active learning – Writing Across the Curriculum

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024

The Challenges and Rewards of Revision

When it comes to writing intensive courses, oftentimes, students are not excited to write in the first place. They are either taking a required English course, such as Composition or a writing intensive first-year literature course, or they are writing longer pieces for the first time in the courses of their majors. One of the most frequent errors is not in the students’ abilities in approaching critical analysis or building strong arguments, but in the time they are devoting to developing their writing. In particular, there is the challenge of switching from a writer’s perspective to a reader’s perspective that keeps students from revising their work, in addition to the difficulties that arise with a screen-based format, as opposed to working with a hard copy of their work (Bean 34).

Often, where drafts or first submissions falter is in the structuring of the essay, in that students have not spent enough time on this. Scaffolding activities that encourage spending plenty of time planning in order to give their ideas space to flow better on the page are often helpful for this. Therefore, there is a strong case to be made for devoting more class time to developing each written assignment, and as a result, students are learning the process of developing stronger pieces of writing, the skills for which they can apply across their studies. Given that students do not always delve fully in to the revision process, perhaps only changing a few sentences or grammatical errors pointed out in their feedback, there exists the need to engage and encourage receptiveness to developing and revising their drafts. Additionally, concerning resubmission of work, it is beneficial to include some requirements that accompany the resubmission.

Some suggestions for improving the revision process that have been particularly helpful in my own writing and literature courses are the following[1]:

Having students come to class prepared with a guiding question for that session’s reading in which to direct the class discussion. This encourages active learning, critical thinking, generative topic discussion, and leads into how they develop their major written assignments through independent planning and groupwork.
Scaffolding writing assignments to allow for extra writing and revision time, including one-on-one conferences which they attend prepared with an essay plan to discuss, active peer reviews, and writing days to address specific challenges in their individual writing processes.
Enabling more active participation in peer reviews. Rather than students simply reading through their group’s essays and commenting here and there, it is generative to provide a worksheet that asks them to address specific elements of the work they are critiquing. These sheets are then uploaded to a shared folder that both their instructor and the members of their group can access.
Implementing a resubmission policy that requires students to attend a writing center appointment to discuss the instructor’s feedback and write a new cover letter that addresses what they have changed about their essays.

Ultimately, the goal of good writing is to develop good thinking, and this is something that we can achieve in teaching thinking through teaching revision. An important idea is that “for expert writers, the actual act of writing causes further discovery, development, and modification of ideas” (Bean 29). It is therefore beneficial to spend even more time planning and revising work during class. In the era of instant gratification and ever-evolving technologies and AI, students are shown to be less inclined to spend enough time on each step of the assignment. There is a lot of value in slowing down and learning and relearning the process.

[1] For more examples, see p. 36 of John C. Bean, Dan Melzer, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom, third edition, Jossey-bass, 2021.

November 7, 2024November 7, 2024

Storytelling : an engaging and reflective practise for students of all fields

Writing-Intensive classes have the advantage of enabling learners to use writing as a communication tool in a variety of ways, regardless of their field of study. Storytelling emphasizes the essentially narrative aspect of writing and reading. As a result, it highlights various layers of meaning in a text, and among others ‘subjectivity’. In this post, we will look at examples of informal assignments that encourage students’ engagement and self-reflection through their own narratives and some storytelling writing activities.

Analyzing material using exploratory writing lenses
WAC pedagogy not only promotes writing as a pedagogical practice, but it also underlines its importance in everyday life. As communicative beings, we all write, whether through texts or emails, to express ourselves first and foremost. Making writing directly related to daily issues in its most spontaneous form in class can enhance individual commitment to a course. To that aim, here is an exhibit that can help students engage by articulating their perspectives on a reading in a creative way, as well as an exhibit designed to stimulate students’ interest.

