Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Weekly Teaching Tips, 2015 - 16

I hope you had a fantastic long weekend and celebrated Memorial Day.  I know that I needed a little downtime.  After three straight weeks of  workshops – facilitating, participating, and then co-facilitating with over 50 faculty and staff – my brain is mushy but my soul is sated.  After a week with faculty finishing up their first year at Regis dreaming of what kind of human beings we want to form at Regis University, a week of more deeply reading the Jesuit scholars and re-exploring kinship, justice education, and linking the heart and mind of Jesuit education, and a week with over 20 faculty and staff sharing their own stories of vocation and how they so beautifully arrived at Regis University, I am reconnected with and excited about the education we offer students at Regis.  It is with that excitement that I share this boatload of info this morning.  And being that the Teaching Tips are a monthly occurrence in the summer, I acknowledge this one is extra long and packed full.  Read what you can and want.

 

Research on Syllabi

The syllabus is an important tool in education – one that drives much disagreement.  Is it a contract?  Should outside accreditors dictate what goes in them and how they are structured?  Where else can we tell students about all of the policies?  Should every syllabus look the same?  And finally, what do students actually learn in a class?  There is so much wrapped up in any conversations about syllabi.  If we got together and examined syllabi across the curriculum, what would we notice?  Well, the researchers from the University of West Florida have been working hard on this question.  They did four major syllabi reviews over five years where they trained reviewers and created a bunch of useful rubrics examining everything from required content all the way to syllabus best practices.  But the one curve ball that is really interesting is that they discovered more about teaching than they expected.  For a summary, see this Faculty Focus article.  We have electronic access to the actual article in the journal, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, through the library. 

 

Let’s face it, peer observation (with the requisite training of one another to observe in meaningful ways that focus on student learning and use the literature to support it) is the way to go.  But mobilizing such things en masse across delivery formats is no small feat.  Ask the committee that developed the observation protocol in RHCHP.  But in the absence of a holistic and all inclusive observation protocol, a syllabus review like the one these researchers conducted, may tell us more about teaching and the alignment of assignments to learning outcomes than observations could.  If you would like more info on developing syllabi or rubrics for peer observation and training to use them, please let me know.         

Reference: Stanny, C., Gonzalez, M., and McGowan, B., (2015). Assessing the culture of teaching and learning through a syllabus review. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 40 (7), 898-913

Motivation and Lifelong Learning

Speaking of syllabi, if you were to look at a robust subset of all of our syllabi, you would likely enjoy seeing how points and percentages are doled out across our course offerings.  Will students get credit for responding to their peers in a discussion board?  Will they lose credit if they hand in things late?  Can they be relatively successful by doing assignments or do students have to nail the tests?  I realize that we have a time-limited experience with our students in a class and even in our curriculum and that we need to keep students on task so that we can proceed forward and deeper into their learning.  In discussions around course design with faculty, I often hear how important student motivation  is.  Some faculty work hard to foster that motivation while others assume that students are here precisely because they are motivated.  In brief, research is pointing us to the fact that continuous exposure to extrinsic motivation (like grades and penalties for late work) may actually decrease a students’ intrinsic motivation (see this reviewfor more info and resources).  Ken Bain, author of What the Best College Teachers Do, describes the research like this:  “ … if people see certain conduct as a way to get a particular reward or avoid a punishment, then they will engage in those activities only when they want rewards and when they believe the rewards will be forthcoming from the behavior”   (p. 33).  If you have any program outcomes that are related to lifelong learning (or you actually map to the University outcome of a “Commitment to learning as a lifelong endeavor.”), please consider the research on motivation, especially the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and how students may experience your course.   

Advising – for CETL.

As the University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, CETL’s role is to work with you to enhance student learning.  CETL has been at Regis for four years now and with the ever changing nature and structure of the university, making sure that CETL fits the needs of faculty, departments, programs, colleges, and the university while developing an understanding of what CETL does and can do, becomes increasingly complex.  How can CETL be of most value and of most use the university?  How can CETL work with Deans and colleges as well as individual faculty and balance these where needed?   How can I convince faculty to do research on their teaching, and promote them to publish it?  How can I be more successful at getting faculty to engage in learning communities?  Well, honestly, I need your help.  As we begin a new academic year, I need to recreate and reengage a CETL advisory board.  The advisory board will help make sure that CETL is engaged in the right conversations with the right people so that the research on teaching and learning can be leveraged as much as possible to enhance student learning.  We need people from all colleges and the library that teach in all formats.  This advisory board needs to be advocates for CETL in their respective areas and representative of their colleagues.  If you have been involved with CETL before and want to continue being on the advisory board, or are interested in helping as part of your own kindness and good will, please take a look at the attached draft for the advisory board and contact me with any questions.  As we begin in the fall, I will again offer this invitation with the hopes of convening the CETL Advisory Board in the fall semester.

Have a great June.  Please know that CETL is always here and open and available to you as a resource.

Hopefully no one has a cold yet (or the weekend of graduation didn’t contribute more to the one you had!).  Graduation, despite me not really wanting to sit in that weather, had a different feel to it.  It felt like the cold rain and snow kept the speakers short and the focus on the students.  Students were having fun and enjoying themselves.  And that is how it should be.  For me, I got to see students I had as first semester freshman when I arrived at Regis cross the stage with their diplomas in hand.  I am so happy for them and hope that I contributed to their growth and development and transformation.

For us faculty, unfortunately, time marches on.  Some of us are still grading.  Some have begun to focus on other things – the new class that starts today, research, etc.  Personally, I know I need a break at the end of teaching a course to come down a bit.  And often, I can easily miss the best opportunity to better contribute to student transformation.  The time when a course is completed is the absolute best time to consider what to change.  That’s right, now is the best time to figure out what went as well as expected and what can be improved.  Consider, as examples, these questions:

• Does the syllabus need tweaking? 
• Is there an assignment that can be built upon because it was so well received and led the students where you thought?  Are there others that you have always done but seem unnecessary for the type of student learning you are trying to promote? 
• Is the content of your course too heavy or light such that the other domains of learning (skills and attitudes) can’t be fully developed?

I know that the feeling of being over and needing some separation can feel a bit needed, especially now.  But I also know that waiting until you begin planning to teach the course again will be full of great intentions but be more likely to result in a similar course to the one you just taught.  You don’t need to make the changes now but consider sending yourself an email with what you might change.  As you receive course feedback, what surprises you?  What encourages you?    Consider talking it out with your colleagues or perhaps with your friendly teaching and learning center person …

Teaching Techniques

In my line of work in a teaching and learning center, there is a little tension between what faculty want and what I keep promoting.  In my experience doing this for the nearly the last 20 years, faculty most often want a bigger tool box of techniques to teach from. So, I offer to you a resource that outlines 101 teaching techniques on everything from different lecture styles to peer teaching techniques to reading and writing techniques to graphic organizers and reflection activities.  So, that tension I mentioned.  Techniques in teaching can bring wows from students and make a class feel more lively.  However, just like watching a really great teacher, the thinking behind what is done in a class is likely more valuable than trying to pick a technique and plug it into your teaching.  This resource not only outlines and describes these teaching techniques, it shares the research on how effective these techniques are and when to use them. The resource is the book pictured below and it is available in CETL if you would like to come and borrow.  This book and other technique books will be on the conference table in CETL (Loyola 12) during the month of May.  Come by and borrow a book or set a time to chat and brainstorm new and effective techniques for your course.  I am in and out of my office but will leave the door unlocked if you would like to come and peruse.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I did.  But my oldest daughter’s volleyball team did not.  They were at a tournament in Colorado Springs yesterday and after a couple weeks of no practice due to school spring breaks and events, they finished dead last of the eight teams after having moved up four divisions this season.  But a wonderful side effect was that, because we were in the Springs, we got to visit my old church.  I won’t rehash the sermon here because I am no theologian but the discussion over the difference in Greek words for love – Philia and Agape – are wonderful teaching-related thoughts as we approach the end of semesters and sessions.  You see, these two words, which both translate into English as ‘love,’ mean entirely different things.  Philia is more of a friendship type of love.  Agape is more of a self-less, do anything for you kind of love.  Wouldn’t it be great if our students held the agape type of love for school and our classes?  Some certainly do.  But the majority of our students likely lean way more toward the philia type of love (or even less).  And as the end of the semester and sessions comes, even this love is tested.  So how can you help students rekindle and find their love for learning?  I want to offer that perhaps the key is in one of the underlying messages behind the sermon I heard yesterday – that of pride and humility.

