Conference Sharing: The Teaching Professor Highlights

1. Conference Sharing:The Teaching Professor Highlights Elizabeth A. Evans evans@unc.edu LearnIT@unc.edu

2. Why “The Teaching Professor?”(When I don’t teach…) • ITS Teaching and Learning • Teaching (with technology) not technology (with teaching) • By faculty for faculty, not by technical staff for faculty

3. At end of session… • Write down one thing you found interesting and say whether or not it might work for your classes or other work. • Write down one thing you still have questions about/aren’t sure is a good idea/ won’t work in your situation. • Your choice: Share or just hand in your comments?

4. Using Low Technology • What is “low technology?” • Flip charts • Tinker Toy concept maps • Clay • Collages • Legos

5. Using Low Technology: Legos • Build it. (kinesthetic and visual) • Tell the story. (verbal) • Remember it.

6. Using Low Technology: Legos • Describe neurons. • How do sentences fit together? • ITS lunch example: building IT systems. • Ideas from your disciplines?

7. Using Low Technology:Flip Charts • For PhD research class: List 3 possible research questions. • Write 1 question per sheet and post on walls: “My favorite place to study is ___________.” “The thing that worries me most about interviewing is ______.”

8. Using Low Technology:Tinker Toys • Concept maps • Can be individual or group exercises • Can use software, but skill required can be intimidating

9. Using Low Technology:Other Stuff • Types: Clay, collages • Issue: Physical space • Frequency: Not all the time, use different media throughout semester • Presenter uses with all ages

10. What the Best College Teachers Do • Think of one of your favorite/best teachers. • What did he or she do?

11. What the Best College Teachers Do • Fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities • The best teachers know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses in addition to knowing the subject matter.

12. What the Best CollegeTeachers Do • Make students interested in the questions: eg. “What is justice?” (Then introduce them to political theory.)

13. What the Best CollegeTeachers Do • Transforming lectures • Tell a story to raise a question or problem. • Make the students care about the question or problem. • Engage students in applying, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating. • Cause students to develop tentative answer. • Pose a new question or problem.

14. PowerPoint PowerPoint isn’t evil. The problems with PowerPoint presentations aren’t the software’s; they’re ours.

15. PowerPoint PowerPoint is a powerful tool, but only if you use it powerfully. Writing a bunch of text on a PowerPoint slide and then reading it to a roomful of people isn’t very powerful. In fact, it can be pretty boring. Making nothing but statements on PowerPoint slides is boring, too. Students will try to write everything included on a text-heavy slide.

16. PowerPoint Wouldn’t you rather use PowerPoint to ask a question?

17. PowerPoint “Education is not a spectator sport.” Dave Yearwood, University of North Dakota

18. PowerPoint Some tips: • Blank the PowerPoint screen when talking. • Use a series of introductory slides during classtime. • Focus on discussion and engagement. • Use images instead of text, when possible. • Allow students time to read text. • Use classroom techniques other than PowerPoint, too.

19. PowerPoint Developing a good PowerPoint show takes a lot of time. If you don’t have the time to invest, is a bad show better than none?

20. PowerPoint What about Podcasting for classes?

21. The Machine in the Classroom Classroom Design: A Story

22. The Machine in the Classroom When are stirrups like technology?

23. The Machine in the Classroom Technology in the classroom: Help, hindrance, or both?

24. The Machine in the Classroom “Thwarted Innovation: What happened to e-learning and why” • If we build it, they will not come • Kids do not take to e-learning like ducks to water • E-learning will not force a change in the way we teach Source: See handout

25. The Machine in the Classroom • Usage Rules • If you can read it or say it, don’t use PowerPoint. • If you can draw it or diagram it, use PowerPoint. • If you can graph/draw it in detail, hand it out.

26. The Machine in the Classroom • We’re trying to use technology to do what we’ve already done. We need to transform education from delivery into design. Larry Spence, Penn State • With new technologies we've tended to do the same things more efficiently, when what we need is to do different things more effectively. Christopher Dede, Harvard

27. To Rate or Not to Rate:The Utility of Student Ratings of Teachers and their Work • Classroom peer review: useful or useless? • Review of syllabus, text, etc: useful or useless? • Faculty as role models: useful or useless?

