTTL Learning Studio [at the top of the blog post] is courtesy of Herman Miller, Inc.

by Jerod Quinn, Instructional Designer, CTTL

I warned my students this past semester that there would be a certain level of ambiguity inherent in my “introduction to technology” class. I was not going to walk them through using every application we discuss, but I would instead expect them to “figure it out” on their own. I promised them it would be frustrating at times, but learning is frustrating at times. As it turns out, I too had to eat my own words.

I am a techie by nature, so a course designed to introduce students to gadgets and apps and to prompt their understanding about how those apps can be useful, especially for future educators, is right up my alley. As I began choosing which apps we would wrestle with, I decided early on that I wanted my students to be familiar with blogs and understand how to navigate the backend of a content management system. I wanted them reading and commenting on each other’s work, but I also wanted them writing and publishing their own work. With that in mind, I decided to use a public WordPress blog; www.edi399.com.

While the focus of this post will be about the experience of using a public WordPress blog in my class, I think the topic warrants a quick explanation of why I was using a blog in the first place. A blog can incorporate two of Chickering and Gamson’s “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” fairly naturally: good practice encourages student faculty contact, and good practice encourages cooperation among students. In keeping with the traditions of a Jesuit university, I also wanted to incorporate a space for the students to reflect on their experiences in the class. Reflection is a very important part of Ignatian Pedagogy and is connected to the Jesuit commitment to the transformational power of education.

“But why WordPress? There’s a perfectly fine blogging tool in Blackboard or Campus Pack!” That’s true. Going with WordPress means more hassle on my part administering an additional website and more hassle for my students in having to access another online tool. But it also means they get experience using a real-world tool that their future employers or graduate schools may be using to manage their professional websites. When their future bosses ask them in an interview, “Do you have any experience navigating a content management system?” I wanted them to be able to give an enthusiastic, “Yes!” I have also gathered anecdotal evidence from other faculty that when students know their writing will be seen by their peers and possibly by future employers, they tend to put a little more effort into it.

Along the way, I encountered expected and unexpected challenges. Of all the things I have learned with this project, here are a few lessons that stand out in my mind.

• Having a self-hosted blog means you are now an instructor and a website administrator. You manage student login info, create how-to-use-this-blog videos, deal with comment spam, and troubleshoot technical issues with students.
• Students will always forget their login name or password, no matter how many times they have previously posted to the blog.
• Blog comments give you another space where you can push the critical thinking of students and challenge their assumptions.
• You need to be clear when assignments are to be turned in as blog posts. And even then, you will get a few emailed to you instead.
• While I required students to comment on each other’s work, I wonder if it would have occurred more naturally if they were writing to the blog more frequently?
• Depending on the questions you ask, you can get a picture of the student’s process of thinking as they wrestle with course material.
• Even though your host company’s servers have never gone down a single time in the five years you have had service with them, they will go down on the exact day and hour your biggest writing assignment of the semester is due, which of course, is submitted as a blog post. True story.
• The more you have students using the blog the better and more useful the blog gets. Commit to it being a major part of your class or don’t use a public blog.
• You spend the semester scaffolding their learning. You cover material and assign projects that build to a cumulative final project that is designed to be an evaluation asking if they have reached the course goals. They complete the project, then reflect on some questions about the project on the blog. You grade the project and then read the student reflections about the final project. As you read the reflections you realize, they get it. Your students understand the things you knew you needed them to understand when you began this course sixteen weeks ago. The blog gives you a place to celebrate that victory.

There’s always a risk when you try something new. There will be unforeseen problems like continual password resets and horribly timed server crashes. But risk is what makes teaching and learning exciting, and it makes payoffs all the more sweet. Trying something new will be frustrating at times, but learning is frustrating at times. With that in mind, I would absolutely use a public blog again for my class. The only thing I know I would do differently is to have it more incorporated into the class. I would want them to write and reflect more, even if that means resetting passwords every week.

Food for thought for those interested in blogging in the classroom:

• Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing
• Using Blogs in a College Classroom: What’s Authenticity Got to Do with It?

