I attended two conferences this fall and I’d like to share with you some of what I learned.
POD Network 32nd Annual Conference
This year’s Professional and Organizational Development (POD) conference drew over 750 participants to discuss “Purpose, Periphery, and Priorities.” Participants included faculty and administrators from colleges and universities across the US and as far as Japan and New Zealand. The POD network has a very active listserv and is a very supportive community.
1. Affective Domain in Teaching and Learning
We all know that students have a lot more on their minds than the courses we’re teaching, but how often do we think about what our students and colleagues are feeling and how their values and motivation are underlying the conversations we have?
A workshop on “Motivations & Attitudes: The Affective Domain in Teaching & Learning” introduced “dilemmas” as a tool for engaging faculty in discussions of the affective domain in their teaching. Faculty usually focus their teaching on the cognitive domain (comprehension, analysis) and often do not think about how the affective domain (motivation, feelings, values) influences learning. The following dilemmas, which were discussed in the workshop, are available along with other dilemmas and more information about the affective domain from Carleton College’s Science Education Resource Center’s professional development project “On the Cuting Edge” (Click on Affective Domain):
* "Fixation on Grades" describes a faculty member struggling to motivate students to learn.
* "Irrecoverable Failure" describes a mismatch in student and faculty expectations.
* "Working in Groups" describes a student who is struggling with group work and would prefer to go it alone.
* "We've Always Done It This Way" describes a faculty member who is resistant to change.
* "Sermon of the Rocks" describes a peer mentor observing a faculty member and needing advice.
This workshop reinforced that active learning not only helps to engage students in the concepts and processes of the course but also engages the affective domain. Even holding class in a renovated room with walls that aren’t plain white helps to engage students (see figure 9 in this report on classroom design: http://profcamp.tripod.com/ClassroomDesign/IdealClass.html)
2. Diversity Case Studies
The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), a multi-institutional project focused on the STEM disciplines and funded by the National Science Foundation, has many resources available on their website based on their three pillars: Teaching-as-Research, Learning Communities, and Learning-through-Diversity. In addition to guidebooks on topics such as creating a collaborative learning environment and developing instructional materials, they also offer diversity resources including case studies and a resource book, Reaching All Students. These are available for download at www.cirtl.net
Another diversity resource you may find interesting is a collection of Hidden Bias Tests developed by psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington. Do you have implicit associations or biases based on gender, race, or some other attribute of which you may not be aware? When I attended the "Convocation on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academe" a few years ago, even a room full of women scientists showed a bias against women in science! For those of you not familiar with the final report from the committee hosting the convocation, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering is available to read online or you can borrow my copy.
If you are interested in case studies, Dartmouth has our own set of case stories based on interviews with Dartmouth students. They are available on the DCAL publications site.
3. Problem Solving
A session on “Making Problem Solving a Priority” explored alternative problem types. We began by discussing the differences in how experts and novices organize and use their knowledge for solving problems. (Chapter 2 of How People Learn is about how experts differ from novices.) We then discussed using alternative problems to help students move from novice towards expert. Problem posing, where students are asked to generate a problem that could be solved using a given concept, is one example of an alternative problem. A “jeopardy problem” provides students a diagram, graph or equations and asks them to come up with a scenario that can be solved with the information provided. Most of the literature on alternative problems is physics-based, but the presenter assured us these types of problems work well in other disciplines too!
I have a handout with examples and lists of resources in my office at DCAL (102 Baker-Berry Library) if anyone wants to learn more about alternative problems.
NEFDC 2007 Fall Conference
I also attended the New England Faculty Development Consortium 2007 Fall conference. My understanding is that this regional event keeps growing and attracting people from places farther from New England. There were over 500 attendees this year. The complete conference agenda is online and the presentations will be posted soon if they are not there already: http://www.nefdc.org/events.htm.
The keynote presentation on student success was given by George Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research, which hosts the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and related research surveys. A theme of this talk was that student engagement can lead to success and practices such as active and collaborative learning, high expectations, a supportive campus environment, and respect for diverse learning styles help increase student engagement. A point of interest to me was that the NSSE survey found that “student engagement varies more within than between institutions.” I guess I shouldn't be surprised that individual faculty members and courses make more impact than the college itself.
You also may be interested in some of the resources I was reminded about during various sessions:
- L. Dee Fink has many publications available on his website, including “ A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning” which was adapted for service learning courses and described by Keving Keraney, Associate Professor & Director of Service-Learning at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
- Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), such as a one-minute paper or think-pair-share, are useful tools for “AEM Learning: Active, Engaged, and Measured.” Angelo & Cross’s book, Classroom Assessment Techniques, has numerous suggestions for these simple, in-class activities that give immediate feedback. Donna Qualters from Suffolk University suggested adding CATs to your syllabus before the course begins so you can get feedback from your students throughout the term during her talk on AEM. You can learn more about CATs on the National Teaching & Learning Forum’s website: http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/assess.htm.
- I attended a session presented by Cassandra Volpe Horii and Adam G. Beaver from Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. They use case stories to talk about challenges that could arise during Faculty/TA consultations. I have the cases we discussed and many of their other resources are available online or can be ordered. DCAL has copies of their videos and corresponding books on “Race in the Classroom: The Multiplicity of Experiences” and “Women in the Classroom: Cases for Discussion.” Feel free to borrow these if you are interesting in using video case stories to generate discussion.
Going to conferences is a great way to get ideas and (even more important to me) meet new colleagues! Part of the fun is coming back and sharing what I’ve learned. If you’ve got questions about anything I’ve mentioned here or are thinking about attending one of these conferences next year, please get in touch with me or comment on this post. Thanks!
Cindy
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