Teaching Strategies – Page 17 – Centre for Teaching Excellence Blog

Flow as an Optimal State of Learning – Svitlana Taraban-Gordon

A while ago I heard about interesting research in psychology that discusses the state of optimal experience called flow. This fascinating research, pioneered by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chick-sent-me-high-lee), suggests that the state of flow is characterized by complete mental and physical commitment, clarity of focus, mindfulness and loss of sense of time. Continue reading Flow as an Optimal State of Learning – Svitlana Taraban-Gordon

Changing Colours – Shirley Hall

Lately I have been thinking about the weather a lot. Well, a lot more than usual. (Isn’t it the number one topic of choice of casual conversations among Canadians?). The weather changes so frequently around this part of the country that sometimes I take change for granted. So much so that I may not notice changes. Except for lately, because lately I have daily reminders of the change that is going on all around me. The changing of the leaves is one of the most visually striking reminders to me that change is happening. It makes the change much more explicit. It’s ‘in your face’ so to speak.

All this reflection about change started me thinking about the changes that happen to our students (and ourselves) as we go through the learning process. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could actually see our students change colour like the leaves – as they grow in knowledge and understanding? For instance, what colour would deep learning be? Perhaps crimson or purple? How about critical thinking? A rich orange perhaps? And what about teachers? Would we glow a warm yellow if our teaching was engaging? How different life would be for both student and instructor alike if we could actually see the effects of teaching and learning in a rainbow of colours, so we could know for certain a change was occurring…

But…that is not the way it is.

So, I do my best to try and incorporate the principles of good teaching into my courses, in hopes that change will happen – even if I cannot see it. I read some literature related to teaching and learning and try to make some adjustments – albeit minor ones – in the way I teach. I try new things. I watch and see if a change occurs. Perhaps my efforts do result in a little deeper learning and a little more critical thought and reflection in my students, perhaps not. I may not notice a big change in my students – I only see them for a short time – and then they move on. But perhaps I can trust the process somewhat. The same way I trust the changing of the seasons. I may not be able to see change happen in my students in the same way as I see the changing of the leaves, but I like to believe my efforts have been worthwhile, and that the colours are there, underneath.

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The Centre for Teaching Excellence welcomes contributions to its blog. If you are a faculty member, staff member, or student at the University of Waterloo (or beyond!) and would like contribute a posting about some aspect of teaching or learning, please contact Mark Morton or Trevor Holmes.

Connecting With Our Students — Donna Ellis

My colleague Monica Vesely recently blogged about connecting with our students by being more transparent in our teaching. This is solid advice and helps us to think about putting our students and their learning experiences at the core of our teaching. It fits with a recent e-flyer that I received about the 5Rs that we can use to better “engage” students: relevant learning, research-based approaches to instruction, rationales for course designs, relaxed and participatory learning environments, and relational opportunities and rapport with professors.

I have my own thoughts about how to connect with our students. I recently delivered a keynote talk at a geotechnical engineering conference on teaching and learning where I was asked to provide my insights on how to promote effective learning in the lecture setting. Traditional didactic lectures have not been the ideal setting for students to learn deeply – to retain key concepts and apply and connect knowledge across multiple contexts.

In a non-traditional interactive format, I explored principles of deep learning with the participants and then presented a model about making connections in our teaching to promote effective learning: learner to content, learner to learner, and learner to instructor.

At the core of this model is the learner, not the instructor. I asserted that our learners need to be at the core of our teaching and provided various strategies for connecting with our students during our face-to-face teaching time. To connect with the content, we can use compelling questions, discussion via questions, one-minute summaries, concept maps, and narrated modelling (explaining your thinking processes as you solve a problem). Connecting with other learners can be achieved through activities that have students working together during class time and sharing their thinking. Making our own connections with students involves using nonverbal strategies (e.g., smiling) and creating trust through sharing information about ourselves and our learning or asking students for their feedback on our course during the semester.

In an effort to connect with my learners in that conference setting, I demonstrated as many of these strategies as I could, and I enjoyed our lively discussion around what they planned to apply in their own settings.

So what about you? It can be truly satisfying to connect with your students during the few hours of class time you have with them each term. Being able to witness their learning in class is much more energizing than looking at a sea of disengaged faces. Why don’t you give it a try? Remember, we’re here to help.

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Opening Classrooms Across Disciplines – Trevor Holmes

One of my favourite jobs as a teaching developer is to visit other people’s classrooms. I get to learn new things while providing a helpful service (observation and report for feedback to individual instructors). There’s another benefit that accrues too, though. I get to bring ideas from a panoply of disciplinary approaches back to my own classroom, reinvigorating my own teaching and ratcheting up my students’ learning.

