Pursuing an Academic Career Webinar Series Setting goals for effective & innovative courses April 10, 2012 Audio access: Call in 1-800-704-9804 Access

Pursuing an Academic CareerWebinar Series

Setting goals for effective & innovative coursesApril 10, 2012

Audio access: Call in 1-800-704-9804

Access code:

Alternate number: 1-404-920-6604 (not toll-free)

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Contact Monica: [email protected]

Program begins at: 1:30 pm Eastern | 12:30 pm Central | 11:30 am Mountain | 10:30 am Pacific

You can find information about the event athttp://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerdev/AcademicCareer2012/

april_2012.html

Pursuing an Academic CareerSeries conveners and moderators

Prof. Rachel Beane

Bowdoin College

Monica Bruckner

Science Education and Resource Center (SERC)

Prof. Mike Williams

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Setting goals for effective and innovative courses

Presenter

Prof. Barbara Tewksbury

Hamilton College

What best describes your current position?

A. Grad student

B. Post-doc

C. Researcher

D. Faculty member (incl. adjunct)

E. Other

What kind of course are you designing goals for?

A. Intro level

B. Required course for undergrad majors

C. Elective course for undergrad majors

D. Course for grad students

E. Other

Addressing questions from all y’all

What this webinar will addressHow do I set reasonable goals?How do I assess whether students have

met the goals?How do I build a course around goals?Where do I start??

What we don’t have time to coverSpecific teaching strategies, engaging

students, student retentionBalancing lecture and labDeveloping specific assignments, projectsChallenges of specific settings/coursesChoosing textbooks

Major theme of On the Cutting Edge has been on making courses more effective in terms of student learning

What does it mean to make a course more effective?

Course Audition and Spoken Language at RIT School for the Deaf

For pre-service teachers who will have hearing-impaired students in classInstructor wanted students well-prepared

for future tasks as in-service teachersGoal: students will be able to analyze pupil

characteristics, classroom performance, and learning environments to design, implement, and assess lesson plans that will enhance spoken language learning.

Goal: Analyze pupil characteristics, classroom performance, and learning environments to

design, implement, and assess lesson plans that will enhance spoken language learning

Previous organizationAround topics such as nature and

physiology of hearing loss, interpreting audiograms, troubleshooting hearing aids, designing lesson plans

Final high stakes project – not successful

New organizationModerately hearing-impaired childSeverely hearing-impaired childProfoundly deaf child

Goal: analyze pupil characteristics, classroom performance, and learning environments to

design, implement, and assess lesson plans that will enhance spoken language learning

Same topics revisited with increasing complexity in each course chunk

Enables students to have repeated practice toward goals with increasing independence

Same overall content but goals threaded throughout the course

Students better prepared for future

What does it mean to make a course more effective?

Example from a Mineralogy course designed at a Cutting Edge workshop several years ago

Required course for geo majorsInstructor wanted students to do more than

just “know about” minerals – wanted students to be able to use knowledge to solve geological problems.

Goals: Students will be able to synthesize mineralogical data (visual inspection, petrographic microscopy, XRD and SEM/EDS) to address specific geological problems.

Goals: synthesize mineralogical data (visual inspection, petrographic microscopy, XRD and

SEM/EDS) to address specific geological problems.

Previous organizationAround topics such as crystal chemistry,

Miller indices, systematic mineralogy, lattice structures, space groups, etc.

Final project to “pull it all together”

New organizationCoreMantleCrust

Content in context, increasing complexity of practice in analysis and synthesis

Making a course more effective

Faculty commonly have “application” goals as well as content goals.

Typical course organizationTeach the content background and

techniques for most of the semester.Assign a high stakes final project - can

students apply what they’ve learned and do sophisticated hypothesis-framing, independent data-finding, analysis, and communication on their own?

Success is typically mixed and commonly doesn’t “stick” well

Making a course more effective

If you want students to be good at something, they must practice.

Course is more effective if students have practice toward the “independent analysis” goals threaded throughout the course instead of just in the final project.

Articulation of goals beyond content coverage and technique mastery are important because they drive what kind of practice students need during a course.

Importance of goals to course design

Example from an art history courseSurvey of art from a particular period

Vs.Enabling students to go to an art museum

and evaluate technique of an unfamiliar work or evaluate an unfamiliar work in its historical context or evaluate a work in the context of a particular artistic genre/school/style

Content coverage is not enough to enable students to achieve 2nd set of goals

Importance of goals to course design

Example from a bio courseSurvey of topics in general biology

Vs.Enabling students to evaluate claims

in the popular press or seek out and evaluate information or make informed decisions about issues involving genetically-engineered crops, stem cells, DNA testing, HIV AIDS, etc.

Requires very different kinds of practice to enable students to achieve the 2nd set of goals

Common denominator

What sorts of things do you do simply because you are a professional in your discipline??I use the geologic record to

reconstruct the past and to predict the future.

I look at houses on floodplains, and wonder how people could be so stupid

I hear the latest news from Mars and say, well that must mean that….

What do you do??

