Category Archives: Pedagogy

Classroom Behavior: Is it good, or is it LEARNING?

This week I ran across a blog that introduced me to a new phrase, which I now love: behavior for learning. The writer differentiates between ‘good behavior’ and the types of behavior necessary for learning to occur. His point: when a child sits quietly and follows the teacher’s instructions, she is being ‘good’….but is she really learning?

I read the blog with a smile on my face, envisioning the four-year-olds I work with at the piano. Their behavior is inquisitive, energetic, often loud, mostly messy. Our piano lessons are the opposite of what I’ve been told to call ‘good’ behavior. And yet, if the attending parent expresses concern that the child is ‘not paying attention’ or is ‘acting out’, my response is: Great!

My overall philosophy of teaching and learning: Let’s get our hands dirty, let’s make a mess, please–anybody?–let us have an experience. There is, after all, a difference between ‘out-of-control’ behavior and ‘engaged’ behavior, and engaged behavior is what I want. Always. It’s behavior for learning, and learning is my goal.

Messy energetic learning might be easy enough to envision when considering four-year-olds, but what about our college classrooms? Is it possible to create a classroom where college student behavior expresses learning, for learning, is learning? And if so, is it valuable to do so?

If we answer YES, then the remaining question is: How?

In other words:

What is required from you, the instructor,

in order to see behavior for learning in your classroom?

[We love to think about this stuff, so let us know how we can think about it with you! And, look for upcoming workshops regarding active learning strategies and community building…]

A great new nugget on classroom management

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Kathy Jackson and I have been thinking a lot in the last 6 months about what it means to teach Millennial students. (See Kathy’s recent SITE blog post for some great resources.) In a recent workshop with faculty from across the Penn State system, we were engaged in a conversation about establishing a healthy learning environment, given Millennial students’ attributes and preferences. One of the attending faculty members raised his hand and very casually said, “I figure out what doesn’t bother me, then I give it away.”

Come again, I thought.

He said, “I figure out what doesn’t bother me, then I give it away.” What he meant (and we were all eager for him to elaborate) is that he thinks about all the things that students prefer in class…Cell phones, texting, computer access, food, whatever. You name it. Some of those things bother him, and some of them don’t. He insists on the things that really matter to him. For example, there may be NO phone calls during class. But he also figures out what he doesn’t really care about; that is what doesn’t really interfere with his teaching or drive him personally crazy. Then he gives it away. He literally tells students that it’s fine. For example, texting. By openly allowing students to engage in some of the behaviors they’d like to be able to engage in (and ones that don’t interfere with learning in a particular class), students feel empowered and are more likely to abide by the mandates that do matter. It’s a great concept!

Making Excellence Inclusive in STEM Classes – Barrier #1: Stereotypes

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This fall and spring, the Schreyer Institute is sponsoring a workshop series exploring the topic of Inclusive Excellence, or how college instructors can harness the power of diversity in their classrooms. The series is comprised of three workshops(1), the third of which was held on November 7th:

Many thanks again to Andres Tellez for the beautiful mandala image used in the flyer for our event.

In this research-based workshop, we discussed the characteristics and benefits of an inclusive classroom, identified common barriers to inclusivity in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) classes, and discussed some new strategies for tackling these barriers constructively in STEM classes.

This blog post is the first in a series of follow-ups to the workshop intended to build on some of the themes, suggestions, and tips generated in the session, and also make resources available for further reading on the topic. When possible, in the discussion of specific scholarly works I have linked to both public summaries and journal articles so that those with and without fulltext journal access can read about this research.

But first, here’s the workshop prezi:

.prezi-player { width: 550px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }

Inclusive Excellence Workshop #3: STEM on Prezi

Note: at the time of this first post, the references sections in the prezi for Barriers #2 and #3 are still being compiled, and will be completed when I post the blog entries for these barriers (forthcoming). This embedded prezi will automatically update.

