Dispersemos las tinieblas

hallmarks of good homework

2011-08-21T16:37:00.000-05:00

A good blog post from EL on creating effective homework assignments, including five hallmarks:
1. purpose, 2. efficiency, 3. ownership, 4. competence, 5. aesthetic appeal

Professor, is there anything more I can do to . . .

2010-12-31T14:27:00.000-06:00

I’ve been teaching long enough now to know that finals week and submitting course grades to the Registrar don’t actually signal the end of the semester. There remains one more task: responding to student complaints about their course grades. In the very worst cases, resolving arguments about course grades can drag into the following semester or summer break and leave little doubt about the reasons for grade inflation. But most complaints from students seem to come in a brief e-mail message, asking for a small adjustment that will bump their grade to the next highest or reasoning that performance on the final exam was either not at all indicative of their learning (everything else reflects my true learning) or completely indicative of their learning (nothing but final exam reflects my true learning). The form of the complaint reflects the extent to which students are prepared to invest in a grade change: office visits and phone calls indicate a willingness to fight; e-mails indicate a small hope for mercy. Most students are very respectful (and sometimes demonstrate a surprising degree of professionalism) when they lodge their grade complaints.

A few years ago I started posting all grades to the grade book in my school’s learning management system as a means of avoiding student requests to calculate grades and grade grubbing, but I’d say that end-of-term complaints about grades have grown more frequent. Some of my colleagues argue that posting grades on line is detrimental, because it feeds student anxiety about grades and discourages intrinsic motivation for learning. I post grades out of concern for transparency and to keep students informed about their progress, to avoid end-of-term surprises and the resulting complaints, and to encourage students to see learning as an activity over which they have significant control (assuming that grades can be an accurate reflection of learning). Despite the transparency and encouragement, I still get students complaining about the 79.88% that really should be a B-. Zero complaints is probably wishful thinking, so is responding to grade complaints just another end-of-term task? Another step in helping students learn about what grades are (not) for and about taking responsibility for their learning? Is there a better way to either respond to or anticipate grade grubbing?

Seven principles for good practice -- concept map

2010-07-15T10:08:00.000-05:00

Doing a lot of reading this summer on teaching and learning and have been turned on recently to concept maps. Here's a simple map of Chickering and Gamson's seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education (AAHE Bulletin, March 1987).

using bilingual dictionary properly

2010-02-06T14:57:00.001-06:00

A valuable post here from Voces en español on how to use a bilingual dictionary properly.

making room for individual objectives

2009-09-05T19:55:00.004-05:00

This semester I'm taking a cue from Maryellen Weimer's book Learner-Centered Teaching -- I'm making part of the course grade for students in an upper-level seminar an evaluation of their progress toward individual objectives that they identify this week. They were asked to think about what they would still like to accomplish in their major (Spanish) as they near the end of their college career and which areas of the language they still feel are weaknesses for them. After identifying two personal goals for this semester, I asked them to make a plan and identify methods or resources to help them pursue their two individual objectives. Next week we'll write up a brief contract and begin work toward those objectives.

For now the individual objectives only amount to 10% of the course grade, but I can see making them a larger portion if it works well this term. I still don't feel confident incorporating an individual objectives component in my lower-level courses, but more and more I see the need to get students setting goals for themselves in order to create a stronger sense of expectancy and accountability regarding their work.

how language shapes our thinking

2009-08-06T15:32:00.002-05:00

Great article here on how language shapes our thinking and some examples from Spanish here.

tool for interactive timelines

2009-06-01T13:15:00.002-05:00

I just discovered TimeGlider, an on-line tool for making interactive timelines. The interface is mostly intuitive, so I will plan to use it in my fall semester seminar on Don Quijote. As usual, I'm looking for more interactive, collaborative projects for my students, and constructing a web-based timeline of the Spanish Golden Age seems like a good project for the course.

good advice for new and continuing faculty

2009-05-12T11:51:00.006-05:00

From the Academic Ladder -- 10 Steps for Growing a Backbone

In this fabulous post, Gina Hiatt at the Academic Ladder adapts Susan Marshall's advice in How to Grow a Backbone to academic jobs. What a great list of suggestions for higher ed. faculty. I am particularly struck by one of the questions she suggests academic job candidates ask their interviewers: "How do people in this department settle differences?". Whoa! As a candidate for an entry-level faculty job, I can't even imagine having asked a question like this. It would have been too presumptuous of me and too incisive a question, perhaps revealing departmental rifts or weaknesses that interviewers would rather keep hidden. But having been part of a department for several years now, I can't imagine a better question and one that all job candidates should consider asking, even though one might come off as cocky or intrusive. Far better to offend the interviewer's sensibility and perhaps reveal some significant departmental weakness than to avoid the matter of professional behavior and find out later, after the contract is signed, that no one in the department even speaks to each other (not a facetious remark).

What's more, if I'm in the position of the interviewer some day I hope I'll be prepared to respond openly and honestly to a question like this.

thinking about next semester's syllabi

2009-04-24T10:51:00.007-05:00

At this time of year, for some incomprehensible reason, I get the urge to plan syllabi for next semester's classes. I find myself thinking of all the little fixes and improvements that I could make based on this term's shortcomings, and I'm compelled to get them down on paper before the summer amnesia sets in.

