Incorporate Blog in Teaching

One more post getting out of the draft box :)

It has been roughly six weeks since I started this blog and this is gonna be the #25th post. I tracked back to all that I've been written over the six weeks, and am so surprised that I have enjoyed blogging so much! (This was completely unexpected when I first created this blog). Besides what I've thought over in these posts, I also also would like to share some ideas incorporating blog into future teaching practice. 

Image taken from http://awas.aweber-static.com/

First thing first, why blog? Benefits using blogs

This has been answered in PIDP curriculum so I will provide my answers here based on my blogging experience. Blogging transforms a teacher oriented environment that students create their own materials, and create course reading (by being visited, and visiting classmates' blogs). It brings a sense of control of our own learning. In addition, it is easier for us to document our thinking process, improve formal writing, and capture every piece of ideas. Blogging makes learning independent of time and place. Learners take ownership of their own learning, articulate, document, and learn from each other. I am far more engaged in PIDP3250 compared to other courses I have taken. I will give the credits to both blog and forum discussion. 

Problems and Possible Solutions 

• Technical issues  What if students don't know how to blog? There are numerous resources on YouTube teaching how to blog (in various platforms). I was informed at the very beginning that this is a self-directed learning experience and I am supposed to teach myself. 
• Grading  the counterpart of flexibility is the difficulty of grading. Blog is an intellectual sharing with the world. It is highly necessary to create a grading rubric ahead of time, and defining at least technical aspects 

Best Practices

Being a learner allows me to learn best teaching practices from our instructor, and make a plan for my future teaching. Here is a list of useful tips what I think makes blogging a great learning tool: 

• Inform expectations, rules, code of ethics at the beginning of the class 
• Recommend blogging services, but not restrict to any of them
• Show good examples 
• Give students time to set up a blog, and make it an ongoing project through the entire course 
• Link the blogs into course content, even highlight students effort 
• Comment and visit frequently, offer feedback both in general and individually 
• Encourage usage of multimedia and interactive commenting 
• Subscribe RSS (I use Feedly) so all the postings will be documented. I can imagine how hard it would be for a teacher to check more than 20 blogs, and "hunt for" the new posts. Some of the blogs have very stylish structure ...where new postings can be hidden behind a new category. I found Feedly practically very useful to keep track of the new postings and new pages. 
• In a face to face environment, students can select the best blog posting, and present in the last class. 

Do you plan to incorporate blog into your teaching practice in the future? 

Incorporate Forum Discussion in Teaching

This is the last week of PIDP3250 course and I started to clear out my draft posts, and shared all of them here. Knowing myself well being a bit deadline-motivated, it is time to polish these draft versions, and got them "published". 

Being a very engaged in the forum discussion over the past seven weeks, I have been thinking about how to incorporate forum discussion into future blended course or face-to-face course. Undoubtedly online discussion forum forms a virtual classroom that students can interact with each other despite of time and space and benefit from meaningful interactions between themselves and faculty members (see previous post)  , interactions in the learning community, and self-reflective interactions between students and contents themselves. 

Image taken from http://www.rmcdocs.com/

Benefits of Incorporating Online Discussion Forum 

• Increase student engagement     Online discussion forum ensures equalized opportunities to "talk" (see my reflection of introversion in the classroom). It also appears to be more democratic and uninterrupted. 
• Enhance critical reflection and improve writing skills  Students are given more time to think through and organize their thoughts, and will "have to" write their messages in formal writing. There's no approach improving writing other than writing more. English is my second language. I was being intentionally reluctant to write an essay. Honestly I didn't enjoy writing at all because I never had to write excessively as a science major. All I needed to to is to present my quantitative results and focus my discussion on the scientific facts. The discussion forum has improved my writing, and surprisingly my interest in writing to a tremendous extend. 
• Promote social construction of knowledge and collaborative thinking    It is so convenient to see different perspectives. Students can construct new meanings collaboratively, or through self-reflective dialogue. At least I can't remember how many times new ideas kick in when I am writing. Because we are are sharing our experience, it naturally triggers new reflections. 
•  Allow incorporation of numerous various resources   How can you verbally announce a long url to the class and expect students to write them down? Here is the point. You can post videos, graphics, websites, upload a document, advertise your forum posts in the forum. You audience have immediate access through the link
• Increase flexibility  The asynchronous capabilities of online discussion forum allow students to share their opinions despite of time and space. 
• Provide a permanent record  Teachers can easily track the frequency and times students logging in, and participating in the discussion. All students' messages are automatically saved in a very organized way which provide both students and teachers great resources to refer to later. 

Disadvantages and Cautions

• Prevent overloads of information and work   The removal of time constraints can easily impose overloads on both teachers and students. This task is always ongoing, almost non-stopping. I really appreciate our instructor's note at the beginning of the course, telling them how many hours typically are needed per week, and "we are not expected to read every single post. It is not possible". Keeping this in mind did prevent myself from being overwhelmed. Designating students to facilitate a forum is also a good approach. 
• Lack of real social cues   There're no gestures, voice tones, facial expressions. We practically, don't know what our audience are thinking or feeling. It might be eventually difficult to promote the sense of belonging. In this sense, maybe social gathering is also important for online courses. This is not new. Coursera has built the national wide social groups for all online learners. It is necessary to post guidelines, such as online etiquette, and requiring respect and open-mindedness to different opinions.  
• Will they read?   I tried forum discussion before -- that wasn't successful. The topic is task orientated, letting students post their data table to the forum, so everyone can see, and evaluate their own data critically. This kind of topic doesn't insure the learner to read, and reflect on the postings. 
• Can they access? This is the technical aspect. I found the videos are great tools teaching students how to post a link, a video, and insert pictures in the forum post. 