As you can see in the prezi, the bulk of the workshop was organized around three barriers to making excellence inclusive in STEM classrooms. The first barrier we identified was Stereotypes.

Wherefore art thou stereotype?
At its most basic level, of course, a stereotype is merely an oversimplified conception of a group of people. Stereotypes develop out of longstanding cultural assumptions and tend to self-replicate and become rooted in popular belief. In the workshop, we brainstormed a number of stereotypes specific to STEM including which types of people “naturally” possess STEM-specific abilities and skills, which types do not, and who STEM practitioners are and are not. The stereotypes we came up with involved categories of gender, race, learning style and ability. Images like the “mad scientist” were invoked – male, white, out of touch with the world, cares only about work, has no social skills, and can’t get a date to save his life:

Image credit: tvtropes.com

While at times humorous, this activity highlighted the proliferation of problematic images involving STEM – stereotypes that involve both the perception of STEM fields by those outside the disciplines, as well perceptions of who “belongs” in a STEM field. Research shows that these perceptions form early – for instance this 2011 study (journal article here) found that children started linking math with gender as early as the second grade:

The kids, 247 children (126 girls and 121 boys) in grades one through five in Seattle-area schools, sat in front of a large-screen laptop computer and used an adapted keyboard to sort words into categories.

As early as second grade, the children demonstrated the American cultural stereotype for math: boys associated math with their own gender while girls associated math with boys. In the self-concept test, boys identified themselves with math more than girls did.

In our workshop, one participant asked “How are children picking up these stereotypes so early?” Many scholars who study the social construction of gender and race argue that these cues are embedded in the fabric of our lives from a very young age (for a well-researched and accessible introduction to some of this work, check out the excellent Sociological Images blog. Specifically, here’s a primer on the Sociology of Gender). For instance, children’s toys often incorporate subtle (or not so subtle) visual cues about what jobs are performed by men and which are performed by women:

Image credit: Caroline P. via Lisa Wade, Sociological Images

Or which intellectual skills girls are okay to possess or not possess:

and stir” approach to diversifying course materials is not a magic elixir for addressing the impacts of stereotypes in STEM classes. As some have no-doubt experienced, a ham-handed application of this tip can be ineffective, or worse, lead to awkward and counter-productive “diversity moments” that succeed only in singling out diverse learners and distracting the class from course material. Thus, this tip works best as a thoughtful complement to tips 1 and 2, and in cooperation with the goals and objectives of your lessons and course more broadly.

Beyond the Barriers
As always, incremental steps are steps in the right direction. If you are unsure how best to approach making these kinds of changes, you can always contact us at the Schreyer Institute for an individual consultation, a classroom observation, or a custom workshop. Our services for Penn State teachers are always free and confidential.

This article was written by Destiny D. Aman, a Ph.D. candidate in geography, and a graduate student affiliate of the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at Penn State University. Originally posted 1 December 2011. How to cite a blog post.

(1) Notes from Workshop 1 and Workshop 2 are available elsewhere on the SITE blog.

(2) Indeed a recent survey by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), found “sense of fit” to be the single most important climate factor predicting job satisfaction in STEM faculty positions, with women significantly less likely to report satisfaction in this category.

Image credits for photos on the right:
Scantron (stock.xchng)
Physics classroom (Science Daily)
Homer brain (simpsontrivia.com.ar)
Too pretty t-shirt (spreadshirt.com)
Engineer (findbb.com)
Scientist (NewsOne.com)

Difficult Dialogues in the Classroom II: Continuing the Conversation

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NEW!!! For more information, see the “Difficult Dialogues” tab above.

The student-run media organization Onward State has provided some excellent coverage of the past weeks’ events via their webpage, liveblog, and Twitter feed (@OnwardState). Last week, student writer Dan McCool wrote a poignant piece voicing many students’ hopes about going home for fall break. Yesterday, John Tecce followed it up with The Break that Wasn’t – an article about his troubles connecting with loved ones outside Penn State:

It’s difficult to expect our friends and family at home to understand what the past few weeks have been like for us, and yet, we can’t help but do so. Unfortunately, all they know comes straight from the news vans we walk past every day on the way to class, hoping that maybe tomorrow they’ll be gone.