Lately I've been wondering about how much of the course's daily schedule to plan and list on the syllabus. On one hand, I want to allow maximum flexibility in the day-to-day class schedule so as to better address the particular needs of the students. Leaving the daily plan open or simply writing in a topic to be addressed over the course of a few class days means I can structure assignments and in-class activities to best respond to student needs, especially practice through repetition and informal assessment. On the other hand, students enjoy knowing what they need to do ahead of time, and they don't enjoy surprises or unexpected additions to the schedule. A more detailed explanation of day-to-day activities on the syllabus would help students (and me) plan ahead, know what to expect and have a more complete vision of the course content. [n. b. I always make sure to list exam/quiz dates and dates for other significant projects or assessments, and I try not to deviate from those dates unless absolutely necessary and with plenty of advance notice.]

Having taught a composition course this term with a more open, less detailed daily schedule, I enjoyed the flexibility of addressing needs as they came up, but there were certainly weeks when I was running thin on energy/creativity and would have appreciated having a plan in place beforehand. I also recall some student grumbling when I scheduled an additional quiz to measure progress on a grammar concept that was giving them trouble. All in all, I think I'd have to work with an open syllabus over the course of several semesters to see if I prefer it to a more detailed syllabus.

Would any teachers out there care to comment on your preferences for detailed vs. open syllabi?

a great question

2009-03-28T08:33:00.003-05:00

A colleague introduced a fabulous question yesterday at a meeting in which several of us are discussing new research projects on student learning:

"How can we get students to see themselves as part of a scholarly community?"

In other words, how can we overcome students' reticence to see themselves as legitimate participants in disciplinary practice and learning? Students so often see themselves as outsiders who come to class to observe a professional at work in his/her discipline, as observers who stand out on the street looking through a window on disciplinary work but without the confidence to come in the door and participate. And I believe instructors often fail to address the students' sense of illegitimacy. Unintentionally, we keep students on the outside instead of inviting them in and allowing them to mess up the shop or break a few dishes.

For me, the question translates into this: how can I get my students to see themselves as a part of another culture, not just as a tourist or foreigner who looks at a culture from the outside and makes observations or pronounces judgments?

mid-term self-evaluation

2009-03-20T09:32:00.005-05:00

I've been using the following self-evaluation at mid-term to help students stay aware of course objectives and expectations. When I combine this with a feedback form in which students provide comments about their learning and how the course could help them learn better, I think my students get a good dose of reality at an important point in the term, and I get back on track with planning and helping students accomplish fundamental goals.

Self-evaluation of participation

name _________________________

Check each statement that applies to you. If a statement does not apply, leave it blank.

_____ I come to class every day and on time (with rare exception).

_____ I have attended all required lectures to date.

_____ I have completed all assigned readings to date (texts, Reader notes, etc.).

_____ I have completed all writing assignments (papers and other writing tasks) to date.

_____ I take notes on reading assignments (margin notes, notebook, journal) and use them to prepare for class discussion.

_____ I volunteer responses and ask questions regularly.

_____ I seek help when I need it (from professor, tutor, Writing Center, etc.).

_____ I am making good progress toward meeting the course objectives.

Circle the two lines about participation above that you intend to work on most after Spring Break.

student research and efficiency

2009-03-05T23:03:00.005-06:00

My first-year students are in the middle of their big research paper, which always comes at this point in the spring semester (the course is year-long). Yesterday, one of them reminded me vividly of how important this project is for learning about research in the first year of college. She came to talk with me about her progress on the paper and to express some frustration at not being able to locate more sources of information to address her research question. We talked about which sources had proved valuable so far and using the bibliographies included with each of those to locate more potentially valuable sources. But I reminded her that she would not likely find any one source that provided a straight-forward, no-need-to-look-anymore answer to her question and that if she did find such a source, it would suggest that her research question wasn't good to begin with.

From here we began to talk about the amount of time she had spent reading and evaluating sources, taking notes and composing rough ideas. She has been working on research for about one hour each day for the last 10 days. Clearly, she will not use all of the sources she has read to compose her paper and thus some of those research hours were not productive in terms of generating paragraphs to be included in the final product. It's tough for students to think that any amount of time on a project that does not contribute immediately to the final product is time well spent. Schedules and work efficiency dictate that every minute of research correlate with a certain percentage of final product, but research (or any kind of problem solving) doesn't work that way. It's amazing to see how a student will commit to a wrong answer, a poorly developed argument or a poor performance simply due to her concept of time and efficiency. She might even recognize that her work is average or poor, but she won't back up and start again, since this would involve an investment of time and energy that is not at her disposal (or that she is unwilling to make).

I believe many students, especially in research papers, purposefully avoid good revision practices, because they involve re-thinking main ideas, re-writing entire pages and going back to step one of the research process. They require time, energy and a commitment to the goal of producing a well-developed, coherent piece of writing. The student's concept of time and efficiency means that I need to be generous in allotting time for revision in the research assignment and intentional about teaching good revision practices. After all, the goal is a good research paper, not finishing a paper in a certain amount of time.

discipline for unacceptable behavior

2009-03-03T12:02:00.003-06:00

This week I've had to confront an issue of unacceptable student behavior in class. More and more first-year students are enrolling in our intermediate and 300-level Spanish courses, because they arrive with high levels of preparation in the language, including a few educated in immersion schools. I'm happy to have these eager and capable new students -- in fact, they provide an effective motivation to junior and senior majors/minors who sometimes get lazy. But the down side of first-year students is that they are sometimes immature and do not behave appropriately in the college classroom. This was the case with two male, first-year students last Thursday.