Let me take what may seem like a dramatic turn.  In the research on student studying, there is a lot of mention of time and how to spend your time effectively.  There is also a lot of mention of how to study – alone or in groups, right before a test or spread out, etc.  But often, it is hard to determine what to study.  But the research on human behavior helps us understand that students most often spend more time reviewing the things that they already know and less time devoted to learning the things they may be struggling with.  Here is where pride and humility come in.  In Krista Tippett’s radio show, On Being, she interviewed the poet and Virginia Tech faculty member Nikki Giovanni.  Not only was Nikki Giovanni a revolutionary poet of the black arts movement (and continues to be), she was a faculty member at Virginia Tech when the 2007 campus shootings happened.  Giovanni shares her own explorations in this interview entitled Soul Food, Sex, and Space.  Near the middle of the interview (at 21:23), Giovanni shares the poem she read at convocation.  It is in that poem between the chant of ‘we are Virginia tech’ that she wrote, “we are better than we think and not quite what we want to be.”  As Giovanni was asking the Virginia Tech community to be proud of what they were, so too must we help our students have pride in what they have come to know.  And, as Giovanni portends that there is more work to do, she asks us to humbly consider what is left and what is next so that we forge an even better future.  In studying, helping students identify what they have yet to grasp as fully as they may so that they can invest time there, or having some intellectual and school-based humility, might be the best teaching tip of all.

Philia and pride seem to go together for me and so too does agape and humility.  As we discussed on the hour ride home, my daughter needed to know that, despite losing all four matches yesterday, her volleyball team (and her) were good players.  They were much better than they were willing to acknowledge based on yesterday.  If they practiced the philia type of love, it would be easier to just forget about it and return to normal life without realizing the impact that yesterday can have on the future.  A better way may be for them to look pride-fully at the things they did well.  Turn the tide and ask them to have agape-type of love.  Then they are required to acknowledge what they can do better and work on it (humility).  In student studying, I think it is safe to say that we would prefer this version – for students to look for ways to improve their learning.

So, let’s be honest.  I know that these types of teaching tips and this email in general is not read by many is that is ok.  In fact, it is more than OK.  (By the way, I am very intentionally sharing a moment of vulnerability about myself and my family in an effort to model a way of proceeding with your students that is meant to build trust, relationship, and encourage students to bring themselves to the learning environment.)  But, even if not read, these tips are archived for when you do find them useful.  In particular, the very first CETL Teaching Tip email from September 2012 contained five short video guides for students on effective study strategies. You can find it where all of the teaching tips are archived under tabs by year or specifically all the way at the bottom of this page.

I don’t know about you but I am tired this morning!  This was the first weekend that we attempted to do some yardwork.  We trimmed some trees and put some things back from their storm displacements.  We started the general cleaning to get ready for some outdoor time as the weather gets better.  In reality, the yard was there and even if we didn’t think about it, it would be functional come summer.  Perhaps this is like some of the tests we use in our courses.  It is hard work to take them apart and clean them up and make them better.  And we can probably get along just fine having them remain the same.

But, if and when you are ready for the test-version of spring cleaning, here are some of the resources available to use to consider deconstructing and reconstructing effective tests that measure what you want to measure in terms of student learning:

http://www.washington.edu/teaching/constructing-tests/

https://portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main/daa_home/ogs_home/ogs_imagesfiles/Test%20Construction%20Manual_Corpuz.pdf

https://testing.wisc.edu/Handbook%20on%20Test%20Construction.pdf

http://citl.indiana.edu/resources_files/teaching-resources1/teaching-handbook-items/test-construction.php

http://www.purdue.edu/cie/teachingtips/construction_grading/

https://www.cte.cornell.edu/documents/Test%20Construction%20Manual.pdf

There are many resources on this topic and I can share others if desired.  As a matter of convenience, let me summarize some of the main points:

1. Figure out your comfort and the line between a test that measures the desired student learning and a test that is easy to grade.  These can both be accomplished with the same test but the test may not look like you think!
2. Figure out what you actually want to test (hint: look at your course outcomes and objectives.  If you want high level outcomes, some tests are better tools for that than others.)  Remember, a collection of test questions that measure knowledge objectives will never equal an analysis outcome.
3. Try out new test questions with students and let them discuss how they answer so that you can get a feel for the kind of thinking that goes into test taking for your students.

CETL can help with test construction if you have any questions about designing effective tests.

Sometimes, tests just are not the right way to see students’ understanding and thinking.  As faculty have shared with me, here are some other ways students are showing their learning and thinking around campus this spring:

• Regis, Rent, And Social Engagement Lecture Series (joint presentation by Trinity United Methodist Church and the Intervals of Joy Class) – Sundays from April 3 – 24, 9:30 – 10:15, Choir rehearsal Room at Trinity United Methodist Church)
• Cardboard Home and Garden Show (sponsored by the Global and Environmental Awareness Integrative Theme Area, Regis College) – Tuesday April 5, 12-3:30 on the quad
• Science Sunday (public science demonstrations by Regis students) – Sunday April 10, 1:00 – 3:00 Pomponio Science Center
• 2016 Research Method Independent Projects Poster Session – Wednesday April 20, 4:00 – 6:00 lower level Science Building
• Neuroscience Internship Presentations – Thursday April 21, 4:30 – 6:00 Science 114

If you would like to add your course or department/programs events to this list for the spring, I am collecting this information to share with the university community.  Send me details so I can add you to the list.

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed your Easter if you celebrate.  My family and I were away last week visiting my mother-in-law in Tucson, AZ and helping her with some things around her house. It was beautiful weather in Arizona, full of sunshine but not yet the heat.  We took advantage of the weather by doing a little bit of hiking and learning about the terrain and the wildlife in one of their many canyons.  And we visited the San Xavier del Bac Mission in southern Arizona.  This mission, originally built in the late 1700’s, was in the midst of being restored.  We took the tour with a wonderful docent and learned that the roots of the mission stem from a Jesuit missionary, Fr. Eusebio Kino, who established the community in the late 1600’s.  I was (and am) proud to part of the Jesuit world that has done so much over the centuries.
 
Why would I bring this up in the Teaching Tip, you ask?  Well, I got to be the receiver in these settings.  I listened to the tours and the explanations.  Easter, with the resurrection of Jesus, is something that many experience and continue to remember as well.  My family and I celebrate Easter.  Rather, we receive that celebration and make it ours.  It was a miracle that no one expected and millions are brought together around.  Another miracle (although much, much smaller) is that my alma mater, Syracuse University, made the final four yesterday.  And while the crowd celebrating is nowhere near millions, many fans are enjoying that celebration and making it our own.  But we did nothing.  We watched and experienced emotional highs and lows and ended on a major and unexpected high.  Again I had an experience – one that was done to me.
 
Let me contrast those two receiving experiences with a different one.  On Saturday, I drove our family from Arizona back to Denver.  And we hit bad weather starting about 80 miles south of the New Mexico/Colorado border and continuing just north of Pueblo, CO. Once in the safety of the dry roads, I could say that I had an experience of driving in the bad weather.  But the experience was not ‘done to me.’  It was white knuckle driving on ice in the two tire tracks, a closed and very slippery Raton Pass, and then black ice for miles.  I had to decide what the risks of passing someone were.  I had to moderate speed and trajectory constantly for the 3 or so hours that we were in that area.  So, I didn’t have an experience, I experienced something.  In this experience, I got constant feedback and had to consistently adjust.  And I had failures.  When I tried to pass a painfully slow vehicle in the less traveled left hand lane, sometimes that lane just ended and I had to do something different. 
 
You can’t compare watching the Syracuse game with the driving on I-25 in bad weather.  The experience of driving may be more like playing in the game.  Showing some grit, some learning as you go, learning what works and what doesn’t.  And perhaps showing some resilience.  Grit and resilience are desirable traits for our students (see research like this research paper or this interview with the author).  As we enter the final month of the semester or the final half of some courses, here is the challenge for you.   Do your students have an experience in your class or experience it?  Can they watch or do they have to play?  What happens if you took just one class and you gave them the experience of academic snow and black ice?  Gave them no rules and asked them to navigate the material?  Ken Bain, the author of What the Best College Teachers Do, describes the 63 faculty discussed in his book as preparing opportunities for students to “try, fail, receive feedback and try again.”  As we approach the end of terms, there may be no better time to create opportunities for students to fail than now.  That way, you can see who can drive, how well they can drive, and who ends up in the median.  And you can create experiences so that students are ultimately successful before the end of the course.  This allows you as the teacher some feedback as to the balance of challenge and support that students need.
If you would like to brainstorm potential learning experiences for your course, CETL is always a ready and willing partner. 
Highlighting Student Learning Spring 2016
CETL collects and broadcasts opportunities to see student learning happening all across the university (see here for an example of last year’s list).  For example, the Regis College Chemistry Capstone students gave TED talks on March 18th in Sci 212 from 5-8 pm.  The Psych and Neuro department students present their year-long research posters from the Research Methods Independent Projects on April 20th from 4:00 – 6:00 in the lower level of the Science building.  If you would like to share with the university community what closure-type of activities your classes are doing and invite the community to see, please send me details of what class (number and title), what dates, times, and locations, and what type of activity (e.g., presentations, talks, etc.).  I will collect and advertise so that we celebrate what our students are learning, what they are doing, and cheer on their learning journeys.
 
PS Please share with your affiliates and excuse the poetic license comparing a foundational religious holiday with watching a basketball game.