Both of these pieces provide some insight as to what many of our students are continuing to experience as members of the Penn State community. As teachers, it’s important for us to stay connected to these experiences so that we can attend to them if/when they affect the learning environment.

In the wake of the events, many faculty have implemented reflective writing assignments as suggested in the first Difficult Dialogues blog post we published. Although some students may be tired of discussing things openly in class (especially if course material doesn’t overlap directly), short reflective writing can still be useful at this time to help students air out tension or angst that could impede the learning process. Sometimes having fears or concerns heard about a difficult topic or challenging assignment can be enough to move forward with learning. Of course, the Critical Incident Questionnaire discussed earlier or other Classroom Assessment Techniques can give you important information about where students may be hung up, or what could be impeding their learning.

As always, we’re here to help. Feel free to contact us to schedule an individual consultation, a classroom observation, or to attend one of our many upcoming teaching workshops. Our services are always free and confidential.

NOTE: This post is republished here from a comment on the first Difficult Dialogues post here.

IMAGE: Ellie Skrzat, Onward State

The Red Pen: Grading Reconsidered

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Even as we continue to process the distressing events at Penn State, we are aware that some of the normal aspects of academic life continue. Take grading, for example.
We are fast approaching the end of the semester, a time when those of us teaching take up the “red pen” to grade student work.
It’s not a task most of us look forward to, because frankly grading wears us out. After all, it takes time, thought, and energy to give feedback on all those student papers, exams, projects, reports, and bluebooks.
I invite you to put down the red pen for a moment and consider the following questions: 1) are grading and feedback the same thing? 2) If not, what is feedback for? 3) how much do students need feedback on their performance at the end of the semester?
These are questions David Brooks asked himself. The answers he came up with might surprise you:
http://chronicle.com/article/Wielding-the-Red-Pen/126200/

Difficult Dialogues in the Classroom: Resources for Penn State Teachers

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NEW!!! For more information, see “Difficult Dialogues”

In light of the tragic events continuing to unfold at Penn State, we at the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence recognize that there are many faculty and graduate student instructors who, while experiencing their own shock, anger, and sadness, are also looking to help their students process these events in a thoughtful and productive way.

Teachable moments can be found in this terrible situation, and thus can provide much needed support and healing through the learning process. Destiny Aman, with input from a number of other teaching institute consultants, developed the following tips for teachers interested in incorporating difficult dialogue discussions into their courses.

Set Ground Rules. Encourage students to practice empathetic listening, use “I-statements,” and avoid personal attacks.
Start with a guided reflective writing exercise – give students a chance to write about what they’re feeling and experiencing, but also incorporate questions to stimulate critical thinking.
To give all students a chance to participate, and reduce the chance that a few individuals will dominate discussion, incorporate think-pair-share activities, dyads, or other discussion techniques that allow students to talk and process their ideas in smaller groups prior to speaking in the larger class setting.
To the degree possible, connect the situation to course material and learning goals (keep in mind that while this might not directly relate to your course content, such discussions do overlap with learning goals such as critical thinking, reflection, and peer-learning).
Recognize your own experience and role in the dialogue. Do not respond angrily or shut down students whose positions you disagree with – this will result in defensiveness and have a negative effect on student learning.
End the session with a Critical Incident Questionnaire, and follow up with the topic as needed during the next class session or via email.

Even in classes where course content does not overlap, the learning environment will continue to be affected as news breaks on a daily (or even hourly) basis. Many students are struggling emotionally and psychologically, and may find it difficult to focus on course material. All students should be made aware of resource centers on campus where they can find a supportive, safe, and productive space to process their experience. These include:

Counseling & Psychological Services
Center for Women Students
LGBTA Resource Center
Pasquerilla Spiritual Center

As always, the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence stands with all who teach at Penn State, and especially now as you work through this difficult time. If you have questions, concerns, or would like more suggestions related to teaching at Penn State, we are happy to schedule an individual consultation.