After the class period in which the two behaved inappropriately, I decided to think about my response for a day before addressing the problem. Although I was tempted to call them on the carpet during class, I'm not good with such confrontation and did not want to jeopardize the remaining work for that day. I could have asked them to stay after class, but I have another obligation immediately after, and again I wanted to avoid direct confrontation, which may not have been for the best.

So I decided to send them both an e-mail, identifying their inappropriate behavior and explaining why it distracts others and destroys the learning environment. The message was brief and direct, and today (the next class period) their behavior was fine. It may be that my message had the intended effect and that they will engage in appropriate behavior from now on, but I have not spoken to them directly or heard their thoughts on the matter (no replies to my e-mail). Have I solved the immediate problem and should leave it at that, or should I have sought a more personal encounter that might lead to more reflection and change in their thinking about classroom behavior?

giving up

2009-02-21T10:17:00.004-06:00

I teach at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. This year our comprehensive fee is about $35,000, and 95% of students receive some form of financial aid. We are highly tuition-driven, and slight changes in our enrollment can have significant impacts on operating budgets. Naturally, my institution is very concerned about enrollments for next year, although the numbers look promising at the moment.

I teach in our required, year-long course for first-year students, with 17 students enrolled in my section this term. Most of them began the course with me last fall, so I know them, and they know how the class works. Because it's a required course and first-year students must be enrolled and must pass both semesters, it has a negative reputation on campus. Strangely, student evaluations tell us that individuals are satisfied with the learning that happens in their sections, but everyone's roommate has a terrible prof. with unfair grading practices, so the collective opinion is that the course stinks.

Here's my puzzle. Students in this course just completed the first paper assignment for the spring. Of my 17 students, two decided not to submit a paper, two wrote papers that did not address the topic question and two submitted D-level papers that suggest they didn't learn anything at all about writing thesis-driven, argument papers in the fall semester (both studied with me in the fall). 35% of my class failed or nearly failed this first writing assignment. Why so many??? I don't get it.

Let's assume the following (please bear with me): 1) the paper assignment was clear and students were engaged in informal writing activities the week prior that helped them generate ideas for the formal paper; 2) students had opportunities to receive feedback from me or from a writing tutor on early drafts; 3) students engaged in peer review of their thesis statements and one body paragraph in class; 4) time and resources to complete the assignment successfully were sufficient; 5) students knew the evaluation criteria and reviewed them in class (criteria for formal writing remain the same all year).

I admit that these assumptions may not correspond to the students' point of view on the preparation for this assignment, but even if only some of these assumptions are accurate it would still be hard for a student to fail the assignment. Any student who submitted a paper was likely to earn a D or better. Any student who submitted an on-topic paper was likely to earn a C- or better. I'm aware of the thousands of legitimate reasons why a student may not be able to complete a writing assignment successfully. Students in my class this year have been through difficult personal circumstances and have had to find ways to meet their obligations as students at the same time. One decided to withdraw.

But none of the above circumstances apply to this particular assignment -- at least that I'm aware of. The two students who did not submit papers told me that they either didn't finish the required reading or didn't feel like their ideas were good enough for a paper. The two students who submitted off-topic papers agreed to do re-writes, but neither was surprised by his grade -- it's as if they wrote papers on other topics on purpose, not due to misunderstanding. The two students who wrote D-level papers are very frustrated and claimed not to understand how to write papers for our class. Neither of these two is a good writer, but one of them earned Cs on her papers last term, and the other would have passed the course in the fall were it not for an insurmountable personal problem (she took an incomplete). She no longer faces this problem and claims to be ready for this semester's work.

My conclusion is that a third of my first-year group is failing or on the verge of failure in the first weeks of the course, because they are giving up! What's worse is that some of them are simply nonchalant about failure. Even though they know they must pass the course to graduate, they don't seem to care. Maybe their attitude is symptomatic of the early part of spring term, but I can't quite understand how students at an expensive, private school can seemingly take failure with a grain of salt, especially when financial aid, graduation, etc. may be on the line.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

recipe for a successful short-term study abroad course

2009-01-28T13:39:00.000-06:00

12 motivated, but flexible students eager to form part of a new culture
1 energetic, but realistic instructor eager to engage students and attend to their needs 24/7
1 compassionate spouse
2 children, not too young and not yet teenagers, who look up to students and provide plenty of lighter moments
3-6 well-organized, enthusiastic and patient staff members from local institution
12 welcoming host families, willing to engage students in their lives
1-3 daredevil bus drivers
2 hours of in-class work per week day
2 hours of experiential learning peer day
generous amount of time with host families
1 weekend excursion and 1 free day per week
1 service project at local site (must be well prepared in advance)
extra large pinches of flexibility and patience
1 rain jacket
1 bottle 50-SPF sunscreen

preparation time: about one year; pre-departure orientation and goal setting is essential; careful screening of students to ascertain motivations is a must
cooking time: lightning fast, done before you know it
serves: each participant with a valuable learning experience provided that they perform reflection activities, share experience with others and practice skills learned while abroad

Note: While abroad students must not be overwhelmed by programmed activities, yet they should also not have too much free time. Programmed activities can intrude on the processing of and reflection on the experience of living abroad. Too much activity can also lead students into the "cultural consumer" mentality -- that they have come to another place to consume instead of become part of the culture. Too much free time can also be overwhelming though, leading timid students to feel like they have no direction or purpose in their time abroad. A good balance of programmed time and free time is possibly the most important aspect of a good study abroad experience.

cumulative exams

2008-12-04T13:53:00.004-06:00

The Teaching Professor blog included an entry last week on cramming for exams. This semester I've experimented with cumulative exams, an idea I read about in Ken Bain's book. Each test includes the material from all previous tests, such that students must demonstrate mastery of material on a regular basis and throughout the term. Cumulative exams reinforce learning as retention and mastery, as opposed to short-term memorization for a one-time assessment.