Into Future Practices 

In order to better incorporate forum discussion in my practices in the future, here are the guidelines for myself 

• Know and monitor the impact   From the concept of visible learning (see previous post here), I need to fully understand how only how to use this approach, the benefits and costs of this adoption (and ..that's why I am writing this now),  and also think through the best way to integrate into the subject matter, and how it might end up affecting student's learning. 
• Be a reflective practitioner   After my attempt, reflectively analyze student's response, and their performance in forum discussion, as well as their progress in learning. Why does learning occur? or why not? Is this worth time and effort? 
• Use online discussion forums to (the purposes) 
• Promote thoughtful responses (not just copy and paste, but in-depth thinking and understanding, sharing related experiences and feelings) 
• Establish learning community 
• As formative assessment, where we track student's learning, validate their work, and motivate further endeavor. The postings on the online forum allow teachers to achieve a greater understanding of student's strength and weakness that could be overlooked otherwise.
• Use self-assessment
• Write summaries  Either written by a teacher, or a student, summaries are more than beneficial to learning. It also presents a thoughtful and organized work to be re-read later. The key points in the summary provide learning efficiency. 

Future Reading List of Discussion Forum 

List of Discussion Board Posts on Faculty Focus http://www.facultyfocus.com/tag/discussion-board-assignments/ 

Incorporating Online Discussion in Face-to-Face Classroom Learning: A New Blended Approach http://www.citejournal.org/vol11/iss4/languagearts/article2.cfm

A six-stage approach is proposed in this article that very elaborately implements online discussion forum into face to face class. 

Figure taken from http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/chen.html

Be confident and believe in your own success

This has been in my draft box for a while and finally got it written and posted. The second year teaching in my current workplace seems to be very smooth. Even my colleagues often comment that I smile more and look much less stressed than last year. And...so are my students. There's no doubt that teacher's confidence is contagious. Students are more willing to seek help, challenge themselves, and have a stronger believe that they will succeed.

Picture from http://www.dumblittleman.com/

Confidence is not arrogance. It is not believing in that I am more right than the students. Contrarily, it is a sense of adaptive control of the classroom. I know how to deal with a situation of misconception, or a situation that I can't answer student's question but can guide them towards the external resources. I know what to expect in the classroom and have a stock of appropriate strategies to adapt to a particular situation. My confidence also allows me to interact with my students more, listen to their needs and make the learning environment more flexible for students.

"If you want to feel confident, act confident." My personal implication of this is, if you want to act confident, say you are confident, if you believe in students' success and your own success, say that in the class or to the students.

Sources:Teaching with Confidence  http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/teaching-with-confidence-advice-for-new-faculty/

My Reflection on Visible Learning (Journal 3 - PIDP3250)

Objective - “What is Visible Learning?”

Visible learning refers to making student learning visible to teachers so they know their impact; it 

also refers to making teaching visible to students so that students learn to become their own teachers. (Hatti, 2009) The original research was based on over 800 meta-analyses of the impact 

of educational interventions. Hattie found that the most effective interventions relating to 

student achievement are: Student self-reporting grades (d= 1.44), formative evaluation (d=0.9), teacher clarity (d=0.75), reciprocal teaching (d=0.74), feedback (d=0.73), teacher-student relationships (d=0.72), meta-cognitive strategies  (d=0.69), self-verbalisation/ questioning (d=0.64), teacher professional development (d=0.62), and problem-solving teaching (d= 0.61) (Visible Learning, 2014).

Reflective

Although this forum has been discussed in PIDP3250 a few weeks ago, the concept of visible learning covers such a broad selection of topics which continued to trigger my reflection in every aspect of my teaching practice. 

As many other educators, I often assume that students are responsible for why they can’t attain academic success– maybe because of their weak background, their lack of effort, their non-persistence, their complex busy life and so on. It is not completely uncommon to hear this kind of complaints in the staff room. Perhaps it is a human tendency to blame others before reflecting on oneself. But if we keep doing so, it is even more difficult to find the real cause of the problems, neither will we find the real improvement. Can’t we see ourselves as change agents who make a positive impact on our students through teaching? In Hattie’s research “teachers’ beliefs and commitments are the greatest influences on student achievement” (Hattie, 2012) – which we do have control of. We should believe intelligence is changeable and all students are able to succeed. 

The next question comes to how we can help more students succeed in school. Student self-reporting grade, formative evaluation and feedback also play significant roles in student’s learning. These three teaching methods reveal the importance of making teaching visible to students. Students are more likely to succeed when they are very clear what the success criteria are, how they progress, and how they can improve in the next step. The finding also explained my recent endeavor of providing rapid formative feedback. This semester I have managed to grade all the assessments within four hours after the due time and wrote grading summary to the class which includes common mistakes, class’s overall performance, and my general suggestions of next step’s study plan. Students respond to this rapid feedback very positively and confirmed the helpfulness in their mid-semester survey. 

