Ask-Dr-Kirk

Tips On Answering And Asking Questions In Class

Dr. William Cashin (Kansas State University) shares tips on how to develop good questions to ask your students plus how to respond to the questions they ask you.

 

Road Trip To Georgia

I'm off to Savannah, Georgia, to teach a faculty development workshop at Savannah State University on Friday. The university's website states its goal is "a 'value added' education, resulting from classroom interactions, co-curricular activities, quality instruction, internships, practicum, research, and the infusing of technology into the curriculum...Thus, in addition to topics of teaching effectiveness and classroom management, I'll discuss using educational technology such as blogs, wikis, and Twitter in the classroom.

I'm looking forward to it.

Creative Student Projects

Digital Storytelling is a method educators could use to give students a creative way to express themselves. One way to do that is to have students digitally tell about a movie or book in one minute, using music, costumes, sound effects, etc. Check out this one minute video done by students on Forrest Gump. 

Found this via Dr. Strange who linked to Dr. Alec Couros’ student, Amy Perrey’s blog. What other ways could students use digital storytelling?

Free Art History Web-book

Here's a free multi-media source for art teachers "designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook" by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker.  

It's an interesting site for anyone interested in Art.

Free Resource For Improving College Teaching And Learning

I am really impressed with the website, Faculty Focus, for all the useful info they have for college faculty. They have a new special report, Effective Strategies for Improving College Teaching and Learning, that you can download for free.

Make Your Own Crossword Puzzle For Publication

For those of you who love crossword puzzles, The Chronicle of Higher Education has an unique opportunity to create your own and submit it for publication in the Chronicle. I'm thinking this would also be an interesting assignment for students to design a puzzle using terms, concepts, people studied in class.

50 Awesome Ways (Plus One More) To Use Skype In The Classroom

I had hoped to get Mike Wagner, CEO of White Rabbit Group, to come to Florida and talk to my MBA class on personal branding. The logistics didn't work out so instead we're doing the workshop by Skype. Skype is a free video phone service that requires a computer, webcam, and internet access. The great thing about it is Mike will be able to show powerpoint slides and link to websites as well as see the students and have the students see him, all without ever leaving Iowa.

For more ideas, here's 50 awesome ways to use skype in the classroom.

My Twitter Assignment For Students

Directions:

1. Go to Twitter to sign up using some version of your first and last name as your Twitter ID.
2. Upload a photo or avatar (can use Google to get free clip art)
3. Write a brief (160 characters or fewer) bio. Mention that you’re a MBA student at USF.
4. Choose two organizations to follow on Twitter for one week.
   

• Lists of organizations that Twitter:  organized by category of business, non-profit, government, media, etc.
• 12 ways to find brands and companies on Twitter
• Top Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) on Twitter 
• CEOs on Twitter

At the end of the week, each student should analyze how effective he or she believes the companies were in using Twitter and report this back to the class.

NOTE: For more tips for students on using Twitter, see Barbara Nixon's blog here.

Using Word Clouds As Teaching Tool

I had my students do a word cloud as an icebreaker for the first day of my graduate class this semester. Afterwards, they brainstormed how word clouds could be used in organizations. They developed a great list:

• Have employees share what they see as their personality traits
• Method to share anonymous suggestions
• Method to share suggestions for improvement
• Employee evaluations
• Set goals of employees or departments
• Brainstorming activity
• Determine strengths and weaknesses (SWOT analysis?)
• Indirect method to give a direct message
• Show appreciation
• Inspirational signs
• Mission statement
• Agenda for weekly meetings
• Describe new product
• Sales presentation
• Retirement (give to employee leaving)
• Bring group together/build cohesion
• Ice breaker with new team members
• Look at big picture of a project
• Establish relationships/bonding of employees/teams
• Recognize accomplishment/celebrations
• Identify staff conflict issues
• Prioritization
• To do list
• Staff training
• More in-depth/informal look at what’s important to employees

NOTE: Free software for doing Word clouds can be found at:  http://www.wordle.net/

Teaching That Sticks: Read This Before Beginning The New Semester!

