Active Learning
John M. Burns Conference Choosing and Using High-Impact Instructional Strategies
Most of us teaching in colleges and universities today have heard about many different
instructional approaches and activities we might use in our courses, but the sheer
number of choices can be daunting. Given limited time with students, choosing strategies
that best promote their learning is an imperative. The research on teaching and learning
in higher education, however, is better than ever, and it provides us with information
about strategies documented to improve student learning. These studies have much to
offer our understanding. Evidence-based teaching has finally arrived, and indeed it
is long overdue.After participating in this interactive session, you will be able
to
• Identify multiple evidence-based strategies in seven key areas of instruction
• Evaluate the applicability of specific methods to your own unique educational contexts
• Adopt or adapt an evidence-based instructional practice for use in your own courses
Date: 10/6/2017
Video
John M. Burns Conference Interactive Lecturing: Combining "Time for Telling" and Active Learning Methods
Educators today would be hard pressed to identify a teaching technique more heartily
maligned than the lecture. Critics have called lectures boring, obsolete, old-fashioned,
overused, and even unfair. Such criticisms, however, typically take aim at one type
of lecture: the full-session, transmission-model lecture. Lectures, however, come
in many different shapes and sizes and can occupy an important place in the college
classroom. Lectures are particularly effective when they are paired with active learning
methods that provide students with ways to mentally prepare for and pay attention
to lectures as well as with ways to apply and reflect upon what they have learned.
After participating in this session, you will be able to:
• Apply principles of effective presentations to classroom lectures
• Choose active learning strategies to support student learning during lectures
• Create a plan for integrating lectures along with active learning strategies in
a seamless process
Date: 10/6/2017
Video
12th AT&L Conference "Putting Critical Thinking into Action" by Dr. Stephen Brookfield
In this session, Stephen Brookfield will take participants through a number of exercises
that have been found to develop critical thinking across the disciplines. These focus
on helping students clarify and communicate their assumptions, new perspectives, and
build connections between disparate ideas and knowledge.
Date: 3/31/2016 9:00 AM
Video
12th AT&L Conference Keynote "Teaching for Critical Thinking" by Dr. Stephen Brookfield
Critical thinking involves students (and teachers) being able to identify and research
the assumptions that frame how they think and act. Only if assumptions are accurate
and valid can we trust them as guides for thought and action. In scholarly terms,
thinking critically requires students to make judgments about the legitimacy of knowledge
in their different disciplines. Research on how students learn to think critically
shows that four factors are crucial to the process – clarifying what the process involves,
sequencing it appropriately, assessing it throughout the curriculum and modeling it
explicitly. In this session Stephen Brookfield will think critically about critical
thinking and review a number of classroom activities that can model the process for
students.
Date: 3/4/2016 11:30 AM
Video
John M. Burns Conference Afternoon Session: How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles
for Smart Teaching
Date: 9/23/2016
Video
John M. Burns Conference Morning Session: How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles
for Smart Teaching
A tenet of learner-centered teaching is that learning is the litmus test of any pedagogy.
Therefore, one of the most important investments professors can make is to understand
the learning process so that their teaching is intentionally learning-oriented. In
this workshop we will synthesize 50 years of research on learning from the cognitive,
metacognitive, motivational, developmental, and inclusiveness perspectives into seven
integrated principles. This interactive workshop will illustrate the seven principles
with demonstrations, discussions, and other activities that highlight how each of
the principles might enhance participants' teaching.
