communicating for

LEARNERS 2010

featured in this issueDid you know?T&L Fair Hot 5BGSU Colleagues Contribute Visionary Status

SPRING #2

Teaching & Learning Fair a Success

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Nearly a hundred presenters shared the results of their research into innovative teaching and learning strategies at the Center for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) Fourth Annual BGSU Teaching and Learning Fair, held February 19 in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom.

Many of those presenting were also members of one of CTL’s eight learning communities. Learning community members spend a year (and sometimes longer) researching and discussing specific topics related to teaching and learning, including such subjects as the use of the virtual world of Second Life in teaching, active learning strategies, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and social learning. Some of the presentations offered by learning community members included “Presenting and Publishing with Undergraduate Collaborators,” “Student Motivation, Engagement, and Learning in STEM Disciplines,” and “BGSU in Second Life.” Several members of Fireland’s Learning Community traveled to Bowling Green to present “Social Learning as a Strategy to Enrich Students Learning, Build Community, and Improve Retention.”

In addition to learning community participants, many other members of the BGSU community presented, including representatives of the Honors Program, General Studies Writing, Multi-cultural Affairs, and the Office of the Dean of Students.

This year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Kathleen Blake Yancey, an internationally known expert in electronic portfolios spoke

Workshops

about the process of developing electronic portfolios as well as the impact portfolios have on learning. She noted that by collecting and selecting artifacts to put into a portfolio and by reflecting on the learning that took place, students learn more deeply. Electronic portfolios tend to be more future-oriented than paper portfolios, Yancey said. A paper portfolio is like a book; when it is complete, you close it and put it away. But electronic portfolios encourage students to leave “spaces” for future work and thereby encourage lifelong learning. Yancey shared a number of student portfolios and showed how the process of constructing portfolios itself creates learning. For example, as students at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI) place artifacts in a matrix that is part of the institution’s e-portfolio process, they are able to see that one artifact may relate to several learning outcomes. This recognition, says Yancey, teaches students to think in multiple contexts and to see how knowledge is constructed, crucial skills for life and work in the 21st century. Yancey ended her talk by noting that higher education is in the middle of a major shift in how students are evaluated. The trend is toward looking at “non-cognitive” factors, such as the ability to handle adversity, work with teams, and appreciate diversity. Yancey insists that these characteristics are in fact cognitive—but they are not academic. Rather, they are learning that takes place before college, after college, outside the classroom—through life itself. These factors can best be discovered and displayed in a dynamic, visual structure such as an electronic portfolio.

Watch Yancey’s presentation on the Center’s web pagewww.bgsu.edu.ctl

Plagiarism

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5The TLT Group

www.tltgroup.org/Seven/Library_TOC

Provides suggestions on how to incorporate technology into the classroom.

1Stanford on iTunes Uitunes.stanford.edu

Provides the prime example of podcasting in higher ed.

4Online Universitiestinyurl.com/yjcsnqx

Provides 100 lectures from top scholars.

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Inside Higher ED

www.insidehighered.com.about_us/

Provides an online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education.

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The Purdue Online Writing Labowl.english.purdue.edu

Offers advice on grammar, mechanics, and developing an individual writing voice.

HOT 5 (click the link to visit)

BGSU Colleagues ContributeAs part of the Center’s program to feature workshops conducted by BGSUs outstanding educators, Dr. Mary Ellen Benedict, professor of economics, delivered a workshop at the Center on Friday, February 26. Benedict, who was recently designated by the Board of Trustees as BGSU’s newest Distinguished Teaching Professor spoke on “Group Projects – Structure, Substance, and Slackers.” Benedict shared her experiences—both successes, and failures--and offered practical tips to help ensure that group projects are both satisfying and instructive for students.

Dr. Ken Snead, professor of accounting, who won BGSU’s 2007 Master Teacher Award, also offered a workshop. His session, entitled Give Students a Reason to Come to Class—Back to Basics,” offered numerous ideas to help students understand how “precious” class time is and to help faculty “sell” the class and individual class topics.

Several current Learning Community (LC) Facilitators and members have also offered workshops in recent weeks.

