7 Mysteries of Teaching and Learning Revealed- Confessions of a Lilly Teaching Fellow

1. 7 Mysteries of Teaching and Learning Revealed- Confessions of a Lilly Teaching Fellow Bill Taylor Geoffrey Habron Fisheries and Wildlife Sociology Bailey Scholars Lilly Teaching Fellow 2005-2006 Jan Bokemeier Frank Fear Deb DeZure Patty Payette

2. What in the world is a Lilly Teaching Fellow? • MSU Office of Faculty and Organizational Development • http://www1.provost.msu.edu/facdev/lillyFellow/about.asp • The primary objective of the MSU Lilly Teaching Fellows Program is to provide a diverse group of tenure-stream faculty with the opportunity to enhance their teaching abilities through a series of activities designed to focus attention on the art and skills of teaching both generally and in their particular disciplines.

3. Features of Lilly Teaching Fellows • Pre-tenured faculty • Competitive – 7 fellows/year • Mentor • Project • Budget • Meetings/readings • Lilly Teaching seminars

4. But Geoff, why the need for this topic? • After all, many of us got into academia due to our passion for teaching and impeccable teaching qualifications. • Let’s take a scene from my job interview. Many of you may recognize a similar scenario. “To Sir With Love” (Columbia Pictures 1966) 11:24

5. Geoff’s Story: Genesis • Oregon State • TA • Senior seminar • Spring Break courses • Oregon Innovator Award

6. Geoff’s Story: Exodus • MSU • Bailey Scholars • Lilly Teaching Seminars • Curriculum committees • Habron, G.B. 2005. Infusing democratic, constructivist and active learning in fisheries education, Fisheries, 30 (4), 21-26 • Habron, G.B. and S.L. Dann. 2002. Breathing Life into the Case Study Approach: Active Learning in an Introductory Natural Resource Management Class, Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 13 (2), 41-58

7. Geoff’s Story: Revelation • Surprise… • Geoff knows diddly! • A lot of people know a lot • Teaching as art and gift… • Teaching as science and scholarship • Why the secret? • Pay it forward!

8. Outlook on learning Teaching Philosophy (Pedagogy) Students Learning styles Teaching Strategies Learning = Instructor + Students Instructor effective Student Learning Outcomes

9. Learning Outcomes

10. MSU Boldness by Design • http://strategicpositioning.msu.edu/default.asp

11. Report of the Working Group on Improving Undergraduate Education: Goals for Liberal Learning 1. Integrated Judgment 2. Advanced Communication Skills (both writing and speaking) 3. Cultural Competence (addressed in recommendation 2) 4. Analytical Thinking 5. Literacy in Science and Mathematics 6. Effective Citizenship

12. Enhancing the Undergraduate Experience: Task Force Recommendations 6. Modify the undergraduate curriculum and related policies so that our goals for undergraduate liberal learning are met 7. Enhance the physical environment in ways that support learning for the students, faculty and staff at MSU 8. Continue the review of graduate programs and graduate teaching and the mentoring of graduate students. http://strategicpositioning.msu.edu/documents/BbDImperative1_002.pdf

13. Outlook on learning Teaching Philosophy (Pedagogy) Students Learning styles Teaching Strategies Learning = Instructor + Students Instructor effective Student Learning Outcomes

14. Teacher/Instructor Dimension

15. Learning Paradigm • Bailey Scholars • Barr and Tagg 1995 • Student-centered vs teacher-centered • Learning vs teaching

16. Disciplinary Adoption • With such an approach, the impact on student learning is the key variable in all course, department, and institutional decisions. From this perspective, we must consider, for example, student variables and diversity, the impact of the environment on learning, learning styles, and the scaffolding for learning. Covering the content is not the important objective in this paradigm; rather, it is nurturing student learning. American Sociological Association 2005

17. Teaching Strategies

18. One perspective • Of course we try lots of tried and true methods and conduct rigorous research to see what works, and when that fails we conduct some peer review to utilize the best available methods. “To Sir With Love” (Columbia Pictures 1966) 30:40

19. Ta Dah!! Strategies:7 Principles of Undergraduate Education • Encourage student-faculty contact; • Encourage cooperation among students; • Encourage active learning; • Give prompt feedback; • Emphasize time on task; • Communicate high expectations; and • Respect diverse talents and ways of learning. Chickering, A. and Z. Gamson. Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.' American Association for Higher Education, 1986. http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm http://www.byu.edu/fc/pages/tchlrnpages/7princip.html