Interpretive

Hattie’s study reveals that the influences that had largest effect, are most related to the teacher, such as teaching approaches, learning approaches, and teacher-student relationships. In order to make teaching visible to students, teachers should (Hattie's Concept of Visible Teaching and Learning, 2011)

• Make learning goals explicit 
• Share challenging learning intentions and success criteria with the students 
• Plan interventions that deliberately encourage mastery of these intentions
• Seek and give feedback 
• Adapt teaching as a result of feedback from learners 

In order to make learning visible to the teachers, students should be encouraged to 

• Be committed and open to learning 
• Be involved in setting challenging learning intentions and success criteria 
• Seek feedback for learning 

Assessment is feedback to the teachers and it is about “teacher’s impact” or “teaching’s impact” (Hattie's 8 Mindframes, 2012). It measures how successful instructional strategies are and whether or not students have attained the success criteria. It provides evidence to us so we can make the learning intentions worthwhile and appropriately challenging. Assessment also helps us to decide the next step of teaching. 

Decisional

What did I learn from the idea of visible teaching and learning? How can I apply visible learning in my future practice and decision making? First of all, I must go beyond the numerical effect size in determining whether or not to implement the intervention. I have to examine all other aspects, such as learner’s group, difficulty level of contents, and choose the most appropriate methods for a specific teaching and learning situation. The idea of visible teaching and learning is revolutionary. It also brought the change to my mind frames. I am not evaluating the students, instead, I am evaluating my own impact and the effects of my teaching strategies. In the past when I planed lessons, my focus was on what the curriculum is, what topics “should be” covered according to it. To enforce the visibility of teaching and learning, in my future lesson planning, I should begin with collecting information, develop a deep understanding of what students already knew. And then I’ll decide on what to teach, what level of difficulty to teach at, and how I am going to allocate the class time. Visible learning also requires teachers to be adaptive. Being conservative in teaching, I intended not to make spontaneous changes. However I can predict when students will make errors (from past year’s teaching experience and information collected from colleagues), and plan ahead, such as how I adapt teaching in response. Bearing the belief of evaluating myself in mind would also urge my own reflections and personal development in instructional skills.

In the classroom, I will actively seek information and feedback from the students by listening more. What I need is not “tell me what I have just said, so that I can check you were listening, and then I can continue talking”, instead, it should be a genuine dialogue where students express their understanding, address their concerns, and provide information of their existing achievement. Listening shows humility. It models reciprocity and respect for students’ perspectives. Besides learning progress, I will also pay attention to students’ thinking capabilities, phases of thinking (surface or deeper), motivation levels, and overall competence levels (novice, competent, or proficient), so that I can intervene to optimize students’ next-step growth.

My feedback needs to help students better visualize teaching and learning. It will emphasizes on “where I am going” (goals), “how am I going there” (progress), and “what’s next” (the next most-appropriate challenge). In the past, my feedback is centered on the correct or incorrect answers. This didn’t convey enough information such as, goals, overall progress, or next-step strategy. I plan to incorporate these vital components into my feedback, and also help students improve learning strategies towards the learning goals, and urge students to reflect on their own learning. Another essential implication from visible learning is to make learning intentions visible. Besides ensuring explicit learning outcomes and grading rubrics, I also plan to involve students in making the success criteria. Everyone has the right to define their own success. It means, making progress, taking better control of learning, finding one’s own pace, and better time management. I will also encourage them to write down the goals at the beginning of the class and keep motivating and regulating themselves using their self-defined goals.

Last but not the least, I believe intelligence is modifiable. Teachers’ beliefs exert positive influences on student outcomes, not merely confined to improving scores. It is also on intentions of embracing challenges, development of mutual respect, learning strategies, and deep conceptual understanding of the world.

References

Hatti, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Related to Achievement. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hattie's 8 Mindframes. (2012). Retrieved from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xpcXobZF1k
Hattie's Concept of Visible Teaching and Learning. (2011, March 11). Retrieved from Research for Teachers: http://www.tla.ac.uk/site/SiteAssets/RfT2/06RE059%20Hattie's%20concept%20of%20visible%20teaching%20and%20learning.pdf
Visible Learning. (2014). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_Learning

How to maintain a high level of student motivation?

Motivation is the last forum topic in PIDP3250. Jolene raised a great follow-up question - how can we maintain student's motivation? Here is my response -- 

1. Maintain Goals 

Teach students how to set clear, realistic and specific goals. Teachers should keep individual academic ability and personalities in mind when establishing expectations. It's also important not to stereotype students as incapable.

2. Maintain Confidence & Belief in Success 

Picture taken from
 http://peltjournal.files.wordpress.com/

- Give students small tasks to accomplish: a motivated student feels frustrated if they experience success. It depends on the subject itself. Most of my assignments are challenging but I would also insert a few small and relatively easy assignments in between, so every student gets a sense of accomplishment. 

- Acknowledge and reward student's progress: (instead of grades) Every once in a while (biweekly basis) I give praises to the class in a whole and I always keep "finding something to compliment" in student's work. 