Exhibit 1: A freewrite or exploratory writing activity to identify an argument addressing an issue.
Consider these steps:
Start organizing the reading’s major point by idea mapping on a draft.
What are the key reasons and evidence presented to support that position? As you develop arguments and evidence, you are likely to discover gaps. Where could this argument be strengthened with more evidence such as statistics, examples, and expert testimony? Where and how will you do research to fill these gaps?
2. How can you respond to these objections and counterarguments? Take them one by one and brainstorm possible responses.
3. Also explore again why this issue is important. What are its broader implications and consequences? Why does it matter?
4. Work with a peer to free write a dialogue demonstrating arguments and counter-arguments. Consider the following setting:
Where: a specific context where a debate could possibly take place ;
Who: individuals or experts in the subject who address the reading ;
When: when this conversation occurs ;
In that order, write down each other’s parts: a) background; b) character assertions and examples; c) counter arguments and examples; d) broader implications.
5. Finally, when role-playing with a peer, recount that dialogue, starting with the claim’s eventual threat to the writer’s beliefs and ending with the audience’s potential counterarguments.

Exhibit 2: A freewrite based on a title or a single element that engages students’ imagination.
This type of writing might take several forms, such as the title of a novel or an essay, an initial image, or a piece of artwork. As a warm-up exercise designed to encourage students’ intellectual exploration, ask them to:
1. Generate a list of ideas and imagine a brief prompt with just a single opening element (title, image, artefact, etc.). What do you suppose the topic will be? Can you guess the backstory of that element?
2. Write down the plot that most inspires you in a paragraph (or the story related to an object in the case of an artefact).
3. Present that story to the class and find out how many of you had similar ideas.

The benefit is that both exhibits 1 and 2 can be used as in-class exercises at any point during the semester. They also follow a minimal marking pedagogy and don’t require any particular grading, which might be helpful in reducing a teacher’s workload. That being said, it is worth mentioning that any written activities that engage a sense of intellectual engagement and critical thinking regarding class material can be considered constructive scaffolding tasks that facilitate students’ journey toward a final formal assignment.
Exhibit 1 can serve as a brainstorming tool for a formal assignment on « Processes » rubric (refer to Bean’s book, exhibit 5.3) for the final assignment criteria. Revising and informal writing overall could be included in this rubric. Exhibit 2 can be incorporated into any introductory session of a class or used as a first step of a bigger project. It may, for example, be transformed into a teaser in the style of a movie trailer. For more multimodal scaffolding activity ideas, check out Derek Bruff’s book Intentional Tech.
Whether part of a final project as a scaffolded assignment or an in-class stimulating exercise, storytelling writing tasks contribute to creative learning. While the exhibit 1 assignment fosters critical thinking on disciplinary-specific issues and encourages collaborative projects that promote a sense of community among students, the exhibit 2 assignment aims to engage students through their own imagination and subjectivity, thus expanding their sense of implication. Taking into account their own stories would be an additional step in committing to what they learn. In other words, a self-reflective way to introduce storytelling into class is to make it personal.

Recentering student engagement through life stories
Writing assignments that disclose personal experiences not only acknowledge students as individuals, but also enhance their sense of belonging in the classroom. Why are they here? What brought them to that college, discipline-specific field, or course? Giving students the opportunity to reflect on their own life stories through an informal storytelling assignment can lend meaning to what they do.The Meaningful Writing Project investigated what constitutes a meaningful writing assignment based on college students’ and teachers’ reflections. According to surveys and interviews, three strong patterns appeared in the writing activities that students believed most meaningful:
« The assignment gave students agency to pursue a topic that they were passionate about or that they found especially relevant.
The assignment required students to engage with the instructor, peers, and the disciplinary content of the course.
The assignment made a connection for students: connecting to previous experiences, connecting to a student’s passion, connecting to future aspirations and identities. »
To that end, exhibit 3 is a module meant for students to reflect on their own life narratives. This assignment is intended to provide a space for self-reflective practice that fosters students’ sense of connection to their own experiences, identities, and sense of self, in relation to the course’s disciplinary content.

Exhibit 3: A personal metacognitive free writing.
Guide students on journaling a part of their life story by asking them to identify at least two of these points in a two-page reflective free writing essay. The latter can be part of a diary or a scaffolded assignment included as an annexe to the final project:
1. What motivated you to embark on your professional path? Under what life circumstances did it occur? What drew you to this particular subject?
2. How does what you learn at university relate to past experiences, a passion, or future goals?
3. Why do you want to research that final paper topic or project? Whether a problem/issue/social conflict prompted you to look into a question?
4. Feel free to share any personal anecdotes that brought significant meaning to that class or exemplified something you have learned about.