28. To Rate or Not to Rate:The Utility of Student Ratings of Teachers and their Work He asked us, “Do you think faculty are responsible for…” • Helping students in fostering their personal, moral, and ethical development? • Helping students in their search for personal meaning and purpose? • Helping students to develop their spiritual, faith, and/or religious connections?

29. To Rate or Not to Rate:The Utility of Student Ratings of Teachers and their Work He asked us • What 1 idea in this talk intrigues you? • What do you still find puzzling? Remember: You get a chance to do this, too!

30. 163 AlternativeAssessment Ideas • “Authentic assessments” “Authentic assessment is any type of assessment that requires students to demonstrate skills and competencies that realistically represent problems and situations likely to be encountered in real life.” Source: See handout.

31. 163 AlternativeAssessment Ideas It’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. Source: Personal experience

32. 163 AlternativeAssessment Ideas • What authentic assessments do you currently use? • Any ideas for new ones?

33. Creating and ImplementingProblem-Based Learning • 5-Minute University ‘cause we don’t remember much for long “…‘¿Como está usted?’ and ‘muy bien’ about all you're gonna remember.”

34. Creating and ImplementingProblem-Based Learning • Present problem • 30 minutes or so without talking (thinking, notetaking) • Break into groups • Assign group roles (accuracy checker, timekeeper, discussion leader, etc.) • No group meetings outside class • Takes about 2 weeks per problem

35. Creating and ImplementingProblem-Based Learning • Assign individual project (what did you learn about yourself?) post-group project. • Walk around class • Use concept maps (cmap tools, see handout)

36. Creating and ImplementingProblem-Based Learning Example Rubric • 4 points: submitted all documents (list) • 30 points: the solution includes (list) • 2 points: 3 minimum types of references • 4 points: any group member can answer questions and share results See handout, PowerPoint slides, “Creating and Implementing PBM Problems…”

37. Engaging Students:…in Online Courses • For commuter colleges, high gas prices are causing students not to drive to attend class. • Taking an online course is learning a life skill: this is how people will continue to learn.

38. Engaging Students:…in Online Courses • No Monday due dates • Week-to-week schedule to release materials • Decrease number of topics? (Online students write everything.) • Online students spend more time per course hour? If so, tell them. • Cover all reading materials somewhere

39. Engaging Students:…in Online Courses • Possible writing rules: • No IM-speak • NOT ALL UPPER CASE • No unexplained TLAs • Complete sentences • Use capitalization and punctuation.

40. Engaging Students:…in Online Courses • Use Merlot to find learning modules: http://www.merlot.org/ • Use role-playing in chat, discussion forum, etc. • Have students analyze the group process during and at end of course

41. Tablet PC-Enabled Courses Three kinds • 1-tablet • Multiple tablets • Tablets in the field

42. Tablet PC-Enabled Courses

43. Tablet PC-Enabled Courses In Class: • Structured notes (annotate in class) • Project as notes are written on the screen • Use wireless to remove tether to the projector • Walk among students; hand tablet to students to write their answers and project to class

44. Tablet PC-Enabled Courses In Class (cont’d) • Students download free software to view materials • Group problem-solving • Record all of class including PowerPoint, tablet annotations, audio, etc. (~1meg/minute)

45. Tablet PC-Enabled Courses Out of Class • Portable USB scanner (annotate hand-written non-text student work) • For text homework, handwrite comments in file • Virtual office hours (Eluminate, Blackboard, Yahoo IM, Doodle) to help students work problems

46. Tablet PC-Enabled Courses Did you download, print or view any of the archived lecture notes placed on Blackboard by your professor? Circle YES or NO.

47. Without Tablet PC (N = 81) With Tablet PC (N = 122) Tablet PC-Enabled Courses ACS Standardized Test 60 50 40 % Students in Particular Score Range 30 20 10 0 50s 40s 30s 20s 10s Range of Scores (# correct) on ACS Standardized Test (60 questions) CHE 106 (Introductory Chemistry II)

48. Door Prizes!

49. Comments? evans@unc.edu