3. Cultivate the Habits 

Help students make a study plan to achieve the goals, set aside a regular time learning, repeat some practices on a regular basis to form the learning habits. We also want to teach students time-management skills to achieve the goals efficiently. 

4. Maintain Energy 

- Through teacher support and peer support

- "Switch-off" time Students who lack motivation might simply be worn out from academic pressure or other life responsibilities. The students should also know that, taking a break is fine, and necessary to keep them motivated. 

- Keep students involved in interactive activities 

- Help students find personal meaning and value in the materials 

5. Keep Ourselves Motivated 

It is also important to maintain our own motivations  - how we maintain self-motivated is essential, also sending a strong & positive motivator to our students. Walking into the classroom, non-verbally telling our students how unmotivated we are, won't motivate any of the students. Same strategy -- we need goals, challenges, meditations, praises, break time and peer support... to maintain our own motivations. 

Sources: Motivation and how to maintain it http://family.utoronto.ca/Stories/Maintaining-motivation.htm
Motivating students http://www.ware.k12.ga.us/superintendent/Goal%20Presentations/0195/WCHS_Motivating_Students_article_to_teachers.htm

Meaningful teacher-student interactions

Jolene raised great questions in the Motivation forum a few days ago, According to Komarraju et. al.,"[student]–faculty interactions can be crucial in developing students’ academic self-concept and enhancing their motivation and achievement" (Meera Komarraju, 2010, p. 332).

1. Do you find this to be true in your classrooms? If you interact with your students more often, do you find that they are more motivated and more accountable?
2. What types of student-teacher interactions do you think are the best for increasing students' motivation?

Picture Credit https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/u25/interaction2.jpg

I agree that the amount of faculty-student interactions correlates with student motivation positively - if the interactions are meaningful to learning. I had one student writing in my evaluation" I wish she could learn how to quietly sit there instead of constantly interrupt us". Not every student wants to interact with the teacher all the times. They may need a quiet moment, not being "kindergardened", or they may be more than capable doing the task.

So what are the meaningful and effective interactions, to me, they are the ones where

1. Teachers show their pleasure and enjoyment of students
2. Teachers interact in a responsive and respectful manner
3. Teachers offer help at the same time, offer time and space allowing learners to take control of their learning 

Picture from http://www.ncsl.org/documents/cyf/class_policybrief_2009.pdf

Although the reference above is based on childhood education, some of the statements still stay true to other levels of education. Effective teacher-student interactions  

1) Create emotional support and cultivate positive relationships among teachers and children 

2) Improve classroom organization that encourages frequent, engaging learning activities 

3) Provide instructional support and cognitive stimulus that facilitate learning 

Reference

Komarraju., Musulkin., & Bhattacharya. (2010). Role of student-faculty interactions in developing college students academic self-concept, motivation, and achievement. Journal of College Student Development, 51(3), 332-342.

Grade-obsessed?

Are your students grade-obsessed?

Ideally I would rather seeing student motivated by "learning" instead of the grade. I guess many of us have unpleasant experience with students who ask the teacher"why they don't get an A" "why they lose points". For me, it feels unfortunate seeing the entire attention falling on the grade, instead of, how much you've learned, or how much they've progressed.

Growing up in Asia, I understand that when we had to achieve higher grade in order to ensure better learning opportunities on the next level. I myself cared so much about my grade at the time and didn't truly enjoy learning. Some of my students (mostly pre-med minor..so it is understandable that grade is overemphasized) are grade-obsessed too. I understand grades and test scores matter so people can measure success quantitatively. They play a role in measuring proficiency and provide important feedback to teachers, school, and policy makers. But to me, it doesn't mean the entire purpose of learning. Is it possible to reach a more productive middle-ground that will better facilitate learning and life success? Or what can we do to shift student's attention from the 'number' to learning itself?

My approach - be a role model first.

I started doing so from myself, shifting my primary attention from student's grade to their actual performance. I wrote longer feedback, not focusing on why they lose points, instead, the actual work they presented. I'll also include my comments for their in-class participation, the ideas or questions they came up with in class, and encourage them to keep doing so in the future. Before my feedback form was a grading table of "where you lose marks", I am trying to change it to "what you have learned/how you can improve your learning in the future". I tried not to talk about student's progress merely based on their grades of each assignment, instead, their understanding in each chapter, their in-class participation, or their motivation level that I observed. So far, I have fewer students come discussing about their grade, instead, they would ask for the best learning strategies, how to understand the materials better, where the misconception is. Hopefully it will make a difference at the end of the semester. Will follow up then.

*This was originally a forum post answering Jolene's question.*

How would you keep your students motivated?

In my own practice, I found the following to be effective motivating the class --

- Empowering students; offering flexibility of learning (to some extent) ; self-directed learning
- Giving praises when earned
- Being excited and passionate about what you're teaching
- Making goals attainable
- Self/peer assessment

Image Source:  http://www.nadasisland.com/motivation/

Interestingly, from Dan Pink's TED talk, research shows "higher incentives lead to worst performance" It proposes a new approach autonomy that builds more intrinsic motivations - the drive to do things for their own sake, around the desires to do things "because they matter, because we like it, because they are interesting, because they are something important".