Overall, storytelling as a pedagogical tool allows students to engage in writing assignments and reflect on their personal narratives. As a result, they are more likely to understand how knowledge can be an empowering tool. In WAC Pedagogy, students are encouraged to be lifelong learners and critical information consumers by actively interacting with consistently critical content, as well as reflecting on their own subjective biases. Educators like Bell Hooks reminds us “the personal is political », whereas Gianni Rodari advocates storytelling as a teaching method “for all those who know the liberating value of the word.” Whether it is a historical event, an idea, a people’s struggle, or an aspiration, there is always a story waiting to be told…

References:
John C. Bean, Dan Melzer, Engaging Ideas : The Professor’s guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom, third edition, Jossey-bass, 2021, p.113 ; p.65.
Derek Bruff, Intentional Tech : Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching. First edition., West Virginia University Press, 2019.
Eodice, Michele, et al. The Meaningful Writing Project. Utah State University Press, 2016.
Bell Hooks. “Sharing the Story.” Teaching Critical Thinking, 1st ed., Routledge, 2010, pp. 55–58.
Gianni Rodari and Jack Zipes. The Grammar of Fantasy : An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories. Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 1996.

March 6, 2017March 5, 2017

Games in the college classroom – competitive or cooperative?

Games can be a great tool in the classroom to engage students and deepen learning. But does it matter whether the games are competitive or cooperative?

At a recent WAC meeting, this question sparked heated debate. Some argued that competition – or having winners and losers – provides greater motivation for students to learn. Others noted that it prepares them for the real world, in which competition is pervasive. On the other hand, students who lose these games may not feel so engaged or motivated. If the competitive game is, say, a Jeopardy-style review game, the “losers” might walk away feeling they don’t know the material as well as others and are destined to fail.

There is plenty of research validating the cooperative approach (Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1998), not just in terms of academic performance (Johnson, Johnson and Smith cite evidence that student achievement is actually slightly higher with cooperation versus competition), but also motivation to learn and attitude towards learning. But I also think it’s important to look at what we do in the classroom in a broader context. Yes, competition is pervasive in the so-called real world. But the classroom can be – and, I would argue, should be – more than preparation for the world that exists; it should help give students the tools to create new worlds. Especially in the Trump era, I would rather challenge than reinforce the message that to get ahead, we have to make those around us lose, or that our communities can or should be divided neatly into “us” and “them.” Why not instead create a classroom community in which helping each other is the norm, and we learn to see each other’s strengths rather than seeking out their weaknesses?

So, what kinds of cooperative games can we use in the classroom? I’ll admit, it’s easier to find competitive game ideas than cooperative ones, but sometimes you just have to get a little more creative. Debates, for example, can be transformed from competitive to cooperative by making consensus the end goal: Teams are assigned a position, and each researches, prepares, and presents their arguments. From here, there are at least two ways to proceed. You can have open debate, then have the teams reverse positions and present those. Or, instead of then rebutting those arguments, the opposing team can reflect back the arguments as they understood them, until the presenting team believes they’ve been fully understood. In either case, the game/debate ends by having the teams join forces to synthesize the best evidence and arguments into what they think is the strongest position. If they can’t reach consensus, they work to identify the main underlying points of disagreement.

Simulations can also be cooperative and engaging. In my discipline, political science, several simulations are available (note: most require either using a textbook or otherwise having paid access) that allow students to collaboratively do things like role-play an interest group trying to influence a legislature, try to survive for a month with no job or home and only $1000 in cash, or try to redistrict a state to either favor one party or ensure minority representation. (A huge list of simulations and games – not all of them collaborative – for political science is available at this great resource.)

If you’ve got any cooperative game resources or ideas of your own, leave them in the comments!

May 9, 2016May 11, 2016

This Friday: Presenting on a Writing Across the Curriculum Collaboration

This Friday May 13, 2016 we’ll be presenting our assessment of a WAC Collaboration at the 12th annual Coordinated Undergraduate Education (CUE) Conference “Walk the Talk: Inspiring Action on the Concourse and Beyond”.

The conference is focused on “showcasing action, articulating outcomes with evidence based results, and engaging in continuous improvement.”

