Teaching in Higher Ed

On today’s episode, I talk about all that cannot be seen. Photo by Jim Frazee of Southwest Search Dogs. Used with permission (he’s my Dad).   Podcast notes Mystery commercial that I really hope someone can find and send to me Augmented reality How Stuff Works explains augmented reality Mashable’s augmented reality stories Yik yak chat service (For reasons explained in the podcast, I would rather not link to this particular app/service) [EDIT: 1/15/15/ at 10:20 am]: Right after recording this episode, I listened to episode 9 the Reply All podcast by Gimlet Media. I have even less certainty now about whether or not we should stay far away from Yik Yak, or get in there and spread some positivity and make our presence known. I welcome your thoughts either privately, or in the comments, below.   Southwest Search Dogs Online forum introductions Our perceptions really do matter Our expectations can shape outcomes in others… This American Life previewed Invisiblia on an episode called: Batman Especially the beginning re mindset on This American Life NPR Science reporters Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller explain to Ira Glass how they smuggled a rat into NPR headquarters in Washington, and ran an unscientific version of a famous experiment first done by Psychology Professor Robert Rosenthal. It showed how people’s thoughts about rats could affect their behavior. Another scientist, Carol Dweck, explains that it’s true for people too: expectations affect students, children, soldiers, in measurable ways. (6 minutes) Invisibilia Invisibilia is a series about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. The show interweaves personal stories with scientific research that will make you see your own life differently. Assume the best… and talk through the gaps… Episode 14 on Dealing with Difficult Students in Higher Ed Our diverse students Recommendation Coach.me

It is easy to want to cover up in some way as professors… In today’s episode, President Jose Antonio Bowen encourages us to become good at “Teaching Naked.” Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Jose Antonio Bowen, President, Goucher College Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning Recommendations (part 1) This episode, we start with Bonni’s recommendation and ask Dr. Bowen questions from Storycorps. Storycorps About Storycorps Storycorps’s Great questions Danny and Annie’s animated story Ask your colleagues the questions related to working from Storycorps Teaching Naked The thing that teachers do best in the classroom is to be human beings, and to get to know their students as human beings, and to make that connection between what matters to their students and what matters to them. (Jose Bowen) Start with what matters to your students Used to have the advantage, based on knowledge Use class time to make genuine connections and not simply for providing information Technology works great outside the classroom for quizzing, communication, etc. We know more about teaching than we did when we were in school Pedagogy needs to be our central focus, and most of us weren’t trained in it A teaching failure Bonni admits to one of her bigger failures in teaching in the past few years Driving the stick shift car and not always having it turn out the way we want it to Overcoming the failures – Jose gives advice We are opaque as to our own intellectual accent. Everybody has an accent in the way they speak, but they also have an accent in the way they think. Academics, in particular, are bad examples of learning, because we learned in spite of the system. We’re the odd balls. We’re the weirdos. We’re the people who liked school so much that we’re still here. Most students don’t learn that way. Failure is simply part of the game. Disconnect is just part of what happens. (Dr. Jose Bowen) Embrace mistakes Admit when things go wrong Describe why you tried what you did Model change (“I changed my mind.”) The end of the story The Naked Classroom Furniture moves around; no rows No technology / screen Index cards Noisy Laptops aren’t typically necessary Nobody uses a laptop while doing yoga or playing tennis (Jose Bowen) I believe in noisy and messy classrooms. Complexity. Lots of failures. People having to confront real problems. Confront each other. Confront me… (Jose Bowen) For beginners… need to set the stage and expectations… after that, they know how the game works. Twitter Jose on Twitter Bonni on Twitter  Michael Hyatt’s beginners’ guide to Twitter Bonni’s resources to help you learn Twitter Recommendations (part 2) Jose closes the podcast episode with his recommendations. Merlot II: Multimedia educational resource for learning and online teaching SmashFact: Create custom study apps for your students’ devices Change is hard. It’s hard for you and it’s hard for your students… Keep asking your students what’s working. Expect some failure. It’s not a linear process. That’s the process of learning and we’re all learning how to do something new: And that’s how to be better, more engaged teachers.  (Jose Bowen) Closing credits Subscribe to the weekly update and receive the Educational Technology Essentials Guide Give feedback on the podcast or ideas for future topics/guests  