Chip and Dan Heath discuss the basics of making ideas stick in their book, Made to Stick. In this article, they show us how to use the same techniques to helping your students remember what they are learning in class. Great advice on how to structure your lectures and class examples.

A Big Part Of Teaching Is Thinking About Teaching!

Professor Joe Hoyle (University of Richmond) is "Still Thinking About Teaching After All These Years." In this article, he states that good teaching comes from a process of thinking about teaching. As he notes:

Suddenly, I better understood those teachers whom I had admired. Their talents had not been developed purely as a result of years of repetition. For them, the education process was not viewed as a series of isolated events occurring over time. Rather, the students and their intellectual development reverberated in the teachers' thoughts, night and day, weekday and weekend. Almost like background music, a litany of mental questions was constantly being turned over and examined. How can I make the connection clearer between these two events? Why has the quality of a particular student's work fallen in the last few weeks? How can I relate the upcoming topic to the real world? Why do so many of my students consistently miss the same specific concept?

By thinking about what you are trying to do in the classroom and constantly updating and trying new ways of teaching and learning, your students will be convinced that you care about them and what they are learning. Better yet, the students will be more motivated to learn from you.

You can read Dr. Hoyle's entire article here: Download Hoyle Still Teaching

The 15 Strangest College Courses In America

Some of these sound like fun both to take and to teach!

50 Ways To Use Twitter In The Classroom

For those of you who are looking to incorporate technology into teaching and learning, here's a list of 50 ways to use Twitter in the college classroom.

12 Ways To Measure Teaching Effectiveness

Came across this article on measuring teaching effectiveness including peer ratings, self-evaluations, videos, student interviews, alumni ratings, employer ratings, administrator ratings, teaching scholarship, teaching awards, learning outcome measures, teaching portfolios, and...oh yes...student ratings.

You can download the article here: Download 12 strategies to measure teaching effectiveness

Educators Have New Roles In Teaching And Learning

As noted in Johanna Riddle’s article, Redefining the Role of the Teacher:

Today’s educators teach in times that are both exciting and demanding. Many of us have witnessed—and have contributed to—significant shifts in education. Sometimes, we find that those shifts push us outside our comfort zones.

She goes on to say that we will have new roles as frameworkers, connectors, and enablers.  

Frameworkers ”do a great deal of planning, organization, and management up front [so that they] feel that it frees them up to work alongside their students as coaches and guides. These teachers are very likely to be open to learning alongside their students.”

Connectors bring  “a world of learning to the doorsteps of their students. The process can be as simple as finding, and persuading, the right speakers, mentors, and specialists to participate in the life of the classroom, to creating and participating in connective software and Nexus points that broaden the view and knowledge base of students.

Enablers include students in the teaching and learning process as noted by one instructor who admits to a lack of technical expertise while realizing that the power of technology can contribute to learning.  “My philosophy (about technology inclusion) is ‘We’re all in this together’,” she explains. “If I’m trying to take my students through a step in the technological process, and I get lost, I ask them to help me through it. I have to be willing to learn with them.”

When we embrace the notion that how we teach is as crucial to the learning process as what we teach, we naturally begin to expand and reexamine our roles as teachers. As we reach into the world of our students, the everyday business of teaching and learning transforms into a shared, creative journey. And isn’t that when teaching, and learning, really start to matter?

You can read the full article here. 

More On Twitter: 50 CEOs Who Use This As A Business Tool

Yesterday, I asked if other professors were using Twitter in their classroom. Here’s an interesting article on CEOs who use Twitter and why. I'm thinking that an interesting assignment in my MBA class on Leadership this fall would be to have the students pick someone to follow and then analyze how that CEO and company is using Twitter as a business strategy.

And for those of you who wonder what this is all about, here's an article on the misconceptions about Twitter.

 

Are You Using Twitter As A Teaching Tool?

This article on using Twitter in the classroom states that it "helps students develop key skills in listening, information-gathering, multitasking and succinct writing." Twitter appears to be used primarily in Communications, PR, and Marketing classes.

