Sharing teaching strategies throughout a department

Posted on October 31, 2014October 13, 2016

“Recording some of my lectures gave me the flexibility to have students do group work on case studies several times a quarter. These were optional class meetings but students still came. They were really interested in the chance to apply chemistry concepts to a real problem.”

**Colleen Craig**
Lecturer, Chemistry

Chemistry faculty build on a long tradition of collaboration to share best practices in teaching with technology. “There’s very much an open-door policy about help with teaching. That really set the tone for me,” says A.J. Boydston, who has advised numerous Chemistry faculty about setting up online office hours, recording lectures, and other technologies.

Many other faculty also share their experiences with using technology to increase in-class time for active learning. For example, recording some lectures allows Colleen Craig to offer students in Introduction to General Chemistry (CHEM 110) the option to work on case studies, and Boydston to have his organic chemistry students tackle problems together in class. “I break lecture to pass out slips of paper with exam-level questions on them and have students work on them in small groups,” says Boydston. The problems are set at a level that challenge the majority of students, so there’s inevitably an initial stunned silence, then a buzz of discussion. After about five minutes, he asks for students to volunteer their ideas and guides them to a solution. “It’s not that hard to have the discussion in a large class of 300 because the three or four responses you hear on how to approach the problem end up representing everyone in class.”

“My quality of life improved when I stopped teaching the textbook in lecture. By putting lectures of basic material online, I was able to reclaim class time for discussing, for helping my students learn to think like a chemist.”

**A.J. Boydston**
Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Boydston, Craig, and Stefan Stoll were Teaching with Technology Fellows in summer 2013.

Initial, informal results indicate that the changes faculty have made can improve learning. Stoll, who created about 70 online lectures for the winter 2013 session of his course Physical Chemistry (CHEM 455), found that average student scores increased about 10 percent on mid-term and final exams that were similar in complexity to those offered in previous quarters. “The students had a very, very positive response to the video lectures,” says Stoll. Craig reports that students showed higher levels of engagement and demonstrated greater achievement on assessments after she redesigned her course.

Producing these materials can involve substantial time and thought. “The mini-lectures don’t come out of thin air,” says Boydston. However, once a module is created, maintenance and revisions take considerably less time, according to Boydston and Stoll. Modules can also be shared with other faculty, a process that is easier in the newest version of the Canvas learning management system. Once a faculty member gives other faculty access to modules, they can pick and choose elements to transfer to their own course modules. “Maybe they like and use a third of the lectures,” says Boydston. “Or maybe they revise or add to the information in ways I can transfer back and use.” Here are suggestions from the Chemistry faculty on using technology to enhance teaching and learning:

*“Creating online videos is an upfront investment that’s going to pay off. Now that I have the slide designs and scripts, I can modify and re-record them, which takes a fraction of the time.”*

**Stefan Stoll**
Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Record nuts-and-bolts lectures to free up in-person class time for more interesting topics: “The first lecture I recorded was basic chemical nomenclature,” says Phil Reid. “That was really liberating for me because I hated that lecture. I was bored giving it, so you know the students were bored.” Boydston records two to five short lectures on fundamental, introductory material for each week of his in-person organic chemistry class. Each lecture, as is common among Chemistry faculty, shows the screen of Boydston’s tablet with voiceover. One of the topics he recorded first was how to draw molecules using software. Students who already have this skill can skip the lecture and go straight to the module quiz, while those who need more help can re-watch if they need to. “That way when we get to class, we can move onto more interesting topics, such as how a molecule’s structure affects the way it reacts with other molecules,” says Boydston.

Record lectures to provide an introduction to difficult material: By recording seven lectures a week, Stoll says he created a sort of video textbook for his section of Physical Chemistry (CHEM 455), which covers quantum mechanics. The online lectures provide an introduction to concepts and equations that Stoll explains more fully during in-person class. “You always need to reinforce the basic concepts,” says Stoll. “Just because students have seen a video once, that doesn’t mean they really understand the topic. They’re just a little prepped.”

Stoll’s video presentations start with an empty slide and then show him hand-drawing a series of equations, diagrams, and terms while explaining them via voiceover. “Because quantum theory is such a scary subject for students, I wanted to convey, at least subconsciously, the fact that you don’t need fancy graphics to understand it. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen.” While Boydston posts his videos through Canvas, Stoll has opted to post his videos on YouTube (Stoll’s YouTube channel). When the class was in session, Stoll made videos available only to his students, so he could track analytics. After the end of the quarter, he opened them up to the public.

Focus on audio quality when recording presentations: “The podcasting literature says that if your audio quality is not good, you’re going to lose audience,” says Stoll. “You need to make sure your voice is clear and there’s no noise in the background.” Stoll purchased his own microphone to improve recording quality and, to minimize background noise, records late at night in his kitchen with the refrigerator turned off.

