Entry the Eleventh or: How I Miss My Freshman Year.

I'd like to start this post by saying thank God for some variation in the reading. I don't dislike First Day to Final Grade or Teaching Tips, but I feel that much of the material covered in those books are things that I have already experienced through teaching. I really enjoyed Rebekah Nathan's My Freshman Year, and thought it offered an interesting look into the world or undergraduate life.

I'm Shocked!

For me the most surprising aspect of this book was the student's idea of a "perfect" class. All of the material leading up to this point in the book was pretty shocking and I found myself sitting on my couch, jaw agape, saying "no way!" I couldn't believe how little students seemed to care about the academic aspect of college. On page 102 Nathan offers some student responses to the question "why stay in college?" Their answers ranged from things like "Who wants to be in the real world anyway?" to "No, college is too fun. Granted classes get in the way a bit but it's all worth the experience! I'm having a blast."

These responses reflect the notion that the biggest attraction to college, according to Nathan, is the college culture. It seems that students are more concerned with social activity and forming relationships than they are with completing a degree and accumulating knowledge to aid them later in life. It's interesting to me that students feel that the interpersonal and social experiences they have during college are the most important things they can learn.

I think this stems from young people's desire to be independent but I also think it has something to do with the notion of social status and how it can effect career options. I think students feel that popularity and social exchanges teach them how the world works, which is true to an extent, but they forget that knowledge is the ultimate decider in what is possible for them as young professionals.

Getting back to the idea of the "perfect" class, the book details a college course titled "Sexuality" in which the focus is on social interaction. Very little of the class deals with standard academic practices. Instead the instructor encourages students to form relationships and get to know people on a deeper level. According to Nathan, the reason that many students feel that this is a "perfect" course is because it reinforces the beliefs and values of the students. As stated above, students generally feel that social interaction is the most important aspect of college life, and a course that is consistent with those feelings will undoubtedly be very popular.

You Want My Advice?

It was interesting to look at undergraduates now that I have switched roles and become a teacher. As an undergrad student I never took the time to think about how I was dealing with college life or how I was able to balance working 30 hours a week and taking 18 credits. After reading this book I was able to go back and look at my time in college. I dissected my personal experiences and thought about how I must have appeared to professors. Now that I am dealing with undergraduates on a daily basis, it's nice to be able to relate my own college experience to what they must be dealing with.

If ever a new college instructor asked for my advice I would probably tell them two things. First, that as much as we hope students will be forever changed by our classes, it is seldom the case. Second, that the first item is okay as long as you don't lose sight of why you are teaching in the first place.

The first response deals with the fact that much of the time students view class as a distraction from their social lives. This isn't meant to say that all students hate coming to class, because some happily anticipate in-class time, but for the most part young students, especially in General Education classes, don't take the material seriously. Nathan talks about a student poll related to the percentage of learning in class compared to out of class and the results indicated that 65 percent of student learning occurs outside of the classroom. This information can be a great help to new instructors who haven't experienced teaching college students.

I think it is important to remember that students generally don't think about classes unless there is something due. I'd like to point out that I am in no way advocating for a teachers to become lax in their teaching styles because students possess an apathetic attitude some of the time. However, I do feel that understanding the way students compartmentalize college life based on what they feel are the most important aspects is paramount to being successful in the classroom.

The second piece of advice is directly related to the first. As a teacher it is easy to become bored with teaching if students aren't actively engaging in the course material. It's hard to stand up in front of a group of students who appear not to care about anything you are saying, but that doesn't mean that no one is paying attention. The best thing to do is remind oneself why they want to teach in the first place. Holding onto your goals as a teacher in conjunction with making an effort to understand ones students will help immensely.

Ch Ch Cha Changes! (like the David Bowie song)

I don't know if I would say this book has changed my perspective on undergraduate students. I think what it did was remind me of what college was like for me. Looking back at my college experience has helped me better understand why my students do some of the things they do. I too turned in papers late, asked for extensions, didn't show up for class, and placed more emphasis on personal relationships, but somehow I made it through. I have faith that my students will find a rhythm that works for them, and the ones who don't will be forced to make some tough decisions.

I suppose there were a few things that seemed like new information to me, but they mostly dealt with international students and how they view American students. All in all I feel that this book has helped me relate to my students, which is something I'm eternally grateful for. If ever I need a reminder of the toils of undergraduate life I know I can reach for My Freshman Year.

Entry the Tenth or: "dude you gotta try meta-learning, it's like learning...but like, meta."

