Centre for Teaching Excellence Blog – Page 27

Mistakes– Keemo Delos Santos, CTE Co-op Student

Mistakes are one of life’s great inevitabilities (along with death and taxes). From small blunders to monumental life-altering ones, mistakes are destined to terrorize our numbered days. In fact, the capacity to err comes so naturally to us that it might as well be a bodily function. However, in spite of (or maybe because of) this certainty, we have grown scared and indifferent to failure.

A side-effect of my continuous years of test-taking is a tendency of assigning a great deal of weight on grades rather than mastery of the material. The upshot: a fear of failure shackling me to the comfortable and routine. Often times, this fear has prevented me from speaking up in class or visiting office hours. But, as humbling and humiliating as they are, mistakes should not be avoided or ignored as they are critical to the learning process. Our attempts at ignoring them serve as barriers to learning. By way of example, the questions that I’ve gotten wrong on tests, and the topics I’ve failed to fully comprehend on the first try are the ones that have stayed with me long past the two-week statute of limitations after exam period ends.

While it’s a struggle to be deal with our insufficiencies, it is vital that we change our attitudes on erring as it is from them that we can grow as learners and citizens of this world. Ultimately, our errors, the inconsequential to the significant, are our becoming. The grace to admit our mistakes and the willingness to learn from them is not only a useful skill to have in university, but is also imperative to our survival in the “real world”.

Presenting lectures with iPad and 2Screens — Paul Kates

Please visit the Presenting lectures with iPad and 2Screens page to learn about combining the ability of the iPad app 2Screens to make presentations to students in the classroom with the iPad’s ability to capture handwriting with a stylus.

Display, annotate, browse, or write-freehand with 2Screens on an iPad tablet. Using files from Microsoft Office or Apple iWorks; or files (pdf), images and video from the web you can present to your students or audience through the lightweight iPad with a VGA adaptor. With an additional pen stylus, pages can be annotated or new pages written, live in class. Files in 2Screen are displayed on tabs, so it is easy to switch among different content pages, jumping from a slide tab to a whiteboard tab for example, to work on a problem or exercise.

Paul Kates
Mathematics Faculty CTE Liaison
pkates@uwaterloo.ca, x37047

This is Real Life – Katherine Lithgow

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them” –Aristotle

We know that students learn best when learning is personally meaningful and when they are able to use knowledge and concepts to solve real-world, complex problems. They retain that knowledge longer when they learn-by-doing. Authentic learning experiences have the following ten design elements (Lombardi, 2007)

Real-world relevance
Ill-defined problem
Sustained investigation
Multiple sources and perspectives
Collaboration
Reflection (metacognition)
Interdisciplinary perspective
Integrated assessment
Polished products
Multiple interpretations and outcomes

Authentic learning experiences are effective because they help learners make connections between new concepts and existing knowledge structures. When learners can see how new knowledge is personally meaningful, they are better able to retain and assimilate that knowledge into their existing knowledge structures. Working with the concepts regularly and repeatedly in different contexts with others helps with retention and understanding. Including a cycle of reflection on action gives students the time and space they need to consider why they acted as they did, consider the group dynamics and begin to develop the habit of questioning their actions and ideas to help inform future action. Finally, authentic learning experiences help students connect the concepts to the ‘big picture’ which includes the richness of the social setting- the people, the environment, and the activity. This helps the learner explore the concepts in different contexts.

Qualtars (2010) contends that “experiential education needs to be viewed as a unique form of pedagogy involving deep reflection, collaboration and assessment” (p.95). There are a number of courses on campus that offer authentic learning experiences; some of these have been presented at the Integrative and Experiential Learning Series. Examples include the following. Students in Knowledge Integration complete an undergraduate senior research project and present their findings at a poster session- (See the abstracts for the 2013 class projects). Mary Louise McAllister (Environment) offers an integrative, blended course which combines lectures with field trips, peer teaching and tutorial–based project work. The students present their qualitative research findings in a multi-media journal format. Troy Glover (Rec & Leisure Studies) offers a course on program management where students work with a community partner to offer a program. During the course, the students work in small groups with the community partner to conduct a needs assessment and design, implement and evaluate a program. The course is designed so that the students have a number of opportunities to reflect on the experience. In addition, the students participate in a weekend retreat which serves as a team building exercise as well as providing them with a program to critique and use to inform their own program planning. Students in Kelly Anthony’s (SPHHS) course can opt to work on a project with a community partner rather than complete traditional forms of assessment. These students enrich the class readings and discussions by sharing their experiences with their classmates throughout the term.

