Featured Theme: Small Teaching 

 

This month’s theme is Small Teaching, which author James Lang defines as “an approach that seeks to spark positive change in higher education through small but powerful modifications to our course design and teaching practices” (Lang, 2016, p. 5). Based upon the latest advances in cognitive research, Lang and other proponents have skillfully bridged the gap between theory and practice, resulting in techniques that are readily applied. But how much effort is required to realize the results? Lang writes that “an essential shared quality of all…forms of small teaching is that they require minimal preparation and grading.“ 

 

Small Changes in Teaching 

 

A series in six parts in The Chronicle of Higher Education (2016), by James M. Lang, Ph. D., author of Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (2016). 

  

Typical article reading length is 5 to 6 minutes. 

 

Note: Access to The Chronicle is free, courtesy of a Penn State site license. Create an account with The Chronicle to enjoy unlimited reading. 

 

Lang starts in a place we might not expect—before class even begins. He provides a set of three simple tips for using the last minutes before class to instructional advantage and explains why they work.  

 

• Tip #1: Create opportunities to form relationships with your students. Even brief conversations before class result in more substantive relationships (and improved learning) than the ones that arise from routine classroom interactions.
   
• Tip #2: Display the instructional framework for the day. Give students an organizing structure they (and you) can frequently reference during the class.
   
• Tip #3: Create wonder. Post an image on the screen at the front of the room and ask two questions about it: “What do you notice? What do you wonder?” 

 

Taking Pedagogy Seriously 

 

By David Gooblar, Ph. D., author of The Missing Course: Everything They Never Taught You about College Teaching, featured by The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University. 

 

A single interactive video lecture in six parts, each about 7 minutes long. 

 

Prefer to watch and listen rather than read? David Gooblar was invited to The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning in May 2022 to demonstrate some of his most powerful Small Teaching strategies. Sharing insights from recent educational research, Gooblar offers practical methods that will help you foster student engagement and motivation in any academic discipline. 

 

• Introduction; How Did You Learn? 
• Learning is the Work of Students 
• The Students are the Material 

• Student Motivation: Values, Expectancies, Environment 
• Invite Students In 
• Structure Your Course 
• Cultivate Community 

 

The K. Patricia Cross Techniques Video Library 

 

Each technique video is roughly three minutes in length. 

 

A non-profit organization launched in 2019, the K. Patricia Cross Academy exists to provide higher education instructors with free, concise, and effective techniques known to produce learning results. The video library contains 50 techniques, such as Background Knowledge Probe, Active Reading Documents, and Individual Readiness Assurance Tests. The library may be searched by Teaching Environment, Activity Type, Teaching Problem Addressed, and Learning Taxonomic Dimension. These videos are professionally produced. 

 

———– 

Lang. (2016). In Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. Jossey-Bass.  

 

September 2022 Featured Resource:
Higher Ed Teaching Strategies from Magna Publications

 

Faculty Focus publishes three articles each week written by instructors, teachers, instructional designers, and others from around the world, where they provide insight into what’s working (and what’s not) in the classroom and online. Faculty Focus was the winner of the 2017 MERLOT Faculty Development Classics Award and is currently ranked #7 in the Teach100 daily ranking of education blogs.

Let Me Tell You a Story: Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Personal Stories

By Geraint Osborne, professor of sociology at the University of Alberta – Augustana

 

Reading length—2.5 pages, 5 minutes

 

Professor Osborne explains how and why his personal stories serve as examples that connect course concepts and ideas to real-life experiences for his students: “Neuroscience has found that images produced from a story produce a sensory experience that make the recall of information much easier.” Provided stories are well-chosen and used to good instructional purpose, Osborne asserts that storytelling is a powerful pedagogical tool more faculty should consider using.

 

The author examines four primary benefits of this approach, which students tell him on their course evaluations make the material, especially the more abstract or theoretical material, easier to understand. Osborne concludes by balancing the benefits against several cautions.

 

21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion

By Dr. Annie Prud’homme-Généreux, Director of Continuing Studies at Capilano University

 

A series in five parts

First article reading length—6 pages, 10.5 minutes

 

The author is a past recipient of the National Association of Biology Teachers’ Four-Year College/University Teaching Innovation Award. Her five-part series on online discussion strategies offers highly creative and well-grounded approaches that transcend typical online discussion—and hold potential for fostering higher level learning. The series is organized around ideas to:

 

· apply learning

· explore concepts through divergent thinking

· explore concepts through convergent thinking

· foster metacognition

· increase student use of multimedia and other resources

Each strategy includes a description, tips, an example, variations, and where to find more information. In her first article, Prud’homme-Généreux explains five ways to help learners apply what they have learned: #Hashtag that Photo Safari, Virtual Scavenger Hunt, Guessing Game, Forced Analogy, and Flawed Design.

 

 

Interactive Strategies for Engaging Large and Small Classes Alike

By Toni Weiss, Associate Director at Tulane’s Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT)

 

Reading length—2 pages, 4 minutes

 

In her faculty development role, Toni Weiss helps faculty transform their classrooms into more engaged spaces with increased opportunities for interaction. For most instructors she works with, the strongest barriers to embracing more interactive approaches are a lack of time and the fear of adverse results. But Weiss, in her own teaching, has made a single change with multiple benefits: she wirelessly connects her iPad to the classroom computer. This frees her to roam the room and go where the students are. Read on to learn how her use of Doceri, a professional iPad interactive whiteboard and screencast recorder, has transformed the participation level and energy in her classroom.