So far my students in Intermediate Spanish have done well with the cumulative exams, and it makes perfect sense to use this type of assessment in a proficiency-based course. The students who struggled early on have now had several opportunities to demonstrate their mastery of concepts and skills in subsequent tests. Tests began small and carried little weight toward the course grade. Now, however, we are at the end of the term, and my students are faced with the last set of tests, which carry a very large portion of the course grade. Since these last tests are cumulative too, they are essentially final exams, comprehensive of all course material from this semester.

The students are clearly worked up about these last tests, since they figure substantially in the calculation of the course grade. I've reminded them that if they have performed well on previous tests, they are well prepared for this last round of assessment, and that they will demonstrate successful completion of course goals. Those who have not performed well have an opportunity to demonstrate their learning and make a big impact on their final grade.

This all makes sense to me, but I feel like my students are doing some cramming and that this may have an impact on retention of course material. Am I reinforcing a bad habit by weighting the final tests so heavily? Or am I encouraging learning by weighing early assessments lightly and giving students plenty of opportunity to demonstrate mastery of material?

mid-term feedback from students

2008-10-15T08:08:00.003-05:00

This semester I'm implementing a short, web-based form with which my students can submit course and learning feedback at mid-semester. I used the "forms" tool in GoogleDocs to create a simple, four-question survey. I'm asking my students to reply to the following questions, which I borrowed and modified from Ken Bain's book What the Best College Teachers Do:

1. What has been successful in helping you learn in this class?
2. What changes in the structure of the class or the way the class is conducted would better help you learn?
3. Describe what you have learned in this class so far.
4. [A more targeted question on VoiceThread exercises]

The survey was extremely simple to set up and deliver. I posted a link to it from our course management system, and students will actually get out of class a few minutes early with instructions to complete the form.

VoiceThread and learning goals

2008-09-15T22:29:00.002-05:00

So far I've been pleased with my students' use of VoiceThread in an intermediate Spanish course. I decided to implement VoiceThreads primarily as a way of having students practice and listen to their own and each other's speaking outside of class. Although there were a few technical glitches at first, it seems like 95% of my students have figured out how to create their own account and contribute to threads. A few are still dragging their feet, and most of them are worried about exposing their less-than-perfect speaking skills in a semi-public, digital forum. But I see this tension diminishing already, especially as students get to know one another and trust each other in an environment where nobody feels comfortable really.

As a language instructor it's a blessing to be able to walk into class and pull up a thread quickly to have students listen to each other and then comment on particular challenges of grammar, pronunciation, etc. My students are actually creating authentic content in Spanish that they can use to teach each other. Although I contribute to threads too, I am one voice among many in the forum, which takes me momentarily out of the "expert leader" position and puts me on the same plain as the students. There may be a few pitfalls -- students assimliating errors from each other, for example -- but I feel like the VoiceThreads are helping me create an environment of collaborative learning, which I feel has been sorely missing from my language classes.

diagnostic test on the first day

2008-09-03T21:20:00.004-05:00

It's common for language teachers to conduct some type of diagnostic test for students on the first day of class, particularly in classes that presume some previous language study like a second or third semester Spanish class. The purpose of such assessments, of course, is to help students understand if they are prepared for the course and if the course will help them advance their language proficiency.

So today I greeted my new students, did a brief get-to-know-you exercise with them and then explained that we would be doing a short diagnostic test to see if this course was right for them at this time.

Most students took this in stride and completed the test with no problem. But the last student to speak with me in my last class of the day approached me as if I had pronounced her guilty of a crime she had not committed. Her hands were trembling; she could not even look me in the eye, and when I began to talk with her she simply started bawling. I felt terrible and did my best to explain that the diagnostic test was to help her find the right class, but she was shaken by what she understood as a test of her ability, and to her mind she had failed miserably.

I run into students with test-taking anxiety on a regular basis, and often I feel like there's not much I can do for them outside of a few recommendations about how to approach a test. But now I'm wondering if a diagnostic test on the first day of class sends the wrong signal to students -- that they are being ranked and classified rather than assessed to find out what's best for them at this particular moment in their career. I can't afford not to assess their level very early on, but I also don't want them to feel like they are being judged and sentenced.

Bean's "Engaging Ideas" and student writing

2008-08-25T14:23:00.003-05:00

Below are a few notes I took from Bean's book section "Reading, Commenting On, and Grading Student Writing". These are tremendously helpful for me as I think about starting with my first-year students next week.

