DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Thoughts on Self-explanation

by Mark Sivak

 

I teach a vareity of different courses but many of them include instruction in specific technical skills like Computer Aided Design (CAD) or programming. The literature is quite good on using self-explanation to help students with these skills. This was of particular interest to me as my students commonly as a group have a large distribution of skill levels and self explanation can help with this.

 

Self explanation as a method has students explain new information to themselves in hopes of scaffolding the new information on their prior knowledge. As mentioned there are several studies about using this technique for techincal skills. I hope to deploy this on a large scale in the fall with a course I am teaching, Programming Basics. This term I was able to pilot the idea in a different course, Engineering Cornerstone, with teaching the students MATLAB. MATLAB programming is one of the easier topics in the course and students do not tend to struggle with it like they do other skills. Also Cornerstone is a freshmen course so there is not large of a difference in skills levels amongest the students as there will be in the 2000 level Programming Basics course. However, even with these limitations the pilot was sucessful as students reported feeling a higher confidence in their knowledge of the material and a higher quiz average than last year's section. While this pilot has some flaws I think it is promising for the fall.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Reflecting on Active Learning Strategies

by Michelle Laboy

 

As an engineer, I was taught in a traditional academic model by expert engineers using the traditional lecture method, sometimes complemented by labs outside of the main lecture. But the course I enjoyed the most was taught by a professor of structural engineering who did a spectacular job describing a complex concept (pre- and post-tensioning) by imitating the effects of the process on structures with his own body. It was not only effective, it was a very funny form of physical comedy. He did not use props, and his imitations can be said to be low cost strategies. But I was still watching (and laughing and learning) - but not doing. Later in Architecture School I mostly learned design by making, experimenting with materials, models and drawings, self-critiquing them and then receiving external feedback. This was and continues to be a great way to learn – each design project is an active learning experience for me. Active learning in professional fields usually means educational experiences that resemble professional practice as much as possible. This usually includes Project-Based Learning, or simulations of situations in the field to practice application of principles. Recently there has also been an increase in model-making, or Design-Build exercises, in engineering and other creative fields; the types of hands-on activities that can help students visualize, observe and understand concepts. For my course on Structural Systems, a course for Architecture students, I initially inherited a lecture-format course designed by engineers that used a combination of slides with a list of typical quantitative problems to be diagrammed and demonstrated on the board.  This is not a good way for architecture students to learn concepts that they mostly need to apply to their work based on an intuitive understanding of physical structures to very different problems than what are encountered in class. I knew this was a problem, and in over a few years I made some improvements to the course by adding more opportunities for group work in recitations and problem-based learning in semester-long projects. But this mostly happened outside the classroom, and students were still struggling with basic concepts in class and finding motivation. Based on discussions at the Course Design Institute and with colleagues at the Teaching Inquiry Fellows, this year I learned about and applied many active learning strategies, like Think-Pair-Share, when presenting new concepts or problems. I reduced the lecture slide-format to no more than one third of class time, and instead spent a lot more time in in-class activities and hands-on experiments and demonstrations. I invested in simple props like springs, strings, small wood beams and columns, and weights that I could share with the whole class; and I invested in one more sophisticated structural demonstration model building kit. I made sure that each new concept included a demonstration with real objects, some which I could pass around, so that the students could feel, push, pull, or deform themselves; and others they had to observe me demonstrate and discuss in groups before explaining. Sometimes there was some intentional variety in the material samples I passed around, and I asked the students to discuss in pairs why and how they thought they behaved different, before we discussed as a larger group. Other times I engaged the entire class in retrieving prior knowledge and thinking about how it may be connected to what may be going on; for example grouping them to come up with a list of properties of a specific material, so they can compare what may happen to a structure if constructed of different materials. Giving the students a chance to go back to concepts they had learned before, discussing them with their small groups, and then with the entire class, presented an opportunity for active participation, for questioning what they thought they knew, and reorganizing prior and potentially troublesome knowledge together. Demonstrations of structures that require a single kit meant I had to ask the students to stand up and gather around the model, which was in itself a great break in the class, and to discuss what they were observing. This was possible because I had a small group this year. But it was incredibly effective for students to see, and experience, physical behavior of real structures. The feedback I received from course evaluations was remarkably positive, and the scores much higher than other years. Most importantly, I noticed a dramatic difference in understanding and learning. Based on the results I had this year with this pilot group, I convinced my department to invest in multiple tools for hands-on, active learning, so that next year I can apply these ideas to a much larger class, by dividing them into small groups and testing the models themselves with my guidance. This will be a big experiment, and I don’t know if this will translate just as well to larger groups, but I know I will never teach the same way again!

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Practices: Active Learning

by Andrew Mackie

 

My teaching relies heavily on the traditional lecture format. This has been the dominant pedagogical model for centuries, including how I was taught, so it seems natural to continue using the same paradigm. However, despite longstanding application of this approach, its shortcomings are increasingly recognized.

 

One of the primary (mostly unrealized) goals I have when teaching is to engage the learner. To be the professor they remember in a decade. The plain truth is I am not there. Yet! Active learning is a model that can maintain the familiar scaffold of the lecture paradigm but increase student engagement with the material, enabling deeper learning.

 

Graffam’s paper offers a “roadmap” to ease into active learning by adding some modifications to lecture. The main elements that seem applicable to my courses are “intentional engagements” and “critical reflection”.

 

One of the intentional engagements involves a modification of a strategy I already use: the pause. Often I add a Q&A slide at the end of each section of my lectures, but these questions too often are effectively (or nearly so) rhetorical. They are basic fact recall types of questions. One of the strategies Graffam’s paper suggests involves a sort of “think-pair-share” pause where students pair up and consolidate and correct any notes they’ve made thus far, with the chance to ask me questions. This strategy has a low level of “doing” and a moderate level of “reflection”. Another strategy where material that is out of order is presented gives the opportunity for a higher level of doing during reflection, as students think about relationships between material.

 

The main strategy I currently use to engage students is to randomly call on them during the lecture. This creates an environment where they feel, “I better pay attention in case he calls on me”. An improvement on this strategy this paper suggests is to tell a student you will be asking them a question, then when the time comes ask them. Further extending it can be done by asking a 2nd (also pre-warned) student, “what do you think about what your classmate just said?”.

Yet another strategy is to use “connection questions” where students are asked to ponder similarities and differences between two disorders. While reading this another strategy occurred to me, which is to have them “explain this disease to the student next to you, as if they were a patient”. This allows them to picture themselves in the very real role of doing just that, which they will soon be engaged in.

 

Lastly, case scenarios are recommended. One method is to “trickle” out information by providing an initial scenario (e.g., a 71-year-old woman presents complaining of shortness of breath) and then asking the class, “what else do you want to know”? During the process they practice critical thinking, and in some cases I may end up expanding on what was said, thereby modeling critical thinking.

 

The prompts of having to write on this e-Portfolio lead me to explore 3 of the questions further, and this particular paper really provided me with some concrete ideas that can be implemented in the very near future. Thank you for all you’ve done and helped us to learn this year!

 

Graffam B. PhD (2007) Active learning in medical education: Strategies for beginning implementation, Medical Teacher, 2007:29:1, 38-42, DOI: 10.1080/01421590601176398

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.