Lecture, arguably, is the most common method of teaching in higher education. It is not uncommon to walk into any classroom and find students can be busy trying to keep notes on what their instructor is saying. In the latest issue of Science, Eric Mazur, a physics professor at Harvard University, offers his own perspective on how he made the shift from lecturing as the prime modality for teaching to a more student-centered approach.
Mazur explains how throughout his schooling the lecture method was the way students were taught. The reliance on lecturing continued, Mazur says, until he felt that the method was not the most effective and meaningful approach to teaching. Despite earning high evaluations from courses he taught, Mazur made significant changes in his classes. “The traditional approach to teaching reduces education to a transfer of information,” Mazur says. He also describes how using what he calls the “clicker method” has allowed him to explore new pedagogical approaches in his courses.
Here are other quotes from “Farewell, Lecture?”:
“My lecturing was ineffective, despite the high evaluations.”
“The traditional approach to teaching reduces education to a transfer of information.”
“The responsibility for gathering information now rests squarely on the shoulders of the students. They must read material before coming to class, so that class time can be devoted to discussions, peer interactions, and time to assimilate and think. Instead of teaching by telling, I am teaching by questioning.”
“However, it is not the technology [clickers] but the pedagogy that matters.”
Please read the brief article for yourself and share your thoughts and/or comments below (just click on the COMMENTS link).
Other “Clickers” resources include:
CTL’s Clicker Resource page
http://www.bgsu.edu/ctlpage49370.html
Tom Haffie (University of Western Ontario) presents Clickers at Queens University (11/2006)
http://sunsite.queensu.ca/vmp/clickers/index.html
Posted in Academic Freedom ,Active Learning ,Discussion-Join In ,Higher Education ,Large Lecture ,Reflections on Teaching ,Student Success ,Teaching Tips January 6, 2009
One of Ohio’s more famous conferences involved in higher education is coming soon. The University System of Ohio’s Libraries, Learning & Technology 2009 Conference will be the tenth anniversary of Ohio’s premier higher conference, previously known as the Ohio Digital Commons for Education Conference. This year’s conference will deliver an excellent forum for professional development and networking opportunities, with a focus on:
- Teaching and Learning in the 21stCentury
- Student Success
- Ohio Is Moving Forward
- Transforming Technologies
- P-20 Education
The conference will also include keynote speakers, vendor exhibits, technology demonstrations at Innovation Island, and more.
The conference will be held March 1-3, 2009. Fees for the conference have been reduced.
Two-day registration:
$195 ($95 for students)
One-day registration:
$95 ($55 for students)
Registration Includes:
- Keynote sessions
- Concurrent sessions
- Innovation Island (Monday only)
- Lunch
- Continental breakfast
- Reception with hors d’oeuvres (Monday evening)
- Conference tote bag and program
- Free wireless access in the conference area
- Computer access in the Cyber Café
- Free parking at the Hilton Columbus
Please see the conference’s website for more information or registration:
http://www.oln.org/conferences/LLT2009/LLT2009.php
Posted in Conferences ,Higher Education December 17, 2008
A group of several BGSU instructors, from tenured professors to a graduate teaching assistant, attended the “Science of Learning” discussion session last Friday. The discussion centered on Diane Halpern’s keynote from earlier this spring at the 2nd Annual BGSU Teaching and Learning Fair. She began her keynote with the quizzical, yet rhetorical question:
If I taught something and no one learned it, what happened?
(In other words, can I say that I really TAUGHT it?)
Some of the key points the group discussed during the session were the nature the science of learning and importance of faculty knowing about the implications for their courses and the students they teach. Halpern encourages faculty to think about the big ideas of their course (Ten years after your course, what do you want students to remember or be able to do?); be clear about learning outcomes, and encourage/foster a learning environment that allows for practice at retrieval of knowledge and establishes challenging learning opportunities that addresses and transforms their mental models.
Furthermore, it’s important for students (and faculty) to realize that learning is “effortful,” yet rewarding – often most difficult initially, then easier with more efforts and practice… like most things in life. The diverse group of participants provided and discussed examples from foreign languages, musical performance, and the sciences.
Later, participants reviewed Halpern’s list of 25 principles (full list with citations available here or as MS Word file) and selected individual principles that are essential for student success, such as:
• Perceptual motor grounding
• Testing effect
• Spacing effect
• Stories and Example Cases
• Discovery Learning
One concern brought up in Halpern’s address as well as in this discussion session that is an important question for all teachers – (paraphrased) “So, if these methods lead to better, durable learning, don’t these take up more time in the class? What goes and how do we choose?” A great question for all instructors, department chairs, and deans as well!