There’s something wrong with the way we’re grading that isn’t being talked about nearly enough. On today’s show, Dr. Linda Nilson shares about a whole new way of thinking about assessing students’ work and making grades mean more. Podcast Notes Dr. Linda B. Nilson Director of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation at Clemson University Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors The Graphic Syllabus and the Outcomes Map: Communicating Your Course Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students’ Self-Awareness and Learning Skills Specifications Grading: Restoring rigor, motivating students, and saving faculty time Specifications grading Advocating a new way of grading from University of Pittsburgh University Times The problem with “traditional” grading Academic and Occupational Performance: A Quantitative Synthesis (Samson, Graue, Weinstein & Walberg) .155 correlation meta analysis done by Sampson 2.4% of the variance in career success 2006 study by the American Institutes for Research Fewer than 1/2 of four year college graduates Fewer than 3/4 of two year college graduates Demonstrate literary proficiency Explanation of specifications grading Bundles Virtual tokens Robert Talbert blog Casting out nines How specifications grading came to be Benefits Concerns Recommendations Bonni: PollEverywhere (new features) Linda: Cultivate your courage by trying out things you’re afraid of…

Fears and concerns over changes in higher education persist. Whether it is our disdain for lecturing to a bunch of disconnected, texting and Facebooking students, or their boredom at being put to sleep by a droning professor reading from his powerpoint, something’s got to give… In today’s episode, Dr. Cathy Davidson joins us to talk about finding the right practice, and the right tools, and being able to see what we’ve been missing in higher ed. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Cathy Davidson Cathy on Twitter  Attention The gorilla experiment Selective attention test video by Simons and Chabris (1999) We have a capacity for learning constantly. -Cathy Davidson Patients as co-learners with their physicians in the healing process Examples of facilitation of learning, unlearning, and relearning Students write a class constitution What happens if you take responsibility for your own learning? – Cathy Davidson Alvin Toffler’s term: unlearning Alvin Toffler has said that, “…in the rapidly changing world of the twenty-first century, the most important skill anyone can have is the ability to stop in ones tracks, see what isn’t working, and then find ways to unlearn old patterns and relearn how to learn. This requires all of the other skills in this program but is perhaps the most important single skill we will teach.” …Sadly, we all find gorillas in our lives. They usually come through tragedy… We have all had those moments when there’s a before and an after in your life when the world looks different. The world was not different. What changed was your ability to see a world that you didn’t have to see when you were priviledged not to… when you thought the world only had basketball tosses in it. It wasn’t that the gorilla didn’t exist; it was that you didn’t see it. -Cathy Davidson Multitasking Fears about the calculator Debates in state legislatures and in the senate when Motorola wanted to put a radio in the car Radio actually helped save lives, especially in night driving, to combat the issue of falling asleep at the wheel Brain is constantly multitasking; we just don’t realize it Flow tasks (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) Brain surgery, playing chess, dancing to rock music, video game playing Reading a book is not considered a flow task – people go off the page in 2-3 minutes; we think we are concentrating, when we are not Unitasking Howard Rheingold on Attention Literacy There’s always something we are missing Index cards: Write down three things we’ve missed and we haven’t talked about… Tools, methods, and partners are needed to fight attention blindness Recommendations Field Notes for 21st Century Literacies Social Media Literacy article by Rheingold on Educause HASTAC is an alliance of more than 13,000 humanists, artists, social scientists, scientists and technologists working together to transform the future of learning. The Futures Initiatives on HASTAC Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely NetSmart by Howard Rheingold Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman It’s Complicated by Dana Boyd Closing Credits Subscribe to the weekly update and receive the Educational Technology Essentials Guide Give feedback on the podcast or ideas for future topics/guests