I have to say, I’m pretty stoked about this semester coming to a close. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed it thus far, I just need a chance to regroup and get my mind right. I was happy to see that our reading assignments in Teaching Tips have come to an end, again it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it (well…some of it), I’m just reading for new material. This week’s reading actually did a lot for me. I found a few things that I really liked.

• The first nugget of knowledge imparted to me was the section on increasing students’ self-awareness on pages 303-304. The section begins by talking about meta-cognition and how it is important for students’ future learning. Meta-cognition is simplified into the phrase “thinking about thinking,” which I like and feel would be easy for a student to comprehend. I personally believe that every student should be aware of their own learning style so that they can get the most from every course they take and continue to learn outside of the classroom. This concept is fairly difficult to “teach” because it varies from person to person, but I would like to focus on it at the beginning of the semester so that students can have the advantage when assignments get harder and test roll around.

• The next nugget come from pages 305-309 in Teaching Tips and focuses on course specific strategies. There is a list of strategies on page 307 that I like but, unfortunately, I would only be able to use two of the items on the list. Those two items are previewing the textbook structure and being clear about domain-specific terminology. I have been thinking about these two activities for the course that I am designing. I think that previewing the text book and the way it is structured at the beginning of the semester is a great idea and will help students prepare mentally for the reading they will be required to do. As far as terminology is concerned, the course that I’m designing is filled with terms that are domain specific, so I really like the idea of being clear as to the meaning of those terms. I think students do better when they feel like they understand the terminology of a subject and that in turn sparks higher order responses to discussion questions, term paper prompt, and journal entries (all of which are included in my course design).

• The last nugget I discovered is on pages 329-330 in Teaching Tips and talks about encouraging the free pursuit of learning. The text book gives a few ways that a teacher can violate the standards of teaching (encouraging learning); first is failure to prepare for class, and second is failure to remain current in both content and methods. I really like this section because I feel that students should be limitless when it comes to learning. Often times teachers fail to encourage learning because their courses are out of date, which I see as the greater sin of the two violations, and students get nothing from the course.
  

• I feel like this probably happens more in GenEd courses and hard science courses because the information doesn’t change as often or isn’t as malleable as some other more abstract subjects. The goal then should be encouraging students to look for new and exciting content, which will also help them feel like they are contributing to the overall course design. In the course I am designing I encourage students to bring in metal music that is new or exciting to them so that everyone can go beyond the course and begin to appreciate the material talked about in class in a very practical way. Viva learning.

Entry the Ninth or: “stop talking to the people in the fishbowl…do NOT feed them!”

This week’s reading assignment was focused on scenarios that don’t apply to me as a teacher (at least not yet). So I found it harder than usual to pull from them, but I found some interesting bits of advice.

• The first thing that struck me is on pages 257-258 in McKeachie’s Teaching Tips and it focuses on methods of getting students involved that haven’t been covered thus far. The method that I really like and have been wanting to do in the classes I teach is debating. My students were actually the ones who came up with the idea in class but unfortunately there isn’t a lot of leeway for adding an assignment like a debate to the class schedule. I think debates are great ways for students to learn about persuasion, arguments, and how to maintain their demeanor while under verbal attack. It is a tool that I wish I had time for in class.

• This section also talks about the “fish bowl” which is when a few students are selected to be “in the fishbowl” which means participating in a discussion, while the other students observe the discussion and take notes. I like this idea, but I fear my classes (at least one of them) wouldn’t take the activity seriously enough, or they would just talk to each other instead of observing the people in the fish bowl. They aren’t bad students they just get off track easily, which means that I have to impose more structure to make up for the time spent talking with one another. I love my students, but there are a few things that I can’t bring into the classroom because I know they won’t work. Sad.

• The second chunk of reading that I really liked comes from First Day to Final Grade, which was all about feedback this week. The section on how students should contact teachers was of some interest to me. I liked that it suggested that teachers make a variety of venues available for feedback. I think this is mainly to make students comfortable, because many students may be nervous to give feedback. It is important to let students know that feedback is welcome and encouraged.

• I actually got a lot of little tips from this section that I’m going to put into use next semester. I like the idea of the drop box where students can write down their feedback and retain their anonymity. I also like the idea of e-mail as a venue but would first need to set up a dedicated feedback account so that it doesn’t clog up my regular inbox.

• The third thing that I found vital in this week’s reading also comes from First Day to Final Grade. Pages 172-173 focus on reading your teaching evaluations and the book offers some tips on how to “keep negative evaluations in perspective.” I liked quite a few of these and I will probably need to refer back to these pages when I get my evaluations back. The thing about evaluations that really scares me more than anything else is the idea that students might have been miserable sitting in my class but never opted to say something. I hate the idea of students disliking the course, but at the same time I understand that some probably do.