Do Students Know Best?

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So many of us in higher education enthusiastically endorse current instructional strategies intended to engage active, meaningful learning in the classroom. While there are many instructional approaches used to actively involve students, one that is easily recognized is the Socratic Method. You can picture it – an interactive discussion-style teaching approach where the instructor asks questions and engages students to talk, think, and learn from each other. It certainly seems students would want to be involved and working with others in the classroom, yet a recent Inside Higher Ed story, Socratic Backfire? , sheds light on another perspective.

I’m not sure what I make of this story – lots of questions are swirling in my head. What was it really like inside his classroom? Why were the students either not willing or not able to engage in this type of teaching? Were they reacting to their own learning discomfort or were they not able to learn with this process? What does this kind of reaction tell us about today’s students? Why didn’t the professor’s colleagues see glaring instructional inadequacies? Sometimes it feels like there is too much emphasis on blame and finger pointing in our classrooms and not enough emphasis on learning.

Teaching with Clickers: The Pedagogy Behind the Technology

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Yesterday Penn State faculty from the Behrend, Berks, and University Park campuses got together (via videoconference) to chat with Brian Young, Instructional Desinger at Educational Technology Services. Brian has lots of experience in working with Penn State faculty to implement iClickers in their courses. Here are some notes on the conversation.

Q: What are the pedagogical applications of clickers? What different ways can instructors use clickers beyond sporadic multiple choice questions?
A: Clickers are one way of helping us focus on what important things we want students to learn. Clickers actually change the way we teach; with clickers, we spend more class time asking questions and helping students identify what is important, rather than simply “downloading” information to students via lecture. Some examples of ways Penn State faculty are currently using clickers:
-Clickers can be used to test core concepts.
-One interesting application we discussed is asking students to generate questions for periodic reading quizzes. There are many more: http://blogs.tlt.psu.edu/projects/clickers/2011/02/
-Reading quizzes can also be used to stimulate discussion.
-Students can answer a clicker question with more than one answer and discuss with one another why they chose the answer they did.

Q: What’s new about the new clicker system PSU is using?
A: Check it out: http://clc.its.psu.edu/Classrooms/resources/clickers
Also, see iclicker.com for “how-to” webinars

Q: What’s a reasonable time to wait for responses from students? What about students with disabilities?
A: Expect to spend more time waiting for students to send their votes in. So be prepared that you can’t put in as much content as you used to. Using the “count down” timer may work better than “count up,” but still harder questions take a bit more time. Time spent on peer discussion can really eat up a 50-minute class session. One instructor at the Behrend Campus uses discussion or peer interaction, and he has found that he is reducing the width of the coverage but going deeper in the content covered. Some other strategies include:
-Consider ways in which students can “pre-think” about the material outside of class. Then, when they come to class, they are simply voting.
-Keep in mind it takes students about 4 times longer to solve problems than it does the instructor.
-If you’re doing a quick question or poll, it’s best to tell students they have a certain (short) amount of time to respond. If they only have 30 seconds, let them know beforehand so they can plan accordingly.
-In some cases, online quizzes on ANGEL are better than clickers, especially when students need extra time to take a quiz.

Q: Are clickers only used for “mega-huge” courses?
A: There are cases at Penn State where clickers are used in seminar classes of 10 people. They are actually a great way of making sure all students get to participate in the discussion (not just the really talkative students!)

Q: I’m thinking about using clickers in my course(s). How do I get students to buy into using them (or heck, even just buy them)?
A: One instructor found in the first two weeks not all students registered their clicker online, and some didn’t buy the device. For the instructor, that means constantly reminding them, updating the roster, etc. A few freebie or low point value questions (such as “I have read the syllabus and understand the expectations of the course. A. True; B. False”) may help push students completing the process. There will be students who forget the clicker at home. One instructor’s approach is to give them two chances to turn in a paper with answers as substitute. But each paper response can only get maximum 70% of the grade the student would get via clicker. Nobody has exceeded the two chances yet in a class of 140 students.

