Problem-based Learning

Is there anybody reading this who hasn't acted like a 'helicopter instructor' at some point? Sometimes, telling our students what we want them to learn is the quickest, most straightforward way to teach. In a large lecture hall or even a smaller classroom with more material to cover than time to do so, lectures, demonstrations, step-by-step explanations can make sense. Other times we hope to help students think knowledge into existence, not just receive it already formed. One of the ways we can encourage students to do this is through 'problem-based learning.' Suppose we're asked to teach an epidemiology seminar. We could present some different ways to model and explain the distribution of disease in a population. Or we could give our students artifacts from an imagined or real community in question - illness narratives, health department reports, community and patient histories, newspaper clippings, maps, and so on, and ask them to explain why one group appears to be disproportionately suffering from one or another illness. Last week, Emily, Jon, and I led a workshop on teaching this latter method. We were lucky enough to have Donal Walsh visiting our workshop. The recent incarnation of problem-based learning was formalized and developed in medical school curriculums, and Dr. Walsh played a part in that early history. At one time, Dr. Walsh reported, 90% of some medical programs' curriculums consisted of problem-based learning. However the depth this method offered came at the cost of curricular breadth; now, Dr. Walsh said, many medical schools reserve 30% of their class time for problem-based learning and draw on more traditional methods during the rest. Have your students benefited from problem-based methods? How do the challenges and rewards of problem-based learning differ across different disciplines? Stop by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) or next week's workshop or leave a post here and let us know. And if you'd like to learn more about problem-based learning check out Hans Langer's case history, be sure to check out Hans Langer's case history, which Donal Walsh created for a class he teaches and kindly agreed to share with us. - Matt

TAC Winter Workshop Series: Workshop 3 - Improving Discussion

Each of the workshops to this point have reminded participants that setting the tone early and clearly in the course term is vital for student participation. This workshop elaborated on that concept and went a step further by showing participants how we could include our students in helping to define and set standards for participation and classroom respect.

For this workshop we adopted many of the tips from Jocelyn A. Hollander’s 2002 paper, “Learning to Discuss: Strategies for Improving the Quality of Class Discussion” published in Teaching Sociology (v.30, pg.317-327). While the paper was written about a sociology course and published in a sociology journal, as a SCIENTIST who is planning on teaching biology as a career, I find Hollander’s techniques useful for my field too. The techniques are particularly useful for discussions that will inevitably arise from topics that are agreed upon in my field but not in mainstream America such as climate change and evolution.

The basics are this, 1) allow students a chance to identify characteristics of a good and a bad discussion - including what respectful discussion is like, 2) decide as a collective what discussion should be like for the term in your class, 3) have students reflect on how they’d like to participate at the beginning of the quarter, 4) have the students reflect midway or at the end of the quarter on how they actually participated and why they participated the way they did. This serves two purposes, it sets clear expectations and rules and allows the students to feel valued - thereby setting the tone and expectation that their participation is also valued.

We illustrated this technique in our workshop by collectively defining good and bad discussion, and having a conversation about respectful behavior.

During the discussion it was pointed out by the participants that respectful behavior can vary widely depending on background and culture. One participant noted that in her culture interrupting was very rude and that she had to adjust when she started her schooling in the States. Another participant noted that he was uncomfortable interrupting his students during discussion even when he felt a need to re-direct the discussion. He used the technique of raise your hand to start a new discussion, and raise one finger to reply to a topic. Depending on your class environment you may or may not want students to interrupt each other. The upside of interrupting it it could allow discussions to build and flow naturally. The downside is if you have a lot of quite students that don’t feel comfortable interrupting, you won’t have a wealth of ideas or participants in discussions.

For these reasons Hollander’s technique of deciding as a collective how discussions should be lead is useful.

Another useful technique we covered is questioning skills. We all use questions to start discussions, but not all questions are created equal. Some questions by their very nature promote discussion while others have such straight-forward, narrow answers that discussion is halted quickly. In our workshop we identified open vs. closed questions and quickly went over Bloom’s Taxonomy/Hierarchy of Questions.

We then discussed types of questions that dampen discussion (see below). Of the questions that dampen discussion, only the put-down and ego-stroking questions are questions that should never be used.