Dr. Jackie Cuneen from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)_ LC showed off her community’s LibGuide on millennial students (for more information on the guide, see “Did You Know?” in this issue). Dr. Paul Cesarini, who facilitates the Active Learning: and the Transition to Digital LC shared his best practices for teaching large lecture classes. Professor Maureen Wilson, who facilitates the Applying Learner Centered Teaching Practices LC, offered advice on how and where to publish articles that focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Coming up on April 19, from 10-11, Dr. Rob Cunningham, Director of Disability Services, will offer a workshop on “Best Practices for Students with Disabilities.” You can register for this workshop at the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Website: http://www.bgsu.edu/ctl/page10718.html.

The Center thanks each of these educators for their willingness to share their expertise and advice and invites others to contribute to this collaborative enterprise.

Mary Ellen Benedict shares ideas on group projects.

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An International Student Looks at PlagiarismThe issue of plagiarism has been a central concern in the American academic world. Typically, student writers who have been found guilty of plagiarism are accused of using someone’s words, ideas, or inventions or of the failure to understand and perform correct forms of attribution. In many cases, the accusation of plagiarism has clear justification in the fact that the student writers were wrong in the way they credited the words or ideas of others. However, in some cases, it is possible to misinterpret the student writer’s intentions.

As an international student, I think that plagiarism is not an issue of morality as it is stated in most traditional discussions on the nature of plagiarism. For me, the issue of plagiarism is an issue of convention. In every academic environment whether it is in America, Europe, or Asia, there are established rules for correct attribution of others’ words, also known as rules of proper citation, and successful academic graduates are well aware of them and well trained in using them. For many student writers who come from non-western cultures, the problem occurs when the number of quotations exceeds the number of writer’s own words. Is this plagiarism? From a Western point of view such texts lack the writer’s authenticity and originality. On the other hand, such texts might demonstrate writer’s intention to show his or her knowledge and competency in the subject and the previously conducted research. Also, the writer might hold a belief that there is no need to rephrase something that has been already so perfectly phrased. In a lot of cultures, student writers who add large parts of

memorized texts to their writing are considered successful. Memorization is believed to be a productive practice for written and oral speech development. It is also believed that a construction of discourse through intensive quotation does not belittle the writer’s own presence in the text. It is through the choice of quotations and their sequence the writer implicitly expresses his or her concerns.

Few American evaluators consider whether such discourses might be intentional and deeply rooted in cultural traditions of writing. Luckily, there are a number of research studies which identify plagiarism as an ideological issue (Scollon, 1996; East, 2010). Scollon (1996) argues that the traditional definition of plagiarism is very narrow, reflecting only a Western understanding of the notion, and does not take into consideration alternative views. The problem of judging texts lies in the incommensurable approaches to understanding who possesses the discourse. If we were to follow Kant and the tradition of Western thought, discourse is possessed by autonomous individuals who “behave as the originator[s] of the discourse.” On the other hand, if we are to follow Mikhail Bakhtin, the discourse belongs to the culture, and an individual’s voice is the voice of the society. These two opposite views dominate in Western and Eastern cultures respectively and have equal rights to be acknowledged when the issue of plagiarism is considered. Therefore, I call for careful examination of cultural traditions before claiming a case of plagiarism.

Anastasia is a graduate assistant in the Center for Teaching and Learning. She is from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Recognizing Learning Excellence The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and the Student Achievement Assessment Committee (SAAC) will be “Recognizing Learning Excellence” at a celebration dinner scheduled for May 6, according to the Center’s director, Bonnie Fink, and SAAC, chair Susan Kleine. Attending will be members of the Center’s eight learning communities, SAAC members, and this year’s SAAC award nominees, who are being recognized for promoting student success through program assessment and improved instruction. Learning community facilitators will present posters detailing their accomplishments for the year, and there will also be posters highlighting the award nominees’ programs.

by Anastasia Alexandrova

visionarySTATUS

Randy Basseducator, speaker, author

As scholars and educators, we can often fall prey to the trap of “monastic diligence,” cloistering ourselves away in offices and classrooms, concentrating completely upon how we study, teach and personally shape students’ learning. Inside this environment, problems seem more dire and solutions more difficult to grasp. However, by stepping out of our scholastic caves we might find that our challenges are common challenges, our solutions, common solutions.

Leading the field in this technology-driven, community-based branch of Teaching and Learning scholarship is Dr. Randy Bass of Georgetown University. With an M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown University in English and American literature, Dr. Bass now works as an English professor and the Executive Director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS). He also serves as the director of the Visible Knowledge Project (VKP)--a long-term teaching project dedicated to the effect of technology on learning, has served as a Pew Scholar and Carnegie fellow and in 1999 won the EDUCAUSE Medal of his achievements in the use of technology in undergraduate education.