Date: 9/23/2016
Video
Using Case Studies to Teach Science
Case Studies have been used to teach students in law and business schools for over
a hundred years. These cases are stories with an educational message. Case study instruction
has been used in medicine under the terminology of Problem Based Learning where each
patient is a case to be diagnosed and treated. The value of the case approach in the
classroom is that it puts the subject matter in context rather than presenting the
material as a series of isolated facts and abstract principles. When information is
put into story form it is easier to learn and remember. It has particular appeal for
students put off by science taught in the traditional lecture style. The purpose of
the Case Study Workshop is to teach faculty about the different types of case study
methods of instruction along with their strengths and weaknesses, how to teach with
case studies, and how to write cases and teaching notes so that other individuals
can use them This is a highly interactive workshop where participants experience case
study teaching from the student's viewpoint first, then they will write their own
cases which they can take home and use in their classes. An independent survey of
several hundred faculty who have attended our case study workshops indicates that
virtually all instructors report higher student satisfaction with this method of presentation
compared to traditional lecture method, as well as greater student attendance, and
higher grades. Information about the Presenter: Dr. Herreid holds the State University
of New York's title of Distinguished Teaching Professor. He was trained as a biologist
at Johns Hopkins University and Pennsylvania State University, and he has held positions
at the University of Alaska, Duke University and the University of Nairobi. He has
won every major teaching award at the University at Buffalo, and he established the
university's Teaching Assistant Training Program. He founded the National Center for
Case Study Teaching in Science 20 years ago. The National Science Foundation and The
Pew Charitable Trusts have supported the Center for many years. At their website, there are over 550 peer-reviewed cases published in all science disciplines including
engineering and math. Dr. Herreid writes a regular column on case teaching in the
Journal of College Science Teaching. He has written and edited three books on case
studies by the National Science Teachers Association: "Start with a Story," is considered
a classic in case study teaching. This was followed by "Science Stories: Using Case
Studies to Teach Critical Thinking" and "Science Stories You Can Count On: Case Studies
with Quantitative Reasoning in Biology."
Date: 4/1/2016
Video
12th Annual John M. Burns Conference Morning Session "Connecting the Dots: Meaningful Assessment of Student Learning Across the Curriculum" with Dr. Ashley Finley.
Ashley Finley is the Senior Director of Assessment and Research at AAC&U and national
evaluator for the Bringing Theory to Practice (BTtoP) Project. Finley's national work,
at both the campus and national levels, focuses on developing best practices regarding
program implementation, instrumentation, and mixed methods assessment. Her work combines
assisting campuses with the implementation of assessment protocols and the promotion
of best practices across the institution, including general education, academic departments,
and the co-curriculum. Finley's approach to assessment emphasizes the need to intersect
both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to tell a cohesive story
about student learning at the institutional level. Fundamental to this approach is
the use of rubrics and e-portfolios as integral components of developing meaningful
assessment practices across a range of learning outcomes, including development of
students' civic capacities and learning. Before joining AAC&U, she was an assistant
professor of sociology at Dickinson College, where she taught courses in quantitative
methods, social inequality, and gender in Latin America. Additionally, she has taught
courses that have incorporated engaged learning practices, such as learning communities
and service-learning. Finley received a B.A. degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
and an M.A. and Ph.D, both in sociology, from the University of Iowa.
Learning in the twenty-first century has been contextualized by a number of factors
that have profoundly shaped (and reshaped) higher education. Just as everyday life
has been dramatically altered through increasing levels of interconnectivity and application,
so too has college level learning. To meet the demands of an expanding global world,
colleges and universities increasingly need to consider the role of assessment to
tell a story about student learning across the curriculum. In part, this means connecting
authentic evidence of students' learning and skill development (e.g. teamwork, critical
thinking, and social responsibility) to the engaging practices that help to deepen
their understanding. It also means gathering the right kind of evidence that is meaningful
to faculty (and to students) and that can be thoughtfully used to facilitate evidence-based
improvement of efforts. This interactive discussion will focus on how direct assessment
of student learning using rubrics can promote transparency across institutional learning
outcomes and provide actionable evidence of what students can actually do. We will
also consider the promise of assessment not only as means to identify where students
are at any one point in time with regard to learning, but also as a tool to guide
the improvement of students' learning over time.
Date:- 10/2013
Video
7th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference, Pre-Conference sessions
"Writing to Think: Strategies that Foster Student Learning"
This session is presented by Dr. Anisa Zvonkovic, Rachel Engler, M.A., & Katherine
Gerst, M.S., Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Texas Tech University.
The goal of this workshop is to teach professionals and educators how "Writing to
Think" activities can be implemented in the classroom to promote critical thinking
skills and enhance learning and understanding. "Writing to Think" techniques are often
informal writing tasks designed to encourage student thinking and allow students to
develop, clarify, and experiment with ideas through writing activities. These techniques
help instructors tap into a variety of student thinking processes and can be used
before, during or after class to assess student learning. Instructors have the ability
to monitor the student learning process and assess the thinking skills of students.