I sincerely hope you had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the weather and/or the company of others.  I know I did.  I got to spend Saturday morning with advanced graduate students striving to become faculty members like you and the afternoon pretending to be a mechanic and unsuccessfully trying to pull the motor out of my truck.  In the evening, I consoled a neighbor over the loss of a family pet.  And I got to spend yesterday skiing and getting sunburned with my family and my brother and sister-in-law and nephew.  For me it was a weekend of ups and downs, of much joy and some frustration.  But it was a wonderful journey despite losing an hour of sleep.

I bring this up because your course is a journey for your students and, like my weekend, often full of ups and downs, of joy and of frustration and even a lack of sleep!  In the Laura Weaver and Mark Wilding book, The 5 Dimensions of Engaged Teaching: A Practical Guide for Educators*, the authors describe a developmental approach of an engaged teacher as guiding a learning journey in a class with three stages:

Stage One: Cultivating a Caring Community

Stage Two: Strengthening Community and Connection

Stage Three: Creating Positive Closure and Anchoring the Learning

As you enter the second half of the semester, you and your students are somewhere along this learning journey.  Stage one is about developing trust between you and your students and also between the students and other students.  In this way, the diversity of your students is respected and welcomed to inform learning.  This also helps create a climate of focus and even academic rigor.  In stage two, the community created in stage one leads to a willingness of the students to take more creative and intellectual risks.  This is the stage where students become more empowered and start to connect their learning in your class to other parts of their lives (for other suggestions related to this stage, see this teaching tip in The Chronicle).  Honestly, accomplishing these two stages of the learning journey might be enough if they were to continue on with the same classmates.  But, as students most often go onto other courses with different peers, I want to prompt your thinking about what stage three might look like in your classes.

The best prompting comes from considering how your students may be approaching the end of your course.  I know when I was a student, the stress of trying to get everything done and feeling overwhelmed by what I had to do and where I had to be was the norm.  What was often missing was the sense that a final project or even a final exam was a way to synthesize my learning and actually bring closure to what I was doing. So how do your students experience the end of your class?   Weaver and Wilding state, “positive and intentional closure can have a significant impact on students’ learning and experience of the class and community.” (p. 125)    Stage three of the learning journey is about creating positive and intentional closure within your course and also reflecting on, reviewing, self-assessing, sharing, and celebrating student learning.  (For advice on how to create this feeling in each class session,  this article has some easy suggestions).

There are wonderful examples of this happening across campus.  Some of you may attend of annual Celebration of Student Learning in the fall semester where over 300 students showcase their learning.  While we don’t host a similar event in the spring, we do collect and share a list of these stage three-like events happening all across the university (see here for an example of last year’s list).  For example, the Regis College Chemistry Capstone students are giving TED talks on March 18^th in Sci 212 from 5-8 pm.  These 18 minute talks on topics from dog psychology to cosmetic chemistry for children with skin problems allow students to synthesize their learning and connect that learning to the worlds around them.  What a great example of a closure activity that prompts the students to relate their own interests to their learning! 

If you would like to share with the university community what closure-type of activities your classes are doing and invite the community to see, please send me details of what class (number and title), what dates, times, and locations, and what type of activity (e.g., presentations, talks, etc.).  I will collect and advertise so that we celebrate what our students are learning, what they are doing, and cheer on their learning journeys.    

*this book is being read in a Faculty Learning Community led by Dr. Liz Grassi this semester on engaged teaching and contemplative practice

PS please share this info with your affiliate faculty

Happy Monday to you all!  I know Mondays are tough for many of us but having spent the weekend with a collection of my Regis University colleagues in Milwaukee at the Heartland Delta Conversations conference hosted by Marquette University, I find myself reinvigorated and inspired.  We were treated to a weekend where we connected with folks carrying out the Jesuit mission across the planet.  It was amazing to see and hear from Jesuits in Nicaragua and find out about a worldwide resource for teaching about climate change from the scientific, social justice, and spirituality lenses and to hear about a resource just beginning that is collecting case studies for students to engage ethical and value-based decisions.  And I had wonderfully deep and meaningful conversations with my colleagues.  For this week’s teaching tip, I share with you two video resources.  These are not meant to help you develop or refine and of your teaching but rather, to offer you a space for reflection on this cloudy and wonderful Monday morning.

First, I want to say that I am thankful to work with you all and for all the wonderful work you do for our university, with our students, and for the world around us.  I am grateful to be your colleague.  This video began our time at Marquette this weekend and it is a great five or so minute clip to remind ourselves how important gratitude is and a simple reminder on where to find it.  Enjoy.  

Next, if you are not aware, the presidents of the worldwide network of Jesuit institutions gathered in Melbourne, Australia last year to discuss major topics in the forefront for worldwide Jesuit education.  We learned a little about those meetings and what was discussed and actually heard directly from some folks that presented at the conference.  And we got to see a Loyola Chicago production serving to reconnect us to our Jesuit roots and intentions.   This webpage has that production in full (at the top of the page labeled FULL VERSION) or in chapters.  Just like in class, there is never a bad time to revisit and remind ourselves and our students about the foundations of what we are trying to do here at Regis University.

That video makes me full of pride that I get to come to work, Monday or not, and work in a tradition like the Jesuit tradition.  An opportunity for reflection.  Gratitude and pride.  Not a bad way to start the week.

Happy Tuesday!  I hope that your fences are still intact and that nothing of deep and meaningful importance blew away in the last couple days.  We awoke in our neighborhood to a couple neighbors’ fences downed by the winds.  Talk about great feedback.  The wind tells our neighbors exactly whether their fences are strong enough.  If only teaching and learning could have such great feedback in the midst of our courses ….

Excuse that segue but being able to get feedback from students is always a good thing – both for our teaching but also for their learning.  But sometimes the methods are not all that useful and timely.  If we wait until the end of the course, students may or may not give useful feedback and then it is too late for them to benefit from any changes you may consider.  Other methods can happen within a class.  Your friendly teaching and learning center (hint) can come and run different kinds of focus groups in your class or even just come and sit and observe class and then meet with you to discuss those results and observations.  And, yet, if you aren’t quite ready for something like that, CETL has this book – this wonderful book – that contains 50 ways to assess student learning and your teaching in class in step-by-step directions.  Classroom Assessment Techniques by Tom Angelo and Patricia Cross has been around forever (at least since 1988)!  And it is a handbook that tells tyou how easy or hard and how much time it takes to use each technique.  This text is easy to use and available to peruse or borrow in CETL.   For more information and a summary of the kinds of assessment techniques in this resource, see this resource.  For a larger list of techniques that include quick and dirty descriptions of different kinds of interactive teaching techniques, check this one out.   

For this week’s teaching tip – I want to highlight Classroom Assessment Quality Circles.  Don’t let the title fool you.  This technique works for both on-ground and online classes (and everything between).  Here is what you get from this assessment technique: 1) regular feedback to the to the instructor on students’ assessments of class sessions and materials and 2) offers students an opportunity to be actively involved in their learning.  In a nutshell, this technique gathers groups of students to provide ongoing, structured assessment on course materials and assignments.  So, students volunteer and, with your direction, meet regularly with the instructor to offer their experiences and observations.  A patient and flexible instructor benefits greatly from this type of feedback.  Students whose voices might get lost in class or you might not be quite sure if they are connecting may benefit from this type of interaction as well.

If you would like to discuss how to take advantage of this kind of assessment technique or an others, please let me know, come to Loyola 12, or send a quick email and I will come running to your office.

Have a great and sunny day!

As the male parent of two teenage girls, my life is full of uncomfortable and often difficult conversations.  When these conversations arrive, I often have three obvious choices.  I could either shy away from them (the conversations and my children) or I could leave the conversations to their mom and lose an increasing amount of trust and understanding.  Or I can continue to attempt to engage in ways that are prone to mistakes and a gender-laden lack of understanding on my part.  In most cases, I choose the latter.  And it isn’t always pretty.  In our teaching, we often have a similar choice with our students.  We can keep our distance on tough issues and conversations, we can defer to colleagues that really know and understand, or we can engage in those difficult conversations.  There are many resources for faculty that are helpful in understanding these decisions and even helpful in avoiding mistakes.  Two great examples are: https://www.qc.cuny.edu/Academics/Centers/Democratic/Documents/Handbook%20for%20Facilitating%20Difficult%20Conversations2.pdf and https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/difficult-dialogues/.

Just like parenting cannot be fully realized from reading about  parenting, learning how to have difficult conversations from reading about it can only go so far.  So what are the next steps?  Talk to your colleagues!  This Wednesday, February 10^th from 12:15-1:30, in the faculty lounge, will be the semester’s first CETL Café Conversation: Improving our ability to engage in difficult conversations.  Thanks to Dr. Brian Drwecki in Psych and Neuroscience in Regis College, we have also invited some students to share their experiences of when conversations go well and when, well, you know.