We’re excited to share our journey working to assess and improve our collaboration with the Honors and Emerging Scholars Programs at City Tech. Specifically, we provide a workshop on abstract writing, which is part of a mandatory series of workshops for students. As part of this workshop, we focus on when and how abstracts are used and review the 5 main components that make up an abstract (i.e., motivation/significance, problem / objective, methodology, conclusions / results, and implications).

Our project aim was to enhance learning outcomes for students in the Honors and Emerging Scholars Programs, as related to their student project carried out with a faculty mentor that results in a poster and abstract. The two outcomes we focused on were abstract quality and student perceptions (of conceptual understanding, utility and satisfaction with the workshop).

To improve abstract quality, we developed an assessment framework utilizing the standards that we communicated to our students as our own assessment rubric. Over the course of 3 semesters, we quantified and reviewed abstract quality, to inform improvements to the workshop.

Results showed that students typically had a strong introduction to their abstract (motivation, goals, methodology) but abstracts weren’t as well-developed at the end (conclusions, implications). Given these data, we amended our workshops to increase the focus on conclusions and implications, and taught students techniques to help them develop these sections further.

Student perceptions were collected using a standard student survey. Students reported strong conceptual understanding after the workshop, and high satisfaction, though students felt less well-prepared to write an abstract in the future. This is an area we can address to improve.

What have we learned so far? Reviewing data from past semesters is useful for improving the workshop and student outcomes in following semesters. Further, it would be useful to incorporate other measures of student progress and student perceptions, especially those that are validated.

From the lower ratings of student preparedness to write their own abstract, we also learned that scaffolding the abstract workshop would be helpful, such as incorporating a second follow-up workshop later in the semester. Further, to improve assessment, we could collect and rate abstracts both before and after the workshop, rather than only after workshop completion.

Come join us at Hostos this Friday to learn more about our approach and join in on a discussion. You will also have a chance to learn about projects led by other fellow CUNY faculty. Our presentation is part of the “Assessing the Effectiveness of Action” track and we’ll be presenting at 10:50 am in room B-506.

We hope to see you there!

March 8, 2016March 7, 2016

In Our Students’ Shoes

A few days ago this 2014 article from the Washington Post came across my social media feed, and even though it’s about high school students, much of what the author writes is highly relevant to our students at City Tech as well. To summarize, this educational consultant spent a day shadowing two high school students and found that her experience going through the school day in their shoes had a significant impact on how she viewed her own pedagogy. In a kind of “if I knew then what I know now” moment, she mused on the things she would do differently in her teaching had she known what it was like to be a student.

Her two big takeaways that I find most relevant to college teaching are that 1) students spend much of their day sitting, and 2) students spend much of their class time passively listening to their teachers.

Of course, the first issue is not quite as big of an issue for college students. Unlike high schoolers, our students are not arriving by 8am every day, five days a week, and sitting in class after class into the mid-afternoon. Our students take maybe 3-5 classes depending on their schedules, and these are distributed across the week and throughout the day with longer breaks in between.

Still, our students likely spend much of their day sitting. Whether they’re in class, in the library, or sitting at a table in the atrium with friends or doing work, our students might not be moving around as much as we think. One way we can combat this is to build group work activities into our classes that require students to move around. The simple act of having our students move their desks a little to work in groups can help to break up the otherwise static mode of learning that our students experience just sitting in one place for 75 minutes.

You can use group work to assist in writing activities such as brainstorming, thesis formation, or a close reading of an article. For example, when teaching students about choosing a topic for their papers, I like to give them a form borrowed from The Craft of Research (3rd ed., 2009) by Booth, Colomb, and Williams, which is available as an e-book to all CUNY users. The template is described on pages 46-48 of this edition, and presented with blanks on page 51:

I’ll begin by giving students a paper topic and have them fill this out, and then have them start to brainstorm their own topics in groups. To make sure that students are moving around, I will have everyone change seats halfway through, to re-arrange the groups. This can be done with many kinds of quick low-stakes writing exercises intended to get students brainstorming or generating some rough, general ideas or questions. Best of all, students leave the class with a number of viable topics that they can then start to craft into thesis statements.

The second issue the author of this Post article brought up is that students sit passively, and again, writing pedagogy can help us here. Try to incorporate at least one short writing assignment into every class. Many professors will start a class with a quick “free write” or other informal writing activity, but a great way to break up the passive learning is to have an informal writing activity in the middle of class. For example, if you are learning a new skill or topic, lecture about the example from the textbook, and then give students an example they haven’t seen before and a few direct and simple questions to answer in writing. A few minutes in the middle of class like this doesn’t take away from your time devoted to content either, rather, it enhances the understanding and knowledge retention of your students.