Concretely, instructor can check for student understanding, assessing for example
when students might be missing key content or when they need more challenging material.
The workshop will also discuss benefits from both student and instructor perspectives,
a variety of techniques and activities that can be used across many disciplines, and
suggestions for evaluating student writing and giving students feedback (while avoiding
a paperwork nightmare).
Date:- 3/2011
Video
9th Annual Advancing Teaching and Learning Conference: "66.4 ways to engage students (and 19.3 ways not to)" by Mark Phillips.
Higher education is one of the few things in life that people pay good money for and
then work like crazy to avoid receiving." Every teacher has asked the question, "Why
don't my students care more?" Some conclude it's the students' problem; others work
even harder, convinced they can force their students to engage. The reality is probably
somewhere between the two. This session will provide tools to help you help your students
engage. It will also include a generous dose of absolution for those days you just
flat-out failed, as well as just a touch of humor.
Date:- 2/2013
Video
9th Annual Advancing Teaching and Learning Conference: Keynote Session "In Search of Better Courses: Building Harder Courses that Actually Engage Your Students" by Dr. Peter Felten.
Dr. Peter Felten is assistant provost, director of the Center for the Advancement
of Teaching and Learning, and professor of history at Elon University. He has published
widely on engaged learning and the scholarship of teaching and learning, and is co-author
of forthcoming books on faculty peer mentoring and on student-faculty partnerships
in teaching and learning. Peter recently served as president of the POD Network, an
international association for teaching and learning centers in higher education. His
teaching at Elon aims to help students think critically and write clearly about the
connections between the lives of individual people and larger themes in history.
Date:- 2/2013
Video
8th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference Keynote Presentation: "Evidence Based Teaching: Strategies for Motivating and Helping Students Learn" with Dr. Marilla Svinicki.
Presenter: Dr. Marilla Svinicki, University of Texas at Austin
It is a fairly common situation that the practices we use in teaching come not from
the literature on learning and motivation but on what we experienced as students.
There has been a lot of progress on finding good practices through research in educational
psychology for the last 25 years and it seems reasonable to put that research to use.
The focus on this session will be on a small number of evidence-based practices for
supporting student learning and motivation that can be incorporated into classes without
major overhauls of the curriculum. In addition to learning about the research and
the theories on which it is based, you should come away from the session with at least
four good ideas, 2 to help students learn and 2 to make them want to learn as well.
Date:- 2/2012
Video
"The Scientific Value of Different Learning Styles" by Dr. Linda B. Nilson.
This workshop addresses five leading learning styles frameworks: Gardner's Multiple
Intelligences; the Felder-Silverman Index of Learning Styles (ILS); Fleming and Mills'
VARK model; Kolb's Learning Styles Model and Experiential Learning Theory (ELT); and
the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). After this workshop, you will be able to explain
their scientific and statistical status (reliability, validity, and effects on student
learning) and draw on cognitive psychology research to account for how some can seem
so useful while resting on shaky scientific and statistical grounds. In addition,
you will be able to apply this research to design effective assignments and class
activities that allow students to process knowledge and skills through multiple senses
and in multiple modes.
Linda B. Nilson is founding director of the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation
(OTEI) at Clemson University and author of Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based
Resource for College Instructors, now in its third edition (Jossey-Bass, 2010) and
The Graphic Syllabus and the Outcomes Map: Communicating Your Course (Jossey-Bass,
2007). She also co-edited Enhancing Learning with Laptops in the Classroom (Jossey-Bass,
2005) and Volumes 25 and 26 of the major publication of the Professional and Organizational
Development Network in Higher Education, To Improve the Academy: Resources for Faculty,
Instructional, and Organizational Development, as associate editor (Anker, 2007, 2008)
and Volumes 27 and 28 as head editor (Jossey-Bass, 2009, 2010).
Dr. Nilson has also published many articles and book chapters and has presented conference
sessions and faculty workshops at colleges and universities both nationally and internationally
on dozens of topics related to teaching effectiveness, assessment, scholarly productivity
and academic career matters.
