Evolution of a Classroom

1. Evolution of a Classroom Or How I discovered UDL

2. In the Beginning… • Started in 2008 straight from the chemical industry • No teaching experience • Inherited overhead slides and a text book

3. Expectation vs Reality

4. Why were they so bored? • Or was it? • It wasn’t like this when I went to school. • Time to research and try new things • There must be a better way

5. Student Labs

6. Improving Teaching with Educational Technologies – • Top 200 Online Tools for Learning Lots of technologies out there. Which one is best? I have tried 73 of the 200 listed, in some form or another. I was chasing shiny objects instead of focusing on teaching.

7. Blended LearningA New LMS Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_learning

8. Realization • I finally started to realize it was me, not just them, that was part of this learning (plus the Institution) • How was I setting them up for success? • When/what is my assessment? Is it authentic? • Are all my tests/assignments/ labs due on the same day as other courses? • Have I fully outlined my expectations? Have I given examples of results? • Is my course inclusive/safe for learning? Stress/anxiety about chemistry? • I want them to learn. • How do I do it?

9. Techniques of Military Instruction • The desired outcome of all instruction is student learning. • If students are no better equipped to do something at the end of a lesson than they were before, no learning has resulted from the instruction. • Instructors must realize that if the student failed to learn, the instructor failed to teach. • Instructors must accept responsibility for their men's learning and look first to themselves and their presentation for the cause of any failure. http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/FM21-6%2854%29.pdf

10. Start of my Evolution • I developed a 5 year goal to: • increase student participation/engagement • create authentic assessment • reduce/eliminate academic dishonesty Time to research!

11. Definitions • Engagement - degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion http://edglossary.org/student-engagement/ Authentic Assessment - the measurement of intellectual accomplishments that are worthwhile, significant, and meaningful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_assessment Academic Dishonesty - any conscious, deliberate or reckless step or omission taken to obtain academic credit through deception and/or fraudulent means (Mohawk College)

12. Engagement • “Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds” • Sir Ken Robinson • “We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it” • “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity/transcript?language=en Science, AleszuBajakMay. 12, 2014 , 3:00 PM http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-boring-theyre-ineffective-too-study-finds

13. General Patterns in Lecture (F2F)A.H. Johnstone • For a 50 minute lecture • 3-5 min settling down period • Attentive for 10-18 minute before “lapse” • Students would “lapse” then come back • As lecture proceeded, length of attention decreased • Attention span was not greater than 3 minutes by the end of the lecture A H Johnstone, Attention Breaks in Lectures, Education in Chemistry, vol 13, Iss 2, 1976, pgs 49-50

14. Engagement • Why do students want to come to my class? • What am I really offering them? • Can they do it by themselves? • Why am I there?

15. Engagement -A Study of Student Life? • A Wearable Sensor for Unobtrusive, Long-Term Assessment of Electrodermal Activity • Ming-ZherPoh, Nicholas C. Swenson, and Rosalind W. Picard • IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 57, NO. 5, MAY 2010

17. Engagement • If students can only focus for 15-minute intervals, shouldn't we devote precious class time to something more engaging? Why Long Lectures Are Ineffective - Salman Khan Oct. 02, 2012 http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/02/why-lectures-are-ineffective/

18. Engagement - Active Learning • Active learning is a process whereby students engage in activities, such as reading, writing, discussing, or problem solving that promote analysis, evaluation, and creating. It moves students from passive e.g. listening to a lecture, to the active where students are engaged agents in their own learning. Need to remove some of my content to make time for this in class… move to online space… isn’t this blended learning/flipped classroom? https://www.mohawkcollege.ca/learning-technologies/active-learning

19. Optimal Video Lecture Time Phillip Guo - http://blog.edx.org/optimal-video-length-student-engagement

20. Authentic Assessment • Authentic assessment is the measurement of intellectual accomplishments that are worthwhile, significant, and meaningful." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_assessment Traditionally, assessment follows curriculum.​ ​ Authentic assessment is an example of "backwards design" because the curriculum follows from the assessment. Am I being authentic in my assessment?

