how-to

What has to be done

Many of our colleges have expectations of what we will cover. Obviously those must be included in our course.

Examples from Freshman Composition at my three colleges

CC2 requires that the students get a strong introduction to computer usage. They have included this as a requirement because most students at CC2 are from just above the poverty level or lower and often have no exposure to the internet.

CC1 requires that we have four papers and a research paper. (It turns out that not everyone actually requires this, but the school itself does.) Not doing the research paper is a way to get yourself banned from teaching there.

SLAC requires three outside class papers and three inside class papers. The in-class papers must be graded more heavily than the out-of-class papers.

The things you think are most important

In my Early British Lit class, I include Beowulf. Many people don’t because Senior English can include Beowulf in the high schools. But I find that a) most people haven’t read it and b) even those who have can use the review. If they haven’t read it, it is an interesting way to start the course. If they have read it, it is an easy way to start the course.

I also include “women’s studies” type readings because I am a woman and too often the positive aspects of Old English/Middle English literature and women are ignored.

In addition, I include “old faithfuls” like Shakespeare and Chaucer, but with a twist. We watch a Shakespearean comedy, instead of reading another of his tragedies. We read “The Miller’s Tale,” a bawdy story unsuitable for teens (though they would probably appreciate it the most).

The things you think are most fascinating

Whatever you love, you should teach. Perhaps that should not be all you teach, but you should teach it. Your enthusiasm will show.

I teach the Exeter Riddles. Most people haven’t even heard of them. I know I didn’t until I got to graduate school. But there are some great ones in there. And it is an interesting way to introduce the culture of the era for British literature or to talk about descriptive writing in freshman composition.

One paper I have had a lot of success with in my freshman composition courses is a riddle paper in which the students write a riddle about an object that is important to them. I tell them that it has to be clear by the end of the riddle what it is, but that I shouldn’t be able to guess at the beginning. This particular paper is an expressive bridge into collegiate writing. It lets the students write about something they know and love, while following my guidelines and writing a college-level paper.

Stuff you know something about

I don’t recommend teaching something you don’t know. If you are supposed to, make sure you learn enough about it that you know more than anyone else in the class is likely to.

Obviously you can’t teach everything you know, so go back to the points above.

Culture Cat has an excellent presentation of reasons for assigning a personal narrative as a first essay in a composition course.

I have definitely assigned the narrative essay first in the classroom with some of these in mind, especially the ideas of assigning students what they personally know and as a means of assessing their abilities.

However, I also look at the narrative essay as a bridge for college English.  I don’t know where Dr. Ratliffe’s students are coming from, but many of my students have either never written anything in high school or have only written expressive papers.  By offering as a first assignment the narrative I affirm their intimate knowledge of their subject matter, themselves, and allow them their best chance at a successful writing experience because it is the most like their previous experiences.

I was looking up information on learning styles because it was relevant to the class I am taking. I found this fascinating information.

Auditory Learners:
Learn through hearing
Talk to themselves while working
Move their lips and pronounce the words as they read
Enjoy reading aloud and listening
Can repeat back and mimic tone pitch and timbre
Find writing difficult, but are better at telling
Speak in rhythmic patterns
Prefer lecture or seminar to reading a book
Like talking more than writing
Repeat information over and over to memorize it
Make up little rhymes to remember thing
Are talkative, love discussion and go into great lengthy discussions

Verbal Cues:
“Spell it out for me.”
“I don’t hear what you are saying.”
“Listen to me.”

Visual Learners:
Learn through seeing
Are neat and orderly
Are good spellers and can actually see words in their mind
Memorize by visual association
Make up little rhymes to remember things
Prefer a map to listening to directions
Underline and annotate reading material
Concerned with form and format
Love the use of the overhead and PowerPoint

Verbal Cues:
“Let’s take a look at it.”
“I don’t see what you are saying.”

Kinesthetic Learners:
Learn through touching
Prefer a map to listening to directions
Underline and annotation reading material
Concerned with form and format
Use finger as a pointer when reading
Gesture a lot
Can’t sit for long periods of time

Love the use of the overhead and PowerPoint
Enjoy role-playing
Look for physical rewards
Memorize by associating events with ideas

Verbal Cues:
“Let’s move on.”
“I don’t get it.”

Other points
Auditory: Distracted by noise, like music more than art, move lips while reading.

Visual: Not distracted by noise, fast reader.

Kinesthetic: Pointing, expressive facial appearance and posture, move about.

