Revising your course

When you teach class/lab, keep a log of what happened as you had students complete the learning activities.

How did they react during the introduction and the execution of the activity? Did they learn from the activities? How did you find out that they did? Did you use: 1-min paper, muddiest point, application card, etc? What did you learn from those in-class/lab assessments?

Then write notes on what you would do differently in the future. I usually keep a second file of the course materials in which I type comments for revision or revise the activities right after class, while your thoughts and ideas are still in your mind. This way your revised class is done by the time this semester ends and you don't have to spend your vacation revising your course. All you have to do is look at the course evaluations to see if those offer any new information, but if you have been applying continuous course assessments and your own course evaluations you should have all the useful information you need for revisions by the end of the semester.

The trouble with instructional technology

Instructional technology poses a definite challenge. I think we are finding that out. Some of us have struggled with creating the Google and Blog accounts, as well as receiving the invitation to the Google Doc.

When I first started looking into using these tools that seemed promising in helping the learning process it all seemed so easy. I gues that's what happens when you believe the marketing folks. As usual, the devil is in the details. So we find ourselves not being able to access Blackboard despite multiple tries and attempts to work around the problem. On a side note, there are several complicating factors 1) the university is switching from WebCT to Blackboard and the information was not communicated to the faculty effectively despite multiple attempts to inform the departments (emails are often not forwarded to the person that need them; let that be a lesson); 2) in the classroom MS-Explorer messed up Blackboard so I could not see the class roll at all. It worked in my office and the techies suggested I use Firefox because it has fewer problems. You would expect that the Blackboard folks had done something about these issues by now.

Because faculty were not informed appropriately they are now bombarding the tech folks with questions and problems that they would have addressed had the communication channels worked better. Clearly, all the issues with Blackboard have not been resolved yet. The good news is that folks are working on it. In the mean we'll have to work around it.

The technology glitches are taking up an enormous amount of my time (I have been trying to deal with those for over 2 hours now) that has nothing to do with the substance of the class, and some of the problems are out of my hands. This is very frustrating.

Despite all that, today was an excellent session from my perspective.
I'll reflect later about my organizational activities behind the scenes.

Jumping ahead to day one of the seminar

All the preparation ended and execution began. It actually worked out quite well from my point of view. As with any project your plan and plan to make sure everything is in place but there is always uncertainty. How will it go? Will I be able to execute my plan, or will there be unforeseen events that will derail everything? Often things do pop up you did not plan for, so flexibility is a necessity. In Holland during my undergraduate degree we were required to create two lesson plans whenever we planned an outdoor activity, because the likelyhood of getting rained out was always present. So plan with contingencies in mind.

For example, I have invited four people for your panel on the first day of class. Only Judith and Cecilia were there. I have not heard from the other two people and assume they are ok. Hopefully nothing bad happened. Despite their absence, I think we had a good session. Regrettably, you did not get to hear the thoughts of the other panelists.

I was "psyched" to use an outdated term. I thought you all brought great energy to the seminar and contributed many good ideas. You show commitment to teaching and learning by registering for this experience and I appreciate that.

I will now go home and read your evaluations, process them, and decide what I could do different the next time we do this.

See you tomorrow.
HM

When to do the thinking

Another issue in designing courses is your own energy level and focus. Generally I do my best thinking in the morning in a relatively quiet and undisturbed place like my home office, but I can work in my work office as well as long as I keep the door closed and email turned off.

I have found that if I exercise over the lunch hour my mind is sharper in the afternoon than if I do not take a break. When the biorhythm dips in the afternoon I have to compensate by physical activity. Caffeine only goes so far. I also find that after dinner I usually have some clarity of thought and can focus quite well. I usually stop around 9:30 to relax before going to sleep.

The Hardest and most time consuming part: What are the best learning activities for this course?

Each one of the learning activities is a creative and research project in itself. With sufficient resources it can take me 2-6 hours to develop a learning activity that may take 30 min or less in class.