By advocating technology as a tool for improved dialogue, Dr. Bass has encouraged widespread changes to teaching in the University setting. In particular, he has encouraged publishing student compositions on the Internet as a way to make concepts of “audience” and “purpose” concrete. In addition, he has urged using e-portfolios to gauge learning over the course of the semester and bridging gaps between solitary teachers through web-based open resources. Bass suggests that while diligence and dedication can benefit teaching practices, by opening our offices and classrooms to wider communities and more inclusive conversations individual diligence can led to common discoveries.

Personal Website:https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/blogs/bassr/

VKP: http://cndls.georgetown.edu/crossroads/vkp/newsletter/0902/resources.htm

Online-article: http://doit.gmu.edu//Archives/feb98/randybass.htm

Book: Hyper Activity and Under Construction: Learning Culture in the 21st Century (forthcoming)

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Did You KnowMany educators note a widening wrinkle in time that seems to accelerate their aging: Each year, as we grow older, our students stay the same age, yet somehow the gap between us keeps growing larger. First-year students stubbornly stay the same age, no matter how old we get. And, of course, it becomes progressively more difficult to connect our experience with theirs. Each year Beloit College publishes the College Mindset List in an effort to “identify the worldview of 18 year olds,” which serves as yet another reminder of how enormous the gap can be. The 2013 list includes such gems as:

• Text has always been hyper.

• They have never understood the meaning of RSVP.

• Their folks could always reach for a Zoloft.

• Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Learning Community at the Center has created a resource that can help narrow the gap between educators and their “millennial” students. This research guide can be accessed at http://libguides.bgsu.edu/millennials.

The guide includes lists of books, articles, websites, multimedia sources, and classroom activities that members of the Learning Community have found especially helpful in bridging the generation gap. If our library has the resource, the guide also provides a link to the text itself or to the call number.

Among the books referenced are Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders, Got Game, Generation Me, and My Freshman Year. Articles include several on “helicopter parents,” teaching millennial students, and understanding diversity among millennial students.

Multimedia resources include a clip of a 60-Minutes episode entitled “The Millennials Are Coming,” and a YouTube video, “A Vision of Students Today.”

The Websites include Beloit’s Mindset List, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Report on Digital Media and Learning. Also included are activities that members of the Learning Community developed and found to be successful. This libguide contains a wealth of information that will be useful to anyone who wants to better connect with millennial students.

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Discussions and Workshops

Using Assessment Rubrics in Student-centered Learning

Tuesday, April 13, 11:00am-12:00pm

Assessment

Active Learning and Problem-based Learning Strategies

Friday, April 23, 10:00am-11:00am

Learning 2.0 with Web 2.0 ToolsMonday, April 26, 3:00pm-4:00pm

Principles for Good PracticeThursday, April 22, 9:00am-10:00am

Using CPR for Writing Assignments in Large Classes

Tuesday, April 20, 10:00am-11:00am

Strategies for Teaching and LearningThe Socratic Method in the Classroom

Thursday, April 15, 9:30am-10:30amWednesday, April 21, 1:30pm-2:30pm

Best Practices for Students with DisabilitiesMonday, April 19, 2:30pm-3:30pm

Pragmatic Practices for Teaching AssistantsMonday, April 12, 9:00am-10:00amTuesday, April 20, 1:00pm-2:00pm

Service LearningService-learning in Leisure Services for Older Adults

Tuesday, April 13, 1:00pm-2:00pm

I’ve Graduated: Now What?Tuesday, April 27, 10:30am-12:00pmWednesday, April 28, 2:30pm-4:00pm

Tools for Scholarship

Technology to Support Student Learning

Creating and Implementing Interdisciplinary Writing Groups for Student Scholars

Wednesday, April 14, 11:00am-12:00pm

Using Audacity and Podcasting to Extend the Classroom

Wednesday, April 21, 2:30pm-4:00pm

Education and Second LifeMonday, April 12, 1:00pm-2:00pm

This newsletter is a publication of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Visit us online at www.bgsu.edu/ctl/ or in 201 University Hall.

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For more information on our workshops or to register, contact the Center at: ctl@bgsu.edu, 419.372.6898, or www.bgsu.edu/ctl/page11755.html