Auditory: Like music more than art, prefer talking instead of reading.

Visual: Prefer books to lectures, like to doodle while talking on phone.

Kinesthetic: Prefer groups to lectures, like to take a walk to sort out ideas.

On writing, if a student is Auditory:

• likes group interaction to generate ideas
• appreciates verbal responses (conversation) to their work-in-progress
• likes “talking through”
• a paper idea/plan (explaining it) before writing
• tends to include quotations and dialog in writing
• verbally rehearse their writing (interior monolog), may even mumble to themselves when writing

On writing, if the student is visual:

• Likes to view models of papers assigned
• Appreciates written responses to their work-in-progress
• Prefers creating a graphic picture of the writing—a paper plan or outline—and graphically oriented invention strategies—flow chart, clustering, balance sheet, schematics, pro-con, etc.
• Cares about handwriting
• Tends to write carefully, correctly, much proofing during invention and drafting stages, but this penchant for appearance results in meager production

On writing, if a student is kinesthetic:

• prefers and profits from active reading (underlining, annotating a text) instead of reading straight through
• prefers writing in short bursts
• prefers active invention strategies that both reduce the writing task into discrete steps and manipulate material
• tends to write quickly, spontaneously, and abundantly, but without much regard for correctness or appearance (however, an extremely productive behavior)
• handwriting often unintelligible to a reader

from a LENS Workshop

But when I was reviewing my blog/using my outboard brain, I found that I read and referenced a cognitive scientist’s discussion of learning modalities. He says that learning styles don’t make that much difference in learning.

I believe that in one way (and it makes teaching easier) and in another way I think it must have some impact.

I think perhaps the information in this post says how it has impact.

In Learning to Teach: A discussion of a syllabus I wrote:

I am going back to a syllabus that more accurately reflects my “personality and style.” Do you think the school has antique parchment in hot pink for photocopies?

I think that the impetus to do something fun with my online syllabus at Davis English came from this thinking.

How to Use a Text You Didn’t Pick says:

The text is not supposed to be a bear trap that springs closed on your classroom and holds it still till it bleeds out. It is supposed to be a starting point, a jumping off point, a useful tool for your teaching. Use it; don’t let it abuse you.

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

The course I will be teaching is not a philosophy of social sciences, but I ought to do some reading in it before I head on out to teach.

Prof. Smith at Calvin College has a Philosophy of the Social Sciences course from which I took the following:

This course will investigate the foundational assumptions at work in the social sciences. Emerging in the wake of modernity and in concert with the rise of positivism, the social sciences have, since the beginning, been concerned with basic philosophical questions when reflecting on “method.” What does it mean to have “scientific” knowledge of the “social” world? What counts as “knowledge?” What is “science” in such a context? How has our understanding of “science” changed after the demise of positivism? What are the implications of hermeneutics for scientific observation and the notion of “objectivity?” And what are the implications of that for the project of the social sciences? Is positivism still with us? How are we to understand the “social?” Just what are human beings, and thus what is the nature of human community? Is social science merely descriptive, or also critical and prescriptive?

He also offers some additional readings which sound interesting.

Lori Gottlieb, “How Do I Love Thee? The New Science of Love,” The Atlantic Monthly (March 2006): 58- 70.
Daniel Izuzquiza, “Can a Gift Be Wrapped? John Milbank and Supernatural Sociology,” Heythrop Journal 67 (2006): 387-404.

Here is another Phil of soc sci, with lecture notes and audio of the foundation of philosophy in social science.

Preparing and Writing in the Social Sciences

Dr. Flaxman of Brown’s Writing Program wrote a paper on how teachers create writing assignments. The following quote provides language that I found useful.

In the Writing Fellows Program we distinguish three kinds of student writing: pre-socialized, socialized, and post-socialized. In all three cases, we describe the level of student sophistication in contextual terms. The process of education, in this model, is one of initiating students into the conventions of a particular discourse. First-year students at Brown who have never taken a course in Economics, for example, are termed “pre-socialized” to the conventions of writing Economics. Once they learn the vocabulary and conventions of writing in this discourse, they are “socialized” to the discourse. And, some, having learned the proper way to communicate economic concepts, begin to play with these conventions consciously, becoming “post-socialized” to the discourse.

In that same paper, Dr. Flaxman presents the case for the developmental model of writing, where each point is more complex than the one before. I think that will work very well with the social sciences class.

Dartmouth offers some good advice on stylistic differences between the social sciences and the humanities.

