Here are some pictures from today's Summer Institute:

Oscar Lansen — Say What?

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Blackboard's recent purchase of their competitor, Angel Learning, has caused many people in higher ed to take notice.  The folks who use Angel are naturally dismayed by this development, particularly those campuses who had switched to Angel to get away from Blackboard after it had bought out WebCT a few years back.  Anyway, the Chronicle of Higher Education had a cover story in their May 22 edition about Blackboard and Angel, and this part struck me [emph. mine]:

[One former Angel user said] he would rather quit his job than work with Blackboard's software. Strong sentiment, considering the topic is merely which software will run the administrative aspects of the college's teaching process, like the course discussions and the online grade book.

Outsiders might ask, Why all the fuss?

The answer is that course-management software has become a new kind of campus building — a virtual one where online classes are held and new kinds of "hybrid" courses take place. The unsettled question is who controls what these classrooms look like and how stable their foundations are.

Is that what the LMS means to you--a virtual campus building?  Is it "merely...[to] run the administrative aspects of [your] teaching process"?  For some, yes, but I find this definition restrictive.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

The NYT reports on several websites that are either study aids or full blown cheating enablers: "commercial Web sites with step-by-step solutions to textbook problems, copies of previous exams, reams of lecture notes, summaries of literary classics, and real-time help with physics, math and computer science problems."  Interesting.  [h/t Topher Gee]

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Our Summer Institute kicked off yesterday and over 100 faculty attended the Keynote Address. Frank Heppner provided valuable insight on understanding the different types of students that might be enrolled and gave tips on how to handle all aspects involved in teaching large classes. In addition to his own book, Teaching the Large College Class, he mentioned another book, Blink (link to book on Amazon.com). read more »

In a May 1, 2009, article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Close the Book. Recall. Write It Down" [sorry--no link--article is closed behind their paywall], an older instructional technology is brought back into the light: 

The scene: A rigorous intro-level survey course in biology, history, or economics. You're the instructor, and students are crowding the lectern, pleading for study advice for the midterm.  If you're like many professors, you'll tell them something like this: Read carefully. Write down unfamiliar terms and look up their meanings. Make an outline. Reread each chapter.  That's not terrible advice. But some scientists would say that you've left out the most important step: Put the book aside and hide your notes. Then recall everything you can. Write it down, or, if you're uninhibited, say it out loud.  Two psychology journals have recently published papers showing that this strategy works, the latest findings from a decades-old body of research. When students study on their own, "active recall" — recitation, for instance, or flashcards and other self-quizzing — is the most effective way to inscribe something in long-term memory.When students study on their own, "active recall" — recitation, for instance, or flashcards and other self-quizzing — is the most effective way to inscribe something in long-term memory.

Mark McDaniel from Washington University has recently published his work in the April (2009) issue of Psychological Science.  The abstract:

Two experiments with college students investigated the effectiveness of the 3R (read-recite-review) strategy for learning from educational texts. The 3R strategy was compared with rereading and note-taking study strategies using free-recall, multiple-choice, and short-answer inference tests immediately after study and after a 1-week delay. In Experiments 1 and 2, 3R improved immediate and delayed free recall of fact-based passages, relative to the rereading and note-taking strategies. In Experiment 2, which used longer, more complex passages on engineering topics, performance on multiple-choice and problem-solving items was better in the 3R than in the rereading condition, and was equivalent in the 3R and note-taking conditions, though 3R took less study time than note taking. An inherent advantage of 3R relative to other testing methods for improving learning is that 3R is under the learner's control. These results indicate that it is also an efficacious study technique that capitalizes on the mnemonic potency of retrieval and feedback.

The Chronicle allowed McDaniel to answer his critics, who claimed that this is an "old model of learning" and that it requires too much "rote memorization."  Said McDaniel, "If you ask people to free-recall, you can generate a better mental model of a subject area, and in turn that can lead to better problem-solving."

Yes!  Isn't that the point?  If students learn the foundational content to begin with, then we can ask them to do the higher order and critical thinking tasks we desire.  Continues McDaniel, "No matter how engaging you make the course, the students need to have the knowledge base to do the inquiry-based problem-solving activities that you've designed."