I have found that I constantly need to remind myself not to get caught up in minute details that are mostly surface features of the learning activity, and focus on the "heart" of the activity; the part that would help students learn. It’s more important to focus on the essence of the learning activity and anticipate what kind of thinking/learning it my induce and spend most time on developing it. That requires keeping the learning outcome right next to you and referring back to it frequently to see whether the essence of the learning activity addresses that learning outcome. Once you have thought that through you can start working on the class management procedures, and the documents and supplies necessary to conduct the activity.

Once you have a draft, have a colleague and a student look at it and see if what you created makes sense to them. You may have it clear in your mind, but when writing it down left some gaps in the instructions/explanations or made incorrect assumptions your peer or the students can identify for you.

Developing the Learning Outcomes for GRAD 6100

Developing appropriate learning outcomes (LO) for GRAD 6100 was important, because of the key role this seminar can play in the future of teaching assistants’ careers at UTEP and beyond. While attention to training graduate students to teach has improved substantially in recent years, many of them, especially PhD students, still receive little formal training in teaching and learning during their graduate studies despite the fact that a large majority of them become university faculty whose duties include teaching. Fortunately, many of the top universities understood the role of TAs and now have well-established TA training programs that are often required, because of the benefits for the TAs and the students they teach.

Formulating the learning outcomes was an important task because these statements would dictate how the class would be structured and what the students would get out of it.
I had taught an elective class for doctoral students in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Health Sciences on course design and thought I would be able to apply that design to this seminar. However, a discussion with colleagues and the responses of a large group of graduate students to a needs survey related to teaching and learning showed that design would not work.

I tapped into my network of colleagues and friends at other universities to learn about the programs they had develop, in particular UT San Antonio, UT Austin, and SUNY Albany, and I visited websites of programs at universities such as Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford. There are many sources of information and excellent websites available to study. That is fortunate, but also a bit of a challenge, because the temptation to just copy a program that has been around for a while is great. Copying is fraught with many dangers, not least of which that you'll create a program may not fit well at UTEP.

The survey of our UTEP graduate students was a key element in developing the learning outcomes. Their expression of what they would like to see in a seminar on teaching was important. This information in combination with various texts on successful teaching such as McKeachie’s classic book, and Nilson’s text, it became clear what this seminar should cover. Given the constraints and context of the seminar, the following learning outcomes were adopted (written in format suggested by Fink, 2003).

"A person can be well prepared to teach in higher education if they can DO the following:
1. Present a thoughtful philosophy of teaching, because it will be your compass that provides coherence and direction for your actions.
2. Develop basic skills such as (in this class you will practice these at various levels):
a. Writing relevant, clear, and measurable learning outcomes.
b. Designing relevant and authentic learning experiences for individuals and groups.
c. Assessing different kinds of student learning and the impact of your courses; use assessment and reflection to continuously improve teaching.
d. Dealing with different personalities and difficult people in a positive and effective manner.
e. Knowing how to find and use helpful resources available at the university.
f. Using information technology tools effectively to support your teaching and research.
g. Identify funding resources to support your work.
h. Identify the assumptions, role, scope, and responsibilities associated with positions in higher education.

3. Using reflection and discussion to create a professional development plan that integrates teaching and research in a coherent package so the activities support each other rather than distract, in order to direct continuous growth as a professional.

4. Work effectively as a leader and team member towards positive change and improvements in your teaching for yourself and others.

One of the key criteria of a LO is that you can assess students' performance on it. I needed to ask the question “Can I identify a clear way to find out whether the students have achieved the LO?” and can we do it justice in the time we have with the resources available? For example, how will I know that each student can “Build a sophisticated philosophy of teaching, research, and service…?” and can they achieve that successfully within the time and resource constraints. It is not fair to set high goals that cannot realistically be met in the course.

Selecting or creating documents for class

This is another activitiy that takes a lot of time.

Doing the research to identify sources and creating different background materials for learning activities is no less demanding than a literature review. It is a time consuming and tedious process, so if there is material out there that others will allow you to use, do so and avoid reinventing the wheel! By all means, adjust the material to fit your needs, but avoid creating it from scratch whenever possible. There is already so much material on the internet you can use that is free.