Understand, however, that writing for a particular discipline means more than simply writing good sentences. Every discipline has a preferred writing style. If you are a Humanities student, you will certainly be somewhat put off by the style of writing in the Social Sciences. The paragraphs seem surprisingly short, the sentences remarkably unremarkable, and what’s up with that pesky passive voice?

In the Social Sciences, sentences must be well-crafted but they mustn’t be “flowery.” The reader mustn’t feel that the writer is relying more on rhetoric than she is on evidence. Paragraphs must also be well-crafted and coherent, but they mustn’t belabor the point. Digressing to interesting but not immediately relevant observations is discouraged. In short, the Social Science paper should report clearly, concisely, thoroughly, and objectively the writer’s findings.

Finally, the Humanities student will find it difficult getting accustomed to the passive voice used in most Social Science papers. Perhaps it will help to understand that this voice is used for a reason: to keep the observer out of the narrative. Consider: “I observed no significant increase in aggressive behavior” vs. “No significant increase in aggressive behavior was observed.” In the second, passive sentence the observation seems more objective and impersonal, cut loose from the very subjective “I.”

An excellent introduction to writing in the social sciences is available through JSTOR. I think it would be a good place to begin.
“On Scientific Writing”
William F. Ogburn
The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 52, No. 5 (Mar., 1947), pp. 383-388

I hate to admit that we are far behind the times in this presentation, but I found a journal article from 1977 which discusses the creation of the course I will be teaching next semester.

“Writing for the Social Sciences”
Eleanor M. Hoffman
College Composition and Communication, Vol. 28, No. 2 (May, 1977), pp. 195-197

“The Hierarchy of the Sciences?” by Stephen Cole in The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Jul., 1983), pp. 111ff argues that there is no difference between the natural (hard) sciences and the social (soft) sciences in terms of cognitive consensus or the rate at which new ideas are incorporated.

This might be an interesting way to address the feelings that social sciences isn’t as strong/hard/core as natural sciences.

This syllabus from Penn State has as a scheduled beginning exercise watching Fight Club. They also read parts of Fast Food Nation. This is definitely a writing class first, with social sciences second. There is quite a bit of rhetorical theory, including Toulmin and claims (Aristotle).

A unit on writing and inquiry in the social sciences

Unit II – Writing and Inquiry in the Social Sciences
Objectives of Unit II: To familiarize students with the issues debated in the social sciences, and writing skills used in the social sciences. To increase student confidence in reading and writing in the social sciences. The successful completion of an experiment in the social sciences.

Class …
“Issues in Social Science – Social Science in Perspective”
Introduction to the Social Sciences Unit
Reflection and in-class writing on science unit. Introduction to the social sciences.
Relating social science to lived experience. Topics in Social Science.
Homework:
Read: “Behavioral Studies in Obedience” “On ‘Obedience to Authority’” “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison” Optional: “Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience …” Write: Personal Reaction Essays. 1-2 page on each experiments.

Class…
Experimentation in the Social Sciences
Class discussion of the articles on the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milligram experiment. Discussion of the way knowledge is achieved through experimentation in the social sciences. Discussion of the purpose of such knowledge. Opinion vs. Evidence. Discussion of potential experimental topics for the Social Science Paper.
Homework:
Read: “On the Ethics of Intervention …” Survey Building Complete: Ethics Survey/ Certification: http://hstraining.orda.ucsb.edu
Write: Proposal for experimental topic.

Class …
Refining and Conducting a Social Science Experiment / Experimental ethics.
Share experimental ideas. Discussion of ethics in the social sciences. Group the students into optional experimental teams. Workshop on writing effective survey questions.
Homework:
Conduct: Experimental Survey

Class …
Interpreting and Presenting Data
Discussion of collected data from surveys. How to interpret information. How to craft raw data into a polished report. Group work on organizing and presenting results effectively. Discussion of experimental form.
Homework:
Read: “Field Study and Reports” Write: Individual Rough draft of Social Science Experiment.

Class …
Social Science Report Workshop
Peer review and workshop of Social Science Experiment. Class discussion of common difficulties or problems. Volunteers to share portions of Social Science Experiment.
Homework:
Write: Final Draft of the Social Science Experiment.