Narrowing it down to academic motivation, James Middleston has proposed a model of intrinsic academic motivation ---

First, given the opportunity to engage in a learning activity, a student determines if the activity is one that is known to be interesting. If so, the student engages in the activity. If not, then the student evaluates the activity on two factors—the stimulation (e.g. challenge, curiosity, fantasy) it provides and the personal control (e.g. free choice, not too difficult) it affords. If the student perceives the activity as stimulating and controllable, then the student tentatively labels the activity as interesting and engages in it. If either condition becomes insufficient, then the student disengages from the activity—unless some extrinsic motivator influences the student to continue. If the activity is repeatedly deemed stimulating and controllable, then the student may deem the activity interesting. Then the student will be more likely to engage in the activity in the future. If over time activities that are deemed interesting provide little stimulation or control, then the student will remove the activity from his or her mental list of interesting activities.

What's your opinion towards intrinsic and extrinsic motivation strategies? Have you found one being more effective than the other?

Source: James A. Middleton, “A Study of Intrinsic Motivation in the Mathematics Classroom: A Personal Constructs Approach,” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pages 255-257.

Online Classroom Management

All of us here are experiencing as a learner in an online classroom, and I believe many of us have quite a lot of experience teaching in an online classroom that can be shared in here too. As pointed out in "Managing Controversy in Online Classroom" , "controversy can erupt in any learning situation, and knowing how to manage it is an important skill for any instructor". Particularly for online instructors, they should be aware of the challenges in managing online classroom, such as the asynchronous format, potential misinterpretation of text based communication, relative anonymity (students could feel less uncomfortable to post whatever damaging message in online environment compared to face-to-face environment).

It also brings up a few strategies managing online classroom that I found very practically useful

1) set expectations for both students and ourselves, and be mentally prepared

2) look for signs of conflict and unease

3) be supportive but directly address interpersonal conflicts

4) encourage critical thinking but carefully design the topics being discussed

Thanks Hongyi Bai for finding this website (Managing Your Online Class - Penn State University). Based on the list, I made my timeline for managing online classroom --

Several weeks before class begins-
a) Review course content, curriculum document, and fix any broken hyperlinks, expired announcement and assignment.
b) Send students a welcome letter that tells them the location of the course, syllabus, how to log in, any materials that they may need to purchase. Additionally let them know who to contact for technical assistance. Reinforce course prerequisites.

During the first week of class
a) Post a welcome announcement for students - indicating the locations of course materials, instructor's contact information
b) Create "Introduction" forum topic, and encourage everyone to introduce themselves.
c) Review student's introductions and respond to each, as a way of welcome
d) Summarize the postings - especially student's interest, expectation and make a reasonable modification to the class activities
e) Contact students who have not yet accessed the course site

On a weekly basis through the semester 
a) Post weekly summary - this includes summary from a recently graded assessment, common problems from the students, also encouraging the class to make more efforts to their learning.
b) Post weekly note - telling student what they should be working on during the work, and reminding them of any due dates
c) Summarize discussion forum conversations
d) Hold online office hours using Adobe Connect

On a daily basis through the semester 
a) Monitor the class discussion forum
b) Grade assignment - this semester I graded all the assignments right after I received them and students like that so much. It works well because for the questions that they know they are struggling, will be answered right away when they turn in the work.

Mid-semester 
a) Gather mid-class feedback from students
b) Post mid-term grade and let the class know the class average of midterm grade
c) Encourage low-performing students to seek help of learning strategies
d) Post mid-semester announcement and acknowledge the progress of the class

Before/On Last Day of Class 
a) Post an end-of-class announcement, acknowledge class's effort and progress, and remind students of the final due dates
b) Provide a timeline of when the final grade will be available
c) Offer additional office hours for final project

Best Group Learning Experience - Step 1: "Who shall I work with?"

Group work is almost unavoidable in the lab. How the groups are formed has a markedly big impact on how effective the group learning experience. As pointed out in  "Better Group Work Experiences Begin with How the Groups are formed", there are three common ways of forming groups, randomly formed groups, teacher-formed groups, and student-formed groups. The timing is just right -I just had experience using all three approaches, and started to survey our students which is the best learning experience. I'd like the share my thinking of these three approaches here.

Randomly formed group - in ASP201/202 lab (University Physics), we randomly assign the groups. The group activities include hands-on exploration in the week, and an in-lab group assignment (discussion + questions) each week. The advantages are obvious - students are able to know everyone in the section and they quickly figured out who they like to work with. In the second semester, when we had transfer students,who were obviously left behind, and unable to contribute to the group work, the high-performing students started to complain.

Teacher formed group - in the last four weeks, CHE142 (Principles of Inorganic Chemistry) Lab, as the project requires 4 students instead of 2 students, we re-arrange the student-formed pairs, and assign them into group of four. The group activities include hands-on exploration and a weekly homework.  The strategy that we used is to mix the high-performing and low-performing students together, hoping the high-performing students can help and lead the team. The majority of the groups reported minor even major problems - high-performing students complaining that they had to do most of the work otherwise they lost points from the group assessment; the low-performing students complained that they were not trusted, and were not allowed to contribute to the group project. 

Student formed group - I changed the approach this semester and asked physics lab students to choose their own partners and informed them that, the groups don't have to be permanent and I am open to their suggestions. Students group with their friends or who they know better. New transfer students tend to just group with who they stayed the closest in the first class. At the midpoint of the semester, students were surveyed anonymously if they are satisfied with their current group, all of them have positively expressed that they'd like to stay in current group. 