December 14, 2015

Workshop Recap: The Creative Classroom (12/10)

Last week we wrapped up the semester with a workshop on using non-traditional activities in the classroom to incorporate more active learning into our courses – and to have more fun! If you missed the workshop, read on to find out what we talked about, and check out the PowerPoint Slides and Handout.

WAC Fellow Emily Crandall and I started off with an active learning game that encourages student interaction: “The Snowball” (or, as WAC Coordinator Rebecca Devers likes to call it, “The Hungry Hungry Hippo” activity). Each person gets a piece of paper with a question at the top – here, “What is one concern you have about incorporating non-traditional (i.e. not lecture/discussion) activities into your classroom?” After writing down a response, each person crumples up the paper and throws it to the front of the room, which just about guarantees some looks of amazement and some hilarity when people’s aim goes astray. After collecting and redistributing the papers, each person opens up the one they’ve been given and some are read aloud. Then each person writes a response to the concern expressed on their paper. The papers are crumpled, thrown, and redistributed again, and the answers are discussed. This activity is a great way to loosen students up and get them interacting, in addition to providing a way for them to raise questions anonymously, without feeling self-conscious.

I then talked about active learning, which is an idea underpinning not just the workshop, but the WAC philosophy as a whole. Active learning, which can be defined as “any instructional method that engages students in the learning process” (Prince 2004), is typically juxtaposed with more traditional passive absorption of information in a lecture format. Of course, we all lecture sometimes, but incorporating active learning has a lot of benefits for your students and for you as a professor. Research shows that students learn better when they engage in a variety of activities (listening, talking, writing, etc); what’s more, having fun actually increases attentiveness, which in turn makes higher-level learning and deeper connections more likely. As a professor, coming up with innovative and engaging student activities can improve your teaching portfolio or even result in a publication in a pedagogy journal.

Moving on to no-tech activities, we focused on small group activities. Most of us have used small groups at some point in our classrooms, but it’s easy for them to feel like a waste of time. We gave some examples of fun and productive small group activities (see the handout for details), and then Emily described ways to make them more effective. For example, it’s a good idea to require groups to generate a written product that they will have to present, so that group conversations stay on track. Ask students to persuade the class when they present those written products, rather than simply summarize. And research shows that groups of 5-6 produce the most conducive environment for interactive learning.

Using multimedia inside or outside the classroom also offer exciting ways to enliven lessons and promote more engaged learning. This can be as simple as showing a video clip and asking students to write for a few minutes in response before discussing those responses in class – a great way to incorporate low-stakes writing into the classroom. Or you can get a little fancier with only minimal extra effort, trying out some instant feedback techniques. Instant feedback can be used to gauge student comprehension, gather questions, provoke discussion, or even take attendance. We demonstrated an instant poll in the workshop using polleverywhere.com, a great resource that lets you set up a multiple-choice or free-response poll, have your students respond via cell phone or laptop, and display the results instantly as they come in. Our poll – based on a question WAC Fellow Wilson uses in her Intro to Sociology classes – started off with a strong lead for Beyonce’s alienation, but a late surge of “Who is Karl Marx?” responses made for a close finish.

Clickers, which some departments have (and if not, you can use technology fee money to help buy them), can be used for similar purposes, or you can even set up a hashtag for your class and have students tweet questions or responses for instant in-class feedback.

Finally, there are some great ways to use technology outside the classroom. OpenLab is a City Tech resource for setting up a course website, where you can post a dynamic course syllabus, run a class blog, or even create a multimedia class project, like this English/Communications class did. They even offer workshops to get you started; you can find schedules on their website.

Emily showed the workshop her own class blog (which is private, so no link here – but you can see another WAC Fellow’s class blog here as an example) and talked about the ways to use a blog and the benefits of doing so. It’s a great place to practice low-stakes writing; you can ask students to post once a week before class to ensure that they come to class prepared, but also to promote student interaction online. Requiring students to comment on each other’s posts – or offering extra credit for doing so – can generate discussions that you can continue in class. This is particularly useful for students who might feel intimidated or shy in class; it gives them a different way to participate, and it also can give them the confidence to then do so in the classroom after trying it out online. By asking students to post several hours before class, you can read their responses beforehand, which lets you identify and better address the concepts or issues students were most interested in or confused by.