This course requires as a text
Behrens, Laurence and Rosen, Leonard J. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. 8th ed.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 2002

The social sciences unit:

Unit 1: Social Sciences
Monday 9/30: Introduction and diagnostic

Wednesday 10/2: The basics of writing a college paper
Distribution of the assignment for paper 1
Reading: “Group Minds” (WRAC pp.306-8) and “The Organization Kid”
(WRAC pp.365-74)

Monday 10/7: Summary
Reading: “Opinions and Social Pressure” (WRAC pp.309-15)

Wednesday 10/9: Paraphrase and quotation
Reading: “The Perils of Obedience” (WRAC pp.317-28)

Monday 10/14: Critique
Reading: “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience” and
“Obedience” (WRAC pp.329-45)

Wednesday 10/16: Peer review of rough drafts

You need to build a good repertoire of information throughout your course.

Obviously having a course that was perfect would be preferred. But I’m not sure most of us are up to that yet. However, if you are teaching a course, hopefully you already think it is good. So how do you make it better? You build it up, piece by piece.

If you try to focus on improving the whole course at one time, you will be overwhelmed. Even dedicated multitaskers can’t do that.

So start at the very beginning. (Yes, yes, I know. It’s a very good place to start.)

Work on a few key lessons.

Don’t literally start at the beginning necessarily. (If you need to start at the beginning, the University at Honolulu has some good ideas. And you can look through my available tips on the first day.)

Pick two or three lessons that need upgrading or could use upgrading. Think of them, if you need to, as a grad school project. If you had to turn them in as is, would you get a good grade? If not, go back and revamp them.

There are good ways to choose which lessons to upgrade.

If you are confused about where to start, go over your notes from your last syllabus. Look for places where the students were confused or the plan didn’t work.

If you haven’t taken notes on your syllabus, look at your last semester’s grade book. What grades were the lowest across your classes? If you find that students got consistently lower grades on a project, it will be an indicator of what you need to work on.

6 ways to improve your key lessons.

Once you have decided which lessons need the most revamping, and work on those.

How do you work on them?

One of the things I do is look through Google. If I’m talking about women in Beowulf-era England, I would google “women in Old English” and “Women Beowulf” and “status of women throughout British history.” Then I look through multiple pages, searching for something good or several good somethings.

Sometimes I will find a lecture on the topic I am searching for. Sometimes I find artwork or music. In this day of multiple literacies, this can add value to my class. Sometimes I find an activity or an exercise that is useful.

It will, of course, depend on how common your topic is and how much other people have done on it what you find. But that is a good place to start.

Another thing to do is go to your school library. You can go to the physical library for books or to the virtual one for journal databases.

Look through those resources for ideas, kernels of lessons, and other useful information.

Sometimes I find things that look interesting, but I am not sure what to do with them. When that happens, I copy whatever it is and stick it in a folder (either a physical one or one on my computer). Often it will only be a few weeks before other ideas which are related come through my orbit and I can use all of them to flesh out this tidbit.

Make your lectures more memorable. MIT has a good article on how to make your lectures better. They have both a developed essay and a shortened “quick and easy ideas list.”

Developing more usable lectures can improve your course, even when you don’t add any new material. Sometimes just a new way of presenting the same material makes it better.

Come up with new/different exercises. Sometimes a new way of presenting information makes it more memorable.

How many people loved studying grammar in school? Probably not very many people. But one teacher I work with has come up with a great way to make grammar more fun. She has created a Jeopardy-type game where the questions are related to grammar. The class plays it in groups of two or three, with each person in the group answering a question. She says the students really enjoy it.

If you’ve always had a writing assignment for a particular unit, maybe a change of venue would be good. Perhaps a blog post on the topic could be created and posted to the class website.

Or maybe you could change the type of assignment you give. Instead of having a small research project and a paper, maybe you could assign a small research project and an oral report.

Solicit suggestions from your students. If you are trying to come up with new ways to teach a particular subject, you might ask your students for ideas. They are the ones in your class and they’re the ones who know it best.

One way to do this would be after a unit, pass out index cards and ask the students to write the best part of the unit and the least enjoyable. It won’t take them two minutes and it might be of great benefit to you.

Another way is to ask them for ways to make the unit better. Give this as an extra credit assignment. Tell them you will take any suggestions, but that useful ones will be given more credit. Is there a song that’s perfect for this topic? Maybe they know one and you’ve never heard of it. Is there a piece of art that could be the visual introduction? Do they want to create something for the unit?

Getting your students involved helps them to own the course. It’s not just a class they’re taking, but it’s one they are creating.

Solicit other teachers’ ideas.

Chances are you are not the only one teaching your course. Take a colleague to lunch and solicit their suggestions.