The CETL Café Conversations are intended as a sharing session where faculty (and staff are welcome) come and share what they are doing and how it is working and process through some of the questions that we face in our teaching roles.  At each session, CETL shares a one page handout of resources related to that day’s topic. Please consider bringing your own lunch (or getting it at the Cafeteria) and joining me in the Faculty Lounge to commune and share our experiences and discuss how we can improve our abilities to engage in difficult conversations.  I hope you can join us on Wednesday February 10^th from 12:15-1:30!  I will be there at noon if you have a class and still want to chat.  Hope to see you there!

Call for Proposals: 2016-17 Teaching and Learning with Technology Micro-grants (DEADLINE FEBRUARY 12TH)

Have an idea for the use of technology to enhance student learning? Then consider applying for a Teaching and Learning with Technology Micro-grant (TLTM). The TLTM is a program sponsored by Instructional Design & Technology for funding small scale faculty initiatives that promote the use of learning technologies to enhance teaching and learning. The program awards up to $1,000 for individual proposals and up to $1,500 for group proposals. Apply online, or head over to the TLTM web page for more information, including testimonials from previous TLTM award winners. Deadline for applications is February 12th.

Happy Tuesday!  I hope you enjoyed your weekend.  My family and I did.  We skied on Saturday in beautiful weather with what seemed like the rest of the state.  But we did it with family and enjoyed our weekend together including that great football game.  We watched up in the mountains with a brother and sister-in-law that were rooting for the Patriots and it served as great conversation with our kids as we came out of the mountains after the game.  Sports are funny things.  The game provided an opportunity to watch my own kids and my nieces cheer very loudly for a sports team because their parents do without really knowing why.  My kids certainly do it.  I am a native New Yorker and I root for the Yankees.  I went to Syracuse and I cheer on their teams.  And so do my kids even though they don’t fully understand the sport or can name any players.  They have clothing that supports both of these teams.  But those are my own thoughts and I know why.  My kids don’t really understand why they feel that way – they just do.  We are all a product of our environments. 

And this is one reason why having difficult conversations – about politics, religion, race, justice, even global warming – can be very difficult.  How do we balance the respect for someone’s background even if we don’t agree with it or it challenges an individual and their beliefs so deeply that it leads them to an unknowing defensiveness – even one that they may not know why they are defending it or they feel like something is being taken away?  Privilege and race are examples of these conversations that need to take place yet we are not all ready to have these conversations.  I am tenuously sharing this link written by Dr. George Yancy, a professor at Emory University with you: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/dear-white-america/?_r=0.  This piece in the New York Times can be a difficult read.  It can be difficult because it feels personal.  It feels personal for me as a man and as a white person.  Friends of mine (good friends) shared it with me and I had to pay very close attention to what the author was writing and saying at times when I wanted to be defensive.  Keep those feelings in mind if you read and note when they come up and consider why.   I share this as we at Regis are struggling with some of these very issues.  And, how do we have these conversations with each other and especially with our students?  And, I share it as a starter to the semester’s first CETL Café Conversation – how to start and engage in difficult conversations in class.  The invitation is attached if you would like to add it directly to your calendars.

The CETL Café Conversations are intended as a sharing session where faculty (and staff are welcome) come and share what they are doing and how it is working and process through some of the questions that we face in our teaching roles.  At each session, CETL shares a one page handout of resources related to that day’s topic. Please consider bringing your own lunch (or getting it at the Cafeteria) and joining me in the Faculty Lounge to commune and share our experiences and discuss how we can improve our abilities to engage in difficult conversations.  I hope you can join us on Wednesday February 10^th from 12:15-1:30!

If you have ideas for future CETL Café Conversations, please let me know so I can plan out the rest of the semester.  If you are a faculty member that is on or near campus and would like to meet in the evenings, please let me know.  If there is enough interest, we can duplicate these in the evening so that many of our affiliate faculty can also participate.

Teaching and Learning with Technology Microgrant (TLTM)

How would you like resources to incorporate new technology that leads to enhanced student learning?  That means money to get resources for your classes.  Let’s face it.  There are not currently many ways available for faculty to get money to try new things out in their courses and support for innovation.  But, this is one!   The TLTM is a fund set aside to support the innovative use of learning technology in Regis University courses.  Up to $20,000 is available this year.  For more information on these grants, seehttp://idt.regis.edu/website/resources/tltm_process.html.  The link includes previous award winners and how they have incorporated technology into their courses to the benefits of their students.  The Call for Proposals (CFP) opens today.

The 6^th Annual Learning Technology Fair

On March 10^th from 10-2 in the Mountain View Room, you have an opportunity to mingle with, share, and learn from your colleagues!  This event is an open forum for faculty to demonstrate the many wonderful things being done with learning technologies in Regis courses.  And, this is a wonderful opportunity to talk to your peers about how these technologies work and what the ‘real’ learning curves are for you and your students.  Regis University staff will also be sharing some of the available technology to you as faculty members. 

Consider marking your calendar and attending.  Or better yet, CONSIDER SHARING WHAT LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES YOU ARE USING AND PRESENTING AT THE LT FAIR!  Look for emails about this opportunity  to present at this year’s Learning Technology Fair or go here for more info: http://idt.regis.edu/website/resources/resources_lt_fair.html.

Have a great day and be well

In some ways, I have become my parents.  One way is that I look forward to watching the local evening news like they did every night.  I enjoy learning more about my community and I need the weather report to think about tomorrow.  However, it seems that no matter how much I hear the weather report (and they repeat it many times!) on the news, when I wake in the morning, the most valuable thing is to feel the weather when I let the dog out and watch the sky.  For it is this experience that helps me pay more direct attention and actually has more to do with how I will approach the day.  And teaching is likely not much different than that kind of experience in that students have the forecast (the syllabus) but yet we want their keen attention in the moment.  In the Chronicle of Higher Education, a colleague of mine is writing a four-part series for faculty that serve as good reminders both for us and for our students on how to get that direct attention to the moments just before and right at the start of our classes.  These are even titled “Small Changes in Teaching” and might be worthwhile exploring in your own practice.  I have included the links here of the first two parts, along with the key phrase and a question to consider.

Link:  http://chronicle.com/article/Small-Changes-in-Teaching-The/234178  Key Phrase: “Students cited the relationships they formed as the most important and memorable aspect of college. Those relationships began with fellow students, but also included connections with faculty and staff members. The number and intensity of those relationships not only predicted students’ general satisfaction with college, but had the power to motivate them to deeper, more committed learning in their courses.”  Question: How do you intentionally drive the creation on relationships between you and your students and between students?

Link: http://chronicle.com/article/Small-Changes-in-Teaching-The/234869?cid=trend_au&elq=7da5bb4f687b47ddbdc4a13e9fd9751d&elqCampaignId=2243&elqaid=7559&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ea42d7c9ba654fcbb1a22e5ee46abba6  Key Phrase: “The opening five minutes offer us a rich opportunity to capture the attention of students and prepare them for learning.”  Question: What techniques work best for you to set the stage for your learners?

Hear from the Experts: CETL began at Regis University four years ago this coming summer.  And because, we didn’t officially have one before that, CETL was able to convince (and I use that loosely) the Provost that the way to enhancing student learning was to build community among the faculty and trust so that they would share what they are doing so that we could explore how to improve it (versus a center that would merely offer workshop after workshop).  I firmly believe that is still the key and building community is still at the roots of everything CETL does.  But it has been a bit of an uphill climb so far – especially trying to build teaching community across the different colleges.  And teaching can be really personal and something we don’t want others to have access to.  If your teaching is personal and you are not quite ready to share, this short piece (http://chronicle.com/article/Improving-My-Teaching-via/232925) discusses many resources that faculty members record, write about, etc.  Of special interest might be the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast that has a little over 80 episodes where teachers and authors discuss the “art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning” on topics as wide ranging as discussing vocation , using cognitive psych, grading and using Pixar to teach.

Remember that your CETL is a resource for you to explore changes – both small and big- that can lead to enhanced student learning.  Additionally, CETL dedicates funding the development of community around teaching and learning.  Please feel free to call or email if you have any questions or CETL can serve you and your students in any way.

Have a great day and be well

Happy Monday and what a gorgeous one it is!  As we approach the end of our academic semesters, there is really no need to  (nor is it prudent) send you an email that has questions to ponder or new teaching and learning-related research to share.  What you need is something quick, easy, and digestible.

And so, I offer you this tool: The Teaching Professor Teaching Tip App.  This is a daily app that you can have a ‘teaching tip’ delivered to you each day.  Now, I am not one to request that I receive more stuff but here is the upside.  You get a one-line tip from a faculty member across the country as the daily tip.  And each one comes with a link to go to the full tip.  So, you can decide if you want to go and see the information or not.

Go here to download the app: http://www.magnapubs.com/teaching-tips-app/?st=FFemail&s=FF151202

Have a wonderful day and the rest of the week.  Thank you for all you do here at Regis and with our students!