Date:- 9/2011
Morning Session
"Engaging Students in their Out-of-Class Learning" by Dr. Linda B. Nilson
The core out-of-class assignment that we give our students is readings. Yet, without
incentives to do so, not many college-level students regularly do the assigned readings.
With some students, the problem is not just reading noncompliance but also low reading
comprehension. By the end of this workshop, you will be able to view reading assignments,
their difficulty, and their relative costs and benefits through the average student's
eyes and to explain reading noncompliance as a complex interplay of students' skills,
values, and experience and our own misconceptions and behavior. Then, working from
this research-based understanding of the problem, you will consider what can and should
be done about it. When you leave, you will be able implement numerous measures for
fostering reading compliance and increasing reading comprehension.
Date:- 9/2011
Afternoon Session
7th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference, Pre-Conference sessions:
"Use PowerPoint for Good & Not for Evil"
This session is presented by Dr. Jose Vasquez, Assistant Director, Teaching and Learning
Center, University of Texas at San Antonio
We have all experienced it before: a slide full of text that is not only difficult
to read but is also boring to look at. Documents and slides are not the same thing.
The best slides allow the instructor to be the center of attention, and the best presentations
encourage students to focus on the story, not to transcribe the PowerPoint text. Spreading
quickly throughout the business community, this new visual approach relies on principles
such as simplicity, naturalness, and restraint. Using humor and interactivity we will
answer the following questions: How do you create great PowerPoint presentations?
What are the new "laws" of visual design? How can you use multi-media for effective
teaching? Where do you find these media, and how to embed them into PowerPoint? How
can you use design intentionally to create effective visuals? How do you create effective
handouts? And much more.
Date:- 3/2011
Video
7th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference, Pre-conference sessions:
"Questioning: A Essential Ingredient to Mastering Good Teaching"
This session is presented by Dr. Audra Morse, P.E., Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Texas Tech University.
Questioning is a basic technique used to involve students in the lesson, assess student
understanding of lesson or course material and bring inattentive students back into
the fold. A poorly worded question may leave the student unsure of the intent of the
question and afraid to answer for fear of looking foolish in front of their peers.
Just as the structure of the question is critical to effectiveness, the response to
a question is just as critical. A poorly answered question may leave the students
unsure of the correct answer as well as unwilling to answer future questions. In the
workshop, the elements of good questions will be presented, examples given, and the
participants will have an opportunity to practice question development. Appropriate
and less than appropriate responses to questions will be presented. The workshop will
be example driven and will provide ample time for questions!
Date:- 3/2011
Video
7th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference with Dr. José Bowen
"Teaching Naked 2: Teaching Change Inside the Classroom"
Teaching Naked 2: Teaching Change Inside the Classroom:
The root of learning is change. Technology offers a new way to present content, but
that rarely sparks the sort of critical thinking or change of mental models we seek.
If technology can give us more classroom time, how can we design experiences that
will maximize change in our students?
Homework
Read the short article first: "Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from Your Classroom
Will Improve Student Learning" National Forum for Teaching and Learning, Vol 16, No.
1, December, 2006), p. 1-5.
Date:- 3/2011
Afternoon Session
7th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference with Dr. José Bowen
"Teaching Naked 1: Embracing Technology Outside of the Classroom"
José Antonio Bowen is Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, Algur H. Meadows Chair
and Professor of Music, at Southern Methodist University. Bowen began his teaching
career at Stanford University in 1982, first as the Director of Jazz Ensembles, and
then for the Humanities Special Programs and the Afro-American Studies Program. In
1994, he became the Founding Director of the Centre for the History and Analysis of
Recorded Music (C.H.A.R.M.) at the University of Southampton, England. He returned
to America in 1999 as the first holder of the endowed Caestecker Chair of Music at
Georgetown University where he created and directed the Department of Performing Arts.
In 2004, Miami University named him Dean of Fine Arts and Professor of Music.
He has written over 100 scholarly articles for many journals including the Journal
of Musicology, The Journal of Musicological Research, Performance Practice Review,
19th-century Music, Notes, Music Theory Spectrum, the Journal of the Royal Musical
Associations, Studi Musicali, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and
in books from Oxford and Princeton university presses. He is the editor of the Cambridge
Companion to Conducting (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and received a National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship.