I'm thinking of using Twitter in my management classes this fall-either as a visual aid for student presentations or as a way to review for exams. I would be curious to hear how others are using this technology.

Thanks to Wendy Drexler for pointing me to the article.

 

More On Wikipedia As A Teaching Tool

There's an interesting article today by Professor Robert Cummings (Columbus State University)  on how he uses Wikipedia as a class writing assignment.  If you're interested, here's a great video by Jon Udell that walks you through how Wikipedia works

 

Do You Grade On A Curve?

Here's an interesting discussion of whether you should grade on a curve or not. Dr. Rhett Allain (@ Dot Physics) and Professor Chad Orzel (Union College), as well as others (see the comments sections), present the pros and cons.

My take on this? I have never curved an exam. I do look to make sure that there are some A's to make sure the test was doable. A former colleague of mine used to make her exams so difficult that the top score would be 40 out of 100 points and then she would curve. To me, this doesn't make sense-you're really not motivating the students to do their best as they don't have the expectancy that they CAN do well. It also puts the professor in the position of giving points rather than having the students earn these.

I'd be interested in hearing what others think...

The Curse Of Knowledge

Chip Heath and Dan Heath discuss the Curse of Knowledge in their book, Made to Stick. The fact that we know something makes it difficult for us to teach it to someone else who doesn't know it.

As they note, "When you open your mouth and communicate, without thinking about what's coming out of your mouth, you're speaking your native language: Expertese. But students don't speak Expertese." 

In other words, being an expert in a discipline makes it hard for us to relate to others who are not experts.  Read more about this in their article, Teaching that Sticks, and check out their blog for more free resources here.

Download TeachingthatSticks

Patti Digh To Do Booksignings in Florida

Patti Digh will be speaking to my MBA class at the University of South Florida in Sarasota on Saturday, December 6 about Leadership and Diversity. While in Florida, she will do an author reading and booksigning for her new book, Life is a Verb, at the following bookstores:

• 7:30pm Thursday, December 4 at Barnes & Noble, 11802 N. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa.

NOTE: Barnes & Noble will donate 10% of ALL sales at ANY B&N store on December 4-9 (not just Patti's book) to a local charity, Metropolitan Ministries, that helps the poor and homeless.

Download Flyer-with-vouchermm  to take to any Barnes & Noble store.

• 12:30pm Friday, December 5 at Barnes & Noble campus bookstore, 500 3rd Street South, University of South Florida, St Petersburg

• 6:30pm Saturday, December 6 at Sarasota News and Books, 1341 Main Street, Sarasota

More info on her book can be found at: www.pattidigh.com 

Books make great holiday presents!!

Using Twitter In The Classroom

Professor Barbara Nixon (Georgia Southern University) shares her assignment for her students that requires them to use Twitter.

The blogger at Academhack.org shares ways he has used Twitter in his classes.

Anyone else have a good experience with using Twitter?

Self Evaluation Rubric For Student Team Presentations

I recently attended a workshop on developing rubrics at the Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence that was taught by Dr. Terri Flateby and Dr. Felix Wao (both from the University of South Florida-Tampa).  I really liked this rubric that requires students to do a self evaluation of their team presentation and I plan to use it this semester.

Download self_evaluation_of_team_presentation_rubric.doc

Rubrics To Use In Grading Student Presentations

Here are two rubrics you can tweak and use to grade student presentations.  These are in word format instead of PDF so you can change as needed.

Download presentation_rubric_1.doc (Developed by Information Technology Evaluation Services, NC Department of Public Instruction)

Download presentation_rubric_2.doc (Source: Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence, University of South Florida)  This one grades both presentation delivery and powerpoint visuals.

Free Software For Designing Rubrics

Here's free software for designing your own rubrics.  Thanks to Professor Barbara Nixon (Georgia Southern University) for sharing this site.