Or approach them on campus and make an appointment to meet with them at their office. Ask them what they have found to work best in their class. THEN take them to lunch.

While great minds may think alike, new approaches can often come from this solicitation.

Continue to improve your course over time.

You’ve chosen a few key lessons to upgrade and you’ve done that. Now what? Don’t stop there. Every time you teach the course, choose two or three lessons to improve.

Within a few years, or semesters if you teach the course each semester, you will have a course that is head and shoulders above the one you are teaching now. The satisfaction that comes from doing your best will show in your attitude towards the class, too, thus improving it in another way.

Always be getting ready to update your course.

Keep a source of ideas, a blog, a notebook, a doc. Whenever you have a relevant idea, write it down. Then get it into your main resource as soon as possible.

This gives you a stash of good ideas for working on your courses. It also can help jumpstart your improvement when you hit a mental road block.

Keep your mind active.

Taking a course yourself or taking your research in a new direction, reading a new book on a topic or getting involved with faculty development helps keep your mind from atrophying.

If you are learning, your information will be fresh.

One way I found was useful when I first started out was taking teaching journals, reading them and copying any good ideas into a notebook. I still have and read through that notebook. I have probably 500 ideas from other people that I may have used and forgotten or never had the opportunity to use. It’s been a benefit to me throughout my teaching career.

Portland State Center for Academic Excellence has an excellent site with good points.

Plenty of Interaction!
Provide immediate and rich feedback to students. Students need reassurance that a real person is on the other end of the computer.
Threaded discussions are the most valuable part of your online class.
Provide motivation, support, and feedback for discussions by thanking students and summarizing points.
Student-to-student interaction is just as valuable as teacher-to-student interaction.
Provide clear policies on when and how you will be available. Let students know when you go on vacation or will be unavailable for a few days.

Engage the Learner
Create activities where students integrate new ideas with existing knowledge.
Students remember only 10% of what they read or see, but 80% of what they do and 90% of what they teach others.
Students can become overwhelmed by the vastness of resources on the Internet. Be specific when asking them to find resources on the web.
Make students responsible for their learning by asking them to summarize the weeks discussion, take a lead of a discussion, or teach others a concept.

According to their Instructional Design Handbook it should take about 120 hours to create an online course from scratch. That assumes you have designers/tech support helping you.

Listed below are some sites I looked at from which I learned something, but it wasn’t the point of what I was looking for.

This one is actually for universities or departments rather than people, but I learned something important from it.

Six Factors to Consider when Planning Online Distance Learning Programs in Higher Ed

• Visions and plans
• Curriculum
• Staff training and support
• Student services
• Student training and support
• Copyright and intellectual property

I learned something atrocious from this.  And it probably explains why the professors’ works that I’ve liked that have disappeared have not reappeared somewhere else.

When the authors are employed as full-time instructors, in legal terms, they are considered “work-for-hire,” and the college owns their work (lecture notes, exams, handouts) for 75 years from the date of publication or 100 years from the date the work was created, whichever is shorter (Janes, 1988).

Ouch.

Full-time instructors, though, have operated under an academic exception to the copyright act in which faculty own their own intellectual property. This is based on tradition, or practice, and is not a legal requirement.

The issues of copyright, fair use, and work for hire are all being reconsidered in this era of online distance learning. Instructors have been accustomed to the idea that they “own” their own work, even if they did not own it legally. Traditionally, when instructors changed colleges, they got to take their lecture notes, too. They could give away their lecture notes freely. Given actual copyright law, though, a part-time instructor can use the same lecture notes when teaching at two different institutions, but a full-time instructor legally may not. This also applies to online courses; they belong to the institution when a full-time instructor creates them. As courses are being put online, thereby becoming marketable, institutions are beginning to claim their rights to the copyright. Full-time instructors have no legal authority to keep the classes they write unless they negotiate for that right.

So, if I ever have an opportunity to plan a course when I am teaching, I need to first negotiate the rights to the course.  Otherwise I won’t be able to get it back in my lifetime.

five types of listening.

Research indicates that online, open book tests can be just as discriminating and can 
result in as much learning as traditional exams; therefore online unmonitored exams are  appropriate for the college classroom.  As Burke stated, “Most educators agree that  open­book tests are more challenging than traditional objective tests because they require high­order thinking skills rather than recall skills.  The greatest benefit from openbook testing may be that it encourages the type of thinking that will benefit students in the real world” (as cited in Beall, Shaw, & Seiler, 2005, sect. 1).