The tasks you assign for blog posts could be the same each week, or you could change it up and use it as a scaffolding tool, according to course objectives. You could ask them to summarize and analyze of the week’s readings, identify a thesis or evidence, argue for or against the author’s position, connect the readings to personal experience, explain key concepts in plain English, or generate discussion questions. Be sure to give specific tasks for posting comments on other’s blog posts, too!

To wrap it up, Emily talked about a couple of ways to tie all of these ideas together. Of course, you certainly don’t have to incorporate everything into the same class, but if you’re wondering how you’re going to have time to use any of them, thinking about a flipped classroom model could be useful. In the flipped classroom, activities we typically do in class – primarily lecture – are done outside (via existing video content you find, such as TED talks or documentaries, or lectures you record of yourself), and activities typically done outside of class – the application of the lecture material – are done in class. So you essentially make room for in-class activities by shifting lectures out.

That’s it for this semester, but we’ll be back in the spring with several workshops for students, a faculty workshop on applying WAC principles with ESL students in the classroom, and a symposium in May to present all writing certification participants’ work from the year. Keep an eye out for the final schedule!

November 30, 2015November 30, 2015

Technology in the Classroom

Our last faculty workshop of the semester is approaching, where we will be discussing strategies for implementing more creativity in the classroom. An aspect of this workshop involves the use of technology. But whether and how to use technology in the classroom is certainly not a settled debate.

There are broad disagreements over whether any sort of active learning (including technology) detracts from student development of the comprehension and reasoning skills required to digest a lecture. There are also disagreements about the extent to which technology can effectively be used to deliver course content. In particular, the trend toward “flipping the classroom” is largely premised upon taking advantage of available technologies for the explicit purpose of increasing student engagement with course materials. In a flipped classroom, lectures are delivered electronically outside of class, and in-class time is reserved for student synthesis, application, and discussion. Some faculty have even attempted the flip in large lecture hall situations, encouraging student accountability for completing required readings. Proponents of the flipped classroom model have developed many different types of resources for using technology outside the classroom in order to facilitate more active learning before, after, and during class. Ted-ed is one example.

But what about technology in the classroom itself? This can take either the form of technology used by the instructor (e.g. powerpoint, video clips), or technology used by the students, namely laptops. There are many elements to consider when deciding whether to allow students to use laptops. On one hand, research suggests that students demonstrate better understanding of concepts and applications when they take notes by hand. On the other hand, permitting the use of technology may foster a more inclusive learning environment, allowing for more alternatives to the traditional lecture. Chris Buddle at McGill, for example, allows students to use the internet to fact check him during class, which often leads to spontaneous discussions and new avenues for student engagement. It can also expand accessibility for students who require accommodations for varying sorts of disabilities.

WAC philosophy and pedagogy offers a robust defense of active learning. That said, it can be overwhelming to try and integrate so many new and different strategies and resources into a classroom. It may certainly be the case that using technology in new ways does not immediately yield the expected outcome. That need not be a reason, however, to shy away from it. It does not mean that you have to drastically change your curriculum to make it more fun or accessible. But it does mean that there may be ways to deepen student engagement with both your course, and with the pursuit of knowledge more broadly, which might fall outside the traditional lecture format, and may involve writing and reading in more creative styles and venues.

October 20, 2015October 19, 2015

Should We Abandon Active Learning for Lecturing?

A Sunday New York Times op-ed about teaching style—currently one of the most-emailed articles on the newspaper’s website—issues a call for more lectures and less active learning, at least in the humanities. Molly Worthen, an assistant professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, argues that lectures teach students comprehension and reasoning. “Absorbing a long, complex argument is hard work, requiring students to synthesize, organize and react as they listen,” she writes.