Workshop By Patti Digh

I'm attending a three day workshop that starts today that is facilitated by Patti Digh in Asheville, North Carolina. Patti is the author of a new book, Life is a Verb.  I first met Patti several years ago when I hired her to do a workshop on diversity for the Drake Business Link at Drake University. As noted on her website:

This unique retreat will explore these questions:

• How do we make meaning of our lives through story?
• What are the stories we tell ourselves about others? About ourselves? How do those stories reduce us?
• What learning and significances are right in front of us, in the stories of our days?
• How can we move beyond the limits of who we think we are into what we were meant to be?
• In what ways can we relinquish our “role” in order to discover who we might be beneath the mask?
• How can we live more mindful, intentional lives by saying yes, being generous, speaking up, trusting ourselves, loving more, and slowing down?

Our weekend will be oriented more toward learning (a process that leaves us changed) than toward problem-solving (a process focused on changing our surroundings). We believe learning is most meaningful when it is embodied, not just intellectual. There will be space and time for individual reflection as well as group engagement.

I'm looking forward to the workshop and believe I will be able to bring my experience back to share with my students.

Articles On Teaching In This Week's New York Times Magazine

The New York Times magazine has several interesting articles on teaching this week.

Thanks to Jennifer Russell (Academy of Art University) for pointing this source out to my attention (and now yours!)

Free Assessment Tool To Measure Intelligence

Here's a free assessment tool that measures your strengths in areas such as interpersonal, logic/math, musical, spatial, and language skills.  I find these instruments fascinating...

Resource For Writing Papers

Here's a great resource if you're writing a research paper. The Chicago Manual of Style Online answers questions on abbreviations, ampersands, capitalization, commas, and more. Their answers are both informative and witty. They even answer something I've wondered lately...is it one space or two after a period in a sentence?

Thanks to Colin at IdeaWorks.com for sharing this link.

Directory Of Edubloggers

This site is a directory of blogs by educators from all over the world.  Search under "higher education" or other topics to pull up a list of relevant weblogs.

Don't Believe That Urban Legend: Research Shows That Girls Are Just As Good At Math As Boys

A recent study of more than 7.2 million students found that on average there is "no difference in math scores for girls and boys in grades 2 through 11."

The research indicates that the statement made in 2005 by former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers "that boys are more likely to be math geniuses" is incorrect.  The data shows that "girls scored in the top 5 percent almost as often as boys."

Part of the problem is assumptions.  "Both parents and teachers continue to hold the stereotype that boys are better than girls [at math]," said psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who led the study. "That's just not accurate."

Building Lifelong Learners Through "Anti-teaching"

Dr. Michael Wesch (Kansas State University) writes his thoughts on anti-teaching:

"Teaching is about providing good information. Anti-teaching is about inspiring good questions. Since all good thinking begins with a good question, it struck me that if we are ultimately trying to create “active lifelong learners” with “critical thinking skills” and an ability to “think outside the box” it might be best to start by getting students to ask better questions."

As faculty, we are experienced in presenting explicit knowledge on a particular subject.  However, because of the way information changes so rapidly in today’s society, we want our students to also have tacit knowledge, which is knowing how to get things done, and is gained from experience and practice.  Thus, we encourage our students to be life-long learners who are able to keep their knowledge up to date.  We must create a class environment where students ‘learn how to learn’ and can apply their knowledge and skills in the unpredictable environments they will face in their lives and careers.  Maybe some "anti-teaching" is the way... 

Icebreaker Questions For The First Week Of Class

Professor Rosalyn Zigmond (University of Colorado at Boulder) advocates using provocative questions to generate discussion in class.  She does this to cultivate an interactive climate that "engages all students, empowers them to initiate conversations, and stimulates their knowledge construction."  She includes examples of what she would consider a good question.

Download ask_a_provocative_question.pdf

Free ebook: Designing Courses For Significant Learning

Dr. L. Dee Fink (University of Oklahoma) has a free guide to Course Design.  In his 35 page ebook he walks you through a step-by-step process of setting learning goals, deciding on teaching and learning activities, and assessing student grades.  The ebook comes complete with worksheets and action steps.

Great Article On Course Design

This is a great article by Professor David Whetten (Brigham Young University) on course design.  He notes that "teachers should specify what they expect their students to learn in a course or, more specifically, how they expect their students will be changed by this learning experience and what they should be able to do upon completion."  Thus, he notes that in designing a course, you should begin with the end in mind. 