• I always have to remind myself not to take things personally, but teacher evaluations are kind of a personal thing…so yeah, sick burn on me. The tip that I really like from this section of the book states “reread the positive ones and remember that not every student is going to like your course or teaching style.” This helps to put things into perspective. I also have to think about teachers that I didn’t care for but other students adored. It all comes down to what works for people and what doesn’t. I just hope that my course worked for most of the people who took it.

link it up!
Sci-Fi meets Fantasy

Entry the Eighth or: Please Don't Bring Your Battle Axe to Metal Class

I swear the hardest part of writing these blog entries is introducing them in a way that doesn't just recap known information like "this was the assignment...," "this is what the assignment said...,"or "blah blah blah..." So I'm not going to do that.

I. Activities!

• The first activity that came to mind when reading the Teaching Tips assignment this week involves low-stakes writing. I am designing a course that focuses on extreme music and it will contain a lot of terminology that is new to many students. What I would like to do for a class activity is to assign weekly journal entries (in blog form) about the music we are discussing in class. I would make a few songs available to the students and they will then have to listen to them and then analyze them in a blogpost. The goal of this activity is to get students used to writing about music. It is often difficult to write about the things going on in a song and it’s important that students are able to be able to describe stylistic indicators as well as for their own opinions about the music. Being critical of music is a learned skill, and this activity will prepare them for the term papers they will be writing for the course.

• Another activity that I would like to do in this course is tied to the idea of high-stakes writing (page 196) and peer learning (page 214). The activity will be an in-class peer review day which will fall a week before the first term paper is due. The term paper is designed to showcase how much the students have learned as well as test their ability to write well based on the criteria listed in the syllabus (grammar, scope, mechanics, etc…). The term paper will be worth 30% of their overall grade so I think having a peer review day will help boost grades, answer questions, and ease nerves. The structure of the peer review will consist of students bringing two copies of their paper to class for two other students to review. Each student will then spend 15 minutes per paper reading and writing down comments. Then I will have students get into groups and discuss what they saw in each others papers. The goal is to get students thinking about their writing and also to give them the opportunity to see some examples of the writing of their peers.

• The third activity functions almost as a bunch of mini case studies, which is the focus of pages 222-225 in Teaching Tips. What I would like to do is have students bring in approved (by me) examples of extreme music for students to listen to in class. There will be a sign-up sheet passed around at the beginning of the term so that students can pick when they want to bring in music and what style is being taught in class at that time. The class will listen to the selected music and then discuss what style(s) they think it reflects and why. The goal of this activity is to get students thinking about extreme music outside of the classroom and to have an opportunity to share new music with their peers.

II. "Best" Practices

• I have learned more about teaching from the observations than I ever thought I would. The great thing about the observation process is that it offers very constructive feedback in a very palatable way. The “best practices” I’ve taken from the teaching demos are all things that I struggle with but want to improve upon in my teaching. First is organization, because I am terrible about staying organized but have seen from the demos that it can really help teaching and learning. I also think enthusiasm is an important aspect to teaching and helps students get involved. The other concept that I really think works is summarizing. I always forget to summarize for my students and have learned from the demos that it really helps round out a lesson and helps students retain information. Other than those I think that well constructed visual aids and activities, clear directions, and knowing the information are all key to success in a classroom setting.

Here's a little something to get you through the cruddy weather:

Entry the Seventh or: Learner Centered Teaching? Really?

See Title.


I.
The reading for this week was interesting because it offered three distinct looks at student centered learning.

In Teaching Tips the first chapter I read talked about motivational theories and how students can become motivated or unmotivated by a lot more things than you think. I liked this chapter quite a bit because I feel that it can be applied to the classroom easier than the other methods talked about in this week’s reading. It focuses on what drives a student to do well on an assignment and then how to use that to your advantage when teaching. This chapter is a great jumping off point for a teacher who wants to design a course that encompasses motivational techniques and gets students to do their best on their own terms.

The next chapter in Teaching Tips is all about teaching culturally diverse students. This was a really interesting chapter because it outlined some common miscommunications between teachers and international/diverse students. Some of the things it talked about in detail were eye contact, nonparticipation, and reluctant speakers. The chapter also went into detail about the differences in motivation and stress for culturally diverse students. I thought this was the best part of this chapter because it offered an explanation to a big question. I only have one international student between my two classes, but after reading this chapter I can already see many of the things that McKeachie is talking about. This chapter will be one that I reference later-on in my teaching career, I’m sure.

