Reflective Statements

To attain a Certificate in University Teaching, seminars in various situations related to teaching were offered. These pertained to classroom situations, how to best address students to capture their attention and interest in learning, and online learning situations that may be encountered and ways to optimize online learning. Those seminars from which I have attended will be described below:

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“Leading Effective Classroom Discussion? Questions Are the Answer”

     Only 40% of students who come in wanting to pursue STEM actually graduate in 4 years with this degree. Of these, 90% blame poor instruction and engagement. This makes an impact, so we discussed the habits of the worst discussion leaders, or instructors, which include not explaining the answers to questions and answering a question with another question. With poor instruction, students learn to parrot information back onto exams and to their instructors. To better lead online, Zoom strategies were covered for how to handle classroom discussions and make learning interactive. One of the best things to do is to be interactive to help build a community with your students. Students will ask a lot of questions - it's okay not to know an answer, as there is value to the thought that we should know the answer and want our students to genuinely learn.

     When trying to build discussions, cartoons are a good source as there is no one right answer, but as instructors, we have to be strategic in allowing all points of view to be heard and draw out ideas. For groups less than 40, "Poll Everywhere" is free and allows for online discourse through interactive lessons and questions. Different forms of questions can help students to get into mindsets that are ready to be engaged in the learning process: history questions can get a conversation started and check to see that students understand what is going on; relationships between people/things/objects can get students into a more inquisitive mindset; application questions of where others have seen things behave and make new knowledge connections; speculation can push students to expand their thought process; and evaluation questions allow students to be able to explain an occurrence.

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“Assessment for Learning: Engaging Students, Improving Performance”

     Assessments can be engaging, rather than strictly applicable to grading and testing. Assessments are unavoidable, so they should be made to be manageable, have a high impact, and be meaningful. Instructors should try to get feedback back as quickly as possible and be intentional when setting up courses, rather than simply assigning busywork. Instructors should think about new ways to create meaningful assessments that students might actually want to do. One should find how to be supportive of your students, especially working through COVID which interfered with the education system of current students in college and younger grades who struggle more than ever and need to be given more direction. The art of teaching is trying to grasp these concepts from your students' perspective to see how they would perceive them. Give the students feedback, show that you are there for them to promote learning, build a healthy classroom community, and help students feel seen and supported, and students will be more engaged and perform better. 

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“Online and Hybrid Learning: Challenges and Opportunities”

     The impact of online classes is far reaching. Benefits of being online include flexibility, the ability to interact with course materials multiple times, and students can choose the best way to learn, but there are drawbacks like academic dishonesty and needing to learn new techniques to be able to teach online. One's teaching style has to be different online, making sure to use resources like Blackboard, Kaltura, and Zoom, with a strong course structure. It may even require breaking down the work into smaller, more manageable parts. Most everything that could be done in-person can be done online, like chatting through features on Blackboard and Zoom, taking quizzes and exams online, and even having breakout rooms to increase interaction amongst students, as the online classroom setting can be lonely. As the world continues to change, some amount of online learning may be expected, so getting experience with how to properly handle it is important.

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“Universal Design for Learning”

     Accommodations need to actually be accommodating. Multiple means for accommodations is important so that all people have the same access to course content. This is also a legal aspect that students with disabilities have equal access to reasonable accommodations. Universal design is the “design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design”. This was thought about in various scenarios presented to us in which we considered how “average” design and learning doesn’t work for everyone. Three forms of interaction to keep in mind included: engagement, representation, and action and expression, which impacts how we get students to learn. When we cater our teaching in a variety of ways, more students will be able to engage as all people learn and interact with the material differently. Representation is important, so offering alternatives for visual information, clarifying terms and symbols, and helping guide information processing and visualization assist in increasing educational learning opportunities, especially as not everyone may have been exposed to the material being covered. We were then put in breakout rooms to work on case studies (we were assigned Case Study #2):

         You are teaching a class on twentieth century U.S. history to 30 undergraduate students meeting twice per week. Generally, the

     class includes students from varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds, religious affiliations, and socio-economic statuses, and three

     to five students have disability accommodations.

          Students read ten chapters out of a history textbook over the course of the class and prepare a 50 to100-word online reflection to

     each (worth 10% of grade). A typical class begins with a twenty-minute lecture on new material using a PowerPoint, followed by a

     short, five-question online quiz on the new content that the students are given ten minutes to complete. Students are then given 30

     minutes and a worksheet, break into groups of three to discuss several contemporary problems on their worksheets, and work

     together to determine what lesson could be drawn from the day’s lecture to address these problems. The class ends with a group

     discussion of the varying applications students found to the social problems.

          Students tend to not perform well on the quizzes, which count for 15% of the course grade. Their class participation grades,

     however, are usually very good, counting another 15%. They do alright on the two exams which use a combination of multiple-

     choice, short answer, and long answer application questions and count 30% together.

           Their final project grade, worth 30%, is a take home project students have one week to complete, where they are asked to

     comprehensively address three complex historical applications questions with a 500-to-750-word narrative for each. Though the

     students generally demonstrate critical thinking and perform well on the in-class historical application tasks, they have not done well

     on the final project.