Getting students engaged in research is one of the ways we can make their learning experiences more tangible and more profound. In today’s episode, Dr. Bethany Usher joins us to talk about what happens when we turn students into scholars. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Bethany M. Usher Bethany’s TEDx talk: Preparing Students for the World Through Undergraduate Research Bethany on Twitter Students as Scholars at George Mason Assessment resources from Students as Scholars Students as Scholars blog with each student writing about his or her research Challenges of getting student research to work Recognizing that research can happen in any discipline Getting faculty to recognize that students can make a contribution Helping students see that research is something they can do Setting expectations for students Examples of this kind of research Rebecca Nelson (now a grad student at University of Connecticut) textile exhibit; band of knitted heads Discovered a new knotting technique and how the piece had been repaired along the way Currently living in Guatemala, studying textile production Rebecca’s blog Student did research on a skeleton population and was the winner of the student researcher award at Mason Authentic research When the faculty member and the student don’t know the answer when they begin Other guidance Determine where to place the research in the curriculum Continuum between classroom-based research and individual research Both challenges and benefits to getting classroom-based research to occur Changwoo Ahn’s Wetlands Ecology class Council on Undergraduate Research – national organization that publishes a quarterly journal with lots of resources of what works in different environments Set out a protocol for what you expect a student to be able to do Rubric on their website on research expectations Recommendations 7 Tips to Beautiful PowerPoint: Visual Slide Show to inspire us to simplify our presentations (Bonni) National Conference on Undergraduate Research; have your students attend and present at it (Bethany) Engaging Ideas by John C. Bean (Bethany) Closing credits Subscribe to the weekly update and get the EdTech Essentials Guide Give feedback on guests or topics for the 2015 episodes of Teaching in Higher Ed  

Educational technology that is designed “with the brain in mind” can be a catalyst in facilitating learning. On today’s episode, Dr. Michelle Miller draws from her research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology and shows us how to facilitate learning for minds online. Podcast notes Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology How do we use our memory resources to process information Study of human cognition and thought processes What College Teachers Should Know About Memory: A Perspective from Cognitive Psychology (June, 2011) Journal of College Teaching For the Internet generation, educational technology designed with the brain in mind offers a natural pathway to the pleasures and rewards of deep learning. Drawing on neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Michelle Miller shows how attention, memory, critical thinking, and analytical reasoning can be enhanced through technology-aided approaches. (Book description) Effective teaching Becoming an expert in a discipline, that journey from novice to expert… (Dr. Miller) Not just facts; rich, interconnected network of knowledge Skill acquisition Motivation: Can’t separate motivation, emotion, and cognition Technology in education Avoid the gadget-based approach Interleaved learning: Mix-up the topics you’re assessing… Applied memory findings The testing effect The interleaving effect The spacing effect Minds Online We made the internet to satisfy our needs and desires… The myth of the tech savvy student Students differentiate technology use Skills and abilities from one domain don’t always transfer over to another domain very well Emphasizing why we are using a particular technology tool Memory in the Internet age Expertise and knowledge cannot be fully separated Needed for problem solving Speed necessity Ability to perceive the connections Motivating online students Face-to-face context builds our skills and approaches to heighten motivation These techniques are missing in the online environment Procrastination is an even bigger factor Distractions abound  [Motivation] is not all about the points [in the online environment]. (Dr. Miller) Recommendations Bonni recommended Dr. Miller’s book (Minds Online) and ClassTools.net’s Fakebook tool to create a fake Facebook page/timeline… Going to teach business ethics next semester and have students create one for the Enron crisis. Michelle recommended the following books: Smarter than you think The Invisible Gorilla James Lang’s Cheating Lessons and other books Scarcity Closing credits Subscribe to the weekly update Give feedback on the podcast Write a review or give a rating

It seems that the larger classes get, the more distant our students can seem. On today’s episode, Dr. Chrissy Spencer helps us discover how to make large classes interactive. Even if you teach classes of 20, the resources she uses in her classes as large as 200+ will be of benefit. Podcast notes Guest: Dr. Chrissy Spencer, teaches at Georgia Tech Ph.D., Genetics, University of Georgia Active learning video: Turning students into chili peppers The interactive classroom Learning Catalytics Prepared in advance a few slides that help clarify commonly misunderstood concepts Allowing students to fail or struggle with an answer Interrupted case studies Traditionally a set of materials where there are specific stopping points built in Powerful, because students need to have their progress monitored and milestones achieved Bonni’s case studies rubric Forming groups Catme team maker Team-based, low stakes assessments Georgia Tech Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning  workshop on team based learning Don’t try team based learning half way Start small Switching from clickers to Learning Catalytics Pearson’s Learning Catalytics Strength in the types of questions that can be asked Bonni uses PollEverywhere Flipped classroom Khan Academy Reinforce that reading ahead and reading in a particular way is important to making the class time in interesting ways Process called team based learning Lesson learned/ ignored: “start small and do things in a small and measured way” Evernote TopHat audience response system Service learning The way that students could apply learning from a content area in the real world and also give back to the community in some way (Chrissy) Identified project partners that met certain criteria Outside in the field CATME tool helped to determine who had cars Recommendations The Dip (Bonni) Find something that you love and bring it in to the classroom (Chrissy) Closing Credits Subscribe Feedback

When we get creative with what we assign students, we open up a whole new set of possibilities for student engagement and learning. On today’s episode, Dr. Cameron Hunt McNabb helps us discover how to craft creative assignments that facilitate learning well. Podcast Notes Guest Dr. Cameron Hunt McNabb Her bio and university web page Recommended as a guest by past Teaching in Higher Ed guest: Dr. Josh Eyler Cameron’s students contributed to the Medieval Disability Glossary by including their research on the word ‘lame‘ Teaching philosophy …to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar… The truth about internet slang; it goes way back (in Salon Magazine) Cameron’s teaching philosophy from her website Creative assignments Must meet a specific goal and be measurable Backwards design Understanding by Design  Identify goals first What evidence would exhibit those goals Explore options for assignments that would provide that evidence ** Write a paragraph in “future English” Authentic pedagogy Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. – B.F. Skinner, The New Scientist, May 21, 1964 About authentic pedagogy Places an emphasis on learning that is a construction of prior knowledge and a high value on knowledge that extends beyond the classroom. ** “Real world” is not just vocational, but for every aspect of life… Active learning About active learning ** Intro to Shakespeare class; hired actors to come in and had students come with annotated script and then were asked to co-direct the scenes A veteran teacher takes on the role of a student (from Wiggins’ blog) Other ideas for creative assignments Undergraduate research: Morgan Library in New York Louis C.K.’s Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy routine The role of education: equipping us to think Arthur Holmes, The Idea of a Christian College Recommendations Bonni recommends Lines from The Princess Bride that could double as comments on Freshmen composition papers via McSweeney’s.net Episode 3: Lessons in Teaching from The Princess Bride Cameron recommends that we follow Tina Fey’s advice to “Say yes” (in her memoir Bossy Pants) Closing credits Subscribe to the weekly update Give feedback on the show

It is such a crucial part of what we do as professors… Getting students involved in discussions and helping to facilitate their learning. Dr. Jay Howard joins me on this episode to talk about how to engage students in the classroom and online. Podcast Notes Guest Dr. Jay Howard Engaging Your Students Face-to-Face and Online (July 2015) (Jossey-Bass) Garner multiple intelligences theory Sociologogical approach to observing the classroom Norms The real norm is not that students have to pay attention. It’s that they have to pay civil attention. Elevator norms David Karp and William Yoels from Boston College Episode on learning names When students feel you value them enough to try to learn their names, they’ll be much more forgiving of mistakes. Two classroom norms that do not foster discussion Civil attention, create the appearance of paying attention Consolidation of responsibility for student participation Attendance 2 app Regardless of class size, there will be around five students who will become your dominant talkers who will account for 75-95% of student comments in the typical college class. Online discussion forums Waiting until the deadline Two deadlines Break students into groups Netiquette examples Engage Students You can change norms. They are not fixed. Shifting the workload toward the students. This helps them learn more. Recommendations Bonni recommends: Michael hyatt’s ideal week blog post and template Jay, author of Apostles of Rock, recommends: The Lost Dogs Closing credits Review on iTunes or stitcher to help others discover the show Weekly update /subscribe Feedback /feedback

Dr. Guy Trainin joins me for episode 22 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast to talk about using iPads and tablets in the classroom. Podcast Notes Guest Dr. Guy Trainin Bio Blog On Twitter TechEdge on Pinterest TechEdge on YouTube: iPads in the Classroom Life in the classroom before the iPad iPad integration in a higher ed classroom Padlet Exit Ticket Socrative When the professor has invested, but the institution has not Educreations Explain Everything Touchcast (requires new iPad) PollEverywhere Supporting students with disabilities Visual thesaurus Visual thesaurus on the iPad Dictionary.com iPad app Virtual keyboard as a built in feature to support students Anne Lamott emphasizes having “shitty first drafts” in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing, by Peter Elbows The “haves” and “have nots” Collaborative learning assignments Augmented reality book report covers Twitter tutorial – collaborative project with kids (imagine what is then possible with higher ed students) Recommendations Mine craft (Guy) Minecraft.edu component  Feedly (Bonni) Closing credits Review on iTunes or stitcher to help others discover the show Weekly update /subscribe Feedback /feedback