Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Five Ways to Keep Your Sanity Through Finals Week

1. Bake cookies

And it only took an hour away from grading to bake these! Totally worth it.

If you're looking at how much you have to do this week, you'll only be able to really start after you've made a plan. And who doesn't plan better while they're creaming butter and shaping little one-inch balls of cookie dough?

2. Eat someone else's homemade cookies

Just wander around campus and you'll be sure to run into some sort of baked good, just hanging around some one's desk. Grab it and run.
 If you don't have enough time to bake your own cookies, then just eat someone else's! You need a bit of brain food to get through all of your grading this week, and there's no better brain food than sugar; so load up, friends, and then buzz through those final students projects like you're being chased by a dragon. (what does that mean? I don't know. too much sugar.)

3. Take a stroll
Get the blood flowing to your limbs and to your brain with a jaunty stroll around campus. Walk down to the library for a view over the MCC pond, or walk down to the cafeteria to see what's cooking. Visit some colleagues and then feel better about yourself when they revel at how far ahead in your grading you are! (Little do they know what's waiting for you back in your office.)

4. Straighten your desk
Who can even consider grading anything when your desk looks like this:

This is waiting for you back in your office.

You'd better straighten it up, and quick. And your books could use some re-shelving. And your pens probably need to be organized by size and color. And that poster on your wall is a little crooked. Why don't you rehang it?

5. Take a nap
Because it's only Wednesday, after all, and grades aren't due until next Monday at noon. So there's plenty of time, really. Why are you stressing out?

Monday, December 10, 2012

Students "Grading" Teachers



On Tuesday, December 4, WBEZ, Chicago's public radio channel, aired a report called "Students Grading Teachers" on its news magazine, The Morning Shift

Tony Sarabia, host of The Morning Shift, interviewed Ronald Ferguson and Thomas Kane, two Harvard professors who have worked on the Measures of Effective Teaching project for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The 2009 project organized approximately 3,000 teacher volunteers to participate in a variety of activities meant to assess teacher effectiveness in the classroom. Although the project focused on elementary and secondary educators, the conversation on The Morning Shift also incorporated college level student evaluations, and Bruno Teboul, Associate Dean of the College of Communication at DePaul University, was one of Sarabia's guests.

Ronald Ferguson developed the "Tripod Survey" instrument for the MET project. This survey, which evolved from a decade's worth of Ferguson's work, was one of five measures developed to gauge and assess teacher effectiveness. Ferguson's survey included questions such as My teacher knows when the class understands, and when we do not; My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class; and When I turn in my work, my teacher gives me useful feedback that helps me improve.

During the twenty minute segment on The Morning Shift, Sarabia (who referred to this survey as "grading" teachers and was corrected immediately by Ferguson, who said that the surveys are not grades, nor are they popularity contests, but rather they are assessment tools meant to "document students' experiences in the classroom so that we could identify issues and set priorities for professional development...") interviewed Ferguson and his colleague Thomas Kane about their work on the survey and on the MET project, and he also interviewed Bruno Teboul about student evaluation surveys at the college level.

I was not surprised to learn that DePaul uses surveys the way that we use them here at MCC: to give instructors valuable feedback at the end of each semester about what works, what doesn't, and how we, as educators, can make changes to our classroom instruction to better meet our students' needs. I was surprised to hear from Sarabia, who used to teach Urban Studies at Loyola University, that he never received the feedback from his own course evaluations. I was also surprised to hear Ferguson say that many of the participating teachers were hesitant to get their individual results back--hesitant, that is, until they got a hint of the students' responses and understood how valuable those responses could be.

Here are some other bits from the segment that you might find interesting:

Ferguson says that academic press--pressing students to continue working, to push themselves even when work gets difficult--is the "strongest predictor of achievement gain."

He also says that one of the strongest predictors of learning is classroom management. It's "whether [the] class stays busy and doesn't waste time, and whether people treat one another respectfully." Ferguson says that "a close second is whether the teacher challenges students to think hard and to work hard."

Sarabia and some callers felt that using the feedback might be controversial; however Teboul felt that the surveys themselves are not controversial, but "the controversy can come from how they're used." Essentially, the feedback is best used for self-reflection: to adjust lesson plans and assess a teacher's own effectiveness in the classroom before applying changes themselves.