Halpern suggests focusing your planning on students’ lives today and in the future – What are or will be their needs? What skills and knowledge will best prepare them for a world that doesn’t exist yet? These questions will continue to be explored and certainly more will be generated as additional findings emerge from the “learning sciences” discipline, as well as from the cognitive and neurological sciences.
For the BGSU community, to view this keynote, visit the DVSS (digital video streaming server), log in, and search for “Halpern” — the video is approximately 70 minutes.
For those who attended this session or just want to leave a thought), click on the Comments link below this post to share your thoughts on the keynote, this discussion session, or any related issues.
Posted in Active Learning ,Discussion-Join In ,Higher Education ,On Campus Learning Events ,Reflections on Teaching ,Syllabus ,Teaching Tips ,Workshop Extension December 16, 2008
Outstanding TA Award nominations are being accepted
Nominations are being taken now for the Outstanding TA Award at BGSU.
The award, sponsored by the Graduate Student Enhancement Program
(GradSTEP) and the Graduate College, is designed to encourage and
reward excellence in undergraduate instruction. Winners receive a
plaque commemorating their accomplishment and a cash award of $250.
To be eligible, the Teaching Assistant must have taught a course for
which he/she had major responsibility at any time in 2008. Exam
proctors, graders, and past recipients of this award are not eligible.
Self-nominations will not be considered for this award. Those eligible
will come from one or more of the following categories:
1) TA teaching own section(s)
2) TA leading study/recitation section(s)
3) TA teaching laboratory section(s)
Information and nomination forms can be found at
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/gradstep/page29564.
Nominations must be received by Feb. 9 and should be sent to 215 South
Hall or gradstep@bgsu.edu.
Posted in Higher Education ,Reflections on Teaching ,TA-Teaching Assistants December 10, 2008
Every two years higher-education in the U.S. actually receives a report card. Since 2000 the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has released its ‘Measuring Up’ report, which essentially issues broad and encompassing report of just about every aspect involved with higher education in the U.S. The anticipation for what the report will or will not reveal always is big, and the anticipation for this year’s report is no different.
Kevin Carey, a research and policy manager for a major think tank in Washington, describes some of the history and previous experience with reactions to the ‘Measuring Up’ report. Carey also expresses some thoughts on how serious higher education institutions should consider the report and why it may have so many detractors.
Go ahead and read Carey’s article and feel free to tell us what you think.
Posted in Discussion-Join In ,Higher Education December 4, 2008
While the Internet has opened us to a world of information and sources, it can also cause problems in our classrooms. The Internet has provided our students with a wealth of websites that will sell, barter and even give away research papers, English papers and essays. How do you combat this in our classes?
In a recent article in T.H.E. Journal titled “e-cheating: Combating a 21st Century Challenge,” Kim McMurtry provides us with a list of 8 suggestions to combat this type of plagiarism:
- Take time to explain and discuss your academic honesty policy
- Design writing assignments with specific goals and instructions
- Know what’s available online before assigning a paper
- Give students enough time to do an assignment
- Require oral presentations of student papers or have students submit a letter of
transferal to you, explaining briefly their thesis statement, research process, etc
- Have students submit essays electronically
- When you suspect e-cheating, use a free full-text search engine like AltaVista or
Digital Integrity
- Consider subscribing to a plagiarism search service, like Plagiarism.org or
IntegriGuard
Read the entire article by clicking here
How have you dealt with e-cheating in your classes?
Posted in Blogs ,Discussion-Join In ,Higher Education ,Reflections on Teaching ,Resources ,Teaching Tips ,Tech Tips ,Writing November 24, 2008
Copyright, author’s rights, and licensing of personal works continue to enter into discussions at all levels of university work. From faculty authorship to students’ creative works available on the Internet, each individual can now specify the conditions for the distribution and use of their works using the Creative Commons.
[From the Creative Commons website:]
What You Can Do Here
Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can’t do with your work. When you choose a license, we provide you with tools and tutorials that let you add license information to your own site, or to one of several free hosting services that have incorporated Creative Commons.
With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify here. For those new to Creative Commons licensing, we’ve prepared a list of things to think about. If you want to offer your work with no conditions, choose the public domain.
On November 21st BGSU Libraries will be hosting its final session dedicated to discussing and learning about Creative Commons. The sessions are from 2:30-4:30pm in 113 Olscamp Hall and 1011 Cedar Point Center (Firelands campus). Registration isn’t needed for this event, you’re welcomed to just show up for the session. For more information, please send questions to: ctl@bgsu.edu or call 419.372.6898.
Posted in Academic Freedom ,Books/Library ,Copyright/Creative Commons ,Higher Education ,On Campus Learning Events ,Scholarly Communication November 19, 2008
Do you ever have a hard time finding books and sources to help you prepare for lectures and classes? Do you have a list of books that you would love to read, but just don’t have the time or money? Could your students benefit from free book viewing online? Well, Google has launched something that could help: Google Books.