Happy sunny Monday!  I sincerely hope you are all well.  In this week, as we give thanks for our world and those around us – both near and far, both familiar and less so – and we get to look within and reflect upon what and who we are, it is surely time to celebrate!  And, that celebration gets to continue straight through next week when we have the 4^th Annual Regis University Celebration of Student Learning!  This event, designed as a gallery-like experience for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members, is meant to showcase the different ways our students learn across our curricula.  I have attached the final schedule so that you can see and hopefully drop by to see your colleagues and their students’ work.  An invite and the schedule can also be found at:  http://libguides.regis.edu/c.php?g=53870&p=2831173.   

In case you need a little music to get in the Celebration mode, try these (and forgive my musical tastes):

Kool & the Gang- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeTgx_pj6m8

Rare Earth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8697G9RAi-Y

Three Dog Night - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXI6CdTVJ-0

Whitney Houston, Jordin Sparks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgsIGEm3f7w

Mika - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIBXTHB0QDw

Hope to see you there!  Have a very happy thanksgiving.

P.S.: In case you really, really wanted a teaching tip, check out: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/philosophy-of-teaching/a-new-twist-on-end-of-semester-evaluations/ and consider asking students about your teaching persona.

What a day!  70 degrees in Denver, CO in November?  Wow!  And, in honor of such a great day, here is a short teaching tip.

You may hear me say that good teaching is part science and part art.  It should never be plug and play at our level.  The science comes from decades of research on effective pedagogies and philosophy.  Great teachers know that the art is in the connection between you and your students and knowing when the science has to be employed.  Thanks to Marty Munoz in Counseling for sharing this article.  Enjoy.  http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/08/the_best_teachers_and_professors_resemble_parental_figures_they_provide.html

What are you doing December 1^st?

December 1^st 2015 is the 4^th annual Celebration of student learning from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm in the Mountain View Room and surrounding classrooms.  Here are just a smattering of highlights that you can see there:

• HES students presenting their electronic portfolios
• Research on counseling
• Our new collaboration with Creighton  and our Occupational Therapy program
• The Regis University debate team will debate a topic straight out of the Pope’s encyclical
• Freshman essay winners will give live readings
• Senior chemistry students will present their research
• 5 courses from the biology department (and all of their students) will present their work in a GIANT poster session!
• Regis College Integrative Core students will present videos they have made for class
• And, you can sit in on public/open classes like:
  • Chemistry
  • Interfaith Dialogue
  • Music
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

It’s not too late to sign up your classes and your students!  Please contact me for more info and let me know if I can answer any questions!

I have to admit that I am looking forward to the more fall-like weather this week.  As I watch the leaves fall from the tree behind the library out of my office window, the season I enjoy most, Fall, is poising itself to come and go quickly.  As I was brainstorming this week’s teaching tip this weekend, I was entertaining a request to focus on reflection and yet trying to have the tip be thought provoking versus merely a resource.  And then, the sermon from yesterday that has been rattling around in my head accompanied by a NY Times editorial and a quick conversation this morning helped me to (kind of) put it all together.  So, bear with me.

As my family and I sat in a different church for the first time yesterday, we were looking for clues as to what kind of culture was there.  We were watching people and listening to the song selections (and admittedly taking stock of how comfortable the pews were).  And, as the time for the day’s sermon came along, we focused closely on the message and how it was delivered.  It was a good one yesterday.  One that came home with me.  The message was about the difference between notoriety and glory.  See, this is a complex kind of thing that is ultra-present in our teaching lives and our students’ minds.  Let me share how it relates.  I want to focus on the time dimension.  Simply put, notoriety has a short time frame while glory is lasting.  Think of the difference between the Kardashians and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I apologize for even putting them in the same sentence but I needed something so obvious to make the point.

Let me share some other examples from our world in higher ed.

• Student grades (notoriety):  Focusing on the students’ experience, their grades are the equivalent of notoriety – they feel good and they fizzle quickly.  At our ages, we can see in hindsight that it wasn’t really our grades that mattered.  What mattered was our learning (the glory).
• Connecting the dots between seemingly disparate ideas and concepts (glory).
• Taking a required course to get it out of the way (notoriety).
• The ability to apply our learning to novel situations (glory).

So, how do we get our students to value the ‘glory’ of learning over the shorter term ‘notoriety’ of the ‘stuff’ in higher education?   Take a look at this New York Times editorial from yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/lecture-me-really.html?_r=0.  I think one potential answer is in there.  The author argues that there are valuable skills that come from the experiences of being in a lecture.  Skills like listening, attention, and critical thinking by identifying what it actually important and how it applies outside of the lecture.  I agree with the author.  Period.

But I think the fundamental flaw in the argument is that most students don’t enter a lecture hall to learn these skills.  If they were anything like me as a young student, they will be trying to capture everything that is said.  Come on, admit it, your college classrooms were filled with tape recorders (yes, even before the digital ones!).   So, the skills that the author claims come from lectures must be taught alongside the content of the lecture as they will not always rise to the glory that we may think.  Teaching students how to learn has always been and will always be important.  At all levels of education.  And so, how do we do it?  Reflection, especially critical reflection, can be very helpful.

Try these out as resources for conceptualizing reflection and for simple how-to’s:

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/critical-reflection-adds-depth-and-breadth-to-student-learning/

http://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/center-for-faculty-excellence/TLG_PDF/TLG_Reflection.pdf

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/learningteaching/kli/research/hern/hern-j1/elizabethmorrow-hernjvol1.pdf

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no2/alexander_0610.pdf

http://www.byui.edu/Documents/instructional_development/Instructional%20Tools%20Page%20PDFs/Helping%20Students%20Ponder%20and%20Reflect.pdf

Next CETL Café Conversation: On Being

We had the last Café Conversation on the topic of student success (email or stop by CETL for the handout).  This time around, we will discuss On Being – the NPR show by Krista Tippett (thanks to Kelli Woodrow for the suggestion) – and how it affects our and our students’ work at Regis University.  For a single episode and as a teaser, try this: http://www.onbeing.org/program/christopher-howard-nancy-cantor-beyond-the-ivory-tower/8015/audio.  The calendar invite is attached for your convenience.  As we approach, we will pick out some specific episodes and discuss those.  If you are interested, please let me know.

Regis University Celebration of Student Learning – Tuesday December 1^st, 2015

This event is designed to celebrate what our students are doing as a result of our classes and assignments.  It is not designed to show off only our great students but as many students as possible so that we can have deepened discussions about teaching and learning at Regis.  So, if you have assignments that will be ready or near ready the week before the end of our semesters, consider showing that work off at the Celebration.  And the sky is the limit.  Show off papers.  Show off presentations.  Practice skills.  Present projects.  Anything can be showcased at the Celebration.  And, if your class doesn’t have anything to present, consider opening your class that week to the greater university community.  For more information, or to sign your classes up, please contact me.  There are already some of your peers participating!

Have a great day and be well

Happy Tuesday to all!  As I began to write this week’s tip, I had to review some notes I made for myself that I am sure made way more sense on Friday than they did this morning.  My weekend was full of my niece as house guest, my wife away for the weekend and some travel to see and catch up with some dear friends.  And I probably didn’t take full advantage of that time with my kids, niece, and friends as I could while I played the role of care giver, food provider, and driver.  I missed it.  Flat out.

So here is how I relate that to my notes about this week’s teaching tip.  On Friday afternoon, Dr. Jason Taylor gave the Faculty Lecture of the Year – a recognition of excellence nominated by one’s peers.  The title of Jason’s talk was Socratic Engagement and the Eccentric University.  For 90 minutes, I had a window of opportunity to watch a talented and respected faculty member share their thoughts on teaching and education at our university.  Admittedly, my field is not philosophy and, usually, the only time Socrates makes his way knowingly into my life is when I or faculty I am working with talk about Socratic questioning or Socratic dialogue as a pedagogical technique.  And so, as I mentally waded through Jason’s intelligent presentation/argument, I was struck with – even stuck on – the presentation of Socrates as both a public figure and as a private figure.  I hope that Jason (and the rest of the philosophy department) excuses me here as I way oversimplify to make my point.  Socrates was a very public figure in some ways –serving in public office and in the military – and questioning the justice of the state’s actions.  But Socrates’ questioning with others was often in very private settings – in small groups or one-on-one.  And Socrates held that justice grew from one’s constant and consistent self-examination which was a private, if not solo, undertaking.

So, this has been really weighing on me since last week.  This antagonism between public and private.  Jason’s talk was calling us to a level of engagement with the community that mixed these two so that Regis’ private self-examination was open in a way that it could affect lives and the world more than only our students.  He was sharing his experiences and how he has done that in his own teaching.  I know of Jason’s work with our students.  It is amazing and phenomenal what he does with his students and in the community.  And Jason’s sharing of his experience was and is bound in perplexity that has a consistently moving set of conditions.

One of the major takeaways for me is that our students should have this image of the public and the private self in their minds in all of our courses and curricula.  They should be in ‘public’ spaces in our classrooms, labs, service sites, and clinicals.  And they should be in private soul-searching places when they stop to make sense of themselves and their learning so that they can bring this knowledge and affect to the public spaces.  If we are offering a deeply meaningful education and one that will lead to men and women for and with others, we need to help students mix these two spheres that can sometimes seem at odds with each other.