Ferguson states that the teachers just want the surveys "used fairly." There should be "no one measure" and there certainly should not be only one application of any kind of assessment.

The full segment is available below for your listening pleasure (or you can access it on The Morning Shift website), and you can read the MET project white paper here.

For more information on Ferguson's survey work, read this Atlantic article from October.

And for more information on deciphering student evaluations, read this recent blog post from Faculty Focus.

Press the orange play button below to hear the twenty-two minute Morning Shift segment!

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

E-portfolio in Composition I

Contributed by Lisa Crizer, Instructor of English

When creating my syllabus, I always struggle with what to do after Thanksgiving. Students and instructors come back stuffed, unfocused, and usually spend the final two weeks counting down the minutes until winter break. This semester, I decided to try out an e-portfolio.

I’ve assigned portfolios in the past, usually in composition I, and I use them as an opportunity for students to look back on how far they’ve come in one semester. We gather all of our work together in one place and take a look back at the process for each essay: What did the pre-writing look like? The first draft? Now, compare that to the edited final draft you submitted. Can you see the difference?

Normally, I collect the hard copies of the essays, along with any reflection pieces, in a pocket folder. If you stop by my office, you’ll see evidence of this on my overcrowded shelves.

Exhibit A

This semester, however, I decided to try something different. Since we’ve been talking about e-portfolios as a possible graduation requirement and since I was able to pull one off when I created my tenure portfolio last year, I figured my students could give it a go.   
We used Google Sites and the students did really well with the assignment. I created a template for them, so that instead of focusing all their energy on designing the e-portfolio, they could spend their time reflecting on their writing. Even with the template, they were still able to make the portfolio look how they wanted it to look, which they really enjoyed. Here’s a link to the template I created for them.
I am very happy with how this went, and I will definitely do it again in the future. My students have an e-portfolio that they can refer back to, and I can begin to reclaim my shelves. Everybody wins!

Sunday, December 02, 2012

Translating Words into Images

On November 26, Deborah Miller Fox, a contributor to the Faculty Focus blog, wrote a post entitled "Get Visual: A Technique for Improving Student Writing."

Miller Fox's post brought up interesting ideas of using images and visual representations to explore and better understand concepts. I believe in the importance of using visuals in my writing classroom, so I found this article--and the "poster" assignment that Miller Fox used in her own classroom--inspiring. So inspiring, actually, that I decided to adapt the assignment (let's be honest: I stole it outright) to use for an in-class activity in my English Composition 152 classroom last week.

Since the beginning of November, my students have been working on a synthesis problem solving essay. They've identified an issue related to violence in schools (one of the texts for the class is Columbine by Dave Cullen), proposed a specific and reasonable solution, and then argued the solution's workability and effectiveness.

The students were turning in their final drafts last Tuesday, so I decided, after reading Miller Fox's article, that I'd have them create a poster to advertise one of the solutions detailed in their papers. I asked them to choose a target audience and explain where they would hang the posters. These are just a few examples of what the students produced.

Student Nick R. created a poster based on a service learning component he completed for his proposal paper

Joshua K., a student studying criminal justice at MCC, identified juvenile delinquency as a serious problem to be solved

Kiersten C., an active member of MCC's Pride Club, made this poster reflecting solutions to anti-LGBT bullying

In addition to creating the posters, the students explained the posters, their intended audiences, and where they'd hang them. They also created MLA style citations for any images they'd found and used from the Internet.

I've decided that this is an assignment I'll start using in the future for this particular paper, and I'll restructure it to give students more time (they only had forty-five minutes of one class period).

For more detail and great ideas for your own classroom, check out the Miller Fox article and other articles from the Faculty Focus blog.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Reaching the Modern Student

In preparation for my workshop this Friday, Reaching Modern Students, I did a quick and very informal survey of my two English Composition 152 classes. I asked my students to define a "modern" student and identify what made them "modern" students.

I got a variety of answers, and some were more useful than others (one student claimed to be a "laid back learner," which is a learning style I'm not too familiar with...). But I did get some insightful feedback.