Google Books allows you to search through a wide variety of books and even provides access to the content of those books. This means that you can read whole books online, although some authors and publishers only allow a few pages to be read. Google books categorizes books into subject matter, has a great searching capacity and even allows you to create your own library where you can recommend books and write reviews.
The topics that can be found within the archives of Google Books are vast. A simple search of books on teaching pulled up 131,582 results. This could be a tool that may help in your research and something that may help your students in your classes as well.
What do you think about Google Books?
Posted in Copyright/Creative Commons ,Discussion-Join In ,Higher Education ,Resources ,Scholarly Communication ,Tech Tips ,Uncategorized November 17, 2008
The newest CTL “Communicating for Learners” newsletter has just been released. In the latest newsletter you can find interesting pieces about the 2009 BGSU Teaching and Learning Fair, where Dr. Barbara Millis will be the keynote speaker. There’s a piece about the interesting presentation concerning contemporary scholarly copyright issues. In this issue you can also look at the different dates and times of workshops and discussions here at the center.
Please take a look at the newsletter for yourself.
Posted in Newsletter November 14, 2008
On October 31, 2008, Michael Carroll presented “Copyright and Your Right to Use and Share Your Scholarly Materials” at BGSU’s Olscamp Hall. His presentation was recorded, so be sure to set aside 60 minutes for this thought-provoking view of the coming shift in scholarly communication:
For BGSU community – Click here to view (with description, time, scheduling options, etc)
For other non-BGSU viewers – Click here to view (with no other data or scheduling options)
Dr. Carroll began by comparing the scholarly communication movement of today to recycling 20 years ago – now recycling is commonplace as will scholarly communication (open access/author’s rights, etc.) eventually, due to changing times, needs, and the availability of digital tools.
Copyright laws are the crux of the issue behind the scholarly communication movement and the pressing need for change. The first laws, enacted in the early 18th century, were intended to protect those who wanted to make money from their written works rather than those who wrote for impact, as researchers and scholars do. Currently, when an author signs over their copyright to the publisher, they become limited in their own access to the work as well as limit many others due to what Dr. Carroll calls “the pay wall.”
From the price of individual journals offered through library subscriptions or access costs for individual articles online, the prices have skyrocketed, leaving many institutions to make difficult decisions about what they can or can no longer afford for their faculty and students. (Access to some individual journals can cost over $10,000 per year.) Carroll asks that researchers and authors make responsible decisions regarding the publication of their works – to consider the effects of simply signing the first or “opening offer” a publisher extends.
The issue of open access (OA), where the consumer of the works (reader, researcher) does not have to pay for access to the published works, often leads to misinformation about OA… “Open access does not mean lower quality or less rigor.” In fact, Carroll listed several ways that OA is good for authors/researchers:
- increases impact (# of citations) due to easier access by researchers
- serendipitous researchers come across works more often, making previously unforeseen connections
- researchers need broader access to a myriad of sources/literature
- helps international and poorly financed researchers – access/cost
- medical researchers – providing out of date treatments due to lack of access to most recent findings
- current pay-for journals are not searchable because they are not linked (lots of information could be added to the general pool of accessible resources)
One example Dr. Carroll highlighted was the OA journal, PLOS (Public Library of Science), and its successful growth over the past few years, including a 90% rejection rate, high impact, and the ability to publish peer-reviewed works immediately on the web. Other journals are using a similar model, but many other options are being investigated as viable options. (See Philosophers’ Imprint from the University of Michigan, which has been in service since 2001)
When considering to transfer your copyright to a publisher, Carroll asks authors to take an “Aretha Franklin moment” — “You better think…” In other words, you may be limiting or hurting yourself and other future researchers by giving away all copyright control to a publisher.
So, what can faculty authors do?
- Check current authors’ rights with publishers (these can sometimes be altered after the fact)
- Negotiate with the publisher – they are getting used to this process and providing options for authors (it’s your call – they want to keep a good relationship with you too)
- Many publishers already allow some form of open access, but most authors still are not asking/requesting; it’s a usually a workflow issue, habit, or simply non-awareness (most faculty are simply not aware of their options nor the benefits of OA)
As Dr. Carroll opined, “we’re reaching the tipping point… (and we) need help to push this forward.” Spread the word and become a part of the soon-to-be-in-crowd of Open Access authors!
For more information:
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What are your thoughts on Open Access and author’s rights? How knowledgeable are faculty or graduate students (future scholars) in your department?… Click on the COMMENTS link below to get started!
Posted in Academic Freedom ,Higher Education ,On Campus Learning Events ,Scholarly Communication ,Writing November 12, 2008
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