He advocates developing a Skills learning model:

Skills assessment:  using diagnostic surveys to determine what skills students need to acquire or improve
Skills learning: teach subject matter so students can translate research, concepts, theories into guidelines for application
Skills analysis and practice:  use cases, role-plays, exercises, etc., to help students improve and practice skills
Skills application: transfer learning into everyday practice (how will students know that they can apply what they have learned in their careers and lives?)

What Do Students Think They Should Learn At College?

Here's an interesting article by Professor Paul Walker (Murray State University) titled "What do students think they (should) learn at college? Student Perceptions of Essential Learning Outcomes." 

Note that the career and life skills lists are longer than the subject matter list...

Does the University of Phoenix Fill A Niche Lacking In Academia?

Insidehighered.com has an article on the University of Phoenix and their two-year degree granting college, Axia.  According to them, Axia has more than 100,000 students that have enrolled over the past two years. 

I know what most of my colleagues and administrators think of the University of Phoenix.  Anyone out there have actual experience with either program? Just curious...

No More Multiplication Tables?

Recently had a nine year old show me how to do lattice multiplication. Here's a video showing how it works. 

And I spent all that time in grade school memorizing multiplication tables!

100 Most Often Misspelled Words

Here is a list of 100 English words that many people spell incorrectly.  The ones I see most on my students' papers?

it's (this is a contraction meaning "it is."  Something that belongs to it is "its")

their/they're/there (while they are all pronounced the same, the spelling and meanings are different.  Possessive is "their" and the contraction of "they are" is "they're")

Wish I had a dollar for every time I've corrected one of these words on a student paper...

Are You Using Any New Technology In Your College Classroom?

I would love to hear from college professors who are using any of the new technologies such as weblogs, twitter, wikis, etc., in their classrooms.  Specifically, how are these adding to the learning process and what has worked or not for you?

The Girl Effect

Just watched an amazing video on how to solve the major problems we have in the world...

What Is Teaching?

While considering what changes to make to a course I'm to teach this fall, I came across this quote by Socrates:

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

Seems appropriate for a class on Leadership...

Summer Workshops For K-12 Teachers

While my book, Taking Back the Classroom, was written with college professors in mind, I sometimes get email from high school teachers with questions or comments about the book or classroom management in general.  I refer these to my friend and colleague, Angela Maiers, who does training for K-12 teachers.  She's doing several workshops this summer.  I love her approach from her upcoming book on the seven habitudes of 21st Century learners.  One of these habitudes is curiousity.  As she notes, if we can get our students curious about a topic, they will want to learn more. 

Book On Effective Teaching

TIBERIUS PUBLICATIONS has released the third printing of my book, Taking Back the Classroom: Tips for the College Professor on how to be a More Effective Teacher.  Chapters include

• Managing the first day of class
• Managing difficult students
• Determining classroom policies
• Managing diversity in the classroom
• Managing teams and team projects
• Managing online classes

as well as much more on being more effective in the classroom!

You can order through the TIBERIUS website, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble College Bookstores.

Tip To See If Students Are Really Listening In Class

Angela Maiers offers the following tip to see if students are really listening in class especially if they are not "actively" participating by speaking up.  She calls it the TWO WORD STRATEGY.

"Here is how it works:  Choose a point in the lesson or group discussion that you think warrants reflection or active learning. Ask the students or group members to stop, reflect on the content presented, and synthesize their most important thoughts and ideas down to only two words. This may sound easy, but it is difficult to express yourself in only two words. Be sure to encourage, not judge as learners share out their responses."

As she notes, this strategy:

• can be used with any audience: regardless of any age, grade, or content.
• can be employed at any time: before the discussion starts, during the presentation, or afterwards as participants reflect on key ideas.
• is a powerful assessment tool: In an instant, I can hear what my audience is thinking and wondering based on their two words shared.
• allows everyone to participate: the two words can be written down, shared with a neighbor, or communicated as a  group. Everyone has a chance to pause and reflect about what matters most to them as active participants in the learning experience.