Closed questions along with low-level and programed answer question are essentially memory and knowledge questions that have narrow and straight-forward answers, which are hard to build a discussion off of. They aren’t the best for discussion, but they are great for reviews or summaries to evaluate if the class is understanding the material before you move on to a new topic.

Fuzzy questions can be hard to identify before you ask the question. But once said you can judge by the perplexed looks on your student’s faces that the question was unclear and follow up with another question.

Rhetorical questions can be great to emphasis a point, but when used during discussion they can confused students about whether they should reply to real questions.

Being comfortable with a longer wait times is best way to counter act rhetorical question confusion. Tips to help with wait time are to run through the alphabet in your head, count to ten, or my favorite - pull out a candy bar or banana and slowly unwrap it and eat it while you wait. One participant pointed out that Dorothy Leeds has written books on questioning, specifically “Seven Powers of Questions:Secrets to Successful Communication in Life and at Work” (first published in 2000).

We also talked about different discussion techniques. We specifically tried a Round-Robin exercise to practice our listening (and memory) skills. We asked participants to break in to small groups and state one thing they did that weekend. Then everyone in the group wrote what everyone else in the group did. This helped to illustrate that discussion is more than just speaking, it’s also LISTENING, THINKING, AND RESPONDING to those around you.

We also used a Town Hall and Post-It note structure as suggested by Chad Hanson (the full article can be found here). Hanson noted that by using this technique he was able to grade on participation, encourage quite students to speak up, and subtly remind more dominate speakers to give others a chance to speak. We had a chance to test out this structure by passing out two post-its at the beginning of the workshop and asking participants to stick one on their shirts when they spoke during whole group discussions.

Initially we did not tell participants why they were doing this. But when we introduced this structure we explored how participants felt about advertising their participation and how they would feel if they knew they were being graded on the use of the post-its. This lead to a more general discussion of grading on participation.

Some of the costs of grading participation based only on speaking is that it puts quite students at a disadvantage and may affect the quality of discussion. However, setting the tone and having clear expectations may alleviate some of these concerns.

After giving our participants a chance to discuss in small groups different difficult scenarios they may encounter in their discussion sections, we reminding participants of Hollander’s use of collectively defining discussion.

We noting that she also asked students to reflect on their participation at the beginning of the course and either in the middle or end of the course. This reflection would help them define (at the beginning), improve (middle), and evaluate (middle and end) their discussion.

We ended by asked them to reflect on their participation in the workshop series.

So, how do you participate (in this workshop series or in your classes)? and Why do you participate in that way?

Last week, Richard and I led a workshop on teaching in an "international classroom." Most workshops of these sorts emphasize what people fear could wrong if students and instructors have different educational, national, cultural or linguistic backgrounds. The workshop we taught foregrounded something else: that difference can make a (good) difference in teaching and learning. We discussed different ways that we draw on some differences we observe and learn about to make what we teach speak (loudly!) to our students. Then we redesigned our lessons with this discussion in mind. From showing how visual emphasis and exaggeration can be used in teaching even when the students don't speak the same language as you, to suggesting that ESL speakers in a literature class bring in translations of a Shakespeare play as a way of helping all students in the class make sense of the different ways meaning can be constructed in a script, to reminding instructors of the value that their backgrounds give students, many offered great suggestions and insights for revising our lesson plans as we envision the scope of our students' backgrounds more broadly than we might have. Have you revised a lesson to better speak to heterogeneous classrooms? Reply to this post, drop Richard or I an email or come to this Thursday's workshop and let us know how!

TAC Winter Workshop Series - Workshop 1: Student Participation

The first workshop of the TA Consultant's Winter Workshop Series was on student participation. If the whole workshop could be summed up into one sentence it would be;

There are many forms of student participation that include, but are not limited to, discussion.

As a group, members of this workshop defined and described student participation as:

• Being Active, Awake, Aware
• Learning something new
• Having value --> Contribute/take away information/ideas
• Being Physical and/or Mental engaged
• Experiential learning
• Cooperation/Communication
• Meeting class requirements
• Enjoyment
• Personal responsibility

What helps students to have open, honest participation though, is to have a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment. To illustrate this point of safe, inclusive environment promoting students to think, interact, and speak we ran an experiment early in the workshop. The two female facilitators of the workshop, Sarah Augusto and I, each choose separate sides of the room to focus on. We only called on and engaged with those halves. After 20 minutes of this, Richard asked the members who they felt more engaged and connected with. For the most part those that I engaged with picked me, and those Sarah engaged with picked her.

Some ways to create a safe environment included:

• Letting your expectations on participation be known early and clearly
• Use icebreakers to help your students familiarize themselves to each other and you and you to them.
• Look at and respond to all students.
• Value wrong answers as a teaching opportunity by exploring why it’s an incorrect answer or why students may believe it’s a correct answer.
• Explore a variety of answers before revealing a correct answer, even if the question has only one right answer.
• Ask more open questions that don’t have a right answer.
• More ways to create a safe environment will be discussed in following workshops, including the next workshop!

There is a tendency for us as instructors to gravitate towards discussion as participation (this will be further discussed in workshop 3). One of the activities we had in our workshop was for everyone write about a time they felt engaged and empowered in a class. What made them feel ownership? And, on the flip-side, what made them feel unengaged?

This writing activity is also known as a free-write. It’s a great tool because it gives everyone an equal chance to contribute to an idea, concept, or discussion question. And for discussion it gives those more quite or those students that take a bit longer to think of a response time to develop an answer. You can then read these responses privately, ask students to share with the whole class, or break up into groups to share thoughts.

Some myths of participation that came out during discussion were;

1) Quite students are not participating because they aren't interested
Fact - Some students are quiet because:
They are thinking/reflecting
Cultural differences may be in works
Shyness
Peer Thought Pressure

2) Lots of talking is good participation
Fact -
Quantity vs Quality should be taken into account
Who's talking - dominate speakers?
Goal of participation - increase student learning
Talking is just one of the ways of participation

For more discussion participation tools come to workshop 3

3) Discussion is the only form/best form of participation
Fact - Discussion is just one of the ways of participation or being engaged.
Others include:
Quick or free-write
Blog
Think-pair-share
Surveys
Quiet reflection

4) Prolonged silences are bad

Prolonged silence can be good because it can take the pressure off
you and put it on the students, which makes them respond.

It also gives reflective students time to process all their thoughts

It's often a good idea to inject pauses during talks or discussion so people can process their thoughts

5) All students should be expected to participate equally
Many think fairness is treating everyone equally
But if that's true you probably aren't reaching everyone
Because:
Cultural differences
Background
Socialization of the different genders
Affects how students interpret and/or react
(Treat people the way you want to be treated)

6) It’s the TAs responsibility to create a good discussion

No. its not only your responsibility. Its every person's responsibility. This can be achieved by setting the right tone from the beginning of the quarter.

The TA's goal is to create conditions that enable students of various learning styles and personalities to contribute. To achieve this, you will need to take extra steps to encourage quiet students to speak up and, occasionally, ask the more verbose students to hold back to give others a chance.

7) If the students aren’t responding/answering correctly it’s the students fault
Fact - Sometimes we, instructors, just aren't clear enough.
Can our instructions be interpreted another way?
Was the assignment/question too hard?
Was there a "Wrong Answer"?

If the answer to all these questions is "NO" and you are still mystified, ask the students why they answered the way they did. If you set the tone early, they will answer honestly.

Also try a Mid-Quarter-Interview - MQI - through the CETL with one of us TAC’s

Many participants of our workshop asked for more time to go over difficult situations. Some scenarios include difficult students - students that text, go off topic, are dominate, and/or rude. Because of time limitations we weren’t to discuss all of these situations. But stay tuned for workshop 3 when participants will get another chance to think about, act out, and discuss difficult situations.

Below are the slides and group answers from our workshop.

Why Become a TAC

Last week at the TAC weekly meeting we discussed what about being a TAC did we as members of the program appreciate most. Here's what we came up with.

• Supportive teaching environment
• Helping others and ourselves improve teaching
• Consultations - opening our minds to thinking in different ways
• Peer-to-peer environment - both during TAC meetings and in consultations
• Goal oriented - we have a mission, whether that be organizing the TA orientation, setting up workshops, or training for and implementing consulations
• Our participation helps us grow

We hope you consider applying to be a TAC for the Spring 2011-Winter 2012 quarter.