Initially, students may experience frustration as they deal with the ill-defined problems but they are motivated to carry on because the activity connects the course to the ‘big picture’. Participating in an authentic learning experience helps students relate to the concepts and processes on a personal level and better appreciate nuances that cannot be adequately captured by reading or listening to a lecture. They begin to immerse themselves in the practices of the discipline- both the social structures and the culture of the discipline; they begin to envision themselves as members of the discipline’s community.

There are challenges associated with implementing authentic learning experiences. Risk-taking for both the learner and the instructor is involved; as with any real-life ill-defined problem, neither the student nor the instructor can accurately predict how the experience will unfold. Authentic learning is a collaborative effort. Taking the time to develop teams…well it takes time, effort and requires support. But, the advantage of placing such an experience in an early course is that students can use these skills in later courses as well as outside the academic environment. And it helps students get to know people in their class and program.

Qualtars ( 2010) raises a point worth considering- “unless experiences outside the classroom are brought into the classroom and integrated with the goals and objectives of the discipline theory, students will continue to have amazing outside experiences but will not readily connect them to their in-class learning….Without a careful curriculum involving structured, reflective skill building, students may never learn what we hope they will outside the four walls of the classroom” (p. 95-96). This raises a number of questions and challenges – How can we ensure that students have the opportunity to experience authentic learning at least once during their time at university? What kind of support structures have to be in place to support authentic learning experiences?
How can these courses be identified so students can take advantage of the opportunity? [Some university websites provide a list of courses that offer experiential learning components. These can be further categorized according to faculty or department. See for example:
o Elon University , Kent State, DePaul University Catalogue
o Simon Fraser University – a place where students can find the curricular and co-curricular EE opportunities

If we agree that authentic learning is beneficial to students, is it worth leaving to chance?

Resources:

Qualtars, D.M. (2010). Making the most of learning outside the classroom. In D.M. Qualtars, (Ed), Experiential Education: Making the Most of Learning Outside the Classroom. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Number 124, (pp. 95-99). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-0-470-94505-6.

Reading with the Warriors Pilot – Zara Rafferty

Back in teacher’s college, I wrote a research paper about the challenges surrounding boys’ literacy in today’s classrooms. Having always been an avid reader myself, I have to admit that I knew very little about the social and pedagogical factors that can help or hurt young students’ acquisition of essential literacy skills (for an introduction to this discussion in the Ontario context, start here).

This year, I set out to create a program here at UW that brings varsity athletes into elementary school classrooms to promote literacy skills and an interest in reading. While I hope that this program will benefit all learners, I believe it could have a particular impact on boys’ literacy. Male reading role models are one of the key strategies that classroom teachers recommend to support both boys’ literacy skills, and their attitudes toward reading and writing.

To this end, Reading with the Warriors was created in partnership with the UW Athletics Department. Last week we launched the first of five pilot sessions with two student-athlete volunteers from the varsity hockey team. Justin and Andy (pictured above) joined two Gr. 2 classes for story time and a craft related to the books they had chosen to read (Thomas’ Snowsuit and Just One Goal!, respectively). Justin and Andy shared their own reading history (e.g., challenges they had with reading, favourite books, why reading is important to them), and answered a variety of student questions relating to school, hockey, and life in general.

The program has been well-received thus far, and I am looking forward to continuing our pilot throughout the month. I am particularly grateful to the five student-athletes who have agreed to participate in the pilot sessions – they have been wonderful! If all goes well, it’s my hope that this will become a regular part of varsity athletics’ community programming beginning this Fall.