I wish that someone would’ve helped me focus on the ‘private’ and reflective side during my weekend.  Everyone would have had more meaningful interactions.  Thank you, Jason, for a wonderful and thought-provoking talk, and for teaching me and your students.  And thank you for challenging us to rethink the university as not a private place that people attend but as a public good.

Tomorrow’s CETL Café Conversation – On Being

Just a reminder that I will be in the Main Café for the CETL Café conversation tomorrow from 12:15-1:15.  This is a casual lunch to discuss topics related to teaching.  The focus is on the NPR show On Being with Krista Tippett.  See http://onbeing.org/ for more info.  For tomorrow, I share two blogs and an audio file to focus our conversation:

http://onbeing.org/blog/omid-safi-her-fathers-daughter/7979  

http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-joy-of-math-keith-devlin-on-learning-and-what-it-means-to-be-human/5946/audio

http://onbeing.org/blog/the-bridge-of-well-being-the-journey-from-suffering-to-wholeness/8066

Finally, the FOURTH ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF STUDENT LEARNING!!!

OK folks – and speaking of the mix between private and public - this is my last (gasp) push to convince people to have their students participate in the Celebration of Student Learning on Tuesday, Dec. 1^st, 2015 from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm.  Students can show off what they are learning in any and all ways.  If they have projects they are working on for the end of the semester, consider having them practice publically explaining what that work is.  Or, open your class so that others – students, faculty, anyone – can come and see what greatness is happening in your and their worlds.  The flyer is attached.  Please let me know if you want to discuss how to get your students and classes to participate.  Last year, we had 25 courses and over 300 students participate – our most ever.  I am hoping to break both of those records and will send you some highlights next week.

Well, the Broncos are 5 and 0.  Growing up, my favorite shows were Starsky and Hutch and Cagney and Lacey. One current band I enjoy listening to is The Head and the Heart (listen to one of their songs here).  All of those things have something in common.  And it’s not my questionable tastes.  What they have in common is perhaps one of the hardest working and most overlooked words in the English language: AND.  We call out sports teams records as wins AND losses.  One is not more valuable without the context of the other.  The 70s and 80s television crime stopping teams were likely not worthy of television shows on their own, thus they were an AND.  And while the title of the musical group makes you think of the Head and then the Heart, these are often opposites and we know that they are both required to help us value the other independently.

                    

In education, there is a very important AND that has a hard time making it into our lessons, courses, and curricula.  Often that is whatever we are trying to accomplish with our content.  Let me explain, often, a student’s experience is one of trying to get to the ‘right’ answers.  For this, we often ask students to do homework and take tests.  Students can often be fooled into believing that it is the content of our courses that matters most.  Many times and in many places I am around the university, faculty are engaged with new ideas but often exclaim, “how can I fit that in and teach my content?”  Here is my answer.  Embrace the AND.  Don’t ever consider it to be an OR.  For some food for thought, consider this short article from The Teaching Professor out today:  http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/curriculum-development/more-content-doesnt-equal-more-learning/.

In Jesuit education, we often hear about the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm as Experience, Reflection, Action.  I am sure we would all consider there to be ANDs in between all of these specific parts of the educational experience.  But there are also two other ANDs that often get omitted in our common vernacular.  I want to focus on the first AND and the beginning of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm – Context.  As students come to us, they all have a set of experiences that determine what and how they will learn and what and how they will have experiences.  This context is often their own and while we have them intro themselves into our courses, it can often become clear fast that the content is what matters.  Some, even many, may succeed in that model.  But, if we want more success of more of our students, one way is to make the AND between context and experience as important as the ANDs between the aforementioned items.  Here are some quick resources that may offer some things to consider: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/yourstudents.html;  http://www.brown.edu/academics/education-alliance/teaching-diverse-learners/strategies-0/culturally-responsive-teaching-0.

 

Have a great day AND be well

I don’t know about you but as the sun wanes over campus, it feels more like a Wednesday than a Monday afternoon.  And, I am tired from traveling to a conference last week and still recovering a bit.  My conference was the international annual conference for teaching and learning center folks and we all learn a great deal from one another.  This year, the central keynote speaker was Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, the author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations about Race and the former president of Spelman College.  It was a great talk.  She shared herself with us that morning.  She also shared the ABC’s of creating what she called ‘Climates of Engagement”: Affirming Identity, Building Community, and Cultivating Leadership.  As we watch what is happening at the University of Missouri and Yale, we need to remind ourselves and revisit often the complexity of our work in higher ed.    Chris Hocking and colleagues described some of the factors that go into engagement in their research paper, “Switched Off?  A Study of Academic Dis/Engagement in University Classrooms” with the diagram below.  That study was interesting in that it found a disconnect between the pedagogies used in teaching and a desire to create inclusive learning environments.   It is hugely complex and can be a little intimidating to try different things in your classes related to diversity and inclusion.  Tatum shared her advice to “just start walking.”

The research into inclusive teaching and diversity in higher ed is not new and there is not a great way to get enough of it out to you but I want to share some resources:

First, I met a colleague at the University of Alaska, Anchorage who does work with Indigenous Pedagogies.  They have a free resource called Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Ed.  It is available and free online at that link.  In particular, the chapter on Race, Class, Culture has a collection of techniques listed that you may find useful.    

In addition to the Tatum book mentioned above, there are many resources in CETL that are always available for anyone to borrow.  Some are novel-like and others have more hands on applications.  Here is a short list:

Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (3^rd Edition).  Maurianne Adams, Warren Blumenfeld, Carmalita Castaneda, Heather Hackman, Madeline Peters, and Ximena Zuniga (Editors)

Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice (2^nd Edition).  Marianne Addams, Lee Anne Bell, Pat Griffin (Editors)

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do.  Claude Steele

Diversity & Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching.  Raymond Wlodkowski and Margery Ginsberg

Attitudes Aren’t Free: Thinking Deeply About Diversity in the US Armed Forces.  James Parco and David Levy

Integration Matters: Navigating Identity, Culture, And Resistance. C.P. Gause

One More River to Cross: Black & Gay in America.  Keith Boykin

Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering.  National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.  bell hooks

Diversity  Across the Curriculum: A Guide for Faculty in Higher Education.  Jerome Branche, John Mullennix and Ellen Cohn (Editors)

If you want to add any to this list, please email me and I will start a list on the CETL Libguide page and share with the university community.

Celebration of Student Learning Last Call!

If you want to include your students or open your class to the public on Tuesday, December 1^st, please let me know asap.

Have a great evening and be well

I hope you all had a fine weekend.  Personally, I am happy to be pulling out fall clothes and enjoying the weather change.  I know we have classes just about to start in some sessions and others are half way through give or take a few days.  Regardless of where your classes are right now, student feedback can always be useful.  And, while there are end-of-course feedback mechanisms in place, why wait until the end when the students in your class now can’t see their feedback used?  The purpose of today’s email is to share a collection of resources for obtaining student feedback.

This webpage provides a wonderful resource from around the country on mid-term feedback including different models and forms and even a video from Iowa State showing how a faculty member can talk to their students and get useful feedback: http://fod.msu.edu/oir/mid-term-student-feedback.  Whether you are a fan of something quick (check out the “pluses and wishes” and the KQS (Keep, Quit, Start) surveys from Duquesne) or something more formal, there are a great collection of resources on there.

And, speaking of great resources, one of the things that a CETL provides you is a resource to come to your courses and meet with students to get feedback.  There are generally three options that CETL can work to get student feedback to enhance learning:

Focus groups: meetings with whole class in a semi-structured interview kind of setting.  Faculty and CETL meet to frame the most relevant questions.  Typically has students fill out a short form to prime the conversation.  Time is between 20 and 60 minutes.  Instructor not present.  CETL meets with instructor to out-process student thinking and brainstorm potential ideas for the class to improve student learning. Can also be used for online and hybrid classes that meet synchronously.

SGID (Small Group Instructional Diagnosis): A consensus building activity working with students in small groups and having them come to consensus around themes of strengths of class, areas for change, and ways of making suggested changes.  Time is approximately 30 minutes.  Instructor not present.  CETL meets with instructor and provides written summary of student comments.  Summary is confidential and no one besides instructor sees it. Instructor spends a few minutes in next class responding to student comments and discusses questions and issues that arose in SGID.  Can also be used for online and hybrid classes that meet synchronously.  For more info, see: http://www.miracosta.edu/home/gfloren/sgid.htm   

QCD (Quick Course Diagnosis):   Similar to the SGID above, the QCD is an index card activity that has students jot down a word or phrase to describe the course and activities using a 1-5 level of satisfaction.  This is followed on with a strengths and weaknesses roundtable activity.  CETL creates a histogram combining these two pieces of feedback.  Takes 30 minutes of class time.  Instructor not present.  Takes some time to tabulate results and share them with faculty.  See here for more info: http://www.personal.psu.edu/wea3/QCD/.  Can also be used for online and hybrid classes that meet synchronously.

Please contact me if you would like to schedule any of these feedback sessions with your classes.

