ProfHacker posts on leading effective classroom discussions on controversial issues. The advice centers around focusing on issues not opinions, bringing in multiple perspectives, and avoid reducing discussion down to binary viewpoints.
Tomorrow's Professor Blog has a comprehensive summary of current research on creating and using Podcasts across the disciplines.
Vanderbilt Center for Teaching Podcast covers teaching first year students.
Faculty Focus poses some questions worth considering when designing and online course to meet the need of a diverse set of students.
National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education posts on some technology alternatives to PowerPoint.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Making Grading More Efficient
In Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment Walvoord and Anderson (1998) describe a number of strategies that can help make grading more efficient.One suggested strategy is to make use of what students already know about their work (Walvoord & Anderson, 1998). That is, as a required part of an assignment, ask students reflect and give feedback on the strong and weak points of their work because "why spend time writing comments about a paper's focus when the student, if asked, would respond, 'Oh, I knew that paper wasn't well focused'?" (1998, p. 129). Knowing this information, you'll have context and focus that can guide your feedback to the student.
Have you asked your students to evaluate their own work? What do you feel are the challenges of this grading strategy? The benefits?
What efficient grading strategies have you used?
References
Walvoord, B. E., & Anderson, V. J. (1998). Making grading more time efficient. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment (pp. 119-134). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
[Photo from flickr user: Paul Allison]
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Recap: Beyond the Bulletpoint: How to Design Low-Tech High-Effect Presentations
By: Todd Diemer
Teaching Commons Program Manager
Last Friday, April 30th, Sharon Guan of Instructional Design and Development hosted a Teaching Commons Workshop on how create more effective presentations. The workshop was well attended with faculty and staff from ten different schools/colleges/departments. Sharon covered when Powerpoint is and is not appropriate as a teaching tool and how design can have a significant impact on Powerpoint's ability to aid student learning.
Powerpoint was created with the bullet point in mind and therefore makes it incredibly easy to create bullet pointed slides. The problem lies in that not all information can be presented in a bullet pointed list. Furthermore, slides and bullet points in Powerpoint don't necessarily help a student understand the relationship between ideas and concepts, especially when presented in a linear manner.
Imagine being in a class where ten key scholars from a discipline are presented by using bullet points. For each scholar, one slide contains a brief biography and the next slide is a list of their key achievements. Both slides contain bullet pointed lists. 20 linear bullet pointed slides later, would a student necessarily have a complete picture of how these scholars build on one another, converse/debate within the discipline, or align themselves in relation to one another?
Some of these inherent linear patterns of Powerpoint can be overcome with a little creativity. One of Sharon Guan's central tenants was to create slides using the design principle of flow. One way to create flow is to keep the current slide in the context of the overall presentation's goals. Sharon does this by including, on every slide, a visible index of each section of the presentation. This gives the student a sense of place within the presentation itself, including where they have been and where they are going. It also gives the student a sense of the complete story being presented. You can see an example of this in Sharon's presentation and a how-to video below:
Teaching Commons Program Manager
Last Friday, April 30th, Sharon Guan of Instructional Design and Development hosted a Teaching Commons Workshop on how create more effective presentations. The workshop was well attended with faculty and staff from ten different schools/colleges/departments. Sharon covered when Powerpoint is and is not appropriate as a teaching tool and how design can have a significant impact on Powerpoint's ability to aid student learning.
Powerpoint was created with the bullet point in mind and therefore makes it incredibly easy to create bullet pointed slides. The problem lies in that not all information can be presented in a bullet pointed list. Furthermore, slides and bullet points in Powerpoint don't necessarily help a student understand the relationship between ideas and concepts, especially when presented in a linear manner.
Imagine being in a class where ten key scholars from a discipline are presented by using bullet points. For each scholar, one slide contains a brief biography and the next slide is a list of their key achievements. Both slides contain bullet pointed lists. 20 linear bullet pointed slides later, would a student necessarily have a complete picture of how these scholars build on one another, converse/debate within the discipline, or align themselves in relation to one another?
Some of these inherent linear patterns of Powerpoint can be overcome with a little creativity. One of Sharon Guan's central tenants was to create slides using the design principle of flow. One way to create flow is to keep the current slide in the context of the overall presentation's goals. Sharon does this by including, on every slide, a visible index of each section of the presentation. This gives the student a sense of place within the presentation itself, including where they have been and where they are going. It also gives the student a sense of the complete story being presented. You can see an example of this in Sharon's presentation and a how-to video below:
- Beyond the Bulletpoint: How to Design Low-Tech High-Effect Presentations
- Creating an Index in Powerpoint (2 Minute Screencast)
Additional Materials from the Workshop
- Oh, Good Old Powerpoint (Sharon's blog post)
- Powerpoint Heaven
- Stykz (Stick figure animation software)
Further Resources
- Point Counter Point: How to Use (and Avoid Misusing) PowerPoint
- PowerPoint Is Evil (By Edward Tufte)
- Five Experts Dispute Edward Tufte on PowerPoint
- Killer Slide Decks (Inspiration for better Powerpoint presentations)
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The "Organic Web" as a Teaching Tool
By: Matthew Dintzner
Department of Chemistry
The future of chemistry education will unquestionably be shaped by new electronic technologies, especially innovative use of the Internet to present and navigate course content. For several years I have been developing an on-line resource, called Organic Web, for teaching and learning organic chemistry.