The "laid-back" learning style at play

Many of my students like to be "hands on" when learning concepts. They prefer to get an overview and explanation of a concept, an example of that concept in action, and then they like to take action themselves by using that concept on their own. For my writing classes, this means getting the overview and examples of a particular concept (e.g. using appeals [logos, ethos, pathos] in argumentative and persuasive writing) before applying it themselves during an in-class activity or homework essay. In other disciplines this might mean lab work, discussion, or some other way of the students beginning to take ownership over the course concepts.

My students also seem to consider themselves to be visual learners, and this is a learning style that may be cultivated more and more by the on-screen way young people are receiving information. They want PowerPoint or Prezi presentations (though one student warned that "no matter what, if you don't have good 'stage presence', slides won't make up for it." yikes.) and video clips, and pictures and stories or narratives that reinforce concepts. And although they all noted their heavy use of technology and social media, not one student mentioned an interest in using an e-textbook.

For more about what makes a modern student and how we can reach our students more effectively, register for the workshop, which will take place from 1 - 2 p.m. on Friday, November 16 (use the Professional Development auto-registration system).

Hope to see you then!

Thursday, November 01, 2012

Perspective

The other week during Professional Development Day, our keynote speaker, Doug Dvorak, talked about keeping our problems in perspective. He called our issues "high class problems," and while I was a little uncomfortable with the term since I do not, in any way, shape, or form, consider myself to be "high" class (as my predilections for zombies and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese illustrate), I had my own moment of perspective the other day.

I was meeting my students for one-on-one conferences to talk about their essay drafts. One of my student's essays was the story of why he has decided to become a police officer, and one of his reasons was that he and his mother's house had recently been burglarized by their neighbor. I asked him what had been stolen and he said they'd taken $20. I replied, "Well, $20 isn't a huge amount of money, but any kind of a theft feels like a big violation."

And this is what he said: "Actually, twenty dollars is a lot of money for me and my mom. She's not working, so that was a big deal to us."

And I wanted to kick myself.

I live in a two-income household. My husband and I have one car, no children, and not even a pet since our dog passed away last March. I have a good health insurance plan and never have to worry about putting food on my table. And last month I spent about $20 on lip gloss alone (that's not an exaggeration).

So even though I try to understand that our students struggle to pay for not only their tuition but for their textbooks, flash drives, notebooks, folders, and pens as well, it's sometimes hard to see beyond my own relatively comfortable situation.

Our students struggle, sometimes, to pay their rent and their car insurance, their utility and credit card bills, and in the most unfortunate situations they cannot overcome those struggles, and they wind up homeless. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, 22.3% of all sheltered homeless were between the ages of 18 and 30. Those could be our students. And even if our students don't have to suffer this fate, some of them still live in neighborhoods where they could be robbed by the person living next door.

After having this foot-in-mouth experience, I know that I must be more mindful of what I say, what I think, and how I approach my students and their lives.

Have you ever had a "perspective" moment with a student?

For other reading, see the June 2012 report from the National Center for Homeless Education and the Huffington Post article that decodes some of it.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Math Made Relevant

Contributed by Kate Kramer, Instructor of Earth Science & Geology

We’ve all heard it… “I don’t do math” or “math is scary.” But the truth is everyone uses some form of math everyday, and math certainly isn’t scary (zombies are scary). But what can instructors do to help dissolve students' math anxiety? I’ve been working with a program called The Math You Need, When You Need It (TMYN) to help assist students with lacking math skills.

The basic premise of TMYN are web-based modules that help students succeed with mathematics in introductory geoscience classes (don’t teach geoscience? Good news… we are currently working on modules for other science courses, too). Recent studies show that these tools help "level the playing field" by supporting students in learning, reviewing mathematical skills, and reducing math anxiety in geoscience courses.

TMYN provides a direct link between quantitative math skills and the geoscience classroom. I use the modules to support many topics in the laboratory and lecture portions of Physical Geology. We currently apply modules about converting units, rearranging equations, calculating density, understanding graphs, and interpreting slope and topographic lines.