CETL Café Conversations – Last week, we had the first Fall 2015 CETL Café Conversation.  The topic was student success.  We had faculty from four colleges participate and it was a great conversation.  Each Café Conversation has an associated one-page handout.  Stop by CETL (Loyola 12) to pick up a copy or let me know and I can email it to you.  If you have ideas for the next Café Conversation, please let me know what you would like to discuss.

4^th Annual Regis University Celebration of Student Learning – Tuesday December 1^st, 2015.

The Celebration of Student Learning will take place on Tuesday, December 1^st from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm.  Many of you are already getting your class or students signed up to participate.  Thanks to you for that.  Keep ‘em coming.  As a reminder, the event is intended to be like a learning open house – open classrooms so anyone could come and watch, course assignments showcased, etc.  And it is not designed to only highlight the best student learning but for all students.  That way, we as a community can discuss student learning with more knowledge of what it looks like.  If you want more details about the event, or want to open your class or hold your class in the mountain view room that day, please let me know.  It is also a great event to invite community partners and future employers of our grads to so that they can see the great things our students can do.

Have a great day and be well

Happy Monday!  I hope you got to see that amazing moon last night and that your weekend was a great one.  Yesterday, we went to birthday party for my nine year-old niece.  She likes to skateboard so she had this gentleman come and teach everyone how to skateboard.  Not me.  The risk of breaking something is just too darn high.  But I watched my daughters and about 12 others take on this skateboard instruction and those that couldn’t skate before the party were able to traverse down a hill under control at the end.  Those young people were different at the end of the party than they were when they started.  They were transformed.

We at Regis University say the same thing about our students.  And, I want to underscore that we at a Jesuit institution are promising them that they will be transformed.  As I talk with students across the spectrum of experience – whether it be as an entering traditional student or as an older doctoral-level student, I often ask them if they are different than when they started.  I am usually met with a little indignation that they are no different.  And I remark to them that they should ask for their money back.  I think that our students think that they are only transformed at the end when their education is all complete.  Then there is something magic that happens and suddenly, they are a different person.  That is the equivalent of me just becoming bald one random day.  That is not how it happens (at least the bald thing).

Transformation isn’t an all or none kind of thing.  It is gradual.  And our role as faculty is to continue to fulfill our promise of a transformative education.  Perhaps the best way we can help our students be comfortable, appreciative, and aware of their own transformation is to help them consider and look for their transformation more often during their education (see this quick article: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/08/20/humanists-should-encourage-students-transformation-essay and know that transformation is not only for the humanists!).  Did they read something they likely wouldn’t have if they were not in your class?  That could be a possible transformation.  Did they visit someplace because of your class or program that they likely wouldn’t have on their own?  That could be a possible transformation.  Did they talk to someone in class that they probably would not have met if they were not a student at Regis?  That has the potential to be a transformation.  In fact, there is the potential for transformation in every assignment, experience, and interaction.  And transformation can be in terms of their knowledge (this is likely the most common from the student perspective), their skills, or their humanity.  Ideally, all three are being transformed on a given day at Regis.

So, as we enter fall and we can see our landscapes transforming right before us, how can you help your students ‘see’ their own transformation?  Are the times that students ‘see’ their own transformation equivalent to the places where you are looking for it?  What role can your feedback play in helping students acknowledge their transformation?

Wednesday – CETL Café Conversation: Student Success

Just a reminder that CETL has reserved two tables in the Main Café from 12:15-1:15 on Wednesday for faculty to discuss student success – what is it really?  How do we promote it?  Hope you can join us.

Have a fantastic fall day and look out for your own transformation!

Happy Tuesday!  My apologies for being a day late with the weekly email.  I was working on giving a presentation on student learning.  If you know me, student learning is my passion and one of the reasons I love my job.  When I first got here, I shot a little video that was put on the Regis website about CETL and what its purpose was.  Well, a couple of my lifelong ‘friends’  in other parts of the country tease me all the time about how many times I say “teaching and learning” in that video and they chant (to the tune of the ever-popular sports chant like “Let’s go Broncos!”) Stud-ent Learn-ing every time I see them.   It endears them to me except when I walk around chanting that to myself.  Try it, it sticks.

Enough of an aside.  Many of you are familiar with some of the essential basics that support student learning.  Things like repetition and the time a student spends working on something (known as time-on-task) are at least familiar ideas to all of us.  As the research on learning becomes deeper, it helps us identify that there are many more basics of student learning that should be as familiar to us as the ones we have already come to know.  I will list them seven of them here:

1. Students’ prior knowledge can help or hinder learning.
2. How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
3. Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they know.
4. To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.
5. Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning.
6. Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the  course to impact learning.
7. To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.

If you want to see brief explanations of these theory- and research-based principles of learning, visit the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University’s webpage:   http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/principles/learning.html.  If you want to read more about how to enact these principles in your teaching, come to CETL and get the book How Learning Works: 7 Research-based Principles for Smart Teaching.  I have one copy to the first one that wants it and one to loan out.

CETL Café Conversation next week:  Student Success

Just a reminder that CETL will be in the Main Café next Wednesday Sept 30 from 12:15 – 1:15 to discuss student success – what it is and what we can do to support it.  Briefly, these discussions are meant to be just that – a discussion.  I will bring a one page handout with some resources but then it is meant for us to engage one another over this topic and a meal.  At the wonderful suggestion of Sherry Fuller, faculty in Nursing, I have attached an invite so that you can drag it directly onto your calendar.  Hope you can join us.

4^th Annual Regis University Celebration of Student Learning – Tuesday December 1^st, 2015.

The Celebration of Student Learning will take place on Tuesday, December 1^st from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm.  Many of you are already getting your class or students signed up to participate.  Thanks to you for that.  Keep ‘em coming.  As a reminder, the event is intended to be like a learning open house – open classrooms so anyone could come and watch, course assignments showcased, etc.  And it is not designed to only highlight the best student learning but for all students.  That way, we as a community can discuss student learning with more knowledge of what it looks like.  If you want more details about the event, or want to open your class or hold your class in the mountain view room that day, please let me know.  It is also a great event to invite community partners and future employers of our grads to so that they can see the great things our students can do.

I was a great high school student.  Fortunately, it came very easy to me.  But I was only an OK student when I was in college.  As an undergraduate science major, I was well versed in note taking and studying those notes which I repeatedly transcribed.  And let me be honest, like many of our current students, I didn’t read ahead.  Rather I read after class to try and make sense of my notes.  It wasn’t until I took a very different class that I had any insight into (or ever even thought about) how I actually learned.  It was in an Animal Behavior course with Dr. Bill Shields.  On the first day of that class, I had my pencil sharpened and at the ready and I had my spiral notebook open and labeled with the class and date sitting in the classroom.  (Yes, it was before computers.)  As Dr. Shields began to speak, he looked up at us and stopped mid-sentence.  Then he asked three of us what we were doing.  I knew he wasn’t speaking to me as I was modeling very student-like behavior so I turned around to see who he was talking to.  Then he pointed at me and called me out by the color of my shirt.  You see, Dr. Shields didn’t allow note taking in his classroom.  He went on to explain that he needed us in the conversation.  He needed our engagement.  And we couldn’t give that to him fully if we were busily scribing every word that was said.

Well, I have to tell you that, even though the course was out of my academic area, I learned more in that class than I did in many others.  I learned more because I read ahead of class and made connections to things I had already seen.  I learned more because I was actively involved in the thinking of the class.  That class helped me figure out how to learn better than I had before because it brought these things to my attention. Perhaps there was a time when you realized how you learn?

As we enter the third week of classes, many of your students may be relying on habits that got them this far and may not have given any thought to how they actually learn.  And, while some of those habits may be good ones, some may not be as good as they could be.  It is a great time to talk with them about how they study, how they should read for class, and what they should do in class to enhance their learning.  And, invite them to share that thinking as often as you can in class.  This will help them be more successful not only in your course, but in all of their academic pursuits.  And, this applies to all students whether they be undergraduates, professional, or doctoral students and in all delivery formats.

Good afternoon!

I sincerely hope that your first week of classes went well.  Mine did and I am very much going to enjoy class this semester.  I already have my first papers coming in and there is much work to be done.  I have mostly freshman in the fall semester and I sense that many are not quite adjusted to college yet.  After all, it has only been a week!  But they challenge my thinking about what kind of environment will help them out with regard to their learning.  I heard a prayer today asking for wisdom and hope.  As I was thinking, it dawned on me that those are two things that actually help us answer the question of how to set up for student success.  So, in this week’s teaching tip, I share with you some of the broader thinking and some of the questions for you to answer about what kind of learning ‘environment’ you are setting up for your students.

First, wisdom.