Although there's no one-approach-fits-all, right now, student formed group works the best for me. 

1) First of all, it allows students to find who they like to work with, or who they know they can work with. Group work is not new to many students and students know each other from many group activities in other classes, or in campus wide events. If they get along well, they would likely want to collaborate again. It takes time for students to get to know each other, and get to know how to collaborate with a particular person, if all the past experience has shown them who the best partner is, there's no reason why we don't take advantage of that. As I wrote in my recent journal (reflecting on power of introverts), having the authority to choose partners would encourage introverts students to participate in a comfortable small group setting, and they are more likely to engage in the discussions. 

2) Secondly, it empowers our students, and encourages them to take ownership of their learning. Working with friends asks our students to transform the social relationship into task-oriented relationship in group activities. Honestly, it doesn't work all the times. However in a student-formed group, students are more likely to seek ways to make it work (instead of complaining why the teacher assigned them to be with particular people). They tend to be more patient and understanding when there is a problem in group work. A group needs both leaders and members, and needs a collection of experiences, skills, knowledge and abilities. Some teachers will survey the students with past experience, and incorporate the data into their decision of assigning groups. However, how accurate is this approach? Can we guarantee that the theoretically correct groups will work the way they are supposed to work?  Not even need to mention the time and efforts spent in surveying and data collection. If I am not confident of my decision that we'll make, I'd rather have the students naturally choose who they'd like to work with, and be willing to solve problems. 

It is also worthwhile informing the students that, the groups are not permanent. It is possible to request regrouping if necessary. I also found this post "Students Riding on Coattails during Group Work? Five Simple Ideas to Try" useful when designing group projects. 

Journal 2- "The Power of Introverts"

Objective

In her revolutionary TED talk “The Power of Introverts”, Susan Cain spoke up for introverts and argued that the power of introverts has been dramatically undervalued. She said “It (introversion) is about how someone responds to stimulation. While extroverts crave social interaction, introverts are much more alive while they’re alone. The key to maximizing talents is to put yourself into the zone of stimulation that’s right for you.” (Cain, 2012)

Reflective

The video made me rethink about what introversion is. Introversion is not shyness or fear of social activities. It is instead related to how we engage in social activities, and how we get our energies. Introverts fuel themselves through their inner world, they are happy on their own or in meaningful friendship. They get drained in the outer world (social interactions in large group). On the opposite side, extroverts are energized by being around people and participating social activities (Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, 2012).

Reflecting on my own teaching practice, I started to ask myself – have I considered the learning needs of introverts? have I set up too many group activities when sometimes the task should better be completed individually? Have I unnecessarily hinted that the classroom should be noisy even though the subjects actually require lots of writing, reading and independent thinking? I unintentionally assumed that, student participation and engagement simply mean –how much they talk. As many other classrooms, my classroom was designed solely for extroverts. Generally speaking extroverts tend to be more visible in the classroom – they are outgoing and talkative, and they are often the first ones who raise hands enthusiastically. Sometimes they talked even before they’ve thought the topic through. Introverts often prefer to listen first, and they are actually gifted in synthesizing the ideas communicated by others. They think over the topic before they speak.

Interpretive

What is the best learning experience for introverts? Research shows that the brain chemistry in introverts is markedly different than that of extroverts, indicating longer and more complex processing pathways (Laney, 2002). Introverts need time to process and think quietly. Because introverts are energized through solitude, they need space to be alone and thinking quietly. This may simply mean allowing them to sit at the corner or back rows, allowing them to be “not bothered”, instead of forcing them to be “extroverts”, (Baldasaro, 2012).

Introverts have the capability to succeed in a large group setting, but it is important for them to learn how to get out of the comfort zone in order to succeed in life and future career. However, we have to realize that, getting out of the comfort zone is stressful and energy-consuming; Introverts enjoy strong and close relationships – which are their comfort zones sharing ideas in the first place.

Decisional

Keeping introverts in mind, here is how I am going to ensure their success in and out of the classroom, and how I am going to achieve a balance between both introvert’s and extrovert’s learning needs in my teaching practice.

1. Starting from the very first class, get to know each of the student individually, and develop a general idea where they land on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, and what their learning preferences are. In the first class, I will also establish participation norms – emphasize that, "it’s not always the biggest talkers who have the best ideas!” (Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, 2012) It is the quality of the ideas matters, not the quantity. If most of the work has to be done in a group setting, I would also allow students to choose who they’d like to work with/who they feel comfortable working with.

2. Recognize various ways of participation – Students can participate by typing their answerers. Socrative (Three good ways to use socrative in your classroom, 2013) is a mobile app that can collect anonymous answers in the classroom. Instead of verbally expressing themselves, both introverts and extroverts can share their opinions by typing their answers. All of the answers will be brought into class discussion. Online discussion forum and journal writing are also effective tools for meaningful discussion. Introvert and extrovert students both can take time gathering their thoughts before expressing them in writing.

3. Use “Think-Pair-Share” strategy – “Think-Pair-Share” strategy (Simon, 2014) allows the introverts to think about a meaningful topic, then pair with a partner. Once partners have had ample time to share their thoughts in a small group setting, they are invited to share in a large class discussion. On one hand, it is more likely for introverts to raise their hands at this time, because they have already expressed their idea. On the other hand, it encourages the extrovert student to engage in a deeper thinking process.