Organic Web is an interactive web site that allows for presentation of course content through a concept-map interface that encourages students to see the "big picture" while also making detailed information accessible through a series of "clicks." The web-like structure of the Internet allows for a much more logical presentation of the subject matter of organic chemistry (which is itself web-like) than is possible with traditional textbooks (even those that have been converted to e-books). Textbooks are linear in structure, by design, and promote memorization or surface learning of the material, which rarely leads to success. While some authors (Paula Bruice, for example) have developed a more mechanistic approach to presenting the material (as opposed to the classic functional group approach), I think that students still struggle with seeing the "forest" (the big picture) through the "trees" (all of the many details). This is not so much a fault of the student as it is a challenge inherent to the subject matter of organic chemistry. I strongly believe this challenge can be overcome by making use of the Internet to more explicitly and clearly present the big picture while making all the details accessible in a more contextual way.
The main page of Organic Web consists of a map of reactions that represents the big picture of organic chemistry; it shows all of the major types of organic compounds (alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, alkyl halides, alcohols, ethers, epoxides, carbonyl compounds and aromatic compounds) connected by the reactions that allow for their inter-conversion. Each compound and each arrow in the map can be "clicked" to open a new page with more detailed content (both written and visual) about that particular compound or reaction.
In summary, Organic Web is a web-based system for presenting the subject matter (course content) of organic chemistry in a non-linear way. This has the advantages of: (1) making the "big picture" more clear; (2) making connections between structure and reactivity more explicit; (3) allowing students to access detailed information more contextually; (4) allowing for seamless incorporation of other electronic technology (animations, whiteboard videos, on-line assessment).
Department of Chemistry
The future of chemistry education will unquestionably be shaped by new electronic technologies, especially innovative use of the Internet to present and navigate course content. For several years I have been developing an on-line resource, called Organic Web, for teaching and learning organic chemistry.
Organic Web is an interactive web site that allows for presentation of course content through a concept-map interface that encourages students to see the "big picture" while also making detailed information accessible through a series of "clicks." The web-like structure of the Internet allows for a much more logical presentation of the subject matter of organic chemistry (which is itself web-like) than is possible with traditional textbooks (even those that have been converted to e-books). Textbooks are linear in structure, by design, and promote memorization or surface learning of the material, which rarely leads to success. While some authors (Paula Bruice, for example) have developed a more mechanistic approach to presenting the material (as opposed to the classic functional group approach), I think that students still struggle with seeing the "forest" (the big picture) through the "trees" (all of the many details). This is not so much a fault of the student as it is a challenge inherent to the subject matter of organic chemistry. I strongly believe this challenge can be overcome by making use of the Internet to more explicitly and clearly present the big picture while making all the details accessible in a more contextual way.
The main page of Organic Web consists of a map of reactions that represents the big picture of organic chemistry; it shows all of the major types of organic compounds (alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, alkyl halides, alcohols, ethers, epoxides, carbonyl compounds and aromatic compounds) connected by the reactions that allow for their inter-conversion. Each compound and each arrow in the map can be "clicked" to open a new page with more detailed content (both written and visual) about that particular compound or reaction.
In summary, Organic Web is a web-based system for presenting the subject matter (course content) of organic chemistry in a non-linear way. This has the advantages of: (1) making the "big picture" more clear; (2) making connections between structure and reactivity more explicit; (3) allowing students to access detailed information more contextually; (4) allowing for seamless incorporation of other electronic technology (animations, whiteboard videos, on-line assessment).
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
2010 Teaching and Learning Conference COLT Luncheon Panel
The 2010 Faculty Teaching and Learning Conference was a great opportunity for numerous faculty members from across all the DePaul schools and colleges to have a discussion on teaching and learning. The COLT Luncheon Panel brought together those who had won Excellence in Teaching awards together to discuss some of their best practices and teaching strategies.
We also used Wordle to analyze the frequency of words in the Luncheon Panel notes document (See below for the full document). Words are given a size based on their relative frequency to other words in the document.
Be sure to visit the Conference Program page for the full set of notes from the luncheon panel and presentation materials from many presenters.
- Expect a lot, but also give a lot. Make your class challenging, but also ask for student feedback to gauge their comfort with the rigor.
- Structure-offer long-term goals at the beginning of the quarter and short-term goals for each class. Make these explicit
- Revision is part of the assignment process. Design assignments that incorporate opportunities for revision.
- Design your delivery to allow space for students to participate and apply their learning. Consider grading students on their participation.
- Model how you think/learn about your field; do not just deliver your content.
- Use readings that help make real world connections and offer a variety of viewpoints rather than relying solely on a textbook.
- Make students active in your classroom- Allow them to work through problems in your classroom.
- Create a classroom environment in which students are doing the thinking and the work and you act as a facilitator of their thinking.
- Give students specific feedback on aspects that will help students grow as learners; Quick and comprehensive feedback.
- We are ALL responsible for evaluating our own practice regarding teaching and learning.
- Try to be involved in the DePaul community-(e.g., become involved in distance opportunities-travel abroad with students to learn along with them).
We also used Wordle to analyze the frequency of words in the Luncheon Panel notes document (See below for the full document). Words are given a size based on their relative frequency to other words in the document.
Be sure to visit the Conference Program page for the full set of notes from the luncheon panel and presentation materials from many presenters.
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