CC Licensed image "We're Open" sign by dlofink — Open Sign

Rarely is this more apparent than during our Open Classroom series. Open Classroom is Waterloo’s unique way of celebrating our Distinguished Teaching Award winners by asking them to do some work! Each term, if possible, we ask the DTA winner to open his or her doors to other professors, new or more seasoned, it doesn’t matter. The attendees (a few to half a dozen, depending on the room capacity) sit in on the live classroom as observers, and then have an opportunity to ask questions for an hour after the class. This gives a chance not only for the visitors to experience what it’s like to be a learner in the Award-winner’s class, but for the professor to explain his or her thinking behind instructional approaches taken that day.

What is really important here is that one need not be from the professor’s home discipline to benefit from this observation and discussion. I have certainly learned some things from Waterloo professors I’ve observed, and while some of it has gone way over my head, the techniques themselves have found their way directly or indirectly into my own cultural studies lectures (even math and physics approaches!). I would heartily encourage attendance at this term’s Open Classroom (Ted McGee’s English course, the Rebel) and future Open Classrooms, regardless of your own discipline. You will find some relevance in watching and asking about a different approach, I am sure.

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It’s all about balance – Jennifer Doyle

Lately I’ve been thinking about balance. This isn’t unusual. I often think about balance. I think about balance in relationships, studies, teaching, and environment. I think about it in relation to art, to musical composition, to food (both aesthetically and nutritionally). I would say I consider balance on a regular basis.

As the attentive reader has no doubt noticed, I’ve been thinking, I often think, I think about, and I consider. I have yet to use a word denoting the kind of action required to achieve a state of being in balance and for good reason – balance is something I strive for in theory. In practice it is less clear what I accomplish.

I’m writing about this because I suspect I’m not alone. I have a plethora of versions of myself that come into play depending on the crowd, activities I love to participate in when I give myself time, research I’m excited about, places I want to go, people I want to see and care I want to give. I’m engaged in using the word “busy” as a catch-all for everything I negate under the pretences of other things being more important. Ultimately what I’m saying is that every time I eschew balance other things are more important than well-being (for self, family, friends, co-workers, planet, etc). Something to ponder for a moment…

Now, that that is confessed, I’d like to move on, in fact, I’d like to act on this commitment to balance. Bear with me on this brief tangent (I love tangents). I was listening to a CBC interview the other day. Those who know me know that I’m a devoted listener to CBC radio 1. Its a rare day that I miss Q, or Matt Galloway’s morning show, and it would be unusual to go through the week without catching Quirks and Quarks, Spark, In the Age of Persuasion, Ed Lawrence’s Gardening show, Conrad Edgebeck’s wine advice and The House. I can say with certainty that the CBC offers me great opportunities to learn about new and interesting things. Now, the idea I’m interested in discussing here was about actions, ideas and emotions (tangent closed).

While listening to the CBC I heard an interview about how our emotions follow our actions. I’ve been working under an ill-conceived concept for a long time. I thought that when I felt a certain way then I could accomplish particular tasks. Little did I know that in fact, my emotions follow my actions. This may sound simple enough, but dear readers, believe me when I say, I sighed a deep sigh of relief and joy. I felt in that moment the answer to a nagging question that has been a perennial problem for me. How do I begin to get ahead on things, so I can stop feeling so behind and start living a balanced, present-tense existence (or something proximate)? Well, I can attest to one thing: I have been getting up in the morning, imagining the things I want to accomplish in a day and the spaces I’d like to eke out for whatever I want to put in. I have been feeling better. I have been catching up, finding a little free time and I can see some semblance of balance on the horizon.

On this beautiful fall morning, I’d like to say: Thank you CBC for giving me this free education. I am painting again, I’m researching better, I’ve got better ideas, my work is still dominating my life but I’m striking something towards balance. To balance…

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Shaping society by teaching

Last week I attended the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) summer meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. It was several days full of educational research, best practices and new ideas for teaching physics – which I could go on and on about (but don’t worry – I won’t). I do want to share something that stuck with me from one of the plenary talks. Edward Prather, who teaches very large (1500+ students) interactive astronomy classes, was talking about how he can affect students’ lives through his astronomy course.

At the beginning of his talk he asked the audience how satisfied we are with society. The choices (which we responded to with flash cards) were:

A. completely happy

B. fairly satisfied, but some things could be better

C. very unhappy – things need to change

D. suicide watch

Star-Forming Region LH 95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Source: Hubblesite.org

I imagine you can guess how the audience responded – I don’t think there was a single A in the room. He reminded us that as educators, we have the opportunity to profoundly effect the lives of our students. Edward is in the lucky position to teach Astronomy, a topic that almost everyone is interested in (as a result, he gets over 1000 students in one course!) There is something about seeing pictures of the universe that really make you examine the life you lead. But regardless of the field you teach in – you have the ability to shape the lives of hundreds of students each year! Teaching them to think for themselves, examine the facts, and push boundaries will results in well-rounded, intelligent citizens – the kind of people we want running our cities, financial institutions, hospitals and raising the next generation.

I can’t do his inspiring talk justice, but I left feeling empowered and it reminded me of why I wanted to teach in the first place. And I hope this post prompts you to think about what, beyond the curriculum, you are teaching your students.

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