*“The key is to figure out what you’re trying to accomplish and find the simplest method to accomplish it. Sometimes that’s with technology.”*

**Jasmine Bryant**
Lecturer, Chemistry

Require a syllabus quiz: Craig has begun requiring that students in her introductory chemistry class pass a quiz about the class syllabus before they can access any other course materials. “Students don’t have to memorize the syllabus, they just need to know that they can look up information there on things like department policies, important due dates, and what students should do if they miss a lab or an exam,” says Craig. “The goal is to empower them to answer their own questions.”
Create video quiz keys: “I’ve recorded a short five-minute video where I work through the answer key of the weekly quiz and explain my reasoning,” says Jasmine Bryant, adding that she got the idea from Boydston. “A minority of students viewed the video, perhaps 80 out of 300, but those students really liked it.”

Offer online office hours: “When you offer online office hours on Sunday evening, you’ll have 60 to 70 percent attendance; it’s just amazing,” says Stoll. About 120 students attended office hours that Bryant recently offered on the Sunday just prior to the final exam. “Most just listened,” says Bryant. “The students with questions type them in the chat window, and I answer them. I share the screen of my tablet so I can draw pictures to explain concepts. It’s basically a broadcast.” Boydston’s advice on online office hours is available on page four of the Provost report

Jasmine Bryant in organic chemistry lecturing

Chemistry faculty such as Colleen Craig and Jasmine Bryant (above) informally coordinate their teaching of large undergraduate classes, which primarily serve non-majors. The department runs three sections of general and organic chemistry series in parallel, often with different instructors. Therefore, each quarter hundreds of students shuffle sections and instructors.

“We need to make sure students get what they need in each course to progress successfully to the next,” says A.J. Boydston.“So we’ve developed team-based knowledge of what students need to cover in each quarter in the sequence.”

Technology helps them coordinate. Boydston and colleagues voted to use a common online homework system, and they share course content such as recorded lectures. “Recent changes to the Canvas learning management system make it easier to share materials on the fly, even during a course,” says Phil Reid.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to use technology in the classroom to engage students.

Leading online talks that enrich in-person class

Posted on October 31, 2014October 17, 2016

Associate Professor Dian Million talks about how she gets the most out of online discussions in her American Indian Studies class

FOUR TIPS:

Keep groups small | Monitor discussions | Scaffold questions | Hold students accountable

million — *“To have successful online discussions, ones that matter, you need to build a small-group culture in your classroom.”*

**Dian Million**
Associate Professor, American Indian Studies

For , online discussions provide a safe space for students to explore challenging issues. She has always promoted discussions as a way to engage students.

“I’ve never liked lecturing. I hate it,” she says. “I come from communities that are dialogic.”

She was pleased to find that online discussions in her hybrid-format course, Indian Children and Families (AIS 340), can not only match but can exceed the quality of in-person discussions by providing another safe place for students to discuss difficult issues.

“You can’t teach this subject without speaking about colonialism, race, class, gender and sexuality,” says Million, who was a Teaching with Technology Fellow in 2013. “The online groups give them some space. It prepares them to have more personal conversations when we’re together.”

Keeping discussion groups small is extremely important, says Million, who reports that her students say they felt safer first exploring these issues with just a few other students.

Million’s four tips to get started

1. Keep groups small

When discussing complex or potentially emotional issues, Million divides the students into groups of four that will meet all quarter, online and in person. Students first discuss issues online in their small group.

“I set up questions and lead them in. Then they develop their own questions,” says Million.

During face-to-face class, Million pairs small groups to talk together, as she works to deepen the discussion. When students prepare presentations, another step is added. Each group posts its project online to the whole group for comment, then is allowed to make revisions before presenting it in-person to the class.

2. Monitor discussions

In her class of 40 students, Million follows all 10 discussion groups of four students each. “It takes a lot of time,” she says. Through short comments, she works to keep discussion flowing. “I try to keep people on track, saying, ‘This issue seems to have become key. What do you think about it?’”

Million uses material from the online discussions to shape the content of in-person sessions and to guide team interactions.

“I sometimes have a group that’s really interested in problems. I pair them with a group that’s upbeat about successes in Indian Country, so they can be brought together into a discussion about what’s working.”

3. Scaffold questions

Million says it’s crucial to structure the discussions, first to help students get started and then to guide them through class content. “In the first discussion, they discuss their own families. That’s how I warm them up.”

As part of this task, Million asks, “Is there an ideal American family? Has there ever been?” This first discussion isn’t graded, so students can become comfortable with the topic, the online format, and most importantly, the other three students in their group.

Then Million introduces information on Native American families, noting the link between health and economics so the students can “begin to understand how it might be difficult to have a healthy economy if the people don’t have good health.”

Then the students tackle bigger questions, such as, “Which should come first? Should the people work for better health to be able to develop a healthy economy or do they need more economic health to obtain better physical and mental health in the community?” As the class progresses, Million guides students through a series of additional topics, many that touch on related positives such as successful education programs.

4. Hold students accountable

After the first warm-up discussion, students are graded on their participation in the online and in-person discussions, and contributions to group projects. As needed, Million discusses team roles and may assign students to serve in certain roles (such as timekeeper).

She also helps them focus and organize group projects, such as the creation of infographics and other presentations. During in-person class she’ll tell students, “I want to see your plan today. I’ll be visiting with all of you and I want to see how you’re going to divide the work, what your product is going to be.”