Dr. Beccy Aldrich explains how and why she partnered with a colleague at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden this spring 2013 semester to teach students about how culture influences the understanding of occupational therapy, geopolitics, and disability.

by Michaella Thornton, Assistant Director for Instructional Design

It is an inspiring and instructive privilege to be able to peek inside others’ classrooms to experience how others teach, hear how and why teachers make the choices they do for students, learning goals and objectives, and respective disciplines, and to consider how such possibilities may be transformed by those who teach elsewhere and/or do research on the scholarship of teaching and learning.

On Friday, April 19th past and current Innovative Teaching Fellows shared their perspectives about teaching in the Learning Studio, a state-of-the-art teaching space designed by a team of Saint Louis University faculty and students as part of the Herman Miller Learning Spaces Research Program.  Almost 40 full-time SLU faculty and administrators attended this at-capacity event.

Presenting CTTL Innovative Teaching Fellows included:

• Jenny Agnew, Ph.D., School for Professional Studies (Fall 2012), who discussed how her “ENGL 150:  The Process of Composition” students used theme-based writing projects via a public WordPress blog to explore the collaborative and on-going nature of writing, food, and culture, in addition to sharing how flexible classroom design may enhance the teaching of composition, especially in hosting teacher-student conferences, brainstorming sessions, and peer review.
• Beccy Aldrich, Ph.D., Department of Occupational Sciences and Occupational Therapy (Spring 2013), who shared how her “OCS 372: Occupations in Diverse Contexts” class uses immersive, collaborative learning technologies such as Fuze Meeting to connect with the Karolinska Institutet, a premier medical university located in Stockholm, Sweden, to foster a more globalized and diverse student perspective about occupational therapy.
• Paul Lynch, Ph.D., Department of English (Spring 2013), who shared how his graduate-level “ENGL 501: Teaching Writing” class uses a course blog and Google Docs to empower first-year composition instructors to co-construct assignments, the course syllabus, and model effective writing feedback for first-year composition students.
• Nathaniel Rivers, Ph.D., Department of English (Fall 2012), gave the audience a first-hand look at what he and his students have learned through the course, “ENGL 401: New Media Science Writing,” by sharing a snippet from his forthcoming jointly-created webtext, “Articulation.”  To see and/or hear a  different Vimeo video that sets the tone for the course Dr. Rivers held in the Learning Studio last fall, please click here.
• Thomas Stewart, J.D., School of Law (Fall 2012), who discussed how his first-year Evidence students used Google Docs and team-based and case-based learning to identify, apply, and contextualize the Federal Rules of Evidence (and the Missouri counterparts) to prepare students to practice law as professional attorneys.

We are so grateful to the Symposium panelists, who make this annual event possible by generously sharing their teaching and learning reflections with the larger Saint Louis University community.  [update on Tuesday, May 15th]: For those in the SLU community who were unable to attend the Symposium and would like to view a password-protected video, please email me at mthornt7[at]slu[dot]edu and I will enroll you in the CTTL Events course via Blackboard Learn.

Special thanks is also due to Flannery Burke, Ph.D., Department of History (Spring 2012), who prepared and introduced the Symposium panelists and deftly facilitated the Q&A session that immediately followed the panelists’ presentations.

We especially look forward to continuing the reflective conversation next April (2014) when we host our 3rd Annual Learning Studio Symposium.  Since the Innovative Teaching Fellowship program began in Fall 2011, the faculty who teach in the Learning Studio have much to share with the broader community about what teaching practices and educational technologies resonate with them, transfer to classrooms outside of the Learning Studio, the role of instructional design, and how providing space, time, and support to be in a new or refreshed mindset can make all the difference in reinvigorating or creating innovative learning environments for 21st Century students.

Late April to mid-May is often a frenetic time of year for faculty, students, and staff (admittedly, my mind often wanders to a beach much like the one pictured here in Venice Beach).  The semester is winding down, culminating projects are well underway, and time is fleeting and in short supply.  Yet before the barrage of grading final projects and papers begins or graduation commences, I’d like to take a moment to share two important events happening at Saint Louis University that may affect those of you teaching this summer and beyond.

Saturday, May 18, 2013: SLU Global, which will be officially known as Blackboard Learn on May 18th, the Learning Management System (LMS) used by many faculty members and graduate teaching assistants and supported by SLU ITS, will be upgraded from Service Pack 7 to Blackboard Learn 9.1 Service Pack 11.  This upgrade was announced by ITS on March 6 via Newslink and live webinar “tours” of the Blackboard upgrade are available this week and next, also announced via Newslink on April 19^th.  To register for these “tours,” click here.