1. Hold in-class norming sessions. Hand out sample essays and grading criteria. Ask groups to evaluate samples and then demonstrate your own application of grading criteria.
2. Don't require traditional outlines as part of writing process. Idea maps and tree diagrams are more valuable for teaching the writing/thinking process.
4. To check on short paper assignment progress, require two sentences: a question and a thesis. The first sentence is a question that summarizes the problem addressed in the paper. The second sentence summarizes the writer's argument in response to the question.
5. For peer reviews: don't have students focus on sentence-level issues; focus on paper ideas; train students to back up their comments with specific examples from the draft
6. Conferences: "Conferences should be primarily listening sessions where the instructor asks questions and the student does 80 to 90 percent of the talking" (227). In conferences, try to make "readerly comments": describe the experience of reading the draft rather than telling how to fix it.
8. Consider commenting on late-stage drafts or allowing re-writes. Don't comment on final versions for grades, since comments on a particular paper are only taken into consideration for that paper.
9. Purpose of commentary should be to stimulate and guide revision.
10. When commenting on a paper, focus on two or three questions. Make sure higher-order concerns (argument, org., evidence) are addressed before lower-order concerns (language, mechanics).
12. "If teachers think of their end comments as justifying or explaining the grade, they tend to emphasize the bad features of the paper. . . . But if they think of their purpose as guiding revision, their end comments can be more affirmative" (250).
13. Begin end-of-paper comments with emphasis on good points / interest in paper's argument, then move to specific recommendations for improvement. Avoid overcommenting. "Try to invest in your commentary the tone of a supportive coach" (253).

Bean's "Engaging Ideas" and small group tasks

2008-08-22T10:05:00.004-05:00

Most of the books on teaching and learning I've been reading this summer have come from local libraries, but I decided to purchase my own copy of John Bean's Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. This was a good decision.

Bean's book is full of practical suggestions for incorporating writing and active learning strategies in courses of all disciplines. Some of the ideas seem like old standbys (journals, microthemes, thesis writing), and others wouldn't fit well with my personal teaching style (thought letters), but I've found several attractive options I'd like to incorporate into my course for first-year students. Bean's strategies are informed by sound pedagogical theory (mostly constructivist) and are always rooted in course learning goals.

I took the following notes from Bean's chapter on small group work. This is an area in which I'd like to do a better job with my first-year students, since they are often unskilled in group work, although they end up forming lasting friendships during the year-long course.

Small Group Work

1. Groups should always be responsible for creating a product.
2. Leaving students alone to work in groups reinforces their responsibility for forming their own learning communities.
3. Assign recorders to stand and present group's work to the class: not just summarize conversations but make a persuasive presentation about the group's consensus solution.
4. "The best small group tasks are clearly related to some ongoing purpose that the teacher should make plain to students" (154).

Does anyone have other tried and true strategies for helping students get the most out of small group tasks?

calls for improved teaching

2008-08-04T09:27:00.004-05:00

I'm intrigued by the Aug. 1 article in IHE regarding improved teaching on campus, particularly the polarized commentary that follows the article.

I know "assessment" is a four letter word on most campuses, but is the tension over improved teaching and learning really so high?

Given that apparently many faculty members feel threatened by calls for improved teaching, I'm led to believe that most of us recognize and indeed share the view that good teaching is of high priority to our institutions. And, yes, I do believe that institutions should therefore invest more in helping faculty members become more proficient teachers (teaching is both art and skill, in my mind). Feeling threatened by calls for improved teaching seems exaggerated to me, though. Good teaching is a high priority - yes. Faculty need resources and opportunities to examine and improve teaching - clearly. But this isn't "instruct or perish". We learn to teach just as our students learn to learn - through diverse experiences, reflection and much trial and error.

the participation grade

2008-08-03T15:16:00.006-05:00

As I work on my fall syllabus for Intermediate Spanish, I'm trying to re-arrange information and incorporate new language, all toward helping my students (and me) focus on learning objectives and building a sense of collective trust and investment in the learning goals.

But as I revised the syllabus section on grading procedures, I was confronted again with the question - always a nagging one for me - of whether to devote a percentage of the course grade to participation. If I include a participation grade, am I diluting the principal learning objectives of the course and using a carrot approach, rather than a proficiency approach, to evaluation? If I don't include a participation grade, will students take attendance and overall engagement too lightly?

Some time ago I determined that I would no longer take attendance in class nor use grades to penalize students for missing class up to a certain point. My objectives don't include helping students to become more proficient at coming to class but rather more proficient in Spanish. Most students won't increase their language proficiency and meet course goals without coming to class, so I feel confident that evaluating their progress toward proficiency goals is not only sound learning policy, but it also gets them to class (provided classes are engaging and centered on building proficiency).

Participation, though, is about much more than coming to class. It's about engagement with the subject matter, fellow students and worthwhile questions, skills, values, etc. These are certainly part of the institution's larger mission and the all-college learning goals, so perhaps I should assign part of a course's grade to "participation," since this forms part of nearly every course's learning outcomes.

So far, I've decided to allot 5% of course grade to participation and ask students to complete 3-4 self-evaluations of participation and engagement throughout the term. I hope these will serve as good reminders of the course goals/policies as well as the all-college aspirations for student engagement without overemphasizing participation itself as a course objective.

Is this a reasonable weight for "participation"?

Bain, "What the Best College Teachers Do"

2008-07-07T10:24:00.006-05:00

Is there a better general study of excellent teaching at the college level than Ken Bain's book?

After reading this, I'm enthusiastic about reviewing my own teaching philosophy and practices and even talking about these things with colleagues. To be sure, the approaches to and implementation of instruction represented in this study of exemplary teachers are nothing short of intimidating. As Bain says, there are no quick fixes, no easy tricks of the trade to be plugged in and that will transform mediocre classes into world-class learning environments for students. Outstanding teaching requires constant reflection, modification, faith and trust in students, enthusiasm, sweat, blood, tears . . .