Learn more

This article was originally published on November 2014 as part of a 91̽��Provost report on trends and issues in public higher education.

Guiding students in identifying their strengths, passions and goals

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Holly Barker: Mentoring undergraduates in research

“Everybody arrives at the 91̽��with different abilities, needs and intelligences. Part of our job is to recognize what students’ assets are and to help them shape those into discernible, tangible pieces that they can take with them for their own professional development.”

**Holly Barker**
Curator, Pacific and Asian Ethnology, Burke Museum; Lecturer, Anthropology, 91̽��Seattle

If current projections hold, recent graduates may change jobs ten times or more in their lives, and may work in careers that don’t yet exist.^1,2Experience in academic research will help students meet these challenges, because the ability to reinvent oneself is essentially a research skill. Faculty throughout the UW’s three campuses are working to involve not just graduate students, but also undergraduates in academic research projects that can help them build critical skills, such as the ability to gather, analyze, and synthesize complex information on a new topic; to determine needs for new knowledge; and then to help create that knowledge. Working on real-world problems with faculty mentors also helps students build the confidence that they, too, can make an impact. 91̽��faculty such as Holly Barker treat their undergraduate students as emerging professionals, supporting them as they experience what it means to contribute to a scholarly field and to the community.

Often faculty struggle to find time to support undergraduate researchers. Through structured office hours and group projects, Holly Barker not only mentors students in a wide range of disciplines herself, but helps her students mentor each other. This support helps her students succeed in individual and group research, with many presenting at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. Here are some of the techniques she uses to mentor undergraduate researchers:

Help students identify and build on prior knowledge: Barker views every student as an expert. She helps students examine their experiences through an academic lens and share those insights with other students. In a recent introductory class, “Culture of the Bomb,” international students translated and presented summaries of news from their home countries. “Korean students talked about tensions between North and South Korea over nuclear issues, and students from Taiwan described the country’s challenges with nuclear waste,” she says. In her “Anthropology of Sports” course, student-athletes share their first-hand knowledge of the opportunities and challenges of being dedicated to both sports and their studies at an institution that excels in both realms.

Guide students to research topics of personal relevance and to research methods that best suit their strengths and goals: Barker has organized independent studies at the Burke Museum where she is a curator, including a study of Pacific Island objects by UW students from the Pacific Islands. “The Burke is a place where students who benefit from hands-on, communal learning thrive,“ says Barker.

Trust that students can rise to a challenge: “I now see I can give students more leadership and more freedom academically to demonstrate their learning, that I can trust them to be professional and to do a good job,” Barker says, reflecting on a recent upper-division class that culminated in a public open house on environmental health issues related to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (“Public Policy and Environmental Health: Hanford,” ANTH 479). When the students were dividing up tasks, such as marketing, emceeing, and leading table discussions, all were eager to contribute. “There was one hundred percent participation in that class, and students were elated with the outcome,” says Barker.

Set clear limits so you still have time for your own research: Barker has clearly delineated office hours for each group of her students. She says, “I try to be very transparent with my students about what my time obligations are when I’m not with them. Letting them know when I have deadlines and other professional obligations also helps them understand the life of an academic, if they’re thinking about graduate school. This way they know that if I don’t have more time for them, it’s not because I don’t care. Rather, time is limited.”

Help students mentor each other: “At the start of every class, as a community-building opportunity, I allow time for student announcements,” says Barker. “Someone might say, ‘I’m working at this place and they’re hiring so if anybody wants a job, let me know.’ Or, ‘My department has a résumé workshop and there’s free pizza.’ Through that kind of sharing, students see each other as resources and mentors, which can reduce the pressure on professors.”

Resources: Seattle Times coverage of Barker’s students working on an independent study at the Burke Museum: Adam Jude, “,” 14 November 2013.

¹Bridgstock, Ruth. “The Graduate Attributes We’ve Overlooked: Enhancing Graduate Employability Through Career Management Skills.” Higher Education Research & Development 28, no. 1 (March 2009): 31–44. doi:10.1080/07294360802444347.

²Stacey, Robert. “From the Dean: Changing Enrollments Reflect the Times.” Perspectives Newsletter: College of Arts and Sciences, 91̽��, May 2013. .

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.

Helping faculty help students prepare for life after graduation

Posted on May 1, 2014October 14, 2015

Susan Terry and Briana Randall: 91̽��Career Center

“We work with students about one of the most important decisions in their lives—not necessarily a particular job, but a career path. What we want for students is what we all want—fulfilling lives and successful careers.”

**Susan Terry**
Director, Career Center, 91̽��Seattle

One of the most common questions students ask at the 91̽��Seattle Career Center is, “What can I do with my major?” “Students really want a direction; they want to understand the connection between major and career and their place in the world,” says Susan Terry. “We need to help our students be more intentional about the choices they make. They have so little time. We know how to find the rock-star students. They find us. But we need to engage more of the students who aren’t stepping into the 91̽��experience as readily. Faculty providing some of that guidance and mentorship is extremely useful and important.”