Abstract
The most important benefits to using technology occur outside of the classroom. Use
technology to free yourself from the need to "cover" the content in the classroom,
and instead use class time for direct student to faculty interaction and discussion.
Teaching Naked 1: Embracing Technology Outside of the Classroom
Technology and accountability are changing higher education, but the greatest value
of a residential university will remain its face-to-face (naked) interaction between
faculty and students. The new tools that technology offers can increase student preparation
and engagement and create more time in class for interaction and make the residential
experience worth the extra money it will always cost to deliver.
Date:- 3/2011
Morning Session
6th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference with Dr.Eric Mazur
Harvard Professor – Author of Peer Instruction
Eric Mazur is the Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University.
An internationally recognized scientist and researcher, he leads a vigorous research
program in optical physics and supervises one of the largest research groups in the
Physics Department at Harvard University.
In addition to his work in optical physics, Dr. Mazur is interested in education,
science policy, outreach, and the public perception of science. He believes that better
science education for all - not just science majors - is vital for continued scientific
progress. To this end, Dr. Mazur devotes part of his research group's effort to education
research and finding verifiable ways to improve science education. In 1990 he began
developing Peer Instruction a method for teaching large lecture classes interactively.
Dr. Mazur's teaching method has developed a large following, both nationally and internationally,
and has been adopted across many science disciplines. Mazur is Chairman of the Instructional
Strategy Advisory Group for Turning Technologies, a company developing interactive
response systems for the education market.
Dr. Mazur is author or co-author of 219 scientific publications and 12 patents. He
has also written on education and is the author of Peer Instruction: A User's Manual
(Prentice Hall, 1997), a book that explains how to teach large lecture classes interactively.
In 2006 he helped produce the award-winning DVD Interactive Teaching.
Morning session - "Turning Lectures into Learning" - Education is more than just transfer
of information, yet transferring information is what is mostly done in the standard
lecture -- instructors present material (even though this material might be readily
available online or in printed form) and students take down as many notes as they
can. There is little opportunity for the students to synthesize all the information
delivered to them. Yet synthesis is perhaps the most important -- and most elusive
-- aspect of education. I will show how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering
information to synthesizing information greatly improves the learning that takes place
in the classroom. Classroom response systems make it easy to implement my approach
-- called Peer Instruction -- which involves students actively engaged in the process
of teaching and learning.
Afternoon session - "Peer Instruction Workshop" - The basic goals of Peer Instruction
are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing
students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method has been assessed
in many studies using standardized, diagnostic tests and shown to be considerably
more effective than the conventional lecture approach to teaching. Peer Instruction
is now used in a wide range of science, math, and other courses at the college and
secondary level. In this workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction,
serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is demonstrated along with student
response using ResponseCards, discuss several models for implementing the technique
in the classroom, and learn about available teaching resources.
Date:- 2/2010
Morning Session
5th Annual Advancing Teaching & Learning Conference: "Teaching and Assessing Critical Thinking: How to Make Critical Thinking a Learning
Outcome" by Dr. Diane Halpern.
Certainly critical thinking is one of the buzzwords in academia and a life-long learning
goal in many of our classes. Please join us as Dr. Diane Halpern, well known for her
research on critical thinking, leads the keynote session for the Advancing Teaching
and Learning Conference. According to Dr. Halpern, "the twin abilities of knowing
how to learn and knowing how to think clearly are the most important intellectual
skills for the educated workforce of the future. The real question is can we teach
critical thinking so that the skills generalize across domains and last long into
the future. Empirical research has shown that with appropriate instruction, college
students and other adults can become better thinkers." In this interactive session,
Dr. Halpern will present a short sampler of applications from cognitive psychology
designed to improve thinking skills.
Date:- 3/2009
Teaching, Learning, & Professional Development Center
-
Address
University Library Building, Room 136, Mail Stop 2044, Lubbock, TX 79409-2004 -
Phone
806.742.0133 -
Email
tlpdc@ttu.edu