Physicist: predict outcomes based on calculations from physics principles

Art historian: assess works of artHistorian: interpret historical

account in light of the source of information

English prof: critical reading of prose/poetry

Approaching it from the standpoint of what you do

Your course should enable your students, at the appropriate level, to do what you do in your discipline, not just expose them to what you know.

Start by answering the question In context of the general topic of your course,

what do you do? What does analyze, evaluate, etc. involve?

Or, what is unique about your world view?

Type responses in chat window Keep text short!!! Start with “I …..” Timer will be on, and we will resume when the

timer runs out.

Goals: student-focused or not?

Teaching is commonly viewed as being teacher-centered.

Reinforced by the teaching evaluation process

Commonly reinforced by how we phrase course goals: “I want to expose my students to….” or “I want to teach my students about…” or “I want to show students that…”


“It dawned on me about two weeks into the first year that it was not teaching that was taking place in the classroom, but learning.”

Pop star Sting, reflecting uponhis early career as a teacher

We can’t do a student’s learning for him/her

Exposure does not guarantee learning

Students learn when they are actively engaged in practice, application, and problem-solving (NRC How People Learn) http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9853



Focus should be on what the students are able to do as a result of having completed the course

Not just what the instructor will expose them to or show them.

Need to set course goals for the students, not the teacher.


We’ll set student-focused goalsWe’ll answer the question what do I

want my students to be able to do??I want my students to use their strong

background in order to ____

rather than justI want my students to have a strong

background in ____

Goals involving lowerorder thinking skills

Knowledge, comprehension, application

explain

describe

paraphrase

list

identify

recognize

calculate

mix

prepare

Examples of goals involving lower order thinking skills

At the end of this course, students will be able to: list the major factors that can lead to slope

failure. identify common rocks and minerals. recognize examples of erosional and

depositional glacial landforms on a topographic map.

cite examples of poor land use practice.know how to read phase diagrams.calculate standard deviation for a set of data.


At the end of this course, students will be able to:discuss the major ways that groundwater can

become contaminated.compare and contrast the features of the three

major types of plate boundaries.describe how pressure and temperature

influence the behavior of rocks during deformation, and give an illustrative example.

explain how the greenhouse effect works and explain why burning of fossil fuels increases the greenhouse effect.

While some of these goals involve a deeper level of knowledge and understanding than others, the goals are largely reiterative.


Goals involving higherorder thinking skills

Analysis, synthesis, evaluation, some types of application

predict

interpret

evaluate

derive

design

formulate

analyze

synthesize

create

Examples of goals involving higher order thinking skills

At the end of this course, students will be able to:evaluate geologic risk in an unfamiliar area

and make an informed decision about where to live.

identify interconnections in systems and predict how changes in one part/aspect of the system will influence other parts/aspects of the system.

analyze the evolution of a region over time.use data from recent Mars missions to re-

evaluate pre-2004 hypotheses about Mars geologic processes and history/evolution


At the end of this course, students will be able to:Make an informed decision about a

controversial topic, other than those covered in class.

Frame a hypothesis and collect appropriate field data to address a research question.

Design models of ___Solve unfamiliar problems in ____ Find and evaluate information/data on ____Predict the outcome of ____


What makes these goals different from the previous set is that they are analytical, rather than reiterative.

Focus is on new and different situations.

Emphasis is on transitive nature of skills, abilities, knowledge, and understanding

Why are overarchinggoals important?

If you want students to be good at something, they must practice; therefore goals drive both course design and assessment

What kind of goals to set?

Higher order or lower order thinking skills?

Measurable outcomes or not?Abstract or concrete goals?

We’ll set goals with higherorder thinking skills

Overarching goals involving lower order thinking skills are imbedded in ones involving higher order thinking skills“being able to interpret tectonic

settings based on information on physiography, seismicity, and volcanic activity” has imbedded in it many goals involving lower order thinking skills

Why is it important to articulate higher order goals?

Students learn more when they successfully use their knowledge to do higher order thinking skills tasks.

Higher order goals tasks are hard for students.

If you want students to be successful, they must practice.

Assignments and activities need to give students repeated, relevant practice related to the goals that you value.

Can’t design effective activities if you don’t have the goals in mind.

We’ll set concrete goals withmeasurable outcomes1

Clearer path to designing a course when overarching goals are stated as specific, observable actions that students should be able to perform if they have mastered the content and skills of a course. A: Students will be able to interpret unfamiliar

tectonic settings based on information on physiography, volcanic activity, and seismicity.

Vs. B: Students will understand plate tectonics.

A is measurable; B requires a proxy.

1You can design a task that students can do that will allow you to measure directly whether they have have achieved the goal.

We’ll set concrete rather than abstract goals

Abstract goals are laudable but difficult to assess directly and difficult translate into practical course designStudents will appreciate the complexity

of Earth systems.Students will be able to think like

scientists.

Do these goals meet our criteria?

Students will be exposed to the main concepts in structural geology.

Students will understand that global warming is a complex issue.

Students will be able to identify rocks and minerals.