To that end, the Center has launched a to give faculty “simple ways they can introduce the idea of career or even just signal to their students that they’re open to talking about these issues,” says Briana Randall. This relatively new focus on faculty resources builds on the Center’s ongoing work with students and departmental advisers, providing general and discipline-specific information about internships, service-learning, and careers; and directly serving students through one-on-one career counseling and workshops at the Center or in academic departments.

“I think faculty and staff jump ahead and assume that because our students are pretty amazing they must not need help articulating their skills. However, a lot of students really do need and appreciate guidance.”

**Briana Randall**
Associate Director, Career Center, 91̽��Seattle

“We are excited to be working with faculty. They are the front lines in helping students learn about and value opportunities outside of class—and in helping students connect the dots between their different kinds of learning,” says Terry. Here are some of the Center staff’s suggestions for faculty:

Quick, easy referrals from faculty and advisers can have a big impact: “Students are much more likely to take information seriously or go to an event if they hear about it from a faculty member or departmental adviser, or, best, from both,” says Randall. The Center’s includes ideas such as:

List resources for students in the syllabus or link to them from the course website.
Mention resources in class or share handouts such as ““,” and “.”
Encourage students to pay close attention to emails and resources from their advisers. “Advisers are a tremendous resource for faculty,” says Randall.
Require or offer extra credit for attending a or an online or in-person , such as “LinkedIn 101,” “Identifying Your Strengths,” and others offered by the Center.
Invite a career counselor or alum to visit class.

Help students start to think about life after graduation sooner rather than later: Many programs don’t talk to students about what is next until their senior year. Faculty can encourage students to prepare earlier. The 91̽��Seattle Career Center focuses on helping students understand their interests and strengths—core characteristics that can serve them in all areas of their life—such as resiliency, persistence, or the ability to innovate. “This work will make it easier for students to plan their time at the 91̽��and beyond, because they have a strong sense of who they are and what they can contribute to different kinds of work environments,” says Randall. Terry adds, “We counsel students that not all alumni land the ideal job that maximizes their talents right away, that often they have to work their way into that perfect position over time. At the same time we talk about the need for them to follow their strengths and not allow themselves to be trapped in something that’s not a good fit.”

Make it clear how students’ classroom experiences can help in their careers: Local and national employers say that students, especially undergraduates, are not practiced in articulating their skills, says Terry. “You really have to spell it out on the spot what type of skills students are developing in a course or major, such as problem-solving, quantitative analysis, project management, or team management, that could translate to a different course or even a different discipline,” says Terry.

Resources: New on the Career Center website.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation

Supporting team success in long-term projects

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Randy Beam: Teaching Teamwork Explicitly

*“I kept hearing from people in the business world: ‘Teach students how to work effectively with each other; teach them how to work in groups.’”*

**Randy Beam**
Professor, Communication, 91̽��Seattle

Undergraduate students often complain about working in teams and many claim to hate group projects. However, well-structured group work can improve student engagement, deepen learning, and help students build essential skills for their professional and personal lives.¹ Because workplaces are increasingly collaborative, employers look for candidates with a demonstrated ability to work well in diverse teams.^2,3 Teamwork skills also help graduates become successful leaders and collaborators in their communities. Although students are often asked to work in groups, few have been taught how to do so effectively. 91̽��faculty, such as Randy Beam, are trying to change this pattern. They explicitly teach teamwork skills in class. In doing so, they help students develop skills essential both in college and after graduation. In addition to the strategies profiled below, teamwork techniques used by Beam are described in a “” video, available on the 2y2d Initiative website.

Take Randy Beam’s class and you’ll be graded on your grasp of communication theory and your ability to function in a team. Beam added theory and practice in teamwork to his syllabi after realizing that his students have a lot of experience—but not necessarily a lot of success—working in groups. He decided, “If I was going to ask students to work in a group, I needed to provide some guidance on how to do that in an effective and efficient way. That’s why I put together a teamwork system that I follow. I call it a system deliberately. It’s not just about having a policy on slackers or just devoting a session to training on group processes. You do all these things because they are mutually reinforcing.” Beam has used this system in several classes, including one with over 400 students who work on term-long group projects during Friday discussion sessions. Here are his principles for guiding student groups:

Provide explicit instruction in team dynamics: Students read excerpts from Working in Groups by Engleberg and Wynn and spend a discussion session on exercises to establish expectations and norms for their group’s collaborative work. They discuss how the project fits into their competing priorities—and how their priorities impact their commitment levels and responsibilities to the team. Most importantly, they establish operating guidelines for working together: how they will make decisions, divide and submit the work, voice concerns, resolve differences, and ensure performance. They also decide how they would modify these guidelines if they find mid-quarter that they are no longer working well as a team.

Monitor progress on group projects: Beam and his TAs check in regularly with groups to ensure they are working well together. In addition, groups submit regular progress reports, meeting notes, and drafts. “You have to be there for the students. You have to encourage them to work well together and to troubleshoot problems that they might have in a group,” he says.

Make team performance count with a slacker policy: A high-stakes policy includes specific, automatic triggers that can cause a student to be removed from a team. The policy also allows groups to request the removal of a member, for example, a student who is not following group guidelines or contributing as agreed to group work. Students who have been removed then have to complete the project on their own. Beam includes the policy in the course outline, as well as explaining in class the actions that will trigger removal from a group.