21. Authentic Assessment Clarify Expectations– Students need it ... evidence from empirical studies ... consistently indicate that minimally guided instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process. Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, Richard E. Clark EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 41(2), 75–86

22. Authentic Assessment • Show them the goal! • Chemistry example: • By the end of this semester, I need you to be able to figure out the following: • 27 ml of a 0.15M HCl solution was mixed with 0.15 g of solid sodium hydroxide that was dissolved in 35 ml of water. What is the resulting pH of the solution? • Focus of content is towards this goal.

23. Academic Honesty/Dishonesty Why does academic dishonesty occur? Who is to blame for academic dishonesty? Indian students, aided by wall-climbing parents, expelled for cheating: 600 Indian high school students expelled for cheating on pressure-packed Grade 10 test. The Associated Press Posted: Mar 20, 2015

24. Understanding Academic Misconduct Data obtained from summary of U.S. surveys - Hughes 2006 1 Bowers Study (1964) - 5000 students over 99 U.S. campuses • 39% of students reported having engaged in “serious test cheating” • 65% reported having engaged in “serious cheating on written work” • 80% of student strongly agree that “students are morally obligated not to cheat” and that “cheating directly contradicts the goals of education” Julia M. Christensen Hughes, Donald L. McCabe; “Understanding Academic Misconduct”; Canadian Journal of Higher Education, vol 36, No.1, 2006, pg 49-63

25. Understanding Academic Misconduct Data obtained from summary of U.S. surveys - Hughes 2006 1 “If students know cheating is wrong and feel guilty about doing it, why do so many students engage in it?” Risk vs Reward Julia M. Christensen Hughes, Donald L. McCabe; “Understanding Academic Misconduct”; Canadian Journal of Higher Education, vol 36, No.1, 2006, pg 49-63

26. Factors Affecting Academic Misconduct • Personal Factors Institutional and Contextual Factors • Faculty Attitudes and Behaviours

27. Strategies to Encourage Academic Integrity

28. Strategies to Encourage Academic Integrity Authentic Assessment? Engagement?

29. Learning?

30. Development of a Health and Safety Course 100 % Online course – 3hrs Why would they go online to perform tasks (other than marks)? How do you engage students in the online space with boring material? 324 students • What comes to mind when you think of a Health and Safety course? They want to work in Industry. • Create a fictional workplace.

32. Maintaining Engagement • Video messages every Monday • Remind 101 – text messaging service • Ranking importance • Random Safety fail pictures

33. Results? Very positive feedback Stress free course Students claimed they learned a lot The course was fun We were all in it together

34. Development of a 6th Semester Chemistry Course • Collaboration/Content generation online • Presentation of content in class • Generation of Multiple choice questions • Peer Review of questions (Peerwise) • Collaborative testing using student questions

35. Results? • Less stress on students • Almost 100% class attendance. • More student participation • No academic honesty issues

36. Feedback “I wish you taught like this in previous semesters” “I learned more this way” “Less stress. It doesn’t feel like a test” • “The interactive classroom setting was a cool concept to allow students the opportunity to research the material and create their own lectures.” • “The idea of a student teaches student atmosphere is a decent concept. It allows the students to practice presenting material in a controlled setting and helps to develop public speaker/interpersonal skills.” “I enjoyed the set up of the lecture. It is unique and makes the class interesting.”

37. Development of 3rd Semester LabSynthesis and Purification of a Pharmaceutical • Discussions with Apotex • Labs similar to industry • Large dataset generated • Spent more time assessing during lab time • Only 2 reports • Rubric for in lab work, used online tools to apply Dataset Sesame HQ

38. Results? • Best feedback of all my courses. • Weekly videos for development of lab report. • 3hr in lab instruction of data analysis and report format before report is due. • Material is relevant to their industry. • Not focused on content.