At the end of the day, it isn’t necessarily about the stories (although, those are important, too), it’s about students having the opportunity to see interesting, articulate men reading and engaging with books. Research and practice show that male mentors from the community can help all students, but especially boys, see a purpose in reading. I love the idea that our students can collaborate with classroom teachers to strengthen literacy skills in our little guys.

This program has also gotten me thinking: how often do we bring role models and mentors from the community into our university classrooms? I would love to hear examples from the UW community.

If you’re interested in learning more about boys’ literacy, check out this guide from the Ontario Ministry of Education: Me Read? No Way!

The hidden classroom

Public School, 1892. (Boston Public Library)

As you stand at the front of your class, about to start the session, what do you see? What do you notice about your students? Who sits at the front? Who sits at the back? Who is chronically late? Who rarely makes it to class? Who always sits alone?

While we see our students at class, what do we really know about them? There was once a student in my class who consistently fell asleep. As a very new teacher, I was really surprised and, at times, wondered if there was something I was doing wrong. Was my class really that bad? I also wondered about the student and the choice to come to class just to sleep through it. The reality is that I don’t know why the student was falling asleep. Perhaps it was from the fatigue of working two or three part-time jobs in order to pay for school. Possibly, the student’s role outside class was the main caregiver for a sick relative. Maybe 3:30pm on Monday in a darkened 250-seat lecture hall just didn’t work.

In course design workshops, we ask participants to explore the context of their classroom. As part of that reflection, we discuss factors such as the class size, required/elective course, the distribution of majors and non-majors, TA support, etc. But what about the hidden context, the part we rarely hear about.

The reality is that we don’t know what is impacting students’ participation or engagement in our classes. I remember speaking with a colleague several years ago who spoke about how she never attended class. Having never pondered the idea of missing class when I was a student, and knowing how successful my colleague was at school, I was surprised. In essence, the lecture hall didn’t work for her. It was much better for her to learn from the textbook and the assignments. She wasn’t “skipping” class, she was making a choice that made sense for her as a learner.

Given that there is no way for us to know about all the contextual factors that are impacting our students’ success in our class (and, of course, online), what can we do? One option is to consider universal design, which focuses on design for all. Although its roots are in designing accessible places and spaces for persons with disabilities, anyone can benefit from this design modality. Consider curb cuts. Although originally designed to support people with mobility limitations, as a mom, I can tell you they are a blessing when you are pushing a stroller, your toddler is on their tricycle, or your pre-teen is pulling a wagon full of flyers to deliver. There are examples all around campus of design choices that originally served one purpose but benefited many others.

The same holds true for our courses. Thoughtful design that focuses on engaging a broader spectrum of learners, or one that was made consciously to support a specific group, can have far-reaching benefits. Consider transcriptions of video content. While this text helps students with hearing impairments, it can also be really helpful for students whose first language is not English. I would have loved podcasts and video content as a student simply because I am not the best note-taker in the world and am sure I lost a lot by scrambling to take notes. With a podcast, I would have the chance to go back to catch what I’d missed.

There are countless examples of how we can make small changes in our course’s design, our teaching methods, learning activities, and assessments, that can provide deep learning experiences for a broader spectrum of students. If you would like to explore this idea, why not join Jay Dolmage and I next Friday, March 8, as we explore universal design. For information about the workshop, please go to CTE’s events listing.

What are Teaching Squares? – Monica Vesely

The beginning…

Teaching Squares is a concept created by Anne Wessely of St. Louis Community College. It started when Anne Wessely, chair of the accounting department at the Meramec campus in Kirkwood, was leading a committee looking into peer evaluation. By her recollection: “We were sitting around and we had the hedonists, the relationship builders, and the task-oriented people just as you usually do. The relationship builders were saying ‘we just meet to get together,’ and the task-oriented people were talking about peer evaluation and were thinking of a developing formal component for our evaluation system.” Out of this discussion emerged the Teaching Squares approach as a non-judgmental, evaluative process that fosters in-depth reflection about teaching in general and in context. The program builds community across disciplines and provides an opportunity for instructors to engage in discussions about teaching.