4. Balance classroom time between large groups, small groups and individual work and create multiple environments where extroverts and introverts both have opportunities to be in and out of their comfort zones, and have time and space to recharge.

5. Respect the way our students are. How introverts or extroverts interact with the world may not be changed. As an educator I will encourage them to appreciate who they really are, and focus on cultivating their strengths.

References

Baldasaro, T. (2012, Sept.). Embracing Introversion: Ways to Stimulate Reserved Students in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/introverted-students-in-classroom-tony-baldasaro

Cain, S. (2012). Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Crown.

Cain, S. (2012). The Power of Introverts. Retrieved from TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts?language=en

Laney, M. O. (2002). The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World. Workman Publishing Company.

Simon, C. A. (2014). Using the Think-Pair-Share Technique. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/using-think-pair-share-30626.html

Three good ways to use socrative in your classroom. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/04/three-good-ways-to-use-socrative-in.html#.VDr2FfldWSo

Creating Video Project

Video projects teach students to plan, organize, and communicate globally. As online teaching and learning become an important format in education, learning how to effectively create a video also becomes a fundamental skill that every educator should learn. 

Fortunately I have had this learning experience in PIDP3250 video project. Although it is not my first video project, I still found it a challenging, but rewarding experience. Here is how I completed my video, and what I could have done better -

Step 1: Outline - I started by outlining my main points on a piece of paper and trying to place each point in a logic order 

Step 2: Research - this is where I spent too much time. Realizing I only have five minutes, there really can't be too much content that can be covered here. A good presentation doesn't have to cover everything, instead, should be expressing several ideas in a simple, and easy-to-understand way. 

Step 3: Write scripts - I wrote word by word what I am going to say, and at the same time, put things together in a PowerPoint file. This might be why I lost my enthusiasm in the video - at the time of shooting the video, I have repeated the same script for more than twenty times....(sometimes there was noise, so I had to re-capture).  

Step 4: Practice and record using Camtasia.. this time I finally figured out how to add background music to the Powerpoint file which may help to ease off the background noise. 

Step 5: Publishing 

Rethinking how we "grade" participation

Photo Credit http://www.burfordsurgery.co.uk/Images/PPG.png

Today I read a post on Faculty Focus, "Is it time to rethink how we grade participation" by Dr. Maryellen Weimer. I am inspired by the idea of rewarding engagement instead of grading participation.

The approach is to let the students earn engagement tickets which what they can use to replace a missed homework assignment or to add a point to a major exam or assignment. The reason that I like this approach is that, it changes the mindset completely from being "evaluated" to "rewarded". This raises another question - what behavior would you reward as good class participation?

The quality matters instead of quantity. It is almost impossible to count how many times a student talks in class. And certainly we don't want to encourage students to ask meaningless questions and waste the valuable time of everyone. It is technically easier for you to note who has raised a good question, who has stated a remarkable point, who provides a thoughtful comment that even we ourselves have never thought about, who, perhaps, has given you a good suggestion for the teaching and learning approaches? Overall, it is a matter of their contribution to the their learning in the community.

It very practically solves another issue. Can a good student's mistake be excused? Can we let the students retry one or two assignments and encourage them to correct their mistakes? I do it - although not on a regular basis. The scenario could be a very talented and motivated student who did poorly in an assignment, but wanted to retry it, and get some points back. Mistakes are stepping stones to success. However most of times we offer that "stepping stone"opportunity at our discretion. With these participation reward ticket, it is more fair to the class that students earn these opportunity through their efforts.

"Any Questions?"

I am very interested in the questioning technique forum topic. Here is what I replied as ways to encourage students to ask students.

- I made it clear in the class that "there is no bad questions. Only I am afraid that I can't provide you with good answers".

- Learn something special about each student that makes them unique. that may mean their majors, interest, or part-time job. The first step is to make the student comfortable asking you question and then, asking you questions in front of the class.

- Create group activities, and get them talking to each other.

- Provide direct and encouraging response to students' questions. Use their words in their question, recognize how well thought the question is.

- Express appreciation to the student asking the question - which might reminded you to mention an important point, or correct your mistake. Doesn't matter what it is.Even follow up with private praise for students whose questions are particularly thoughtful.

- Interact with the class with the student generated question , discuss with the class what the student asks. This sends a strong signal to the questioner that, his/her question is being highly valued.

- Flip the "question" maybe public speaking is an issue for some students. We can at least let them write down the questions as part of the homework. For the very thoughtful ones, we'll ask the class for them, the share the authority of asking questions.

Got some of the ideas from this blog:

There're no stupic questions, but... http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coach_gs_teaching_tips/2012/03/there_are_no_stupid_questions_but.html

Instructional Strategy Video & Summary - Demonstration

What is Demonstration? What are the characteristics of Demonstration? 

Demonstration is an activity which involves the students in observing real objects or manipulations. There are basically three stages of demonstration 1) teachers show how to perform a task step-by-step or show the results 2) students observe 3) teachers explain the concepts and ask or answer questions.