The excerpt from Learning Centered Teaching is actually quite different from the material in Teaching Tips. It is much more about LCT as a method rather than McKeachie’s chapters which offer a more narrow look into teaching. The main point in the LCT section, at least what I took it to be, is that power should be shared and students should feel like they are in control of the learning process. The excerpt talks about how to involve students in many classroom decisions such as grading, assignments, classroom policies, and course content. This article was a little harder for me to swallow than the others because it was more about why a teacher would adopt this specific method rather than the “tips” offered by McKeachie.

II.
Despite the bad taste left from the LCT excerpt, I would actually like to employ some of these techniques in my teaching. I feel that the motivation theories are a great place for me to start. I really like the section on Mastery on page 144 in Teaching Tips. For me a class that focuses on mastery would be a dream to teach. I’m a very laid back person and I feel that it has worked to my advantage as a teacher, and if I could I would teach Comm 110 as a mastery course and do away with the performance aspect of it. I know that I most likely won’t get to teach a class that is solely focused on mastery so I’ll have to settle for adding mastery techniques, such as peer reviews, into my teaching.

I would also like to become more culturally aware as a teacher. This doesn’t mean that I’m culturally oblivious, but when it comes to learning styles I really only understand them based on a western view of learning. The chapter in Teaching Tips was really helpful in showing me that there are a ton or reasons for why a culturally diverse student may be performing at a certain level or why they behave the way they do in class. I just want to have more knowledge about this aspect of teaching.

III.
There are many more aspects of LCT that I would not be able to incorporate into my teaching. There are a couple of reasons why LCT freaks me out; (1) I’m terrible at relinquishing control, and (2) I have a slight distrust in student’s ability to perform well on their own. The control thing is a personal issue. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of not having control over a situation, so it would be very difficult for me to give more control to my students, who can barely remember their own names some days.

The other part of this is trust. I don’t know if I trust students to not take advantage of me. I know that there are many students for whom this type of learning is great, but as a teacher I have my concerns about all of the students who might try to abuse the privilege. I think it will take a lot of convincing as well as trial and error before I adopt a LCT teaching style.

Entry the Fifth or: How I've been Punching Germs in the Face

Another week down. Luckily my students saw fit to bring all of their germs into the classroom and infect their fearless teacher (who coincidentally no holds them in contempt) and ruin his week. I shall not falter, justice will be served…presumably on the first exam.

Right off the bat this week’s reading hit me with some really valuable tips. On pages 74-75 of McKeachie’s Teaching Tips a list of assertions is provided that really had me thinking. Every assertion didn’t strike me, but there were a few that I think hold a lot of value. The first one that struck me says student’s learn as much from tests as the do from me (professor Mattix) and often times they learn more from said tests. I was a bit shocked by this at first because I would like to believe that all of my student’s sit in class like dogs begging for another tasty scrap of knowledge, but I know that this is not the case (or even close to it).
I suppose it makes sense then, that my students would learn more from the tests, because the reality of the classroom situation is, student’s take tests more seriously. I know when I was an undergraduate student I certainly valued the tests more than the day-to-day goings-on of my classes, and I think it has something to do with the impact tests have on grades. I never cared what was happening in most of my classes unless we had a test coming up and I think the same probably holds true for my students.
I think the best way to make this work to my advantage is to make sure that the tests they take are designed for maximum retention. This will mean that they are carefully formed to cover all of the most important parts of text book material as well as in-class activities. I feel that a test can be a way for students to get something out of a class that they may not want to take (like Comm 110).


Secondarily, I thought the information on pages 77-78 was a bit on the bogus side. It is an argument for group testing as an alternative to the apparently oppressive nature of traditional test taking. I’m probably blowing this out of proportion, but I really disagree with group tests. I feel that in order for a student to effectively showcase knowledge it needs to be a solo process. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that groups can provide some of the most valuable learning experiences for students, but I don’t think that because students work in groups they should also be tested as a group.
My reasoning behind this is pretty simple, I think. When students are tested as a group it’s too hard to tell if everyone actually knew the information or if one person is carrying the group. I know that some people believe that even if one person is providing the brunt of the information, at least the other students will know it after the test, but that’s not really the purpose of a test, is it? No. Tests are a tool for measuring knowledge, and I don’t think that can be effectively done within a group, at least not in my classroom.