The Frustration And Satisfaction Of Learning Something New

Yesterday I met with Angela Maiers and Mike Sansone while I was visiting in Des Moines (Thanks Mike for the great lunch at Huhot!).  They decided that as it was the second anniversary of the date I started my teaching blog that I was ready to learn something new.  I am now on Twitter and soon hope to develop my own wiki for my classes.

Professor Lisa M. Lane (MiraCosta College) writes about the fear of learning new things...when everyone else seems to be ahead of you and you're struggling to figure things out.

"I dreamt the other night that I went to the first day of class as a student, an upper division or graduate class of some kind. About 20 students. The professor walks in and begins an interactive lecture. I realize I don’t understand what he’s talking about. I look around and see that each of the other students has a stack of about 7 books. Seeing I’m lost, a helpful student opens one and points to a chapter for me. But it’s obvious from the way the professor is talking that everyone has read this already. Before the first day of class. Everyone is quite literally “on the same page”, and I have no idea what’s being discussed."

I think it's good for us as teachers to attempt something new and thus remember the frustration and then the satisfaction of learning, something our students experience on a regular basis.

Resources For Educators

Here's a website with links to the top education resources as noted by Guy Kawasaki (and he's included me as one of the experts!) 

How Do I Teach A Really Small Class?

Dear Dr. Kirk:

I enjoy your articles immensely.  I have a question that I haven't seen addressed in your "Ask-Dr-Kirk" e-letter.  I am teaching a 'tiny' (4 student) undergraduate section this Spring ("Crime and Victims").  We all say we want smaller classes, but this presents itself as a challenge to me.  With such a small group I'm somewhat nervous about what the dynamics will be and how best to approach the semester with them.  My materials are prepared for a class of at least a dozen, but this term, for a variety of reasons, there are only 4 in the class.  I'm thinking of doing it even as a one-on-one kind of tutorial/independent study approach, but I'd rather not have to do that.  If you have covered this situation before, I'd love to know some of the feedback you've gotten.  I can't seem to find any articles online in general periodicals which address this question.  Thanks--and keep inspiring us!

Dr. John R Gehm (University of Sioux Falls)

Dear Professor Gehm,

Thanks for the positive feedback.  Re your question, we think we would like smaller classes but there really needs to be a critical mass!  I haven't had a class quite that small but occasionally will have one of 12 or 14 students.

Some of the challenges are that you usually get through the lecture materials faster; you have more class time as presentations and discussions don't take as long; absences are more notable; and it can be difficult to do some of the group activities.  In addition, I think it's harder to keep a serious learning environment as the class tends to be so informal.

I would develop a list of activities and application exercises for those days that you finish up early.  I also might treat the students as teaching assistants or interns.  The students could bring in relevant newspaper or journal articles, do internet research, interview people in the law enforcement field, etc., and "teach" the rest of the students.  They could also develop a class portfolio of informational sources and maybe write their own cases/scenarios that could be used as teaching tools.

With your permission, I am putting your letter on the blog.  Has anyone else out there experienced such a small class size or have any ideas of what Dr. Gehm could do?

Good luck with your class.  Let me know how it goes.

Dr. Kirk

Does Anyone Use Jigsaw Assignments In Class?

A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison contacted me yesterday wanting to know if I had ever used "jigsaw" assignments.  I haven't but did find this great explanation of the technique posted by Barbara Tewksbury (Hamilton College).  Does anyone else out there have experience with these at the college level?

What Do Your Students Really Need To Know?

Dr. Scott McLeod (Iowa State University) discusses how various portable devices that connect to the Internet have made it possible to get instant answers to many questions.  He then asks:

• In light of this new information technology/access landscape, what do students still need to memorize?
• What are we now asking students to memorize that they don’t really need to?
• How can we better use precious school time?

As he notes, there will still be core knowledge that students need to know.  But perhaps we need to rethink what that core is for the subjects we teach...I'm thinking about the prof in my graduate program who made us memorize all the formulas for his statistics class.