20. Enhancing the Undergraduate Experience: Task Force Recommendations • Enhance the first year experience; assist students in making a strong academic and social transition, and in creating appropriate expectations about their undergraduate education • Promote the improvement of and rewards for successful college teaching • Articulate, target and expand opportunities for undergraduate students to develop cultural competencies. • Promote and integrate more active and applied learning in undergraduate education • Modify the undergraduate curriculum and related policies so that our goals for undergraduate liberal learning are met • Enhance the physical environment in ways that support learning for the students, faculty and staff at MSU • Continue the review of graduate programs and graduate teaching and the mentoring of graduate students. http://strategicpositioning.msu.edu/documents/BbDImperative1_002.pdf

21. Outlook on learning Teaching Philosophy (Pedagogy) Students Learning styles Teaching Strategies Learning = Instructor + Students Instructor effective Student Learning Outcomes

22. The Learners

23. The Outlook: Pop Culture View of College Student Experience “I went to see the doctor of philosophy With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee He never did marry or see a B-grade movie He graded my performance, he said he could see through me I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper And I was free.” • -Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls • http://www.indigogirls.com/lyrics/byalbum/indigo.html

24. Lee Knefelkamp. Models of Intellectual and Identity Development http://www.greaterexpectations.org/briefing_papers/ModelsIntellectualIdentity.html

25. Learning Styles:Multiple Intelligences • Intrapersonal: self smart • Interpersonal: people smart • Visual: image smart • Musical: sound smart • Logical-mathematical: logic smart • Bodily-kinesthetic: body smart • Naturalistic: nature smart • Verbal linguistic: word smart • David Lazear. Eight Ways of Knowing: Exploring Multiple Intelligences • http://www.davidlazear.com/Multi-Intell/MI_chart.html

26. Bailey Scholars Program • Connected learning • Individual, community, personal, professional, intellectual, social, emotional, physical, human, spiritual, and natural worlds www.bsp.msu.edu

27. Once the latest teaching techniques are pulled from the literature they are quickly and enthusiastically implemented systematically. “To Sir With Love” (Columbia Pictures 1966) 41:35

28. Outlook on learning Teaching Philosophy (Pedagogy) Students Learning styles Teaching Strategies Learning = Instructor + Students Student-centered - ASA ? ? Intellectual development – William Perry Instructor effective ? ? Multiple intelligences – Howard Gardner 7 Principles -Chickering and Gamson Student Learning Outcomes Boldness by Design

29. So What!? • How did the Lilly year impact Geoff’s teaching and learning experiences?

30. Plugging into Millennial Learners Geoffrey Habron’s Lilly Learning

31. Oblinger, D. 2003. Boomers, Gen-Xers, Millennials: Understanding the new students. Educause July/August:37-47

32. Use of Digital Audio on ANGEL • FW100 Audio Only Introduction • (You can listen to these files as well as download them to an MP3 player) • Welcome from Dr. Habron • Oh the Places You'll Go • Course Outcomes • Portfolio assignment • Spartan Safari • Cover Letter and Resume • Field Project Part 1 • Field Project Part 2 • Final Exam

33. Online Greeting for Introduction to Fisheries and Wildlife

34. Policy, Schmolicy • What’s the role of public policy? • Here’s a current take on public policy across the globe and how people react • Youth Hostile – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central) http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/headlines/index.jhtml

35. Other Consequences • ISS 310 guest presentation in Lilly Fellow John Norder’s class • SOC undergraduate retreat and quality learning presentation May, 2006 • FIPSE grant submission July 10, 2006 • NSF grant submission August 18, 2006 • SOC 490 section 1, fall 2006 • ANR 311 spring 2007 • ISS 310 summer 2007 • FW GSO seminar, September 15, 2006!!

36. Deciding to Learn, Learning to Decide: The pedagogy of risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking • Our project aims to rigorously research the ability to improve knowledge, skills, understanding and application of risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking. The project will: • 1) assess the effect of intellectual development levels on the ability to understand and apply principles of risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking and • 2) develop and assess various pedagogies and professional development strategies to better prepare those interested in teaching others about risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking. • One hypothesis suggests that those with more developed intellectual positions can better grasp concepts of risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking. • A second hypothesis proposes that certain pedagogies better facilitate learning about risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking. Decision, Risk and Management Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation

37. Natural Resource Management Context • Addressing issues such as endangered species recovery (Pacific salmon, Tear et al. 2005), energy extraction (Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, Flanders et al. 1998; Teel et al. 2006), nuclear waste disposal (Yucca Mountain, Brown 2005 ), and global climate change (Hurricane Katrina resettlement, Tompkins and Adger 2004; O’Brien et al 2006) requires making decisions from a variety of plausible alternatives with uncertain risks. • Such a risk society (Giddens 1990; Beck, 1992; Fear et al 2006) requires more diverse approaches to science incorporating more civic and lay input and participation. • Decisionmaking approaches such as adaptive management are increasingly seen as crucial. Such decisionmaking requires, “a variety of tools to share and communicate understanding of resource issues, to expose key uncertainties, embrace alternatives, develop resource policy and use their consequences to modify and adapt policies and actions further” (Gunderson et al. 1995:490).

38. The Hitch • “Humans inherently seem to seek certainty in life. For example, we are trained in school from an early age that there are right and wrong answers on tests. We memorize established facts and relate them back when asked, and if we do that well enough, we progress through the educational system…and we are angry when these diagnoses and prognostications are not borne out; the rained-out picnic can result in some choice words for the weather forecaster! We become confused when there seems to be more than one right answer, or no right answer” (Meffe et al 2002:79)

39. The Need • Efforts to improve environmental decisionmaking remain futile if participants harbor intellectual positions that view science in a dualism of simply right or wrong or yes or no. • In order to engage in the analytic-deliberative group processes to improve decisionmaking (Renn et al. 1995; Webler et al. 2002; Brewer and Stern 2005), participants must possess the intellectual and cognitive ability to value the opinions of others and weigh evidence. Such ability is found more often among those holding relativist or contextualist intellectual positions. • As such, understanding and addressing the intellectual positions of participants involved in considering decisions should aid in improving the time, effort and legitimacy given to a broad range of deliberative processes such as those emerging in the literature (National Research Council 1996; EPA 2001; Brewer and Stern 2005).

40. An Integrated Approach? • Therefore there is a need to both understand the cognitive and intellectual positions of those engaging in decisions within a context of risk and uncertainty, as well as understand how to provide strategies to teach the skills necessary to engage in decisionmaking. After all, though adaptive management “emphasizes the value of learning from failure, it requires individuals with a high tolerance for risk to carry it out” (Lee 1995:230) because social learning requires the integration of idealistic science and pragmatic politics (Lee 1995:230).

41. And of course the halls and offices are full of conversations among fellow peers about the success and strategies occurring in classrooms right? “To Sir With Love” (Columbia Pictures 1966) 46:22

42. Shifting Teaching from Private to Collective Endeavor

43. Connected Learning for Environmental and Social Sustainability • Michigan State University seeks to develop a holistic approach to sustainability that establishes a campus-community-state-international community of practice network that will impact: • a) undergraduate and graduate students through development of a trans-curricular sustainability specialization; • b) the operations of Michigan State University and the 10 affiliated institutions in the Michigan Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (MiHEPS); • c) on the ground community engagement in our region, and • d) academia in general through professional development of faculty, graduate students, teachers, and operations staff within the MiHEPS network. • Outputs will include identification of key sustainability concepts and ways of learning and applying those concepts across institutions and scales (academics, operations, community, and personal). Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE)

45. Bailey Scholars Program • The Bailey Scholars Program seeks to be a community of scholars dedicated to lifelong learning. All members of the community work toward providing a respectful trusting environment where we acknowledge our interdependence and encourage personal growth. • Connected learning • faculty, staff, graduate students and undergraduates • Individual, community, personal, professional, intellectual, social, emotional, physical, human, spiritual, and natural worlds www.bsp.msu.edu

46. Resource • MSU Office of Faculty and Organizational Development (grad students too!) • Deb DeZure, Director • Patty Payette, Coordinator • Lilly Teaching Seminars • Meet Michigan • Mid-term class assessments… • http://www1.provost.msu.edu/facdev/index.asp

47. Lilly Teaching Seminars Fall 2006 • Issues in Evaluating Teaching: A Comprehensive Perspective • Using Demonstrations to Promote Conceptual Understanding in Chemistry: Making Connections on the Macroscopic, Microscopic, and Symbolic Levels • Making Classroom Lectures Interactive and Effective: Engaging Students in Course Content through Interactive Lecturing • Getting Beyond Covering Content in your Courses: Introduction to the Readiness Assurance Process and Team-Based Learning • Designing, Managing and Grading Effective Group Assignments • Designing Games and Simulations for Learning • Teaching for Successful Intelligence: Teaching and Assessing Students with Diverse Learning and Thinking Styles