Students will be able to apply their knowledge of groundwater contamination to analyze reports and claims in the popular press.

Course goals draft

Write a draft of one higher order goal for the course you’re working on today.

We will follow this with discussion of several examples – if you’re willing to share a goal for discussion, please type the goal into the chat window in the following form:For an XXX course: students will be able

to XXX Timer will be on, and we will resume

when the timer runs out.

Getting from goals to a course

Goals should be more than text at the top of a syllabus

Goals should underpin:Selection of contentDesign of assignments and activitiesAssessments of student learning

Goals phrased as we’ve written them make it easier to design a course that effectively addresses those goals

Goals and choosing content

Example: environmental geo courseGoal: students will be able to

research and evaluate news reports of a natural disaster and communicate their analyses to someone else

What content framework would be effective for achieving the goals?

Be able to research and evaluate news reports of a natural disaster and

communicate analyses to someone else

Instructor #1 chose four specific disasters as content topics1973 Susquehanna floodLandsliding in coastal CaliforniaMt. St. HelensArmenia earthquake



Instructor #2 chose four themes as content topicsImpact of hurricanes on building

codes and insurancePerception and reality of fire damage

on the environmentMitigating the effects of volcanic

eruptionsGeologic and sociologic realities of

earthquake prediction



Instructor #3 chose to focus on a historical survey of natural disasters in VermontHistorical record of flooding in NW

Vermont1983 landsliding2-3 other places in Vermont that have

had natural disasters of different types.

Goals and content topics uniteto provide course framework

Previous examplesSame goals.Different content topics mean that each

course will be different.Choice of content topics drives how the

instructor will implement the course.Students will learn different content in

the context of the same kind of practice.

Goals and content topics unite to provide course framework

How about a different goal for the same environmental geo course?Students should be able to evaluate and

predict the influence of climate, hydrology, biology, and geology on the severity of a natural disaster.

Could we use the same topics? Yes!How would the courses be different? In both

content and the type of practice that students do!!

Intersection of context,goals, and content

Research & evaluate news report or evaluate and predict influence of climate, hydro, geo, bio on the severity of a natural hazard???Which have the right imbedded lower

order goals for your students or curriculum?

Which content topics make the most sense for your students, your setting, your experience, your students’ futures?

Accomplishing goals

Assignments and activities are the vehicle for accomplishing course goals

Well-designed assignments allow students toBuild their knowledge baseEngage in goals-related practiceDemonstrate their progress toward

achieving the goals

Accomplishing goals If you want students to be able to design

an informed community action plan on an environmental issueAcceptable measure would be that each

student is able to design an informed action plan

How will you get them there? Not fair to teach them about related topics

during the semester and then ask them to pull it all together at the end.

Course should give them practice to build their abilities relative to the goal, not just increase their knowledge base.

Accomplishing goals

Intro geo courseIf you want students to be able to analyze

the underlying influence of geology on human events…

Assignments/activities should provide:Goals-related practice

Threaded throughout the semester with increasing independence

Case examples with increasing complexity is a great strategy

Accomplishing goals

Case example 1: influence of climate change on prehistoric settlement patterns in North Africa Practice toward goal of analyzing influence of geology on

human events Geologic content knowledge: 14C dating, fossils, lacustrine

sedimentation, stratigraphic columns, using sedimentary rocks to interpret paleoenvironments, geologic time scale

Case example 2: influence of development of East African Rift on hominid evolution More sophisticated practice toward goal of analyzing

influence of geology on human events Geologic content knowledge: formation and evolution of

continental rifts, radiometrirc dating, rift volcanisms, stratigraphic columns, fossils, using sedimentary rocks to interpret paleoenvironments, geologic time scale, fluvial and alluvial processes, faulting, geologic history of East Africa, evolution

Goals and course design

What about intro courses and courses that have students with a wide range of abilities?

Ask yourself – in what way do I want the course to change my students lives?Make them better decision-makers?Make them better able to evaluate geo-

related info in the popular press?Make them better able to tell science from

pseudo-science?Key is what your students need at the

appropriate level

Online resources

On the Cutting Edge Course Design Tutorial

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign/tutorial/index.html

Effective teaching strategies http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html



Pursuing an Academic Career Webinar Series

May 2, 2012 Developing a thriving research program and balancing it with teaching, service and other passions

Leaders: Rachel Beane, Michael Williams & Francisca Oboh-Ikuenobe

Goals for participants are to:• learn strategies for developing or expanding a research

program within the context of an academic position.• gain ideas for ways to prepare for a faculty research

program while still a graduate student or post-doctoral fellow.

• consider strategies for balancing the time demands of an active research program with other responsibilities and interests.

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerdev/AcademicCareer2012/may_2012.html

We’re glad you were able to join us today.

Please help us by completing an evaluation form at:

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerdev/AcademicCareer2012/april_eval.html

Documents

Pursuing an Academic Career Webinar Series Setting goals for effective & innovative courses April 10, 2012 Audio access: Call in 1-800-704-9804 Access