WSU Teaching & Learning Blog

Educause Learning Initiative highlighted a technique called Google Jockeying (http://moourl.com/qjj0m). A student is assigned the role of the class “googler”. The information is then presented simultaneously on a separate screen and would supplement the lecture presentation. It is suggested that this might be a way to positively harness the need for consulting additional information. The role could be assigned to a different person during each lecture. If separate screens are not available, the lecturer might pause and let the google jockey give a synopsis of information searches and let participants add any new searches that might help them in understanding or clarifying the presentation. Incorporating this role is a good way to quickly assess understanding and it is an opportunity to coach the students on using the internet and on evaluating internet resources.

A great collection of writing about wikis in the higher education context is available online as a wiki (no surprise there, eh?). It is entitled The Wild Wild Wiki/Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom. Perhaps more interesting is the news that the University of Michigan press will be turning the collection into a book. Here’s the contents you can read online.

Volume Introduction “WhatWas a Wiki, and Why Do I Care? A Short and Usable History of Wikis”
Wikis and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
- “Wikis in the Classroom: A Taxonomy”
- “Wiki Justice, Social Ergonomics, and Ethical Collaborations”
- “Building Learning Communities with Wikis”
- “Content and Commentary: Parallel Structures of Organization and Interaction on Wikis”
Wikis in Composition and Communication
- “Disrupting Intellectual Property: Collaboration and Resistance in Wikis”
- “Wiki Lore and Politics in the Classroom”
- “An (Old) First-Timer’s Learning Curve: Curiosity, Trial, Resistance, and Accommodation”
- “Above and Below the Double Line: Refactoring and that Old-Time Revision”
- “Success Through Simplicity: On Developmental Writing and Community of Inquiry.”
- “Wiki as Textshop: Constructing Knowledge in the Electronic Classroom”
Wikis and the Higher Education Classroom
- “Is there a Wiki in this Class? Wikibooks and the Future of Higher Education”
- “Agency and Accountability: The Paradoxes of Wiki Discourse”
- “One Wiki, Two Classrooms”
- “Glossa Technologia: Anatomy of a Wiki-Based Annotated Bibliography”

This is a document that contains a table of best practices, tools and uses for building critical thinking skills while teaching online. It is based on a document called: Designing Online Instruction that Develops Critical and Creative Thinking Skills, Paula Jones, ABD, MaryAnn Kolloff, Ed D Fred Kolloff, Ph D; With additions and suggestions from: Office for Teaching and Learning, WSU

Best Practices Compilation

Clearly the trend within higher education is a move toward larger class sizes. A recent article in the Association for Psychological Science magazine Observer presents some tips for managing larger classes. They report that faculty often first have to deal with their own feelings about the change:

Faculty responses to increased class sizes often resemble Kubler-Ross’s (1969) stages of grief and loss: denial (”There is no way to increase the size of this class and maintain academic integrity!”); anger (”I can’t believe they did this, administrators don’t care about students or faculty!”); bargaining (”If I teach 20 percent more students without additional compensation, what do I get in return?”); depression (”How am I ever going to teach this class in a meaningful way again?”); and finally acceptance (”OK, my class is larger. How do I deal with the hordes?”).

If this sounds familiar to you, you’ll appreciate Todd Zakrajsek’s presentation of some very pragmatic tips for staying connected as your class size grows. Check it out here.

The U.S. Professors of the Year Award Program was created in 1981 by the Carnegie Foundation to increase awareness of the importance of undergraduate instruction at all types of higher education institutions. The program recognizes faculty members for their achievement as undergraduate professors. This short podcast from Inside Higher Ed interviews the 2007 winners to learn some of the things they do to make their teaching a success.

Spreadsheets in Education is an open-access journal hosted by Bond University in Australia that explores the role that spreadsheets can play in education. Three years of content are now available. Of particular interest to many faculty will be the regular features focusing on using spreadsheets in the classroom. A recent example is an article entitled Quick Correct: A Method to Automatically Evaluate Student Work in MS Excel Spreadsheets by Laura R. Wetzel and Peter J. Whicker. Worth a look…

Hi everyone! I came across a good article on the web titled, “A Brief Summary of the Best Practices in College Teaching.” It’s a nice little summary of ideas, including practices for making your lectures more effective, improving group discussions, motivating students, and much more (click the title of the article above to access it online).

I hope you find it helpful!
Kristi

The new issue of the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education includes an interesting article by Ruth Kennedy from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania exploring the use of different debate formats in the classroom. Here’s the abstract:

“Students learn in diverse ways; therefore, instructors must utilize a wide variety of instructional strategies. Students benefit when instructors use instructional strategies that promote active engagement. In-class debates cultivate the active engagement of students, yet participation in debates is often limited to students involved in debate teams. The benefits of using in-class debates as an instructional strategy also include mastery of the content and the development of critical thinking skills, empathy, and oral communication skills. Debate as an instructional strategy, however, has its opponents. Some believe debates reinforce a bias toward dualism, foster a confrontational environment that does not suit certain students, or merely reinforce a student’s existing beliefs. A variety of debate formats are described which address these criticisms including meeting-house, four-corner, fishbowl, think-pair-share, and role-play debates. Finally, issues related to the assessment of in-class debates are addressed such as whether the students are assessed individually or as a team, what aspects of the debate are assessed, and whether the instructor and/or students will do the assessment.” You can get the full article here as a pdf.

Academe Online, a publication of the AAUP, recently published a very informative article by Oscar Wambuguh entitled Teaching Large Evening Classes. The subtitle says it all - “They’ve been working all day, they’re tired, and there are scores of them—how do you reach them all?” Definitely worth checking out for insight into the creative approaches Professor Wambuguh has developed to keep things interesting.

Here are some more interesting resources that faculty may find helpful.

URL for numerous streamed documentary films that can be viewed (not downloaded): http://folkstreams.net/

Videos from a PBS affiliate WGBH http://openvault.wgbh.org

Five minute workshops are short videos produced at the University of Central Michigan. The brief workshops are designed to cover just one aspect of teaching in higher education. The one that is included here is about what happens on the last day of class. http://facit.cmich.edu/videos/tfft-last-day.html