To get a sense of the upcoming changes, Kim Scharringhausen, Instructional Liaison, also recommends viewing the following videos so those teaching at SLU may see what’s in store with the enhanced design and improved functionality and accessibility of Service Pack 11:

• The New 2012-2013 Theme
• Global Navigation and My Blackboard

So, what does the Blackboard upgrade mean for you, the faculty member or graduate instructor?

• Blackboard Learn will not be available for most of the day on May 18^th and after May 18th Blackboard Learn may look and/or function differently to SLU users, depending on users’ familiarity, comfort, and prior review or experience with the new look and feel of the updated LMS.
• This also means that anyone teaching during or immediately after this Blackboard upgrade may want to take extra time planning and preparing for online or face-to-face courses that use Blackboard, in addition to reviewing syllabi and course schedules to ensure major assignments or online collaboration and discussions are not due on May 18^th.
• Notifying students about the Blackboard upgrade and how it may affect their ability to complete coursework on Saturday, May 18^th is also a smart plan of action.  Plan Bs (and Cs and Ds) are often a professor’s best friend, especially when learning technologies are being upgraded.

Monday, July 29 – Friday, August 2, 2013: The next session of the CTTL’s Online Teaching & Learning Institute, or OTLI, has been designed to fit into full-time faculty members’ schedules for one week this summer.  OTLI will take place from 9 AM to 4 PM the week of July 29.  Seating is limited to 12 full-time SLU faculty members. Priority seating is given to those who have not already gone through the Institute, are planning to teach an online or blended course in the near future, and for full-time professors who hail from a variety of departments, schools, and programs at Saint Louis University so as to foster an interdisciplinary cohort interested in exploring effective practices and pedagogy for teaching online.

OTLI includes daily meetings and facilitated conversations about online teaching and learning, collaborative and independent work time, individualized instructional-design consultations, and much more.  To register for this summer’s OTLI, please click here.

Best of luck as your semester wraps up!  We hope you’ll consider the forthcoming update to Blackboard Learn as you plan for summer and fall classes and think about registering for the CTTL’s next Online Teaching & Learning Institute.

by Michaella Thornton, Assistant Director for Instructional Design, Reinert CTTL

First, a brief, lively video explanation of what digital media curation is:

What is Curation? from Percolate on Vimeo.

There’s an exciting movement underway regarding the tried-and-true textbook.  The Internet, digital scholarship, open-access journals, academic crowd-sourcing, and on-going debates about providing equitable, affordable, and timely course information to students have all contributed to educators questioning the role (and possibly even the relevancy) of the almighty textbook.  There’s even an Institute for the Future of the Book. The first sentence of their mission statement reads: “The printed page is giving way to the networked screen.”  True enough.  But how true is this statement for professors and college students?

While a great textbook can help organize numerous concepts and content into more manageable and organized chapters, textbooks can sometimes become instructional crutches, overly relied on for coverage-based courses instead of thinking about why a particular text or series of texts serves as a primary authority on a subject or how such a text supports the learning objectives of the course, among a bevy of important skills many of us hope students hone and use beyond our classes: critical reflection, deep and close reading, analytical thinking, and encouraging students to connect the dots between the texts they read to their lives, other texts, and the world at large.

Some commonly used digital curation tools that many teachers are finding success with, especially in co-constructing course reading lists and co-creating collaborative learning experiences with students, include:

• Twitter: Instructional designer Jerod Quinn wrote a great primer about using social media in the classroom in an earlier blog post, in addition to getting the most out of this micro-blogging and bookmarking tool.
• Pinterest: This visual bulletin board is not just for the super crafty or photo-obsessed. Professors are using Pinterest for “visual sharing in architecture, photography, design, and art classes,” among many other things.
• Diigo: Diigo first started out as an online bookmarking tool. Nowadays the website and app allows users to “collect and highlight, then remember.” Many educators use this tool to create reading lists with students and to organize web-based research.
• Bit.ly Bundles: Helps professors unify, organize, and then share web-based information more easily with students. For an example, check out the blog, Technology for Academics.
• iBooks Author, Red Staple, and Folium Book Studio: There are many ways to e-publish a course text. These are a couple options to help you consider the possibilities if you’re interested in creating your own course text.