Winter Workshop Series starts this week!

Student Engagement: Mission Possible

Winter Workshop Series for Graduate Students

Thursdays, January 20 - February 24, 2010

3-5 pm

Room 1310 Surge III

This workshop series focuses on helping instructors engage and empower their students. Participants will explore different methods for creating positive, inclusive learning environments. You will be encouraged to step outside your teaching ‘comfort zone’ and experiment with different methods for improving student learning. The objective is to provide participants with new tools and strategies to implement in their classrooms. Individuals from all disciplines and backgrounds are encouraged to attend these workshops, and those who attend five of the six sessions will be awarded a certificate from the UC Davis Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL).

Register your interest and view descriptions for individual workshops at:

http://cetl.ucdavis.edu/winter-workshops-2011/.

All graduate students are welcome.

*****

Student Engagement: Mission Possible

January 20, 2011, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Beyond 'Do You All Understand?': Language, Difference, and Learning in a Heterogeneous Classroom

January 27, 2011, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Pump Up the Volume, Turn Up Their Minds! Improving Student Discussions

February 3, 2011, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

‘Everyone’s Here’ is Only the Beginning: Engaging Your Students Through Problem-based Learning

February 10, 2011, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Tech Savvy Teaching: Using Technology to Achieve Teaching and Learning Goals

February 17, 2011, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

To Test or Not To Test? Strategies for Evaluating Student Learning

February 24, 2011, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

*****

This series is brought to you by the TA Consultants and the

Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Discussion + Participation: A Preview

The Teaching Consultants are preparing for a six-part workshop series about student participation. The first session will be on January 20th form 3-5pm in Surge III.

As we prepare for the workshop series, the TACs have spent some time discussing articles about student participation (citations below). What follows are some of our thoughts about participation. We hope that our workshop participants will be able to spend six weeks thinking carefully about how they define participation in the classroom, what barriers students encounter that may prevent them from participating, and testing various techniques and teaching strategies that might be useful in our classrooms. Here are our thoughts:

• Why do we want students to participate? To improve student learning. However, to know if learning has been achieved, Teach Assistants (TAs) have to be able to measure student learning.
• We, as TAs, judge our classrooms based on who we are, and it can be challenging to think outside of our own frame of reference.
• At times we are not the reason why students are silent, sometimes students are watching each other not just the TA and do not wish to look foolish in front of their peers.
• We must be careful to not generalize about all students if we only have access to a small sample size (one of the papers we discussed has a sample size of five).
• When a TA is considered the authority by students for cultural reasons it might take a long time for students to break away from their own backgrounds and participate in a dialogue where ideas are shared, rather than received.
• What is the difference between participation and discussion: participation is when a student is actively engaged in some way (doesn't have to be talking); discussion is the exchange of ideas, usually vocally.
• TAs should be encouraged to avoid complacency in the classroom.
• TAs should be encouraged to use multiple ways to assess if students are “getting it” and give students multiple venues in which they can express themselves.
• One way to assess participation and/or learning is to ask students to write a one page reflection on their own participation and comment on other “good” examples of participation.
• Establishing a respectful classroom is key for helping students feel comfortable in writing peer-reviews
• "This is not about me, this is your classroom!" This is a mantra TAs should consider adopting.
• "Participation is good for you!" Even if it makes a student uncomfortable, the act itself can be helpful.
• TAs should justify and explain why they are doing something, or asking something of their students.
• Create an environment where students will be comfortable and not penalized for saying "I don’t have anything to say"
• However, be prepared for strong personalities who will say what’s on their mind regardless of the consequences.
• Let people know they’re going to get called on. This takes away the complete element of surprise.
• Tell people everyone has to speak once during a class period day, even a wrong answer is useful, The TA doesn't necessarily know everything. And it's also fine for the TA to show vulnerability and say "I don't know."
• There is a lot of power in doing an example incorrectly and having student “correct” the TA.

This is only the beginning of what we hope is a lengthy and fruitful discussion about student participation. We hope that our workshop participants will share their own insights and opinions with us over the next six weeks. As always, feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section of every blog post!