The idea, therefore, is to equip students with skills that will enable them to succeed.  And this method is under the learner's control.  Seems like a good fit for large classes.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

Have you ever wondered what the learning space implies, merely by its structure and arrangement?  What do chairs bolted to the floor, arranged neatly in rows, communicate to the learner?  What do they say about the instructor?  Does this fit your ideal teaching style?  Or is your teaching style shaped by the room around you?  Shouldn't it be the other way around, where you shape your environment to fit your style and to meet your students needs...not to mention the needs of your subject matter?

By now, you may have seen the somewhat famous video created by Michael Wesch and his students, "A Vision of Students Today," which partly deals with this issue.  Going more in-depth into learning spaces is Ruth Reynard's recent article, "Designing Learning Spaces for Instruction, not Control," which is as interesting as the provocative title suggests.  And the latest issue of Educause Review was devoted in its entirety to learning spaces.  It contains ideas not only on how to design such spaces, but it also explains what considerations to make and so forth.  The best idea?  Planners should partner with faculty in the design, from assessing needs through building out the technological infrastructure.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

This is interesting:

It is conceivable that over the next ten years we will approach a point when all undergraduate students at all colleges and universities will have access to some form of Internet-enabled device. These devices will probably be far more powerful and contain far more functionality than what is available today, but undoubtedly their affordances will continue to include the capability to communicate, query and reflect.

The question is not a matter of whether students will one day have these devices. They will.

That is the reasoning behind the development of LectureTools, a classroom response system created at the University of Michigan that uses laptops or other Internet enabled devices instead of clickers.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  Instead of asking students to buy and keep track of yet another device--the clicker--just let them use what they already own and would never lose--their iPhone, Blackberry, laptop, etc.  [h/t Campus Technology].

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

"Want your lecture to be more than a talker and an undifferentiated mass of bent-headed note-takers? Consider 'didaction,' a mix of exposition and student action."

So begins an interesting article about didaction by Rob Weir at Inside Higher Ed.  He suggests several methods for making lectures more interactive.  One way is to simply ask students to brainstorm ideas and then put them on the board and then refer back to them during the lecture.  Or you can use pictures in PowerPoint to generate student comments.  There are eight other ideas explained with directions on how to implement them, plus some links to examples. 

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

If you’ve not heard of it there is now another FREE option for putting PowerPoint and/or Keynote presentations up on the web—SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net). What is even cooler is that it is search engine and screen reader friendly because it automatically creates a transcript of the text in your presentation. read more »

The cost of college textbooks is a sore spot for students and parents, and Flat World Knowledge wants to help by turning college textbook publishing on its ear.  They want to offer free textbooks online, but students could pay to have the same ones printed.  I have to say it's an interesting model.  Their website gives a series of compelling examples to illustrate their approach:

Some will read online. Some won't. Some want print books. Some don't. We're not smart enough to figure it out. So we won't. Now there's a novel idea. Let instructors adopt the best book for their class. Let students adopt the best format and price for them.

Kayo doesn't read books online. She orders the black and white softcover for about $29 bucks. It shows up in a few days. Too bland for her friend Sam - he orders the color edition for $59. Not Sharon. She commutes everyday, so nothing but the audio book on her iPod will do. Then there's Chaz. He's indecisive. He decides, well, not to decide. He'll order the self-print .pdf chapters when he needs them for $1.99 per chapter. Cool. And don't forget Tessa. She never has enough time. She'll cut to the chase with our mp3 study guides, mobile flash cards, and online practice quizzes with feedback. That's convenient. That's choices. That's Flat World Knowledge.

OK, so the students should be excited, but what about faculty?

Use our books “off-the-shelf”. After all, they're crafted to meet market needs. But when was the last time you thought of yourself as “the market?” We thought so. So go nuts. Use our “build-a-book” platform. Drag-and-drop chapters into a new table of contents that suits your syllabus. Don't cover the last chapter? Trash it with a click. Beginning Summer 09, you will be able to edit Flat World open textbooks down to the sentence level. Replace our example with one of yours. Add a paragraph on your pet research topic. When you're done, click “adopt” and we'll give you a special URL for your students. If they buy a print version, it'll be of your unique book. Thank you print-on-demand technology! And thank you, Creative Commons. That's our open license that allows you to do everything above and more, without any special permissions.

There's another benefit of our open textbooks - no more being forced to switch to new editions. Ever. Whether you make changes or use our book as is, with Flat World Knowledge, you move to new editions when you have time and when you see merit. Not when we do. Now that's sweet.

I like it.  A lot.

Currently, their catalog is focused on business courses, but they should be able to expand with the $8M in VC funding they recently received.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte