Exemplary Teaching Practices and Philosophies
Leverne A. Barrett
Evaluating & Rewarding Advising
Topics Discussed
Exit interviews very frequently used for gathering input from students about advising. Writing an advising philosophy recognized by advisors as effective way to improve advising Paradigm: My teaching/advising is not open to peer review C like research
Sources of information for evaluating advising
- Peer (Team up with another faculty)
- Self-provided (Portfolio)
- Attendance at advising workshops
Evaluate on basis of appointment
- Number of students
- Feedback from students
- Some used standardized instruments (do in spring)
How to collect student input on advising
- Evaluation submitted before enrollment or grades released
- Administration attend classes and pass out more successful than faculty member passing out forms
There are models C American Association of Advising
Advising is a service C part of land-grant institutions
Ways to reward quality advising
- Administration recognize C it is the climate
- Travel awards C Professional Development
- Release time C Teaching assistants (undergraduates)
- Support funds, GRA for faculty Quality advising
- Dean take out five top advisors to dinner
- Monetary award Traditional advising awards
- Elite advising club visible recognition
- Recognized as an advising Amentor@
- Note from Dean attended Advising Workshop
- Figure into workload with teaching
- Get credit for advising organizations
- Becomes less of a thankless job
- University advising award
- Individual advising award at college level
- Focus group with students. Look for problems. Have NACTA members send in survey instruments for advising
- Leadership must feel that it is important. Must be visible. Eventually, it will get a life of its own. Participate in NACADA
What can help us be better advisors?
- Combination of group and individual advising
- Discussions that are beyond course scheduling, those can be done via email. In-office meetings for the deeper questions.
- Where am I going? How do I get there?
- We need to emphasize developmental advising, make sure we have time during advising period, have sign-ups
- Rest of the semester, have an open-door policy. Or, if schedule doesn't permit that, by appointment.
- Utilize list serve to communicate job announcements, scholarships, clubs, etc.
- Create useful documents for students
- Creating time, documenting publishing pressures
- Make sure students are prepared for meetings, make sure the normal plan of study is readily available
- Create an advising handbook
- Implement a teaching/advising fellows program
- Advisor tips on the web
- Create advising chats within colleges on campus to discuss advising issues a couple of times a year.
- Share information, useful documents
Challenges for Distance Education
- Challenges/Needs for Colleges of Agriculture:
- Exchanging courses/ need for a variety of non-campus delivered courses
- Could deliver formal graduate degrees courses
- Interactivity concerns remain high
- Using an interactive video network for clinics (i.e. teaching is live, but videotapes are a backup); - audiences include: public school teachers, private crop consultants, etc.
- Administrative support in a variety of ways needed, including financial....
- Develop and manage the lab aspects of the Hort type courses
- Make sure the technologies are always functioning and to continue to provide a good quality of technical services
- There are issues of how to support DE students
- Trying to develop more programs such as non-credit offerings
- Not all MS students want to be professional entomologists, so the motivation for the degree for the DE students may/is different from the on-campus students
- Teaching for this audience may require some new structuring/organizing of content
- There is a need to look for and explore opportunities for collaboration
- Some faculty have negative feeling about teaching via DE and about student learning in a DE environment
Themes/Concerns for Distance delivery
- Large administrative concerns: money, tuition, rates, Registering between systems (i.e., with a university like Univ. of Nebraska the Lincoln campus, the Kearney campus, etc.; also the registering between several universities like Virginia Tech and Clemson)
- Department/college concerns: time, money to develop courses, etc.
- Teachers have to rethink how and what they teach (different types of subjects; formal and non-formal; adult students and the 18-26 year old; grad vs. undergrad vs. professional vs. extension; modules vs. entire courses; etc.)
- Evaluation processes used in the course and evaluation process of the course
- Classroom/distance education research should be considered/encouraged Key distance education areas for development, thought, and policy include: Faculty, students, administration, technologies, and pedagogy/learning and teaching
Technology Is it Effective?
- Great when it works. Needs great tech support
- Videos - very valuable
- Slides - can be the right tool too
- Enhances teaching - doesn=t substitute for it
- Doesn't make a bad teacher into a good one
Advantages of Technology - Course Management
- Students read lectures before class and take online quiz before class
- Grades are posted online
- Quizzes graded and posted immediately so students get feedback quicker. This helps them prepare for future exams
- Twenty-four/seven availability of information for students
- Timesaver for faculty: Can use test banks for exams, Saves paper that include all of the basic skills
Technology and teaching advantages
- Biology/Agriculture/Engineering instruction can be enhanced
- Doesn't lead itself to all subjects
- E-mail discussion boards valuable for shy students
- Timed Ablackboard@ discussions and chatting
- Tech. makes students more independent
- Tech. can help groups of students work together when schedules do not jive
Drawbacks to Technology
- Putting all lecture notes on the web is a dis-incentive to attend class
- Don't go too quickly through Power Point presentations
- If Power Point presentations are given to students, teachers must discuss points not listed/fully described in the Power Point slides
- Technology allows students to do group projects without physically meeting, which can be quite helpful to accommodate student schedules (class, work, family life, etc.)
