The Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology now has a new name, the Center for Teaching and Learning. We are still in the same office, and still offer much of the same services to faculty, staff and graduate students. More details about changes at the Center will be forthcoming. Any questions and/or comments are welcome.
Our office still is University Hall 201. Our phone number is: 372-6898. Our e-mail address is: ctlt@bgsu.edu. Drop-in, give us a call or send us a message.
Please take a look at our new logo:
Posted in Uncategorized June 25, 2008
How do you decide how you will assess your students and their learning? Angelo and Cross (1993), suggest a Classroom Assessment Project Cycle. In Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, they outline a three-phase, three-step process by which you can design such a cycle.
Phase I Planning a Classroom Assessment Project
- Choosing the class in which to carry out the Classroom Assessment Project
- Focusing on an “assessable question” about student learning
- Designing a Classroom Assessment Project to answer that “assessable question”
Phase II Implementing the Classroom Assessment Project
- Teaching the “target” lesson related to the question being assessed
- Assessing learning by collecting feedback on that assessable question
- Analyzing the feedback and turning data into usable information
Phase III Responding to the results of the Classroom Assessment
- Interpreting the results and formulating an appropriate response to improve learning
- Communicating the results to students and trying out the response
- Evaluating the Classroom Assessment Project’s effect(s) on teaching and learning (p. 34)
Such a cycle is a good starting point, but if you are looking for more specific and innovative ways to assess student learning, Angelo and Cross (1993) provide fifty specific ways of assessing everything from prior knowledge and skills, to critical thinking, to learner reactions to teachers and teaching. Their book is philosophically sound, practically applicable, and available at a library near you. If you’ve never read it or haven’t read it in a while, it’s worth skimming.
Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
You can check this book out from the CTL Library:
http://www.bgsu.edu/ctlt/page15501.html
**The Center for Teaching and Learning will conduct two related workshops this Summer**
Identifying Your Teaching Goals Using the TGI
July 15, 1:00pm-1:45pm
August 6, 10:15am-11:00am
Formative Assessment Using CATs
July 16, 1:00pm-2:00pm
August 6, 11:00am-12:00pm
You can visit the website for more information:
http://www.bgsu.edu/ctlt/page11755.html
Call to reserve your location at 372-6898
Resources on the Web:
Angelo and Cross, from their book:
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/assess-1.htm
Classroom Assessment Techniques:
http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/assess.htm
PowerPoint on Classroom Assessment using Angelo and Cross:
www.uwlax.edu/catl/2006%20CoTL%20Materials/COTL%20-%20CATS%20with%20BOON%208-29-06.ppt
Posted in Assessment ,Higher Education ,Teaching Tips June 19, 2008
All you have to do is ask a second-year Teaching Assistant or Graduate Assistant who has taught, and they could provide plenty to say about how daunting teaching can be. There are issues of how to teach, what to teach, what to assign, how to write a good syllabus, etc. The list could go on.
We are trying to relieve some of the anxiety that many TA’s may have with our resources for tips. They can all be useful for incoming and returning TA’s.
Below are some online resources, which could be extremely helpful for any new TA.
The Center for Instructional Innovation and Teaching Learning Academy at Western Washington University have posted web pages which help writing a syllabus:
Posted in Discussion-Join In ,Large Lecture ,Resources ,TA-Teaching Assistants ,Teaching Tips June 5, 2008
During this era in education, when standards are being stringently enforced and instructors are being held accountable for what they get done in their courses, the use of rubrics is becoming more common. They are a designed evaluation guide for instructors and students to use as a point of reference, with specific assessment criteria for any assignment, project, requirement, and/or course. Rubrics allow students to have an idea of what is expected of their work, thus putting responsibility into the hands of students. Students can see what the instructor is looking for when their work is assessed. The amount that a teacher has to repeat their expectations, and students feeling misguided, can be significantly reduced.
The traditional rubric with percentages and listed criteria for earning an “A” or “B” in a course have drastically changed. Today rubrics have become creative and versatile. A rubric can be created for essentially any aspect of any course. The website addresses below provide examples of different rubric designs and creations, and their rationale.
Indiana University at Kokomo’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Kappa Omicron Nu Honors Society website
Chicago Public Schools online resource to rubrics
Posted in Active Learning ,Assessment ,Higher Education ,Learning Outcomes ,Resources ,Rubrics ,Student Success ,Teaching Tips May 27, 2008
Many people are learning new words everyday by subscribing or going to the Merriam-Webster website or from Dictionary.com to expand their vocabulary or the size of their “word bank.” A brilliant resource for any educator can be found any day on the Ohio Learning Network’s “Resource of the Day.” Daily random tips from how to deal with aspects of everyday classroom teaching, up to tips concerning Distance Learning-it can all be found at:
http://www.oln.org/rss/rotd.php
The Ohio Learning Network even has a Search option where you can determine your search by topic, date, field of dates, and/or keywords. Please take a look at:
http://www.oln.org/rss/rotd_search.php
Posted in Reflections on Teaching ,Resources ,Teaching Tips ,Tech Tips May 21, 2008
The Bowling Green State University virtual campus in Second Life is celebrating its first birthday in conjunction with an Earth Day celebration in the virtual world on Tuesday, April 22 at 6:30 – 8:30pm EST.
The festivities will include poetry readings, art exhibition openings, live music by BGSU student DJs, with the evening culminating with a “Save the Virtual Island” scavenger hunt. The event will take place on the Bowling Green State virtual campus in Second Life and simultaneously presented in the lobby of the Bowen Thompson Student Union.