Ask students to reflect and evaluate their team’s work: At the end of the term, students complete a self-evaluation, as well as peer evaluations to reflect on the experience working as a team. In the peer evaluations, Beam asks students to estimate the percentage of work performed by each team member.

Resources: Beam drew inspiration and materials from: W. Gibb Dyer, Jeffrey H. Dyer, and William G. Dyer, Team Building: Proven Strategies for Improving Team Performance, 5th ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 2013); and Isa Engleberg and Dianna Wynn, Working in Groups, 6th ed. (New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2012). Contact Beam for copies of the worksheets he developed for his students at rabeam@uw.edu.

¹Kyllonen, Patrick C. “Soft Skills for the Workplace.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, November-December 2013. .

²Atman, Cynthia J., Sheri D. Sheppard, Jennifer Turns, Robin S. Adams, Lorraine N. Fleming, Reed Stevens, Ruth A. Streveler, Karl A. Smith, Ronald L. Miller, Larry J. Leifer, Ken Yasuhara, and Dennis Lund. Enabling Engineering Student Success: The Final Report for the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2010. .

³National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Job Outlook 2013. Bethlehem, PA: NACE, November 2012. .

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.

Talking about and across differences

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Ratnesh Nagda: Fostering cultural understanding globally and locally

“We often think about how the classroom connects to the community. Maybe we shouldn’t think of these as so separate; maybe the way to bridge them is to think about the classroom as a community and the campus as a community. So, the way that students engage in the classroom, with the campus, with the community outside of the campus, those are layers that are interconnected. Rather than separate, they form concentric circles. The classroom is then an in vivo lab, a microcosm of our broader society.”

**Ratnesh Nagda**
UW Faculty Diversity Scholar; Director, Intergroup Dialogue, Education, and Action (IDEA) Center, and Professor and Director of the Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare (BASW) program, School of Social Work, 91̽��Seattle

In our increasingly interconnected world, 91̽��graduates will need to navigate the complexities of working with multidisciplinary teams and engaging with communities other than their own.¹ In this environment, effective communication and collaboration require more than tolerance or respect for difference; knowledge about the world and practice partnering across boundaries will serve our graduates well in their professional and civic roles in a globalizing society.² 91̽��professors such as Ratnesh Nagda are preparing their students to succeed and lead in this complex world, training students to talk about and across difficult differences.

Ratnesh Nagda not only leads difficult conversations, but also trains students to do so. He directs the in the School of Social Work, which helps students and community members engage constructively with challenging issues, such as race, gender, nationality, religion, and sexuality. “We have a new set of ‘three Rs’ in education: relevance, relationships, and responsibility,” he says. “If we’re committed to a more just society, the work we do in the classroom has to be relevant to solving major and complex social problems. Talking about and across differences can help us build transformative relationships that cultivate and sustain our responsibilities to make a difference.” Here are some of Nagda’s principles for helping students address differences and create a more just future:

Engage issues of social justice: Nagda says, “We can talk about intercultural competence, but if we don’t address issues of social injustices, such as income stratification and histories of violence and power inequality, we are just skimming the surface.”

Build students’ listening skills for true dialogue: Through a series of developmental exercises, Nagda encourages students to talk with rather than past each other. He says, “It’s a huge eye-opener for students to see how little they usually listen, or are listened to, and that they can learn techniques to make them better listeners.”

Students pair up and share for two minutes each with their partners, then try to paraphrase back what they heard.
In their next discussion, which can be with a partner or in a small group, students try to listen for not just for the words explicitly spoken, but for underlying feelings, meanings, and values, and to ask questions for deeper understanding.
Students then practice “connected listening and speaking,” linking their comments to those of previous speakers. Nagda asks students to pass a ball of yarn from one speaker to the next to help them visualize connective dialogue.
Finally, students reflect on and have “a dialogue about the dialogue,” noting dynamics, and engaging new questions that have emerged for them.

Be attentive to who speaks, how, about what, and when: “People from marginalized groups are often silenced or seen as spokespersons, and people from privileged groups can dominate discussions or be hesitant to talk.” Nagda pushes students to critically reflect on these dynamics and participate more reciprocally.

On day one, ask students to create shared agreements for engagement: Nagda pushes students to move beyond basic civility in their agreements to a deeper respect and appreciation for what each person brings to the classroom.
Own your identity in the classroom and ask students to own theirs: Nagda asks students to consider how issues of identity can shape classroom interactions, learning processes, and understanding of course content. “For example, my identity as a transnational, first-generation immigrant man of color in a faculty role influences the way I see and experience the world, and who I am and how I am perceived in the classroom,” he says.
Use hard moments as learning opportunities: When conversations get tense, Nagda says, “We have students pause, reflect, and unpack the layers—from the personal to the political—that are manifest in the tension. It is not only to deconstruct the situation but to construct alternatives, to turn walls of separation into bridges of connectedness.”

