Effective Teaching I

1. Effective Teaching I

2. Outcomes of Last Year’s Retreat The two strategies identified as ways to help us become more effective teachers were: Educating ourselves and Empowering our students

3. Some recommendations • Educate ourselves by • Observing others outside discipline • Utilizing the FRC to provide learning methods/teaching examples • Empower students by • Incorporating study skills (how to read text, study effectively, identify available resources) • Increasing motivation

4. What may be holding us back? • A lack of clear and specific outcomes • guiding us in choosing resources that will yield results in our individual classes • describing the behaviors we are trying to develop in our students • Uncertainty about what we should look for when observing others, and who is trying innovative things in the classroom.

5. Goals of the Effective Teaching Sessions • A concrete definition of the phrase “Effective Teaching” in terms of outcomes • Examination of the assumptions and habits prevalent in science instruction • Identification of, and presentations by faculty within the division who successfully achieve the outcomes we identify • A list of specific adjustments that can be made to science classes without killing the instructor implementing them

6. Task #1: Defining Effective Teaching (~15 min) Brainstorm to generate a list of responses to the questions • What are the outcomes of effective teaching? and • In terms of student behavior, what does effective teaching look like in the classroom?

7. Task #2: Examining Our Assumptions and Traditions (~20 min) Get together by department and try to obtain two agreed-upon responses to each question below • What assumptions do your students make about classes in your discipline? How do they perceive faculty in your discipline? • What do you assume about your students? • What type(s) of classroom processes are traditionally or most commonly used? • What type(s) of evaluation schemes do you use? • What aspects are unique to your discipline, and which may be shared with other disciplines?

8. Task #3: Assumptions and Traditions, continued (~15 min) • Share your department’s responses with the members of your interdisciplinary group. Note similarities and differences. • If you have time, challenge your assumptions about teaching practices by discussing approaches used by people outside the division who are generally regarded as effective teachers.

9. Task #4: Pros & Cons (~30 min) As a group, generate lists of answers to the following questions: • How do our current or traditional approaches help us teach effectively? (Why do we continue to use them?) • How do our current or traditional approaches prevent us from teaching effectively? (What would you change, and why?) • Why don’t we change from our current practices, and are there specific things we can do to help ourselves make those changes we seek?

10. Tomorrow’s Session • Will provide an opportunity for faculty within our division to share how they’ve approached some of the outcomes we identified earlier, or overcame the obstacles presented by traditional practices in their discipline. • Will also present a chance to discuss ways to make minor improvements to your teaching without becoming overwhelmed or spending 18 hours a day doing work.

11. Effective Teaching II

12. What’s been done so far? • We defined effective teaching through identification of outcomes and student behaviors. • In our own disciplines, we identified our assumptions about students and the most common instructional practices. • We compared these experiences with others within our division.

13. What’s next? • Identifying common concerns/obstacles that prevent many of us from addressing the desired outcomes. • Learning about techniques currently being used by faculty within the division to address the identified outcomes. • Creating a list of modifications we can make in our own classes or to our own style without unduly burdening ourselves.

14. Task #1: Identifying Concerns and Obstacles (~20 min) • Create a list of concerns you have/obstacles you face which often prevent you from making adjustments to your instructional methods. • Group your list into concerns/obstacles over which you have considerable influence, and those over which you do not.

15. Task #2: Learning from your Peers (~40 min) With your colleagues, discuss the following: • How can I help students become self-motivated and responsible for their own learning? • How can I help students learn how to learn? • How can I promote discourse (between students, faculty-to-student) in the classroom? • What is subject mastery, and how is it/can it be measured?

16. Task #3: How to Make Changes and Live to Tell About Them Apply your previously identified concerns to the techniques you’ve just heard and create a list of modifications you can make to your classes in this quarter or the next without having to sacrifice much content or yourself.