There are many passages I'd like to reference, but I'll include just a few that strike me as crucial. All emphasis in bold is my own.

" . . . the best teachers assume that learning has little meaning unless it produces a sustained and substantial influence on the way people think, act, and feel" (17).

This phrase is repeated several times throughout the book. Talk about a challenge to the way I think about any given course in any given semester!

" . . . students who believe that they can become more intelligent by learning (a "mastery orientation") often work essentially to increase their own competence (adopting "learning goals"), not to win rewards. They are more likely to take risks in learning, to try harder tasks, and consequently learn more than children who are performance-oriented" (35).

I was a performance-oriented student, and, as a teacher, it is incredibly hard for me to break away from the notion of learning as performance. It just takes so long - much longer than one semester - to stimulate intrinsic motivation in the subject matter. How to focus on mastery and not manipulated learning for a grade? One way to include room for mistakes and focus on mastery is to make each exam in a course cumulative, updating a student's grade to reflect the most recent exam: "By making each examination cumulative, professors convey to the students that learning is supposed to be permanent and not just something done to get through a single examination" (161).

But what motivation would a student have to prepare for any exam but the last one?

"While some people worry that this system will encourage students to delay studying until the end, the best professors don't let that concern them because they don't use grades to motivate students. They create captivating classes that engage students and win their attention. In fact, many of our subjects told us that they seldom discuss a "grading system" with students, telling them instead about the kinds of comprehension and reasoning abilities expected" (161).

Bain says we should evaluate teaching from a learning perspective, so he connects student learning in a course with evaluation of teaching (chapter 7). His small group analysis method of interviewing students in a course to receive feedback on their learning seems so much more valuable than most of the information we receive on course rating forms. He gathers students in small groups or pairs, then takes notes on group reports that address three questions (see p. 187):

1. What has been successful in fostering your learning?
2. What changes in the structure of the class or the way the class is conducted would better foster your learning?
3. How would you characterize the nature of your learning in the class?

This is a book I could return to each summer as a way of reflecting on my teaching and stimulating new thoughts about how to create authentic learning environments.

Lilly Conference on College Teaching

2008-07-02T10:34:00.003-05:00

If anyone out there interested in teaching and learning is reading and has participated in Miami University of Ohio's Lilly Conference on College Teaching, would you mind sharing thoughts on this professional meeting. It seems like a good conference, but I'd like to know more from others before I sign up. Thanks.

business of immigrant detention

2008-06-28T11:41:00.003-05:00

Since the ICE raid in Postville, Iowa in May, I've been reading more about the U. S. government's "enforcement first" position toward undocumented immigrants. It's extremely frustrating to see tax dollars wasted in such a feeble attempt to deal with immigration from Mexico and Central America. No doubt the issue is large and complex, but I'm convinced that we have the resources to come up with a sensible, comprehensive set of reforms that will both curb the numbers of those entering the U. S. illegally and provide humane, mutually beneficial options to the 10-12 million currently in the U. S. The current policy is completely untenable.

Tom Barry of the Center for International Policy writes a well-informed blog on U. S. immigration policy after 9/11. Mother Jones has a nice piece on the business of immigrant detention in U. S. correctional facilities.

Those in the U. S., please write to your congressional representatives and urge them to place comprehensive, humane immigration reform at the top of their agendas. There's no need to wait until the fall elections. The problem is already off the scale, and the new administration will inherit a bureaucracy so bloated with money flowing toward Homeland Security and private correctional institutions that it will take lots of time to create real reform.

Border Patrol / Eble book

2008-06-23T13:36:00.004-05:00

I'm upset about today's article in the NY Times regarding the Border Patrol's recruitment of African American students in places like Memphis. I fully support efforts to recruit minority students into professions where they are underrepresented, but the Border Patrol's efforts are nothing short of seeking a new class of mercenaries to fulfill the administration's demand for more agents in its misguided policy regarding immigration. Hiring more mercenary agents for the Mexican border will not decrease immigration and will certainly not make any difference in the way the U. S. deals with its already large population of undocumented workers. We need comprehensive, sensible immigration reform - not a militarization of our borders.

I finished reading Eble's book on teaching and found it an enjoyable book but clearly dated in its perspectives. I wish I had read this as a graduate student and would still highly recommend it to any graduate students preparing to teach at the college level. Eble's writing is clear and conversational; the arguments are supported by good research in the field of teaching, although references are twenty years and older. The author represents a veteran teacher who reflects on the stages of the profession, the pitfalls of balancing teaching, research and service, theories of learning and practical advice on the every-day work of instructors.

Eble, Kenneth Eugene. The Craft of Teaching: A Guide to Mastering the Professor's Art. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass, 1988.

graphic syllabus and outcomes map

2008-06-20T15:25:00.004-05:00

Nilson, Linda B. The Graphic Syllabus and the Outcomes Map: Communicating Your Course. Jossey-Bass, 2007.

With my new laptop and Vista I'm beginning to use Zotero to archive bibliographic references. Just generated the entry above to Nilson's book in MLA format -- very handy, although it left out place of publication.