So, what digital curation methods do you employ in your classes?   Do you view your role as a curator of educational experiences?  If so, how do you help students explore compelling questions through the digital learning objects you’ve assembled?

Full-time faculty members are cordially invited to the Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning’s 2nd Annual Learning Studio Symposium from 2-3:30 p.m. Friday, April 19, in room 213 in Des Peres Hall.  Refreshments will follow the symposium in the first-floor International Lounge in Des Peres Hall. Interested attendees are invited to register online (Seating is limited, so priority will be given to full time faculty.)

Past and current Innovative Teaching Fellows will share their perspectives and experiences about teaching in the Learning Studio, a state-of-the-art teaching space designed by a team of faculty and students as part of the Herman Miller Learning Spaces Research Program.  For more information about the Learning Studio, visit the CTTL website.

Presenting CTTL Innovative Teaching Fellows will include:

• Jenny Agnew, Ph.D., School for Professional Studies
• Beccy Aldrich, Ph.D., Department of Occupational Sciences and Occupational Therapy
• Paul Lynch, Ph.D., Department of English
• Nathaniel Rivers, Ph.D., Department of English
• Thomas Stewart, J.D., School of Law
  

Flannery Burke, Ph.D., Department of History, will introduce the symposium panel and facilitate the conversation. Symposium presenters and attendees will also have an opportunity to discuss how to create engaging and interactive learning experiences designed especially for today’s learners and how these lessons may be extended into others’ classrooms and teaching philosophies.

Please note: The front entrance of Des Peres Hall is currently under construction. Enter Des Peres Hall on the second-floor entrance via the back (south) stairwell, which faces Laclede Ave. For those who need accommodations, access to the basement of Des Peres Hall requires a SLU ID swipe and needs to be requested in advance by contacting Jane Jones, Program Director of Disability Services, at (314) 977-8885 or jjone166@slu.edu.

On Tuesday, February 26 from 3:30-5 p.m. in the Busch Student Center, Room 256, Saint Louis University faculty, staff, and students are cordially invited to explore and identify existing globally-centered organizations, resources, teaching practices, and learning experiences available at SLU. Participants will have an opportunity to consider how to further integrate international and intercultural teaching into online or blended learning environments especially. The first 20 registered participants during this first conversation will receive Lisa K. Childress’ book, The Twenty-First Century University: Developing Faculty Engagement in Internationalization.

To register for this conversation or future conversations in this three-part series funded by a Bringing Theory to Practice seminar grant from the Association of American Colleges & Universities, please visit the CTTL website.

If you have questions or are interested in contributing to this inaugural conversation and/or future conversations this spring semester, please contact Michaella Thornton at 314-977-1910 or mthornt7@slu.edu.

*Image courtesy of Rogiro via Flickr

by Erin Solomon, Divya Subramaniam, and Dipti Subramaniam from the CTTL

It’s the beginning of a new semester, and in honor of the 15th anniversary of the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL), we, the CTTL Graduate Assistants, would like to present 15 tips for anyone who may be teaching for the first time.  While there are countless “tips” one could give a new teacher, we thought we would focus in on some of the most basic and most important things to consider when teaching for the first time.

1. Practice makes perfect. Teaching takes practice. Not all teachers are born with gifted public speaking abilities. If speaking in front of an audience makes you cringe and sweat bullets, try practicing your lectures several times before standing in front of your students. Don’t be afraid to seek help from your colleagues and friends as they will be able to provide feedback on your teaching.

2. Course Planning. Success of a class requires preparation ahead of time. It not only makes teaching easier, but it helps facilitate effective teaching. Consider and identify class schedule, logistics, student body, instructional strategies and learning objectives. For more information, check out:
“Creating a Syllabus.” Instruction at FSU: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Practices. Instructional Development Services. Florida State University. http://learningforlife.fsu.edu/ctl/explore/onlineresources/docs/Chptr3.pdf
“Designing a Syllabus.” Center for Learning and Teaching. Cornell University. http://www.cte.cornell.edu/documents/cte/CTE%20Designing%20Syllabus.pdf

3. Have realistic expectations. Your first time teaching will likely be exhilarating, stressful, time consuming, but also very rewarding.  Your first course is not going to be perfect, and you should keep in mind that being a good teacher takes time.  There are an infinite number of activities, technologies, assignments, and ways to structure a course; don’t feel like you need to do everything.  Much of the time simpler is better; think about what you want your students to learn, then design each class day around that.  If activities/technologies/assignments will assist with that goal, then use them, but do not feel that you have to do everything your first time around.