The description…

The Teaching Squares approach involves a self-reflective process about teaching gained through observation of one’s peers. It is not a peer evaluation exercise but rather a self-evaluation process which takes place in a confidential and mutually supportive environment. The aim of the Teaching Squares approach is to enhance teaching and learning through a structured process of classroom observation, reflection and discussion (leading to a plan for revitalization).

The mechanics…

A square is formed by four instructors who visit each other’s classes over the course of one term. Those being visited are encouraged to provide peer visitors with a copy of their course outline, to comment on why students are taking that particular course, and to share any material that would enhance the observation experience. The peer visitors are instructed to take notes during the classroom visit which would include such particulars as teaching methods, attitudes, classroom materials, and classroom management. The visits are preceded by an organizational meeting and followed by a debrief meeting where the participants share their experiences (the positive aspects of what they have learned and how they might improve their own teaching).

In conclusion…

By allowing instructors to be “learners” again in their colleagues’ classes, Teaching Squares opens up unique spaces for reflection and conversation about teaching. During their classroom visits, the Teaching Squares participants have the opportunity to experience a variety of contexts and challenges which leads to a greater appreciation of the quality of and commitment to good teaching already in existence on campus and, at the same time, it provides the catalyst for growth as participants gather ideas on different teaching approaches and consider how they could be used to improve one’s own teaching.

If you are interested in learning more about the Teaching Squares Program at the University of Waterloo, please contact Monica Vesely at mvesely@uwaterloo.ca

Wholeheartedness – Shirley Hall

It was easy deciding on a topic to write about today.

The heart…Love.

We are told that love is in the air, all is fair in love and war, it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. There is much ado about love.

“Yes,” you may say, “this is true.” “But what does love have to do with teaching and learning?” Perhaps Thomas Carlyle said it best when he wrote, “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.”

Yesterday the entire CTE team participated in our annual PD Day. We had a lot of fun. We got to know one another a little better. We played games like “Two Truths and a Lie” using iClickers to reveal little known facts (and fibs) about each other. We laughed a lot. We shared a little more than we would have in a work setting. We risked being vulnerable – perhaps letting others get to know us just a little bit better. In so doing, a new level of trust was built. We are a fortunate bunch. We respect and care about one another.

But letting others see who we really are is risky. Yes, I want to live “wholeheartedly.” There are times though, that I feel fear – fear of not being “good enough” -as a worker, instructor, parent. Paradoxically, being vulnerable takes courage. In order for me to connect with students, colleagues, even family and friends, I have to let my guard down and be real, authentic. Risk showing who I really am. Fortunately, I have teachers who help me see that I am not alone in feeling apprehensive about this.

My most recent teacher has emerged from the pages of a book I have been reading. The book is by Brené Brown, it is called “Daring Greatly.” I suggest checking her out if you haven’t already. For a sneak peak into some of the wisdom of her book, you can also find her on TED talks. When I thought of love today, I thought of this book. From the dust cover, “Brown explains how vulnerability is the both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief and disappointment and the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation and creativity.” She writes about the importance of recognizing our vulnerabilities, and accepting them as insights to greater meaning and understanding in our lives.

Chapter 6 of her book is titled, “Disruptive Engagement: Daring to Rehumanize Education and Work”, and holds many great examples of how to best lead. Brown’s description of a leader is “anyone who holds themselves accountable for finding potential in people and processes.” Further into the chapter, I found her idea of vulnerability being at the “heart” of the feedback process. I am working on adapting some of her strategies about student presentations and assessment into my courses. I think it’s worth the risk.

I would like to bring the spirit of wholeheartedness into my life and also my classroom, and by practicing some of the ideas suggested in this book, I have made a start. In the end, it is the loving thing to do. For myself, and others.

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly. How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead. 2012. Gotham Books, New York.