39. 3rd Semester Chemistry Lecture • Many low stakes quizzes. Multiple attempts. Videos associated with each quiz. • Allowed me to concentrate on more difficult work in class • Students were put into randomized groups every week • Peer marking of in class group work • Kept tabs • Low stakes, group learning • Lots of discussion • Lots of fun for me • High attendance

42. Lessons Learned • No “bad” students • Small incremental steps over the years. Baby steps towards a goal. • Interaction in the online space. You need to be active online so they are active. • Use a large database of questions. Encourage students to work together. • Quizzes due before class. • Scaffold. Online material should lead into class activity. Active learning during class. Then higher level online assignment applied after. • Backwards design. What do you want them to learn? Distill into a few key items. • Why do they want to be there?

43. Basic Summary for my courses • Lots of short, relevant videos in the online space • Make them yourself • Lots of low stakes quizzes online • Definitions • Multiple attempts at calculations • Basic understanding before coming to class • Online tests are for learning, not really about the mark • Utilize class time more effectively • Have them do calculations during class time. Group work. Everyone in it together. Strongest can teach the weakest. • Show stats of quizzes and focus on that during class time.

44. Acknowledgements • ARIE funding • Chemical Engineering department • CTL – Center for Teaching and Learning • Jeffrey Rankine, Brian Gould, Amy Cook, Andrew Connery Peggy French, Jennifer Horwath • Co-workers • Jay Mycroft • Kamala Kruse • Greg Matzke • Ethan Paschos • Elizabeth Martin College Educator Development Program (CEDP)

45. Questions?

46. 6 ways to use authentic assessment math in the classroom • Performance assessement • Short investigations • Open-response questions • Portfolios • Self-assessment • Multiple Choice Questions https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/authentic-assessment-methods-for-mathematics/

47. Six ways to use authentic assessment math in the classroom • Performance assessment • Students can demonstrate what they have learned and how to solve problems through a collaborative effort in solving a complex problem together. Not only do they learn how to work in a team, but also how to brainstorm and utilize their separate grains of knowledge to benefit the whole. • Short investigations • Typically, a short investigation starts with a basic math problem (or can be adapted to any other school subject) in which the student can demonstrate how he or she has mastered the basic concepts and skills. As the teacher, ask the students to interpret, calculate, explain, describe or predict whatever it is they are analyzing. These are generally 60- to-90 minute tasks for an individual (or group projects) on which to work independently, writing answers to questions and then interviewed separately. • Open-response questions • A teacher can assess the student’s real-world understanding and how the analytical processes relate by, in a quiz setting, requesting open responses, like: • a brief written or oral answer • a mathematical solution • a drawing • a diagram, chart or graph • These open-ended questions can be approximately 15-minute assessments and can be converted into a larger-scale project. • Portfolios • As students learn concepts throughout the school year, they can be documented and will reveal progress and improvements as well as allow for self-assessment, edits and revisions. They can be recorded in a number of ways, including: • journal writing • review by peers • artwork and diagrams • group reports • student notes and outlines • rough drafts to finished work • Self-assessment • After the teacher has clearly explained and provided the expectations prior to the project and then, once the projects are complete, ask the students to evaluate their own projects and participation. Responding to the following questions will help students learn to assess themselves and their work objectively: • What was the most difficult part of this project for you? • What do you think you should do next? • If you could do this task again, would you do anything differently? If yes, what? • What did you learn from this project? • Multiple-choice questions • Usually, multiple-choice questions do not reflect an authentic assessment math context. There are multiple-choice questions being developed that reveal an understanding of the mathematical ideas required as well as integrating more than one concept. These questions are designed to take about 2 or 3 minutes each.

48. Basic Math Teaching Strategies • Repetition • Timed Testing • Pair Work • Manipulation Tools • Math games https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/basic-math-teaching-strategies/

50. Scaffolding • Kahoot, Socrative, Polleverywhere, Online Quizzes Without introducing the learning concept, by asking questions in a specific sequence which builds upon the previous question, students are able to apply and synthesize new information from small bits of information introduced at each step. Used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process* Low stakes quiz to get students prepped for lecture or lab *http://edglossary.org/scaffolding/