It’s a provocative argument, given the movement toward active learning in recent years, and given what we know about the advantages of actively engaging students in a variety of ways (see the recent post by my colleague, WAC Fellow Claire Hoogendoorn, for more on that research). But it’s also a false dichotomy. Lecturing and active learning don’t have to be opposites; in fact, Worthen herself emphasizes the importance of one form of active learning during lectures: note-taking. She writes:

But we also must persuade students to value that aspect of a lecture course often regarded as drudgery: note-taking…. Studies suggest that taking notes by hand helps students master material better than typing notes on a laptop, probably because most find it impossible to take verbatim notes with pen and paper. Verbatim transcription is never the goal: Students should synthesize as they listen.

Indeed, research indicates that taking notes helps not just with retention of information, but also with conceptual understandings. (And, as Worthen points out, writing notes by hand seems to do an even better job of it than using a laptop.) Many students have never been taught how to take notes, though; they need to be taught. WAC Fellows can help you do that yourself, and we also offer a student note-taking workshop in the spring.

There are other ways to incorporate active learning through writing into the lecture format. Below are just a few, drawn from Engaging Ideas by John C. Bean (2011).

Develop Exploratory Writing Tasks Keyed to Your Lectures. These assignments, which could be in-class or out-of-class, cannot be completed without paying attention to the lecture. Example: At the end of class, ask students to take five minutes to argue for or against an important idea from the lecture.

Break the Pace of a Lecture Using “Minute Papers.” Stop in the midst of a lecture and ask students to write for five minutes in response to a question connected to that point in the lecture. This gives you feedback and refocuses student attention.

Ask Students to Write Summaries of One or More of Your Lectures. These should be short and can be done either in class or out of class, and help student understanding as well as giving you feedback.

These don’t have to create more work for you. Most could be ungraded, or graded for completion only; you could also grade only a fraction of them each time. And by bringing low-stakes writing like this into the lecture format, you can help ensure that your lectures are being heard and understood.

December 9, 2014December 9, 2014

Missed our creative classroom workshop?

We had a great workshop today on active learning, technology, and innovative ideas to use in the classroom, thanks to all who attended. If you missed it, be sure to check our workshops page for the PowerPoint Presentation and Handout, full of excellent sources and ideas to implement in your classroom. Questions? Contact Pam or Jake, the workshop leaders, who can help you out.

December 1, 2014November 29, 2014

Scenario-Based Homework Questions: Instructor Creativity Results in Student Creativity and Deeper Learning

Recently, Claire Hoogendoorn wrote about problem-focused activities in the classroom. The focus of this post is closely related to her insightful ideas. Scenario-based questions are homework or exam items that are based on real-life situations as opposed to abstract questions that pinpoint specific course content (e.g., terms, equations) without requiring students to link the content to its application. In my classrooms, they are effective due to the following reasons:

They’re more fun and interesting for the students to do.
Students’ answers to them are more fun and interesting for us as instructors to read.
Scenario-based questions are harder to plagiarize because they are creative in that they require more than a simple definition to answer them.
These items or questions require students to APPLY the concepts from your course instead of being satisfied with route memorization.
This question type leads to more critical thinking and active learning for students.

Below are a few scenario-based questions from my own courses that involve the above elements.

From Social Psychology:

Daniel is watching a television advertisement about a new brand of vitamins. He decides to buy them the next time he goes to the store because there’s a doctor and a professional athlete endorsing them in the advertisement so he figures it must be a great product. Which of the aspects of persuasion as discussed in class does his decision depend on? Defend your decision with a 3-5 sentence explanation.

From Statistics:

Scenario: An organization is interested in whether an employee’s job type (administrative assistant, salesperson, or research and development) impacts his or her perceptions of the organization’s culture.

Which is the dependent variable?
Which is the quasi-independent variable?
What is the alternative hypothesis in words?
What is the null hypothesis in words?

Run the appropriate statistical analysis in SPSS and highlight the relevant values on the output that should be used to answer the organization’s question.

Explain the findings in a manner that a senior leader could understand who does not have expertise in statistics (Hint: Explain the results without statistical language or notation).

Now describe these results to a scientific audience that does have expertise in statistics (i.e., in APA style).

Try your own scenario-based questions in a few homework assignments to examine if your students seem to grasp the content better when they know they will be asked to apply the information they learn in novel ways. After they are used to the structure of such questions, you can begin to ask them to come up with similar question types themselves and answer these as an additional homework question at the end of an assignment. This will give them the opportunity to produce creative applications of your course content that are inspired by the world they experience around them.

Tag: active learning