4. Classroom Management and Civility. Managing a class and maintaining civility can be overwhelming for first time teachers.  One thing that can help is specifically outlining the course structure and your expectations in the syllabus.  Having this information in the syllabus will help guide you during the semester when situations arise (i.e. students turning in late assignments, missing an exam, etc.).

5. Teaching Styles. Pick a teaching style that best fits you (formal/authoritative, facilitator, delegator or personal model). This is important as you start developing materials for your course and your preferred method for delivering the course. For more information, feel free to check out Anthony Grasha’s book, “Teaching with Style”, which is the main source for how we talk about teaching styles.  Here is a link to a full text version of the book: http://www.ius.edu/ilte/pdf/teaching_with_style.pdf.

6. Learning Styles. It is important to be aware of the various learning styles in your classroom. Each individual has a learning style(s) that best suits his/her ability in order to maximize learning. Learning styles are often categorized according to the VARK (Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, Kinesthetic…and sometimes multimodal) learning modalities. For more information on learning styles, check out: http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp

7. Active Teaching. Doing activities in the classroom not only helps your students learn the material, but helps to keep them engaged and paying attention!  Consider including discussions, demonstrations, or small group work in your classroom.  If you are unsure of how to start doing this, try simply asking them a question about the material (e.g. “How could you use this theory to explain something that occurs in real life?”).

8. Teaching with Technology. Instructional technologies can be very useful tools in the classroom to enhance student learning and engagement.  There is a vast amount of technologies specifically designed for teachers (i.e. i-clickers, course management websites such as Blackboard or WebCT, Tegrity lecture capture software, etc.) but more general technologies can also enhance learning (i.e. YouTube videos, websites, Twitter, wikis, etc.).  If there is a technology that will help your students learning a concept, try using it in the classroom or for an assignment.

9. Get feedback from students throughout the semester. This will allow you to be flexible and tweak your course as you go along.  Sometimes small changes can greatly improve a course or the students learning.  You can simply ask your students periodically how aspects of the class are going, or you can do a more formal evaluation with an anonymous survey or a Small Group Instructional Feedback session (SGIF) offered by the CTTL.  Getting feedback will allow you to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, and help you to improve.

10. Self-Reflection.  As teaching is a challenging profession, self-reflection is vital and necessary. Self- reflection helps you take a minute to step back and take a look what was successful in your classroom and what could be improved for future. As we are well aware that each semester can be hectic and piled high and deep, remember to set aside a few minutes every two weeks or so to reflect on how your class is going.

11. End of Semester Evaluation. While we strongly recommend you to get frequent feedback from students, the end of the semester evaluation can be especially valuable. It is extremely vital that you tell your students to be honest and that you value their feedback as you hope to improve the class. The end of semester evaluation can be put to good use as you can refine your teaching as well as identify what worked well and what needs to be better tailored and improved for your next class.

12. Identify a mentor within your department. Mentoring is vital for professional development. Identify a mentor who best understands your needs and is able to provide advice, support and encouragement to improve and achieve your goals as a faculty member.

13. Teaching Development Resources/Opportunities. While teaching your first class can be a challenge, identifying resources for teaching development and opportunities can help with your classroom experience and growth as a teacher. The CTTL, Writing Center and Disability Services are a few examples of resources that are readily available for all faculty and graduate students.

14.  Recommended Reading. One book that we strongly recommend–and also happens to be on our CUTS reading list–is by author James M. Lang, “On courses: A Week-by-week guide to your first semester of college teaching” (2008). We hope this book will help alleviate the stress and anxiety for first time teachers.

15. Last but certainly not least, remember to be proactive, be flexible, relax, smile, and let your personality shine.

Best of luck to you in all your teaching endeavors!