Nilson argues for more graphics in the construction of syllabi and outcome statements. I concur with this generally, given what we know about how most people learn by organizing knowledge and creating associations with visual schema. What I don't quite understand is why most of the sample graphic syllabi in this book consist mostly of text. Yes, the text is arranged into small text boxes linked with arrows, lines or other connecting devices, but the documents still consist mostly of printed words. There are a few notable exceptions that employ imagery in creative ways, but I find many of the graphic syllabi more confusing than a text-only document. Since I'm unfamiliar with most of the subject areas represented in the syllabi, it seemed to me an authentic test to read these documents and determine if the course organization was more appealing or accessible to me due to the graphic construction of the syllabus. I found many to be confusing and even daunting with so many tiny text boxes and connecting lines, or a trail of text boxes linked by bending arrows, that I didn't know where to begin or end. Admittedly, I'm more of a text person than a visual learner, but I'm not seeing big advantages for most students with the samples provided. Perhaps the graphics require a higher level of sophistication and creativity (a few samples indeed reflect this) for learners to create the kinds of cognitive connections Nilson suggests are possible when instructors create this type of syllabus.

I do agree with Nilson's comments on adding personal, affective touches to course materials: "Adding personal touches to instructional materials, such as a graphic syllabus, says good things about you: that you have a sense of humor, that you're open to novel ideas, that you're at ease with students and your role as instructor, and that you care enough about your students to make an extra effort to reach them. Students want an instructor with these qualities. They can relate to such an individual, whatever, the age difference" (25).

I'm much more persuaded by the inclusion of a graphic outcomes map as part of a course syllabus. Nilson says this document should include three kinds of objectives:

ultimate objectives
mediating objectives
foundational objectives

The instructor begins with the ultimate objectives, the most difficult and cognitively complex outcomes, and then works backward through mediating objectives to foundational objectives (cognitively simplest). Mapping out course objectives in a graphic way would seem to force instructors not only to think about what students can reasonably accomplish in a semester but also to remove those pesky "tack on" subjects that are seemingly important to present but never well connected to the course outcomes. Paring down the content of some beginning and intermediate language courses has always seemed appealing but difficult to justify. Maybe a graphic outcomes map will help me worry less about cutting material.

Finally, a statement from Nilson's chapter on outcome maps that provoked a big question: "Your task--and it's a challenging one--is to create learning situations in which they [students] recognize that their mental model or paradigm is faulty and the one the discipline offers is superior. Whatever model they take through the course is the structure into which they will attempt to incorporate and store any new knowledge on the subject. . . . ensuring that students have the discipline's model in their minds is critical to their learning anything else" (65).

How can I get students to recognize that their first language ("their mental model") is faulty and the model I offer them (the target foreign language) is superior? Students at the beginning and intermediate language levels always process L2 in terms of L1. Yet they also begin (slowly, oh so slowly) to incorporate the structures and idiosyncrasies of L2 as they learn. I'm not sure about the statement above -- it may be a bit too dualistic, substituting one model for another, but I do appreciate the attention to getting students to think according to different models.

centers for teaching and learning

2008-06-18T15:00:00.003-05:00

Although I've not yet read enough of these to comment, I found some interesting things at Macalaster College's Center for Scholarship and Teaching series called Talking About Teaching. Several of the sessions have downloadable handouts or papers. I hope to read and comment on some of these in the next few days. I'd also like to publish a short list of some of the best centers for teaching and learning at U. S. institutions and/or institutions abroad. If you have a suggestion for this list, please comment.

AP 2008

2008-06-03T20:04:00.003-05:00

We're in a new site this year for the AP Exam Reading due to our group's having outgrown the site where we worked for many years. And as the number of exams and readers grows so does the concern about how to regulate the scoring and maintain consistency in the use of scoring guidelines. In my few years of experience with AP, I have always been amazed at the attention devoted to the scoring process: detailed rubrics, a full day's training for readers with subsequent re-training in consecutive days, commentaries on all score levels to provide feedback to teachers and students. Now as a table leader I'm told that I'll receive daily reports on my readers, including statistics on how fast they read and if their scores trend high or low. I'm not thrilled with the prospect of having to scold a reader for reading too slowly or for not paying careful attention to the scoring guidelines. The long and short of it is that ETS runs a huge business in selling its exams to high schools across the country. On the other hand, colleges and universities see more incoming students with AP scores and revise policies on accepting AP for credit based on enrollments and economic conditions.

But for all the procedures in place to make sure that everyone at the Reading is earning their $, reading at the right pace and scoring fairly, we have resisted making improvements to the scoring rubrics. In fact, I'm still concerned about one guideline that exists solely to prevent readers from awarding the highest possible score too often for an essay response. The language of the guideline clearly does not reflect the exam prompt or the expectations for demonstrating proficiency on the exam question, which disturbs me. How can we employ a measurement tool that stipulates performance beyond what the student was expected to achieve? Clearly an individual's response may exceed expectations and would receive the appropriate maximum score, but can we justify the use of criteria that penalize excellent responses from achieving the highest score because they did not exceed expectations? (Excellent responses are not required to be flawless.)

There is resistance to changing scoring rubrics that have been in place for a long time, and I agree that we should not mess with them often, but for all the attention to fairness and consistency the least we could do is make sure the rubrics accurately reflect the expectations for different outcome levels.

grading

2008-05-20T22:19:00.005-05:00

After reading this article in IHE on grading and the subsequent comments, I decided to read Ken O'Connor's book How to Grade for Learning. I'm glad I made the effort to get this book via ILL and start considering its argument. Appendix 2 distills the author's position on grading in a standards-based classroom, and although the book is geared more to primary and secondary teaching, its assumptions and suggestions are clearly applicable to college-level assessment practices.