The Birth/Earth day celebration will begin with an Open Mic poetry reading at the BGSU Writing Center in Second Life. Students, faculty and staff are invited to “step up to the mic” at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union, where their words will be broadcast into Second Life. The BGSU Virtual Campus is also proud to host an amazing art installation by Jeff Lovett from Ohio University.
A special Earth Day scavenger hunt on the BGSU Virtual Campus will also accompany the festivities, beginning promptly at 7:30pm EST. Avatars will compete in a quest to find information on how to help combat global climate change. The first three avatars to find all the clues will be awarded prizes in Linden dollars. Participants will face simulated elements of climate change and environmental disaster that will be both challenging and thought provoking.
To visit BGSU Virtual Campus, click here.
To find out more about how to get a free Second Life avatar, visit Second Life
Posted in Active Learning ,Higher Education ,Resources ,Second Life April 21, 2008
As exam time nears, some pointers on writing good or effective questions might be helpful. Here are some tips to consider:
Twelve Tips for Writing Good Questions (from Questionmark)
“Writing effective questions takes time and practice. Whether your goal is to measure knowledge and skills, survey opinions and attitudes, or enhance a learning experience, poorly worded questions can adversely affect the quality of the results. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you write and review questions:
- Keep stems and statements as short as possible and use clear, concise language.
- Use questions whenever possible (What, Who, When, Where, Why and How).
- Maintain grammatical consistency to avoid cueing
- List choices in a logical order.
- Avoid negatives, especially double negatives.
- Avoid unnecessary modifiers, especially absolutes (e.g. always, never, etc.).
- Avoid “All of the above” and use of “None of the above” with caution.
- Avoid vague pronouns (e.g. it, they).
- Avoid conflicting alternatives.
- Avoid syllogistic reasoning choices (e.g. “both a and b are correct”) unless absolutely necessary.
- Avoid providing cues to correct answer in the stem.
- Avoid providing clues to the answer of one question in another question.”
Writing Effective Questions to Promote Learning (Penn State)
This detailed website provides “easy-to-follow, quick-to-read guidance for creating questions of varied types: 1-minute essay, short essay, short-answer, check-all-that-apply, matching, along with the traditional multiple-choice and true-false.”
Each question type has three sections: an overview (description & samples), construction (how to write them effectively), and check yourself (how to spot faults in your own questions).
What other sites give good suggestions about writing effective questions?… Click on the COMMENTS link below to share your thoughts!
Posted in Assessment ,Learning Outcomes ,Teaching Tips April 15, 2008
The
Office of Service Learning is beginning to plan for the
Fall ’08 Faculty Focus Workshop series.
“If you have taught, are teaching, or are planning on teaching a service-learning course, we would like to have you participate in our series.“
Here is a description of the Faculty Focus Workshop series offered each semester:
Faculty Focus Series
These discussion-based workshops feature faculty members talking about their service-learning courses and experiences working with all aspects of service-learning and civic engagement. If you would like to present in a workshop or know of someone who you think would be beneficial to hear from, please let us know!
Posted in Active Learning ,On Campus Learning Events ,Resources ,Scholarly Communication ,Service Learning April 11, 2008
Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut presented a 10-year strategic plan for higher education to Governor Ted Strickland and the Ohio General Assembly that details strategies to meet the governor’s goal of enrolling 230,000 more students while keeping more graduates in Ohio and attracting more talent to the state.
Click here to be redirected to Governor Stickland and Chancellor Fingerhut’s video presentation.
The plan promises to raise the overall educational attainment of the state of Ohio.
“This report builds upon the principles I put forth last year in creating the University System of Ohio,” Strickland said. “This 10-year plan for Ohio’s institutions of higher education will ensure not only that we dramatically expand educational opportunities for Ohioans but that we do so in a way that makes our state a world-class economic competitor.”
If you are interested in reading the strategic plan, the executive summary can be found here. Or if you are more interested in the full report, follow this link.
Posted in Higher Education ,Reflections on Teaching April 4, 2008
This is a final reminder concerning the upcoming submission deadline for
Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching. Insight focuses each edition on a specific topic or theme relevant to current trends in higher education; the
theme of the third issue is scholarship of teaching and learning.
Submission details are as follows:
- STYLE – All manuscripts must be formatted in either APA or MLA style.
- LENGTH – Manuscript should be no more than 10 pages (not including abstract, references or appendices). Authors are encouraged to include appendices that promote application and integration of materials (i.e., assignments, rubrics, examples, etc.).
- ABSTRACT – Each manuscript must be summarized in an abstract of 50 to 100 words.
- AUTHOR – Each author should provide his/her full name, title and departmental affiliation, campus address, telephone number, and email address. Each author must also include a brief biography (no more than 50 words per author).
- FORMAT – All manuscripts must be submitted via email as attachments in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format. Do not include personal identifiers within the manuscript. Include contact information only on a separate cover sheet. Each manuscript will be assigned a unique identifier for blind review processes. Send submissions to cetl@park.edu.
- DEADLINE – All submissions must be received by 4:00pm on April 7, 2008 (CST).
If you need additional information, please review the Call for Papers and Quick Tips located at http://www.park.edu/cetl/Insight.aspx or contact CETL at cetl@park.edu.
Posted in Resources ,Scholarly Communication ,Writing April 1, 2008
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