Beverly D. Tatum and Race: A summary of her Mondavi event at UC Davis

On Dec 10th (2010), Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, the author of UC Davis’ campus community book, “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” (1997), spoke at the Mondavi Center. Dr. Tatum began by acknowledging change has occurred in race relations since her book was first published in 1997. But then noted that there is still difficulty in discussing race. Moreover, there appears to be greater incivility regarding the race conversation; we’ve moved from silence about race to hostility.

From Dr. Tatum’s perspective as a psychologist, we as a society feel a great deal of anxiety about race. She calmly explained that often, the human response to anxiety is fear. The way this fear is manifested is through flight or flight. In the case of anxiety about race, the human flight response is to “hunker down” and “tighten our circle” of those we consider us in the “us vs. them” scenarios. Our fight response is to lash out. However, Dr. Tatum pointed out, it is during those times of anxiety that we should work to expand our circle and create more inclusive relationships to dispel our anxiety.

Expanding our circles is, of course, is a difficult task, but can be eased by positive leadership. During the question-answer section of the event Dr. Tatum provided a strategy for individuals to become better allies to each other in the form of the 3 F’s – Felt, Found, Feel.

When someone says something to you that you consider discriminatory, it can often be difficult to speak up for fear of alienating yourself or offending a friend. Instead it may be easier to say something along the lines of, “I’ve felt that way before, but I found it not to be true (give example), and now I feel this way.” This gives you a chance to relate to the offender without placing blame or guilt. In cases when what a person has said is so outrageous that you cannot relate the 3 F’s can be modified to, “I know many people feel that way, I have found _____, and I feel this.” But it is important to speak up, because silence is equivalent to agreeing.

Unfortunately Dr. Tatum only spoke for 30 minutes with the question and answer section taking up the other half hour of the event. One question I’d like to explore, but didn’t get the chance to ask Dr. Tatum is, if our natural response to anxiety from the unknown is to hunker down and/or lash out, and that lashing out creates more anxiety, how do we as individuals break that cycle of anxiety? What are your thoughts?

Ask-A-TAC: What about blogging?

The TACs would like to encourage our readers to send in questions about teaching! We are happy to make suggestions and/or direct you to appropriate resources. Please send your questions to tac@ucdavis.edu. Whenever appropriate we will share our suggestions here, making sure you, dear TA, stay anonymous. We hope to make the "Ask-A-TAC" entry a regular event here at this blog.

Dear TAC,

I have a blog and it’s awesome! But how do I generate discussion and get my blog readers to ask and answer questions? Please help!

– Bogged-Down Blogging TA

Dear Bogged:

Good for you! Starting a blog as a busy graduate student is above and beyond the call of duty. It’s a tricky undertaking that requires some thoughtful planning, time and energy and the desire to experiment and see what happens. Let me ask you a few question: Do you read other people’s blogs? What do you like most about your favorite blogs? What motivates you to leave a comment on a blog?

As an avid blog reader myself, I find that I return to blogs and become a regular reader when a few criteria are met. First, the blog needs to frequently post new material. Depending on the type of blog this might mean a weekly post (which I very much look forward to), several times a week with “Theme Days” or, best of all, daily posts. This takes a lot of work! It might be a good idea to generate a list of topics and try to stay ahead of your posting schedule, that way new content is always being published.

Second, my favorite blogs have a consistent point of view. This means they cover the same type of content on a regular basis. This also means that they act as a clearing house for information about a given topic. The authors will link to, comment about, or discuss various articles or topics they find interesting and relevant to the central themes of the blog.

Finally, my favorite blogs mix it up! Contradictory to #2, I know. But it’s always interesting when a guest blogger shows up. It’s also fine if a blog takes a hiatus and comes back with fresh new ideas and posts.

But let me return to your original question: how do you generate discussion on a blog? To be honest, I don’t have the magic answer, but I do have some suggestions. First, your readers will want to feel like they know you (and your fellow blog authors). It’s really easy to lurk on a blog, but it takes some pluck to leave a comment, or ask a question. The point is: your readers need to feel safe!