Students have commented on how prepared the modules have made them in the classroom, and the overlapping usefulness of the modules in other courses, such as, “the website is a good review of material I haven’t used in a while” and “I get math now.” My implementation of TMYN has been one of my most successful teaching strategies, as it supports my students with lecture and laboratory quantitative skills.


Tuesday, October 09, 2012

A Short Approach to Writing Across the Curriculum

Contributed by Christine Grela, Instructor of Psychology

As we discuss excellence in teaching, I am reminded of the work I did to help develop the Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) Rubric in 2006. Writing seems to be such an essential skill we want to develop in our students, and it is also an obvious way to assess their ability to comprehend course information and to think critically.
Although some instructors have embraced the WAC idea and rubric, I know there has been concern across campus that perhaps writing doesn’t really have a place in “my” course, or that “this” isn’t the kind of class that writes a lot of papers. So, when I received information about paragraph writing and how it can be integrated across the curriculum by simply evaluating paragraph responses, I got excited.
Perhaps we can truly make writing a form of assessment across the curriculum if we keep it short! Check out what the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at Brownsville have done with this paragraph handbook.
What do you think about writing in your discipline? Would paragraphs be appropriate and easy to assess for you?

Sunday, October 07, 2012

New Gadgets Just For You

Check out the new RSS feeds we've added to the blog (look to the right):

  1. Faculty Focus: the Teaching Professor blog
  2. Educator Advice and Support from the NEA
  3. Classroom Management tips from the NEA
  4. Teaching Strategies from the NEA
  5. News from the U.S. Department of Education
And as always, we'd love to hear from you; so if there's anything specific you'd like us to add, please post a comment below!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

One Instructor's Method for Class Participation


Contributed by Craig Derscheid, Instructor of Speech and Journalism/Film

I feel this is a very important part of the classroom environment. I tell my students that this is a way to let me know what they are thinking about and maybe just to ask questions. But what is the right amount of participation?

Sometimes you have students who love to dominate the discussion. I tell my students that after they have made three comments each, they can take a break and let the other students give me their insight through discussion. But what happens sometimes is that you may have complete silence.

At that point, I will call on specific students to get involved in the discussion.

In my film classes, students are not necessarily giving right or wrong answers but using the terms we talk about in class to analyze the film. This is a little easier than if they have to give a right or wrong answer. If I can't get the students to speak up at all, I remind them as I stated at the beginning of the semester I need to have them participate in discussions. If we can't get a good discussion going, I will have them write a one page type written paper about what we should be discussing and give them 10 points for writing an accurate analysis of the film just viewed. This works sometimes but not always to help them to participate.

These are just a few thoughts on getting students to participate in class discussion, which, for my teaching style, is very important. Do you have problems with participation? What are your helpful tips for us to learn from?

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Teaching with The Mindset List

A couple of weeks ago in A210 we listened in on a free Mediasite webinar about The Mindset List, a "globally reported and utilized guide to the intelligent if unprepared adolescent consciousness."

The Mindset List, which Beloit College has been updating for over a decade, is now a book, and the authors, Tom McBride and Ron Nief, led us through an hour long discussion of putting the list to use in the modern classroom.


There were a number of eye-opening statements from McBride & Nief, including the following:
  • It's not that the students don't know, but that they haven't had the same experiences
  • The students assume that the technology is there and possible, because it always has been!
  • Time magazine published its issue "Welcome to Cyberspace" the year most of our students were born--for them, it has always been a reality
  • Dealing with technology in the classroom and teaching responsible use of technology in higher education is a recursive process
  • Students need to understand that there's a difference between instant information and instant right answers
I got some great ideas for approaching students, and for using new strategies in the classroom. Some of the ideas grew from things I already do--like using design elements in my presentations (photos, media) instead of too much text. But there were a lot of things I plan to try this semester and semesters to come, including:
  • Defining what "being prepared" means in my classroom
  • Flipping my classroom so that I use lecture capture to record lectures for students to watch as homework and use my face-to-face classroom time for "lab" work, which in English usually means drafting, consulting/peer review, and revision time
I also plan to continue to mine current technology and social media trends for things I can apply to my classroom for the students' benefit.