Encourage students to apply their learning in new settings and as leaders: These skills can apply in student and community organizations, and at work. Says Nagda, “Students learn to ask, ‘How can we participate or organize more inclusively?’ and to reflect on ‘How can I empower members of a community by listening to them, by working with, and not just for, them?’ Not only do our students see the world in a different way, but they are in the world in a different way, a generative way.”

Resources:For detailed guidance for intergroup discussions: Patricia Gurin, Biren (Ratnesh) A. Nagda, and Ximena Zúñiga, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013).

¹Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement. Strength through Global Leadership and Engagement: U.S. Higher Education in the 21st Century. Report of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Global Engagement. Washington, DC: American Council for Higher Education, 2011. .

²Luo, Jiali and David Jamieson-Drake. “Examining the Educational Benefits of Interacting with International Students.” Journal of International Students 3, no. 2 (2013): 85-101. .

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation

Helping students learn to think by leading discussions with peers, and with children

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

*“Students tell us this course has helped them deepen their ability to listen, to test assumptions, to challenge their own views, and to ask good questions.”*

**Jana Mohr Lone**
Director, Center for Philosophy for Children, and Affiliate Faculty, Philosophy, 91̽��Seattle

Jana Mohr Lone and Sara Goering: Helping students to think critically in the classroom and beyond

The ability to think critically enables 91̽��graduates to be capable problem-solvers and thoughtful world citizens. It also helps them get jobs, a fact often lost in the ongoing debate about the relevance of a college education.^1,2 In a recent national study of university faculty, ninety-nine percent of instructors agreed that the main purpose of college is learning to think critically.³ However, surveys of parents, prospective students, and the general public indicate that most people see a degree as a means either to get a job, or to get a better job.^4,5 These data may seem at odds, but surveys also show that employers prioritize critical thinking and problem-solving skills in hiring and promotion decisions.^1,6,7 All students practice these skills in their majors when they define problems; evaluate multiple perspectives; and offer solutions, arguments, or claims based on evidence. Yet undergraduates are often unaware of how their class assignments help them develop these abilities. Faculty can help students make these connections by discussing the skills they model and that students are practicing, or by explicitly teaching skills, whether general concepts about effective ways to approach new information⁸ or discipline-specific skills, such as how to approach a problem like a biologist, philosopher, or art historian.⁹ 91̽��faculty such as Jana Mohr Lone and Sara Goering are challenging students to do just that—to ask questions, be creative, and cultivate reasoning skills that will become life-long assets.

*“When students arrive, they think arguing is fighting, but they learn that arguing is about exploring reasons.”*

**Sara Goering**
Program Director, Center for Philosophy for Children, and Associate Professor, Philosophy, 91̽��Seattle

Jana Mohr Lone and Sara Goering help 91̽��students think deeply, from multiple perspectives, and with an open-minded spirit of inquiry. In turn, their 91̽��students help K-12 children do the same. Lone got the inspiration for this model when her own son turned four and began asking challenging questions, such as, “How can you be happy and sad at the same time?” Lone ventured into her son’s kindergarten class to discuss philosophical issues and now she and her team bring similar discussions—and the ability to facilitate them with children—to 91̽��undergraduate students.
At the 91̽��Center for Philosophy for Children, Lone and Goering help 91̽��undergraduates taking Pipeline Project seminars and the “Philosophy for Children” course (PHIL 205) learn how to constructively discuss ideas by asking probing questions, listening carefully, and arguing rationally and with an open mind. These are skills student can put to practice in life and work—talking politics with friends, resolving a personal dilemma, developing a team’s vision, or responding when a child asks, “Is it always wrong to lie?” Here are some of their techniques and principles:

Help students learn by watching, then doing, then leading: The team models critical-thinking in dialogue through a staged process in 91̽��and K-12 classes.

91̽��students engage in faculty-led discussions that model advanced critical thinking skills, then practice facilitating similar discussions with peers.
Students next watch faculty lead discussions with K-12 students in local schools, learning questioning techniques through careful observation. Lone and Goering model how to prompt discussion using children’s books. Frog and Toad are Friends, for example, can inspire thoughtful conversation about the nature of friendship.
Finally, the students lead discussions with the children, first as a co-facilitator with faculty, then on their own.

Start with the question, not the answer: Goering introduces new content by asking questions. “For us as faculty, this means giving up a little control over students needing to know X, Y, and Z and presenting them with interesting questions first. That builds their thinking skills and primes them to grasp X, Y, and Z when the time comes.” In turn, 91̽��students learn to start discussions with questions to engage their K-12 students.

Stress the importance of listening—really listening: The team asks 91̽��students to listen carefully to what is actually being said in discussion, instead of planning what they’ll say next or only paying attention to what they expect to hear.

Create opportunities for students to lead discussion: Goering thinks some of the deepest learning occurs when students practice leading a group. She says, “They have to think about everyone’s thinking, not just their own, about how to direct conversations, to ask good questions, press for explanations, and build on the ideas of others. These are important skills in the world.”

Cultivate multiple ways of thinking and skills that cross disciplines: The program aims to cultivate three kinds of skills, both in 91̽��and K-12 students.