The third item I found useful is on pages 106-107 of Teaching Tips and is about dealing with student aggression after the first test. I had never thought about how students will react to their grades on the first test or how they may be frustrated by it. This section was helpful because it gave me some methods for reducing frustration and aggression.
The first suggestion given in the text is to tell students how and why you test them on the concepts covered in class in order to reduce their level of frustration. This is pretty obvious, but I think it will be effective. If students understand why something is the way it is they are less likely to argue about it and more apt to adapt so that they can conquer it. The book also says that telling students how the information will be helpful to their long-range goals can be helpful, but I know that when I was an undergrad I usually blew people off when they said something would help me later.
The next thing the book talks about is giving clear instructions. I feel that this is the best way to reduce frustration and anxiety for test takers. The clearer the instructions the easier it is to concentrate on the information and not arbitrary things like “did I fill in the bubbles correctly?” I always tests will nebulous instructions so I assume everyone else does too.
I’m glad that we are required to use multiple choice and true/false questions on the exams we write for Comm 110, because it seems like students automatically feel more at ease when they know a test is formatted this way.

LINKS!
Dumm Comics
Writing Multiple Choice Tests

Entry the Fourth or: What I would do for a Klondike Bar

• The first issue in this week’s reading that I found valuable was the section on Grading Exams on page 143 of First Day to Final Grade. This section is pretty basic, and essentially just lists out some tips on how to make grading an exam easier for the professor. The reason I find this so valuable is because (a) I will be giving an exam in the course I teach very soon, and (b) because I tend to start doing things (such as grading) without any method and then later come to find that there was a much easier system available. I especially liked the advice on writing on students exams which I feel also applies to the way I grade speeches. The text says that if you find yourself writing more than the student did then you should stop and write “come see me” at the top of the paper. This doesn’t apply exactly to the course that I teach because all of our tests are multiple choice and true/false, but I think it applies to speeches because I found myself writing A LOT of comments on each students grade sheet, which made the grading process take even longer than it needed to. I think I need to stop worrying so much about writing the same amount of information on each grade sheet and focus more on writing good comments and keeping track of students who may need some extra advice. Again, public speaking is one of those courses where you have to mold this advice to fit the assignments and I plan when grading try this when grading the next speech and the first exam.

• The next concept that I find important is page 125 of McKeachie’s Teaching Tips. This page is an isolated table that illustrates what students’ teachers, and employers want from grades. It talks in detail about how each group views grades and what grades say about an individual from each perspective. According to this section student’s view grades as a means for gauging whether or not they feel comfortable with a certain field of study and if they feel they can succeed in that field. This is interesting to me because the majority of my students are freshman and are likely to change the major before the end of the second semester, as many do. I never gave much thought to how my students internalized or rationalized their grades, but it makes sense, especially with younger students, that they would use them this way. The text states that professors generally use grades as a means for determining what we think a students skills are and what type of person they are based on their performance in class. I mostly agree with because I know that I do this when I look at students grades, but I also think that we as professors often base some of our opinion of students on our own personal bias, and grades can either reinforce or negate those biases. On some level grading is subjective, we know we should be as objective as possible, but we are human and we run on emotion more times than not, which means we may really want a student to get grades that they just don’t deserve. This concept has got me thinking about the way I grade and whether or not I’ve let personal bias and emotions sway a grade one way or the other. I try to be objective, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fall prey to basic human emotion. This concept is present in all fields, and it is important that we as teachers are constantly aware of it. It’s made me a little paranoid.

• The third concept I find useful from this week’s reading is Handling Cheating. This section is on pages 119 through 121 in McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, and outlines some ways for dealing with cheating that help professors handle cheating in a way that is beneficial to both the student and the teacher. One of the points made in this section is that when handling cheating of any kind it is important to follow the college’s procedures; find out the legal precedents and how they can affect what you do. This section scared me a little because I haven’t had a problem with cheating (that I know of) thus far and haven’t really thought about what I will do if it occurs. I come from an undergraduate institution that is very small and thus tends to be a little more lenient when it comes to cheaters. I’ve never had to think about the legal precedents of a college before and it is a bit daunting. What I took away from this section was the importance of (a) finding out the college’s policies regarding cheating and, (b) making sure that if I see a student cheating that I do something about it. The section talks about young teachers who are afraid to call out students for cheating because they don’t want to make a scene or they themselves may have cheated in the past. I feel that I can be objective when it comes to cheating, but I guess I’ll only know for sure when the time for action presents itself.

Here are some links:
How to Cheat (funny)
NDSU Cheating Policy