After reading the introduction and O'Connor's thoughts on students' intrinsic motivation, I asked myself this question: Will it ever be possible to motivate college students with course content such that the course grade measures learning goals exclusively? In other words, will we ever be able to eliminate the participation grade or stop penalizing students for work submitted late? I'm very skeptical. It seems like no matter how well the course content is presented and even with a very high level of student engagement, it would be nearly impossible to eliminate some of the components of a course grade that we use to 'motivate' students. I agree completely that these components should form a very small part of a student's grade at the end of a term, since they don't measure the extent to which he/she has met course objectives (turning in assignments on time is not a key course objective, presumably). And I agree with O'Connor that ideally these performance characteristics should be measured and reported separately - not figured into the course grade. But it's just so hard to imagine evaluating students' participation/preparation and not including that evaluation somehow in the summative assessment. Bad habits are indeed hard to break.

I'm definitely going to revise my syllabi for the fall to include a strong alignment between course goals and grading. I want students to see that what really matters is the extent to which they meet course goals, that individual achievement relative to course goals is what constitutes their grades.

ICE raid in Postville, IA

2008-05-12T15:05:00.004-05:00

This morning U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent dozens of agents into the AgriProcessors plant in Postville, IA. They have arrested and taken more than 300 workers to Waterloo. Agri is one of the largest kosher meatpacking plants in the world and employs many workers from Mexico and Central America. The raid is being labeled as an "investigation" targeted at specific individuals accused of using Social Security numbers illegally or other immigration-related criminal activity. We'll see if the ICE has learned from their mistakes in the raids conducted at the Swift meatpacking plants in 2006.

I know many young men from Guatemala who work at Agri. They have struggled to get here, struggle every day at work and send money home to families who struggle in an unjust social and political environment. These young men studied English with me and continue to attend classes for a few hours each week looking to strengthen their skills and establish some type of human connections while they are here. They often fail, and they often get into trouble, but they are honest people and deserve just treatment.

The article in the Des Moines Register reports that an ICE spokesperson claims that the agency will be looking after the needs of family members and children, especially those who are single parents or are primary caregivers. My intention is to write to ICE directors and remind them that among the hundreds arrested, there are many whose families in Postville as well as families abroad depend on them for their economic well being. The Agri employees deserve humane treatment, and their families, especially young children, should be cared for. If you feel compelled to write or call, I found the ICE directors' info. on the ICE website:

Scott Baniecke, Field Office Director
2901 Metro Dr., Suite 100
Bloomington, MN 55425
Phone: 952-853-2550
Area of Responsibility: Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

Gary Mead, Director
801 I St, NW
Suite 900
Washington, DC 20536
Phone: 202-305-2734

The Teaching Professor

2008-05-11T20:28:00.003-05:00

Just found the blog written by the editor of The Teaching Professor. Excellent, substantive discussion of good teaching at the college level. If your institution subscribes to on-line databases like Academic Search Complete, you can read articles from up through 2005 in .pdf format.

end of term

2008-05-09T15:38:00.000-05:00

The end of spring semester is more than welcome. Not a single colleague do I pass in the halls that does not remark on how exhausted we are and how welcome the summer break will be. Yet among the laments about this term's failures and the whiny tone that characterizes our conversations at this time of year, I must note that there is also a high degree of hope and optimism regarding . . . next year.

Those of us who teach the all-college course for first-year students have already begun our debate on this fall's common syllabus: which texts, which order, how many days devoted to each, how to incorporate writing instruction. We've already spent lots of time on the listserv debating these questions even as we are grading the last of our research papers, preparing final exams, evaluating senior projects and all the other end-of-term business. The only explanation I can deduce for this flurry of concern over the fall 2008 syllabus -- while spring 2008 has yet to end -- is that we are already hoping for, maybe even anticipating, a better semester, another chance to succeed at helping students achieve the (wildly optimistic) learning goals we have set for the course. Hope continues to drive us even in the time of year when our failures seem most acute. We despair and plan ahead at the same time. If we believed that next semester couldn't possibly get any worse, we wouldn't spend time planning and arguing.

I also find myself thinking about my own courses for next term. My spring final exams are not even ready, grades far from submitted, the yard mowed only once; nevertheless, I'm planning all sorts of wonderful revisions to my fall courses: more collaborative activities, better connection between day-to-day work and course objectives, better assessment, more interaction in Spanish with students. Where does the energy come from? I suspect it's nervous energy. My body and mind are preparing themselves for the shift to summer, which is always too dramatic. I begin each summer by going through a period of depression, trying to figure out what to do, how to use my time productively, how to rest, how to balance work and pleasure when work does not intrude at every moment. In nervous anticipation of the shift and the ensuing depression, I must go into some sort of creative frenzy. I seek to realize all the interesting ideas that come to me now, knowing that summer will settle in and relatively few of those ideas will come to fruition. I'm too optimistic about how summer will be spent (work, family, play, etc.); I've not yet accepted that summer, too, is filled with much of the same minutia as the school year.

And still I hope to do some interesting things. And I hope to realize some of the plans for those fall courses. And next year will be better, perhaps.

new flowering

2008-05-09T15:26:00.000-05:00

A new flowering for my blog.