Cognitive skills: critical thinking and sharp analytical reasoning
Social skills: respecting others, listening carefully, and appropriate group participation
Philosophical skills: grappling with the enduring questions“

91̽��students develop greater awareness of all three as they lead discussions that develop these same skills in children,” says Goering.

Resources: Sara Goering, Nicholas Shudak, and Thomas Wartenberg, eds., Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers (New York: Routlege, 2013); Jana Mohr Lone, The Philosophical Child (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012); Jana Mohr Lone and Roberta Israeloff, eds., Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People (London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012).

¹National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Job Outlook 2013. Bethlehem, PA: NACE, November 2012. .

²Humphreys, Debra, and Patrick Kelly. How Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors Fare in Employment: A Report on Earnings and Long-Term Career Paths. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); Boulder, CO: National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), January 2014. . Free summary available at: .

³Hurtado, Sylvia, Kevin Eagan, John Pryor, Hannah Whang, and Serge Tran. Undergraduate Teaching Faculty: The 2010–2011 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2012. .

⁴Jaschik, Scott. “Jobs, Value and Affirmative Action: A Survey of Parents About College.” Inside Higher Ed, 20 March 2013. .

⁵Eagan, Kevin, Jennifer B. Lozano, Sylvia Hurtado, and Matthew H. Case. The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2013. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2013. .

⁶Hart Research Associates. It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success, An Online Survey Among Employers Conducted on Behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), 10 April 2013. .

⁷Bridgstock, Ruth. “The Graduate Attributes We’ve Overlooked: Enhancing Graduate Employability Through Career Management Skills.” Higher Education Research & Development 28, no. 1 (March 2009): 31–44. doi:10.1080/07294360802444347.

⁸Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP). “Essential Learning Outcomes” [resource portal]. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), accessed 29 April 2014. .

⁹Beyer, Catherine Hoffman, Gerald Gillmore, and Andrew Fisher. Inside the Undergraduate Experience: The 91̽��’s Study of Undergraduate Learning. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2007.

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Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.

Cultivating the habit of reflection

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Jennifer Turns: Promoting student reflection to deepen learning and self-awareness

“Helping students make sense of their learning experience is not about faculty doing something differently. It’s about doing just a little bit more to help students reflect on their learning as it happens.”

**Jennifer Turns**
Director, Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education, and Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering, 91̽��Seattle

When students reflect on their academic learning and its relationship to their personal and professional goals, they gain a deeper understanding of the course material, as well as a better sense of who they are and where they’re going.^1,2,3 They also gain a valuable skill. Employers want to hire people who are self-aware, who know what they know and what they don’t; and graduate admissions committees notice candidates who can share a clear narrative linking their experiences to their future ambitions. Reflection exercises can also benefit faculty. For example, they can use student feedback to fine-tune their teaching. Reflection techniques such as those used by Mary Jennifer Turns can be integrated into courses in any discipline, providing major benefits for students without major investments of faculty time.

Jennifer Turns asks students in every course and nearly every class session to reflect on how the material they’re learning in class relates to their future work. “The one thing you can count on in education is that students will have challenging experiences they will need to reflect on,” says Turns, who co-directs the new at 91̽��Seattle. “Simply asking, ‘What did you learn from doing this?’ can be powerful.” She adds,“Student responses remind me of issues I had forgotten about and I get ideas from their ideas. I get inspired by my students.” Here are some of her basic principles on reflection, which are applicable for classes in any topic:

Help students reflect through dialogue: Taking just a few minutes to ask a student some personalized questions can be very effective. Turns says, “If a student has been an officer in an organization, the mentor might ask the student, ‘How has being a leader prepared you to be a better learner?’ If the student ventures, ‘Time management?’, then the mentor can say, ‘Time management is a really important skill for learning,’ and then help the student go deeper, perhaps to talk about becoming more tolerant of ambiguity or a little less deferential to authority.” The consortium outlines this process for engineering students in a that can be modified for other disciplines.

Stress that a portfolio is an argument, not an archive: “A portfolio is not a transcript; it’s not a place to recount every experience,” says Turns. “A portfolio is a place to make an argument, where the student says, ‘Of all the things I could tell you, I want to tell you five things: three arguments that are going to make you think that I’m well-prepared to be an X (insert profession of choice) and two that will make you see me as distinctive.’”

Incorporate reflection exercises that are valuable, but don’t take up too much time:

Choose short, easy activities: Reflection “Mad Libs” take only five minutes at the end of a class session. Students fill in the blanks of a basic question: “From engaging in [experience/activity], I gained [the takeaway], which prepared me for [the future].” Turns leaves the definition of ‘future’ open. “Sometimes their future is the next class, sometimes it’s their current job, or a future career.” She may ask students to draw, rather than write, their responses. “It’s amazing some of the images they can come up with in just five minutes,” she says.
Create activities that are easy to evaluate: To make an assignment for PechaKucha talks (twenty slides in under seven minutes) more time-efficient, Turns had students post the talks for viewing online so the class didn’t have to sit through them live; and she developed straightforward grading criteria. “I told students if their voice-over sounded professional and their talk included the required components, they’d get an ‘A’. This freed them to focus on the topic of the talk—how this class connected to their future.”