Q: Can I use clickers to just take attendance?
A: You can, but students really resent this. One suggestion is to have graded clicker activities that are worth only a few points. That way missed clicker opportunities are not interpreted as punishment for not attending class.

Q: So students don’t like it when instructors use clickers to take attendance. What are students’ overall impressions of clickers?
A: In a Penn State survey with 1000 students responding, a majority said that clickers made them accountable for learning the material in their classes. Some thought it was good to held more accountable, and some did not!

Q: How do I start developing good clicker questions?
A: Identify places in the material where students get stuck. Looking over past exams can give clues as to what these “bottlenecks” are. So can looking over comments on student work, and conversations with colleagues. If you are a very experienced instructor, you probably have a really good sense of where students typically get stuck.

Ask the Useful Questions

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This week The Chronicle of Higher Education draws me to itself with an article regarding the famine in East Africa. Millions of people are suffering, it says–suffering in a variety of extreme ways. When suffering is so wide-spread, efforts for relief become all the more daunting. ‘What is the solution?’ we clamor to each other, ‘What can be done?’

Often, getting to the solution involves asking more questions–questions like “Who is at fault?” or “What are the consequences?” The trouble with these types of questions, the authors suggest however, is that they are only ‘a part of the story’. They say that–instead–we need to ‘identify the conditions that underpin poverty’ so that we might understand why these populations are so vulnerable, and why they are so affected when famine strikes.

As I read, it strikes me that the trouble with questions such as “Who is at fault” or “What are the consequences” is that–though they are important–they are not the most useful questions. Remaining on the surface of the issue, they do not go deep enough. As the authors suggest, we need questions that will get to the root of the problem instead of looking at what is merely right in front of us.

Asking the more useful questions helps us to re-structure the system at its roots, so that tragedy on such a grand scale cannot occur again.

Right now, I imagine that you are saying “Excuse me, isn’t this blog supposed to be about teaching?”, and my response to you is:

It is.

Today, in your classroom, you will face situations that ask you to ask questions. What route of questioning will you choose to take?

Will you remain on the surface, asking questions that deal with what is right in front of you?

Or, will you go deeper, looking for the most useful question to get at the root?

Surface questions deal with today, maybe the semester; useful questions deal in long-term change.

The essence of a useful question is encouragement toward and guidance into the places that really matter. Useful questions move your students further than where they can see on their own to go. Useful questions drive them deeper, make them think, make them consider implications and consequences. Useful questions provide them opportunity to live in freedom, beyond the surface.

The more I think about the role of useful questions in my own life and the lives around me, the more I think that they are rooted in the phenomenology of caring. In Philosophy of Education, Nel Noddings (2007) writes that the end goal of caring is to ‘relieve a burden, activate a dream, share a joy, or clear up a confusion’ (p. 72). A useful question is made of the same goal.

If we position ourselves to ask useful questions of our students, we will position them to think deeper, see farther, and reach further as they move out beyond our classrooms.

We will position them to get to the roots of famine, we will position them to care.

Ain’t Misbehavin’? Civility in the Classroom

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I hosted a session on fostering civility in large courses today.

It seemed to be an appropriate time of the semester to do so: midterms are in full swing,
and probably more than a few students and faculty are feeling that the “honeymoon” phase of the course–when goodwill flows between students and professors–is defintely over.

As you look around your class and notice students sleeping/texting/facebooking/etc. you may think “Sheesh. Seven more weeks of this?! And then there’s next semester…will it be like this forever?!”

Not necessarily, writes David Perlmutter in the Chronicle of Higher Education, but the key is to realize civility in the college classroom is a two-way street. Check it out and let us know what you think:

http://chronicle.com/article/Thwarting-Misbehavior-in-the/19262