     Instructions:

          1. Identify your areas of concern with how this course is taught.   

          2. Select 2-3 concerns and find UDL guideline possible solutions for each

          3. Prepare a one or two sentence description of exactly what you would do to implement the selected guidelines for each of the

              concerns.

               a. Allow for open book quizzes, as they may not all perform well on testing information, but clearly show engagement in the

                   class

               b. Maybe adjust class expectations, as you may be expecting too much work to be done - there may not be adequate time to

                   complete assignments and quizzes, as the final project had many requirements that may not have been possible within the

                   time constraint in addition to other coursework, so adjusting what to do and how things are done should be taken into

                   account rather than following a strict syllabus that does not provide grades that show the students' strengths

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"Active Learning: Making the Most of 'Lecture' Time"

     Active learning can be defined in different ways, so long as one is “actively” thinking and engaging the mind with material to construct new knowledge - whether alone, with peers, or with instructors. Instructors should be engaged in the ways students want to and feel comfortable interacting with the material. Not all students want to be called out in class and are more reserved towards participation, but instructors should know what the line is in which to pull engagement, but also to not force students to be uncomfortable in the classroom. There are different ways of learning which should be valued. Contributing to their education is the structure that students are given - students can be given too much structure at the beginning where they become overwhelmed, but if there is not enough, topics can be too broad and this leaves too much room for students where they are unsure of where to start; a good middle ground to this would be leaving room for creativity, such as allowing students to do a PowerPoint presentation, a creative approach to the topic, a podcast, or however else they feel comfortable sharing their information with the class, which may need their own rubrics to all be graded on an equal level. This is more applicable to students in their upper levels of college, as a more rigid structure allows for first-years to perform best as students are coming from all different places with varying amounts of education on certain topics.

     Active learning techniques can vary between having students do case studies, jigsaw puzzles, think-pair-share activities, brain-storming, polling, and so much more. This can increase student motivation, allows them to interact with classmates, and uses experimental strategies to get students engaged. In active learning, students are doing something, whether in their own head and writing on paper or debating with peers. Instructors are driven by their own experiences and are creating their own schemas for how students will relate to each other, the material, and the instructor themself - we want to give them experiences that will help them build their own schemas. Scaffolding is a way for instructors to externally provide support to help learners develop a skill or ability, such as ways to study and problem solve. Different ways to help students were discussed, including the “ICAP” model, which include interactive, constructive, active, and passive methods to foster student learning in ways that are oriented toward them and how they thrive in the classroom.

     This whole seminar was formatted in such a way that all graduates not only learned about active learning by sitting and listening to a presentation, but spent the entire seminar engaged and performing active learning themself. Different modes on Zoom were requested to be used by the graduate students, constant engagement on the part of the host by asking questions, pulling out answers, creating breakout rooms, and overall encouraging discussion.

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"More Than a Post-It: How Detailed Lesson Plans Make a Difference"

     This seminar focused on addressing problems that may arise in the classrooms and ways to make the most of it, how to structure lesson plans, and make teaching your own. The topic of challenges in teaching lessons was addressed using Jamboard. One topic brought up was in incorporating creativity in teaching lessons, which can be seen as a challenge. Other challenges included rushing through topics that need to be covered, struggling to cover everything you are expected to, time management in controlling large group discussions, and balancing interactive learning with direct instruction and material. Times that classes are taught at can also affect engagement, but if you, as the instructor, set the trend that you need answers and interaction between students, then this is what will be expected of them and they may do it more than if students believe they can wait out the instructor. Lesson plans can help instructors to direct student focus onto what they should be learning, involving the progression of activities leading to the development of ideas.

     Lesson plans vary in style, as some instructors prefer to have more details mapped out than others. Basic lessons plans are meant to be intended for a specific audience, with knowledge of what materials are needed and preparation that must be done. Learning outcomes should be established so you know exactly what the students will be getting out of the lesson, and this can be helpful in keeping instructors on track. Some teaching strategies should be incorporated into lesson plans in ways to get students involved and active in their educational endeavors. Introductions can welcome students to new techniques that they will be learning and can be used to distribute the handouts or materials necessary for that lesson. Teaching strategies, as previously mentioned, are ways to actively engage students in the content. These are supposed to change every 15-20 minutes and instructions for each step within the strategy should be included for the learners to understand its purpose, expectations, time constraints, and what the end result should be. Instructors should check to make sure students are comprehending the material by reviewing and calling on students, and even asking thought-provoking questions to stimulate thought. In adding more detail into lesson plans, students can “understand by design”, which is an instructional design model that works backwards from what students need to know to how you as an instructor will know they have learned it and use activities to facilitate that learning. Certain questions can be asked to create a more enduring understanding of the material, like having students figure out how or why something occurs; questions can be open-ended or lack a “simple” answer, and they should spark meaningful connections based on prior learning or personal experiences. 

     Learning can also be transferable, which can provide a check on students’ enduring understandings and particular questions to have them apply this knowledge beyond the immediate context. This aids instructors in checking whether they know if students have learnt the material and in what ways. Activities that are known to help students learn and provide assessment data include having students use research journals or another form of writing, which can be reflective, peer evaluations, annotated bibliographies, portfolios, lab reports, groups projects, posters, or speeches. In this seminar, graduate students were sent into breakout rooms to discuss how lesson plans can be used in their own teaching areas and any questions that may remain about lesson planning. At this current moment, I do not make my own lesson plan as I TA for a faculty member at Syracuse University, but the lesson plans are detailed for students in their labs they must bring to class with them with additional TA notes to lead the class. This lesson planning was helpful though in reflecting back on the human evolution lesson I taught in how it was structured; the activity I developed was a Kahoot!, so that students would be able to determine how well they paid attention and were able to absorb the new material.