Resources: Turns described her taxonomy of micro-reflection, meso-reflection, and macro-reflection in page 8 of the April 2013 Provost report , from the 2012–2013 series on teaching and learning with technology. A detailed description of research into the benefits of reflection through portfolios is available in: Jennifer Turns, Brook Sattler, Matt Eliot, Deborah Kilgore, and Kathryn Mobrand, “,” International Journal of ePortfolio 2, no. 1 (2012): 1–13.

¹ Beyer, Catherine Hoffman, Gerald Gillmore, and Andrew Fisher. Inside the Undergraduate Experience: The 91̽��’s Study of Undergraduate Learning. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2007.
²Atman, Cynthia J., Sheri D. Sheppard, Jennifer Turns, Robin S. Adams, Lorraine N. Fleming, Reed Stevens, Ruth A. Streveler, Karl A. Smith, Ronald L. Miller, Larry J. Leifer, Ken Yasuhara, and Dennis Lund. Enabling Engineering Student Success: The Final Report for the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2010. .
³Thompson, Leanne J., Gordon Clark, Marion Walker, and J. Duncan Whyatt. “‘It’s Just Like an Extra String to Your Bow’: Exploring Higher Education Students’ Perceptions and Experiences of Extracurricular Activity and Employability.” Active Learning in Higher Education 14, no. 2 (July 2013): 135–147. doi:10.1177/1469787413481129.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.

Reflecting through short, easy-to-evaluate writing assignments

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Mary Pat Wenderoth: Promoting student reflection to deepen learning and self-awareness

*“We want students to be active, mentally. We want them to be using the information and applying it all the time.”*

**Mary Pat Wenderoth**
Principal Lecturer, Biology, 91̽��Seattle

When students reflect on their academic learning and its relationship to their personal and professional goals, they gain a deeper understanding of the course material, as well as a better sense of who they are and where they’re going.^1,2,3 They also gain a valuable skill. Employers want to hire people who are self-aware, who know what they know and what they don’t; and graduate admissions committees notice candidates who can share a clear narrative linking their experiences to their future ambitions. Reflection exercises can also benefit faculty. For example, they can use student feedback to fine-tune their teaching. Reflection techniques such as those used by Mary Pat Wenderoth can be integrated into courses in any discipline, providing major benefits for students without major investments of faculty time.

Students in Mary Pat Wenderoth’s large introductory biology classes write paragraphs each week to help them integrate and remember the concepts they’ve studied. “To maximize their learning, students need factual knowledge, which we give plenty of, but they also need conceptual frameworks to put the knowledge into,” says Wenderoth. Reflection can help students build those conceptual frameworks, but “most undergraduates don’t do a lot of reflection. They’re glad to get their work done on time, take their test, and get on to the next class or assignment.”

Wenderoth builds reflection into her class by having students write paragraphs on the week’s material. “This gives students an opportunity to write and reflect and it gives me an opportunity to see what they’re actually thinking,” she says. She has also structured reflection so it is useful to the students without requiring a large time commitment on anyone’s part. Here are her basic principles:

Make reflection part of the class routine: Students write paragraphs every week. Wenderoth poses questions on Monday; student paragraphs are due Friday.

Ask questions that let students discuss what’s important to them while achieving learning goals: Wenderoth asks open-ended questions that help students link facts to a conceptual framework. Examples include: “How does the material you’re learning in class relate to your everyday life?” and, “What topic this week was the hardest for you, something that you’ve thought about and still can’t quite figure out?”

Motivate students through class credit, but keep evaluation simple: Writing assignments are part of the final grade (about ten percent). Increasing length doesn’t improve a student’s grade; in fact, Wenderoth requires that submissions be limited to one paragraph. Grades are credit/no credit, based on “good faith effort” to complete the assignment. The class management software Wenderoth uses groups the paragraphs so she can “skim and scroll” through them efficiently and quickly.

Give regular feedback: Every Monday, Wenderoth gives feedback to the class as a whole—a few minutes at the beginning of class. She may report that a number of students were having difficulty with a particular concept, and then review it. “I have to show them that I’ve actually sat and read their paragraphs,” she says. “Once or twice I didn’t do that and I saw the quality of their paragraphs go down.”

Collect student feedback on the exercise: Wenderoth’s students report that writing reflection paragraphs helps their learning. One wrote, “Some weeks, no matter how much I thought I was paying attention in class, it would be Thursday night, time to start the paragraph, and I’d be thinking ‘Huh? What did I learn this week? Oh yeah….’ which got me to examine what was going on in class and my learning process before the weekend completely wiped everything away.”

Resources: Wenderoth learned about low-stakes writing from John Webster, Associate Professor of English at 91̽��Seattle, and the resources site, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program, which he directs. Her teaching methods are featured in by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014); a is available. Wenderoth has also co-authored a book that shows the value of student reflection on exam performance: Clarissa Dirks, Mary Pat Wenderoth, and Michelle Withers, (New York: W. H. Freeman & Company, 2014). More details on Wenderoth’s procedures are available in the video “.”

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.