Overall, the webinar was a success, but it made me curious to pick your brains and ask: What do you do to reach your modern students, and what do you think you might start doing differently? 

Friday, August 31, 2012

Fall Faculty Development Day

Before the semester began, we held our bi-annual Faculty Development Day, which was, for the second August in a row, coordinated with the New Student Convocation. Whether or not you were able to join us, take a moment to enjoy a few pictures from the day's activities.

The MCC Blue Shirt Posse During the Convocation Ceremony

Board Trustee Dennis Adams in the Dunk Tank

Doug Goostree and Bruce Spangenberg

Tim Seitz and Paul Stahmann

These two are ready to start the year. For sure.

Students Enjoying the Convocation Picnic

Some of Our Excellent Faculty Members: Kate Kramer, Julie Freelove, Heather Zaccagnini, Elaine Whalen, Anne Humphrey, Shiela Venkataswamy, Lisa Crizer, and Christine Grela

The Little Gymnasts

Dr. Smith Enjoys Some Sweets

Colleague Connectivity: Amy Ortiz Shows Off  Fashion and Art

The "Re-Birthday Party" for MCC's New Brand

And make sure to save the date for our Spring Faculty Development Day on Thursday, January 10, 2013.

See you around campus!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Brain Rules

Over the summer I cultivated my fascination with the human brain by reading a book by John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and professor in Seattle, Washington. The book, called Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, was not only an interesting and enjoyable read, but Medina also gave me some ideas from his own classroom for presenting lessons.

A big part of Medina's book centers around human memory. He writes that people's attention spans typically start to wane after 10 minutes. Because of this, as well as because of the principle that people tend to remember things to which they are emotionally connected, Medina creates his lessons in 10-minute "modules." At the end of each module he not only repeats the main idea he has just covered (repetition is the key to remembering!), but he will also grab his students' attention with a personal anecdote or emotional bit of information. By doing this he can recapture his students' focus for the next 10 minute module and reinforce what they have just learned.

In addition to talking about memory, Medina expresses frustration with the physical layout of the typical classroom. He believes that tables and desks facing the all-too-familiar podium is not the best structure for student learning. Because he brought it up, I got to thinking about how I would design my ideal classroom. Would it be small four-seat tables scattered around the room with whiteboard on all four walls? Or would it be a horseshoe shape of chairs so students would actually look at one another when addressing discussion questions? I couldn't come to a firm resolution, so I'm curious to hear from you: What would your ideal classroom look like?

If you're interested to know what Medina says about
  • keeping a healthy brain
  • how we remember
  • why multi-tasking is impossible, and
  • the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron" (yep, you read that correctly!)
then check out his book. And if you listen to the audiobook, be aware that Medina narrates it himself and his enthusiasm about the human brain is big and absolutely contagious!


(For a more scientifically minded approach to the human brain and reading, check out Maryanne Wolf's Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.)

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Spring Faculty Workshop Day

We had a smooth day last Thursday for our bi-annual faculty workshop day, regardless of the snow falling outside. And although the snow made it tough traveling for everyone coming to and from campus, it sure was pretty.


The day started with an inspirational welcome from Kate Midday, one of our three 2011 NISOD Award of Excellence winners (other 2011 winners are Don Curfman and Ted Erski), and ended with a smorgasbord of excellent break-out sessions led both by our adjunct and full time faculty as well as one of our administrators. In between we had sessions led by seasoned MCC faculty, brand spanking new MCC faculty, and visiting faculty Jeff Clark from Sommerset Community College in Kentucky; and we hosted our first "Colleague Connectivity" poster session. If you weren't able to make it, we hope to see you at our next faculty workshop day in August (though you don't have to wait until then to check out what great faculty development opportunities are on this semester's calendar--visit InsideMCC and click the "got training?" button at the bottom of the page under Professional Development).

And to all of you, have a great first day of the Spring 2012 semester!

Morning Breakout Session "Veterans in the Classroom"

Don Curfman (far left), Jeff Clark (far right), and two MCC student veterans, Mike and Craig

"Colleague Connectivity" poster session in the MCC Commons

Joe Baumann of Institutional Research and nursing faculty Angela Sass show off their tables