Your readers also need to have content upon which to comment! Posting frequently provides them with content. However, posting “Reading Group” style questions at the end of your posts-- topics you would like to see discussed--will also generate discussion. It might even initiate conversation about other topics. When the conversations start, make yourself heard, and participate in the conversation in the comments section. Your readers will feel valued and acknowledged if the conversation is respectful, friendly and encouraging. And those lurking might be enticed to join in.

Your blog will serve as an amazing teaching and learning tool! If you want your students to traffic the site you can require a certain number of comments per term, and/or invite them to write guest posts. If you are attempting to reach a wider (global) audience you will need to build a sense of community with your readers through content and by generating a safe space to keep them coming back to learn more.

I hope these suggestions help. If any TAs reading this have their own tips we would all benefit if you left a comment. Tell us what's worked and what hasn't for you when it comes to teaching and blogging.

Keep us posted, Bogged, on how it turns out and good luck!

~ UC Davis TA Consultant

PS. If you’re still feeling stuck, check out these links:

Building relationships

For Science Bloggers

Establishing a Persona

Blog lurkers

And more about blog lurkers

Matthew Nesvet

Hi, TA's! My name's Matt. I'm a PhD student, California Humanities Scholar, HASTAC Scholar, and one of the 'awesome eight' graduate students chosen to be your teaching consultants this year. Teaching can be many things: the awesome second class citizen of the modern university; the reason why you spent six of your last summer hours in TA training workshops; a great reason to think broadly about your research and how you can make it meaningful to others ('other' [people] (adj.): those who, though they're not on your dissertation committee, do indeed, yes the rumors are true, exist); how you'll make a difference in your student's lives; your job; and possibly, hopefully, one of the most exciting, valuable activities you'll engage in while at university. I've both taught and TA'd many college classes, and love helping my students learn. I'm excited about working with you this year as you develop, reflect on, and improve upon your teaching practices. For those of you who want to stop by and talk about teaching, my office is in Kerr Hall (6th floor); you're welcome to visit whenever you have a few minutes. You can also send me an email and we can schedule a time to meet. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you in workshops and consultations throughout the year!

My name is Richard Osibanjo. Am a second year TA Consultant and a 3^rd year PhD student in Analytical Chemistry. My experience has a TA Consultant has being a blast. I teach General and Forensics Chemistry which is very exciting.

I believe everyone is a teacher and at one point or the other we all will have to teach something to someone or a group of people. Being a TA consultant, has really helped me develop my teaching skills, which are applicable not only in the classroom but to every facet of life.

My best memories being a TA consultant involve relating and meeting with diverse people, sharing their experiences and helping them become the best they can be in their teaching experience. I am influenced by the words of John Maxwell said “people don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care” Being a TA Consultant, provides an avenue for me, to really do what am passionate about, which is connecting with diverse people , getting to see through their eyes and speaking their language. This has gone a long way in making my classroom fun, inclusive and memorable. There is nothing so gratifying, as being able to help my students, in a 360 degree way in and out of the classroom.

Outside teaching, I enjoy meeting people, reading, writing, photography and am building my portfolio as a long distance runner

TAC: Sarah Dalrymple

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Population Biology Grad Group, and I study fire dynamics in Jeffrey pine forests in the Eastern Sierra. A bulk of my research also involves ants so I spend a lot of my time crouched down looking at the ground in forests. It's more fun that it sounds!

In my last 4 years at Davis I have TAed a variety of classes, including biology labs, a field course, and an art-science painting studio. I am incredibly enthusiastic about teaching and learning how to get students to engage more effectively with one another and with course material. This is my second year in the TA Consultant program and my first year serving as a TAC Co-Coordinator alongside Mara Evans. The current TA Consultants come from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, which often results in well-rounded and lively discussions about teaching and education in our weekly meetings.

As a TAC, I hope to pass along knowledge I have gleaned from my own experiences and from discussions with other TACs, whether during individual consultations or workshops. TAs often interact with students more than professors, and as a result, they have an opportunity to positively influence student learning. However, many of the departments on campus lack structured support for grad students interested in improving their teaching. This is why I am so excited to be a part of the TA Consultant team! My ultimate goal is help TAs improve their teaching and provide encouragement for those who otherwise lack the support to do so.