Notes from Ways to Better Engage your Students Discussion Panel with Award Winning Faculty March 4, 2011 12 2pm The following has been compiled by Michelle Schwartz, resource librarian at the LTO. Ideas were brought forward during discussion by the panellists (as well as the audience). The panellists were: 1. Gosha Zywno 2. Steven Gedeon 3. Tetyana Antimirova 4. Andie Noack 5. Paul Moore Debbie Chant, Coordinator for the Faculty Teaching Awards introduced the panel. All were recipients of awards in 2010 and have exhibited exemplary practice when engaging students. GOSHA ZYWNO: To engage students it is necessary to pay attention to class morale and motivation, to have personal contact with students, and to make their voices count. Keep the class interested by connecting material to their lives and their future professional careers. Use new media to connect with people who learn differently, and use different assessments to measure people in a variety of ways. When I go back to my undergraduate days, I remember feeling like a number in a sea of indistinguishable students. Being a gay woman in engineering was marginalizing, so I developed an underdog mentality. This helped me in the classroom it taught me empathy and to see my students as individuals. One thing that distinguishes a good professor is good organization. What kind of classroom are you going to have? Can you have name tents or tags? I teach large classes of around 160 students. When I have a small room, I make professional conference tags with the students names printed. The students can fill them in with the names they would like to be called students really buy into it. They can also send me their pictures on a voluntary basis, mindful of FIPPA, for use in my Outlook so I can see their faces when they send me emails. I chat with them before class, even though it s counter to my introvert personality. I once spoke to the only professor with all 5.0 assessments (highest grade) in classes of 500 he described himself as a pseudo-extrovert. He is an extrovert because he knows that it works for his students. Students are always taken aback when I talk to them; it creates a civil atmosphere with high morale, and makes them feel safe and included. I elect class representatives. This year I have six, but I ve had up to ten. I ask students to create a platform which they then present to the class. I use clickers to record votes. I end up with a group of students that I meet with on a regular basis. Professors have to remember that there is a power differential between themselves and the students. The reps can take comments from students who
might be too intimidated to approach the professor. I get an ear to the ground, instant feedback from the class, and find out the issues that need to be addressed. I also have students write one minute papers. On one side, they are instructed to write the one class concept that they understood very well this serves as a pat on the back for me so I can see something positive instead of only complaints. On the other side, they write the one thing they still don t understand. I then collate this all in a graph and see the most common difficulties for the students. It allows me to address the issues that weren t understood and allows students to see where they are in respect to the whole class. This can also be done with clickers I ask questions on the fly and then students can see where they are and if they need to seek help. I give two quizzes over the semester, one quite early to see who is falling behind. I show the students the distribution, and invite students falling behind to my office hours. When thinking about my process I use the start/stop/continue method. Sometimes there are small things that I can address immediately, such as staying organized or speaking slower. It s important to stay in touch with students. We know that some students will never come talk to us face to face. If I use online counselling, email and discussion boards, I will get different people than the ones that show up for office hours. Keep learning styles in mind people have different backgrounds and different ways of learning. People teach in an intuitive way, reproducing the method that worked for them, but maybe only 5% of the class is into that particular academic style. I like to change strategies and use a combination of small group work, video, simulations, etc. Small group work is the best thing in a 200-student lecture. I don t have problems with distracted students, because they are all motivated and doing something. It s very important for students to see connections between the course and their future professional lives. I share personal stories from my career, but I also scour the internet for interesting stories and news items. I bring the idea of professionalism into class and show the importance of professionally written reports, presentations, etc. I bring alumni into the class to talk about their professional reality. These things don t take time away from class material they are learning. Young professors are sometimes scared that they won t have time cover everything. It takes practice to decide what the major concepts are that the students must understand. If you provide that plus intangibles like team building skills, presentation skills, and professional skills these are the things that will carry students after they graduate. What students remember ten years later is how they worked on projects, not the specific projects they worked on. We often talk about the right way to do things, but we often don t remember to do them. One day a student came up to me and said, You changed my life. I had no idea who that student was, I didn t recall the two-minute hallway conversation he said we had, but I m glad that when that person
needed me I was on. We have all this stuff going in our heads; we have meetings to get to, emails, or car accidents. Before I started, I thought teaching was the best, easiest job in the world, but in reality we re all working like madmen. So I vowed, always be on. Professors are like actors, we have to make our performance real over and over and over, just like the first time. It doesn t matter what else is going on, when you re in the classroom, you re on. I do more outside the classroom than inside the classroom. I know the names of my students, where they work, their siblings names. I have my students over for dinner. I have personally hired 100 students in the last few years; I don t limit our relationship to the classroom. If you want to change people s lives and make an impact, you have to go beyond the classroom. I hold social events for my classes and produce class yearbooks. You have to know who your students are in order to make the content relevant. Sometimes this means putting in more time and sometimes they hurt you when they let you down, but you have to leave yourself open. Know you might disappoint people sometimes, but you might also change their lives. In order to grow, you have to embrace change, embrace feedback. It goes both ways. One thing I do in all my classes is say Satisfaction guaranteed, what do you want to learn? Students tell me they want to make that transition from student to professional, so I hold them to that. I remind them that if you play with your Blackberry or computer in board meetings, you won t get that promotion. When you slouch in your chair, it tells me you think I m an idiot your future boss won t like that either. I call people on their behaviours and they don t like it, but you have to do it to make them aware of their lazy habits. It forces the behaviour in the class up a level, for both students and the professor. I tell them it s important to practice your good behaviours now. I remind them that this was what they said they wanted at the beginning of class. I teach entrepreneurship if you re unsuccessful, the business is unsuccessful, if you have integrity, the business will have integrity. I teach personal skills. It s about seeing the world in a different way; the world is open to opportunities. It s about personal empowerment, about seeing that you can make a difference. It s about mobilizing people, getting them to see your vision of the future. Find the students values and find a way to talk to those values. If you can t make that connection to your subject matter, then you shouldn t be teaching it. It s about academic freedom. We re going to do what matters, not just because it s in the course outline. Use the language of the students. TETYANA ANTIMIROVA: I got into teaching science because of my love for the material and because of inspiring high school teachers. Only a tiny fraction of the population is truly excited about physics, though it s required for many programs. I had to learn how to make the subject attractive to students who may not care about physics. There is no way we will be able to teach students everything they want to know, so I see myself as someone who teaches students to learn.
Students learn differently than me, so I had to find a way to teach to different students. I use technology for teaching, not because I like it so much, but because it helps the student to understand concepts. I allow computers in class, but no cell phones. They can use their computers to see my lecture notes. I keep them busy with class technology so they won t be distracted by other stuff. I run an experiment with my 200 first-year physics students. Most of them are frightened they aren t physics majors. This is why I use multiple choice clicker questions or small discussion groups students aren t intimidated. I lead them through the experiment, gives them time to figure it out, and let them come to their own conclusion. If they figure the answer out themselves, they will remember the answer. If I just tell them the answer, they will forget. I help them prove theories with demonstrations and technology. I don t just have them accept things on faith. I have used tablets to allow students to annotate my lectures as I work through them. But when considering technology, remember that when professors don t know how to use technology, students get discouraged. You have to be really careful. Use suitable tools for your class. Ask your students what they think sometimes you will disagree, but sometimes you will learn something new. When you give students a reason for why something is so, they are more likely to go along with you. Another important thing to remember is that students aren t necessarily tech savvy. They are good at what they like, but they may resent using technology in class and will be upset until they master it. The first attempt usually doesn t work, but don t give up, keep trying. I recommend the ISW. I found it to be a really interesting and profound experience. I worked with people from all over the university and from different disciplines. It got me out of my comfort zone, and I got to see other people s methods. The transformations made by participants were amazing. PAUL MOORE AND ANDIE NOACK: Dynamism, inquisitiveness, and questioning of ourselves are always present in our teaching. We work together, sit side by side, and constantly check in with each other about what has been going well. We teach statistics to students that haven t taken math since the 10 th grade. These are dreaded required classes that lead into each other, and if they don t learn what they need to know in the first one, it affects the next class. It is a layered, coordinated curriculum. We try to surprise them the first day. Students are scared. The first day of Intro Stats is so important for setting the tone and the interaction and engagement level you only have one chance to get it right. We hand out markers and let them draw pictures. We ask them to draw their expectations and their fears for the course. We talk about it, work through it. We try to disrupt their perceptions. We have them interpret other people s drawings. For the first class it s no numbers, just drawing. We offer service learning options. We give groups of students a chance to do something outside the classroom that helps their learning. Intro students go to an elementary school to teach math. This keeps
better math students engaged, and keeps intimidated students from feeling stressed because they find it manageable. Teaching others gives them confidence in their own abilities. On the first day of class in the advanced level, we do a mature, research-based version of the drawings. Students begin to articulate quantitatively, theoretically what they re interested in, what they want to work on as a research project. We never start with the data or the variables; we start with their interest. We help them integrate technologies and the quantitative part of stats into the rest of their courses. For the service learning component in advanced stats, we take students who are willing to work in a group and have them work with a community partner, for instance Mainstay Housing, and have them do an advanced statistical report on poverty and mental health data. These students give up the opportunity to follow their own interests, and have the needs of Mainstay determine their project. They become peer experts for the rest of the class. Their different way of learning is integrated into the whole class. In Survey Design, students are partnered with Student Services and design a program evaluation survey. They then use the data to suggest ways to improve some aspect of Student Services. Student Services get capacity and resources, students get real life learning experience. Students feel like they are giving back to their community and making things better for their campus. They get to do a formal presentation in which they can make recommendations for change in front of university officials. The capstone course also has a service learning option. One or two students mentor the service learning students in the lower classes. They can study program evaluation at a theoretical level while mentoring students. The methodology courses in social science are exactly where you get the tools to direct your own research, connect your own curiosity to public outcomes and your own work. Students have to learn not to be afraid of making mistakes. One thing we ve learned is that the topics students choose may seem redundant or boring to us as professors, but you have to respect their interests. There s give and take try to push them to do something more analytical or complex, but let them run with their ideas. We integrate mini versions of service learning in class. Students don t get distracted because they re busy completing exercises. We ask students for questions, ask them to interrupt us. We connect concepts to applications and have them use it immediately. These exercises become material for their exams. A consequence of coordinating so closely is that we each have to answer each other s students questions. Because our classes are connected and students have to pass one to get to the next, we have had to learn how to teach C or D students to make sure they don t become F students. All students who have passed the intro class have made it to graduation.
QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE How can service learning be integrated into classes? PAUL MOORE AND ANDIE NOACK: There is a staff person, Reena Tandon, who can help in Arts. These are all optional, volunteer projects. Reena Tandon helps make the connections with groups and organizations that are willing to participate. When we set up a project with a community partner, it becomes a replacement project for a non-service learning project. If they choose to do the service learning project, they do a reflective paper instead of an essay. Students are doing different assignments under a different model, but the outcomes are the same. What are strategies to get around having students in your class only once, how can you make personal connections out of class? I read motivational literature, and I force myself to always be on using positive self-talk statements. I turn off the noise and focus on the person I m speaking with. If I remind myself of that every morning, it s more likely I ll do it. GOSHA ZYWNO: With one-off classes, the important thing is too have a hook, because you have to grab their attention. Do the legwork to find out what kind of students they are are they arts students, are they first years? Pre-survey them if possible. Reach them at the right level, surprise them, do something they don t expect. What happens when all your students are turned off or tired, and no matter what you do, it just keeps bombing? ANDIE NOACK: I call them on it; I ask them what s up, what s going on? I find out they had a test or they haven t slept. I engage them in why they re not engaged. I tell them Be in the moment or don t be here, if you don t want to be here, leave. If you give them a reason to care, they will care. I tell them that I was twenty once and was grossly irresponsible, but I grew out of that phase. If you re not ready, that s your problem. I am complete without you.
We ve got amazing resources here that allow me to have all my classes taped and put on RyeCast. I have a digital media release form for my students, and I have them sign confidentiality agreements, What is the purpose of recording your classes? I first started doing this because I wanted to stop having to repeat myself. I wanted to have more advanced classes. Students can watch older lectures and then I am free to do an even more advanced lecture. Students can also watch their own presentations over again, see what they did, and hear all their comments again. Some of the material is password protected, some is non-password protected, and some is even on YouTube. It becomes part of the course material along with textbook. It forces me to come up with new content. What do you do if you get a question you can t answer? GOSHA ZYWNO: I try to get the student to see the value of what they re doing. Students are indoctrinated into seeing the professor as the source of knowledge as opposed to their peers. When you re introducing group work, they instinctively say no. You have try to convince them by showing them there is a sound value to it and that it s more like real life. We have to turn them from passive to active, and show them that they are the ones with the knowledge. The sooner they learn to depend on themselves, the better.