- Students can use technology to develop electronic portfolios
- If lessons are going to come over the Net, must test the system before the projects are due
Teaching & Learning Style
- Multiple Intelligence play major roles in learning there are 9 identified
- Group Embedded Figures Test useful to ID learning style
- Class bigger than 50 usually lecture, variety is key
- Group activities hard to get them back on task
- Some teach the way you learn. (unfortunate)
- Lab compensates - those who need hands on
- How we remember things -pictures
- Myers-Briggs based in Florida - personality, popular, fits into learning styles
- Enjoy having them listen more
Experiential Learning
- Significant, contextual, realistic, immersion
- Reflection is necessary
Internship and Student Teaching
- putting the classroom work into the world of work
- needs to be supervised, organized, and approved
On-Campus Mock Interviews
- Early in college career - offer experiential learning
- Students have opportunity to change career direction
- Are core programs flexible enough to allow students other experiences?
Critical Thinking
- Critical thinking involves the ability to analyze some subject
- The person will ask many of Awhy@ instead of Awhat@ questions to understand the problem
- In order for individuals to get beyond memorization and recitation they must learn to think critically about things
- When possible students need to be understanding more of Awhy@ things are the way they are and less of what they are
- Giving multiple or true/false questions require little reasoning on the part of students
- Maybe more essay type questions that have multiple answers could be used
- In order to get students thinking critically, the teacher must be a critical thinker
- Provide concrete experiences for students to apply concepts and theories from class (field trips, case studies, etc.)
- Use comment cards for students to write questions, concerns, and to identify key course concepts, collect daily or weekly
- Write position papers or debate topic from the opposite point of view that they currently hold
- Take time to plan course concepts in such a way that only key concepts are considered. Cut out content that is not needed so there is time to teach critical thinking
- Use 1 minute paper at end of class to help students focus on critical issues
Incorporating Leadership into the Curriculum
- Leadership is also communications, critical thinking, ethics
- Leadership is related to personality types and learning styles
- Leadership should be placed across the curriculum
- Minors in leadership have been effective
- Leadership is not always about individuals, sometimes it=s about teams
Developing Faculty for Involvement in Academic Leadership
- Empower faculty to move forward
- Department head are hired because of their research record, large vita
- Academic development committee - sets up workshops to develop faculty leadership (create interest)
- Shadow dean/assistant dean - to check out administration
- Co-chair with Department Head on specific project for set length of time. Gain understanding by being paired up with mentor
- Project experience ESCOT/ASCOT
- Program for young faculty (college of Ag and more) to develop leadership
Documenting Teaching Effectiveness
Factors to consider:
- Clarity
- Variability
- Enthusiasm
- Opportunity to learn as anchors for getting qualitative feedback from students
- Longitudinal qualitative date from students= comments can serve as a foundation for writing Likert-type scale instruments for measuring teaching effectiveness
- Not just using University standardized instruments but collecting our own targeted feedback as well
- Asking for their questions at end of one session and clarifying their questions at the beginning of the next class period
Student Evaluation Circle
- Student evaluation as the sole evaluation measure of a course dont tell the whole picture
- Multiple opportunities for evaluation throughout the semester were idealincluding multiple evaluations of student performance
- Assigning a student course grade based on hourly and final exam grades alone was found to be lacking, and was thought to favor those students most capable of, and socialized in, regurgitating information
- Evaluating at higher levels of cognition is the ideal
Teams in Classroom
Student team project:
- Selection of team members whether by instructor on self selection can help determine success
- Unequal participation of team members a challenge
- Have team members evaluate each other as part of their grade
Teamwork for faculty:
- Team teaching can be valuable when faculty are willing to work together
- Team members should attend all classes whether in charge or not
Case Study Circle
- The key to a good case study is to plan clearly the intended purpose of the case
- Case studies can be used effectively in lower division classes to help develop critical thinking as well as in capstone courses where knowledge of integration from previous learning is applied
- Case studies should be reported both orally and in writing
- In a case presentation, each group member should be required to present,
- Video taping of the report session can add importance. Video tapes can be used the next year as samples.