• There are certainly many great reads out there about learning.  The first that comes to mind are How People Learn by The National Academies Press (which is freely available online at http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368).  It really is a great primer on how the brain changes – which is what learning really is.  There is also a great chapter on the difference between expert and novice learners.  This is especially important wisdom.  We are experts and we can’t (that is right.  It is not a won’t but rather a can’t) think like our students any longer.  So, the question to you is, is your class set up for their thinking and learning?  Or for yours?
• A reading that adds nicely to this is a book by Daniel Willingham, a cognitive psychologist.  His book, Why Don’t Students Like School, lays out the argument that thinking is very taxing on the brain and that students often fail to see their successes.  There are also many other great ideas in this book.  I have run Faculty Learning Communities around this book in the past and the most interesting thing to me was the heated conversation that emerged around whether you can teach content while students are doing something else that is cognitively taxing or if you have to teach them content first before you get into the thinking.  Two questions are revealed here.  First, do your students get to see their successes related to their thinking?  And, are students doing the cognitively active and expensive thinking while they learn content or are they learning content first?  Whatever your answer, why do you do it that way?  For a great primer on the Willingham book, see this link: http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/WILLINGHAM%282%29.pdf.        
• One of my favorite reads about student performance and the conditions that lead to enhancing it is Claude Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Do. Each of our students joins us with a collection of their own identities.  These identities affect how they learn and how they experience learning.  While Steele’s book reports his social psychology research and focuses on the diversity of students, one point is overtly clear: students perform better if they are being held to high standards for their learning (I am not talking about spelling, grammar, or ability to use proper citations here.  While these are important things, the high standards referred to in this book are about the bigger conceptual understandings rather than the nuts and bolts).  High expectations are one part of the student success equation.  And, it is never too early or late to revisit what those standards are in your course, not just by assignment but for the course overall.

Next, hope.

• The second part of the equation for student success that Steele mentions is belief.  Specifically, the belief that students can be successful.  This gives students hope for their own learning.  I believe very firmly that you all hold this belief.  The question here is really how do your students know that you have that belief?   Where do you show it?  Does it travel with them when they are out of class working on assignments?
• Grit and resiliency.  If learning is hard then setting up an environment for student success with so many different students in our classes is doubly so.  Students often need some help in being successful.  We orient them to campus and to our individual courses but something that may serve them more broadly is their grit.  This idea has had a little popular press in recent years but academic grit is defined as the ability to persist over time to overcome challenges so that one can accomplish long-term goals.  Duckworth and her colleagues published this definition and research measuring it in students in the last 8 or so years (see for example: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Grit%20JPSP.pdf).  I am sure that are people more qualified in Psych and Neuro to talk about it then me but it is really the intersection of conscientiousness, ability, and persistence and I would say that these are quite the mixture of necessary ingredients for learning how to learn, the main foundation for student success.  How do you talk to your students about their grit and its development?

If you would like to borrow copies of these books, please let me know.  And look for an upcoming CETL Café Conversation on Student Success in September! And may you have both wisdom and hope in your classes.

Fourth Annual Regis University Celebration of Student Learning!

When: Tuesday December 1^st, 2015.

Where: Mountain View Room and affiliated classrooms

What: an open opportunity for the Regis community to see what and how our students are learning.  Not designed to be extra work, the Celebration of Student Learning is an academic ‘open house’ welcoming people to see the work that students are doing in their courses and in the co-curriculum.  It also includes opening classes so the public can come and see what students do.  This is an inclusive event not designed to highlight our best learners but rather, designed to highlight all of our learners.  All courses, delivery methods, colleges, courses are welcome!

Flyer attached.  If you have questions or want to sign your courses up to participate, please contact me.

CETL Funding Opportunities – Fall 2015

Reading current books on teaching and learning:  There are so many books with the latest research on teaching and learning and I can’t read them all.  I would like to share these books to be read.  So, if you want to read a current book about teaching and learning, I will give you the book and $50 if you read and write a summary to be shared with the whole university community.

Faculty Learning Communities:  If you would like to get a bunch of colleagues together from across the university to discuss anything related to teaching and student learning, CETL will fund faculty for $500.  A short email proposal that includes the topic and/or books to be discussed, a recruitment plan, a tentative timeline for the learning community will start the discussion.

If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please let me know and we can discuss further details.

Have a great semester and let me know how CETL can be of service for you.

Good morning RHCHP Faculty!

I hope that you are all well and enjoying the beautiful summer weather (when you aren’t teaching).  I wanted to touch base with you all and let you know that CETL is still here throughout the year and ready and willing to serve faculty needs.  The weekly teaching tips fade a little in the summer only because I frankly, run out of ideas.  But, I just returned from a family vacation that we shoehorned in between camps and kids’ activities and I am a little refreshed and so, I offer up a teaching tip and resource to consider.

As CETL has been running course design workshops this summer, a couple concerns keep coming forward.  One is that we have students that are taking our degree programs as fast as possible to get out and on with their jobs.  Second is the thought that I am teaching adult students and they just want the important stuff and none of the ‘fluff.’  Finally, in my conversations with faculty, it is these misconceptions of who our students are and what that means in terms of learning and teaching, coupled with some vagueness about learning outcomes that often leads us to very traditional and, often, non-innovative methods of teaching.  And, what we know is that So, I invite you to your very own teaching staycation.  Mix yourself your drink of choice and put some steel drum music on Pandora and take some time to consider student motivation, student engagement, cognitively active learning (more than just active learning), and high student achievement as cornerstones of effective teaching and learning.   

Attached you will find a Magna Publication report entitled Supporting Learning Outcomes F2F and Online.  It is a good 40 page resource.  Now hear me out.  I know that no one has time to read 40 pages but there are 16 independent articles within and they are all useful in some way.  Happy reading!

And, as a friendly reminder, CETL is here to serve you.  And it is a wonderful time to engage with your Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for one-on-one faculty discussions or even department- and school-wide conversations around student learning and effective teaching.

Good afternoon Faculty!

I sincerely hope this email finds that you are all well and enjoying the fine day that we have.  If you and I have crossed paths, you likely have heard me mention the importance of reflection for students’ learning (if you have not, it is really important!). Well, it is not just for the students, we can all benefit from it as well.  As I was traveling for work this past week, I was thinking about how CETL can be the best resource for you and this idea struck me.  In the name of transparency, the areas that CETL was focused on this past year were, 1) students sharing responsibility for their learning; and 2) how to teach and develop the students affective learning.  I bombarded your email inboxes with a total of 29 Teaching Tips between August of 2014 and May of 2015.  Below is a list of the Teaching Tips that aligned with the two themes mentioned above.  These lists help me see if I was actually thinking about the themes and allowing them to inform my work across the University.

Students Sharing responsibility for learning:

o  The Art and Science of Leading Successful Online Discussions: Week of Aug. 18 – 22

o  Why the Freshman Myth is Important and the Celebration of Student Learning: Week of Aug 25 – 29

o  Failure is Not a Bad Thing – Week of September 8-12

o  Responsible Learning – Week of September 15-19

o  When Students Share Their Experiences and Seeing What They Are Learning – Week of Sept 29-Oct 3

o  Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of the Classroom Will Improve Student Learning – Week of October 20-24

o  The Jesuit College Professor – What a Tough Job!  – Week of October 27-31

o  Context and Experience- Week of Oct. 27-31

o  Building a scaffold for critical reflection; Celebration of Student Learning less than a month away!- Week of Nov. 3-7

o  Motivating students (and faculty) - revisiting the ACRE model; Last call for Celebration of Student Learning class participation; Opportunity to participate in international writing group– Week of Nov 10 -14

o  Resources for getting students to peer review each other's work, Next CETL Cafe Conversations - check out this NPR piece from this morning on First Gen Students and their experience – week of Feb 16-20

o  The Frustrations of Teaching as an Invitation; The Four Properties of Powerful Teachers– week of Mar 16-20

How to Teach and Develop Students’ Affective Learning

o  Resources for Teaching Ferguson – week of Dec 8 – 12

o  What's going on in higher ed around diversity, equity and inclusion?; Monthly teaching and learning lunch in the cafe; Keep your eyes out for funding opportunities to come – week of Jan 19-23

o  Being Present – week of Jan 26-30

o  10 Best Things Digital Teachers Do– Week of Feb 2-6

o  Resources for getting students to peer review each other's work, Check out this NPR piece from this morning on First Gen Students and their experience – week of Feb 16-20

o  Successfully teaching first generation students might be more about class than you think – Week of Feb 23-27

o  The Frustrations of Teaching as an Invitation; The Four Properties of Powerful Teachers– week of Mar 16-20

o  What do I want in my courses?; Café Conversation today – Week of March 23-27

o  Thoughts, Questions, Nouns and Verbs from a Conference on Vocation - Week of March 30-April 3

o  What Role do Relationships Have in Our Students' Learning? – Week of April 6-10

o  Nearing the end.  What story would your students tell about their experience? – Week of April 20-24

Not bad alignment between the themes of focus and the tips.  What feedback would you have for me as I consider next year’s teaching tips and themes?  As a reminder, an archive of all of last year’s Teaching Tips can be found here: http://libguides.regis.edu/c.php?g=53870&p=346895.  Click on the tabs at the top of the page for access to tips from previous years.

And, as we consider the fall approaching and the start of another academic year, what themes or areas would be most beneficial for you and your students’ learning?  I welcome your email and input.