Roles of Instructor and Student
Traditionally, demonstration is instructor centered. This means, instructor is the one who decides to use demonstration strategy, designs and tailors it to a particular learning objective, and completes the demonstration task. The teacher will also explain the concepts and describe the reasons why it happens. The teacher will also ask and answer questions, and obtain feedback from observing student's responses. The student focuses on the demonstration, and answer teacher's questions. However, this instructional strategy can be modified in a more student-centered, and interactive way. For example, instructor provides studying materials before the class, invites one or several students to demonstrate, and facilitate discussions between the demonstrators and the audience. Students can either ask or answer questions, or even propose relevant demonstration contents that they are most curious about.

Advantages of Demonstration 
As a teaching technique, a demonstration is a valuable alternative to getting students to learn by doing. Demonstration has many advantages. First of all, it makes learning highly effective by conveying accurate and direct stimulation to the students. These stimulation can be visual, auditory, kinetic, and linguistic. It also provides an opportunity to engage students in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. In particular, it allows the instructors to insert some entertainment into the lesson. There is a very wide range of positive emotions which teachers can foster through their demonstration, such as curiosity, anticipation, uncertainty, wonder, and amazement. Specifically in science teaching, demonstration develops students key scientific skills. Students are encouraged to make predictions and verbally communicate their observations and conclusions as they watch.

Disadvantages of Demonstration 
Pacing issue is one of the limitations of demonstration. Given a wide range of capabilities, some students may fall behind in a demonstration while others may have seen similar demo before and get bored. In a large classroom setting, or in a micro-scale demonstration, it will be hard for students to see the details without any technical aid. As mentioned before, traditionally demonstration is teacher-centered and not hands-on for students. However this could be easily fixed by designing the demonstration activity as student-lead discussions when applicable. For science demonstration, special reagent and equipment are usually required. Some schools may not have the resources. Instructors should at least prepare ahead of time and make appropriate arrangements.

Best Practices of Demonstration 1) Be clear with the learning objectives - I usually think about what I expect the students to learn in a lesson, and what the demonstration can help them achieve the learning objective first. And then decide if demonstration is a suitable strategy for it. Time and other factors (equipment and material need) should also be considered. A decent amount of time has to be used to set up a demo, engage the students in the demo, and facilitate discussions. If there isn't enough time, creating a video can be an alternative for in-class demonstration.

2) Prepare and Practice. Most of the times you would rather the demo works. Preparing demo properly and practicing it repeatedly are essential before the class. However, instructors should be able to deal with a failed demo, and discuss with students why it didn't work and how similar mistakes can be prevented in the future.

3) Engage the Students - Demonstration can begin from predictions. We help the students to recall prior knowledge and everyday experience, then use them to predict the demonstration. This in return assesses students prior knowledge, and enable the instructor to reinforce, and clarify the points better. Some showman ship is also useful too. To engage your students, the instructors should be engaged themselves first. We can show surprise at the results, use some funny signs or jokes to stimulate learning.

4) Explanation and Summarize  - the explanation should be correct and easy to follow. Instructors can use think-aloud strategy, or even invite students to work out the explanations together.

5) Student Feedback - I often informally ask students after the class how they feel about the demo, do they think it is being effective, what they have learned through the demo, if there's anything else that they also want to see.

As I wrote earlier this month, I started using iPad airplay to mirror my presentation spot to the overhead projector. It is an effective way to solve the visibility problem. Flipped classroom is the emerging trend that offers new dimensions for traditional demonstration strategy too. You can either capture your demonstration in videos in order to save the time in class. I have also tried to let several students to demonstrate by following detailed handout. It works out very well and very effectively have everyone involved in the class activities.

Conclusion/Summary Overall, demonstration is an effective and interactive instructional strategy. It needs to be planned ahead thoughtfully, to meet the learning objectives and different learning styles. Demonstrations are tools - they have strengths and limitations. We need to understand these pros and cons in order to use the tool more effectively with our students and to achieve the goals.

References

Demonstration (Teaching). (2014). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_(teaching)

Glasson, G. E. (1989). The effects of hands-on and teacher demonstration laboratory methods on science achievement in relation to reasoning ability and prior knowledge. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 26(2), 121-131.

Kruse, J. (2011). Iowa Academy of Science. Retrieved from The Problem of Demonstrations: http://www.iacad.org/istj/38/2/editorial.pdf

Milne, C. (2007, jan). Understanding Engagement: Science Demonstrations and Emotional Energy. Retrieved from Wiley InterScience: https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/000/402/Milne%20%26%20Otieno.pdf

The Use of Demonstration in Science Teaching. (2014). Retrieved from http://alomshaha.com/2012/04/the-use-of-demonstrations-in-science-teaching.html

Teaching Scientific Writing

Picture credit JEPS Bulletin

In second year organic chemistry lab I, we started to teach our students scientific writing. It is challenging historically since there is barely any exposure or practice in the past at all for students to know "what real scientific writing looks like".

Here is what I found practically helpful this year
- Simplify the language in guidelines: try use the plainest possible language in the instruction to teach scientific writing. Avoid using obscure words "big words". You want the students to truly understand what your expectation is.
- Provide the most relevant examples
- Offer help before and after the students submit the assignment: this may be a little risky and could only apply to small class teaching however it doesn't matter whether or not the students decide seeking for help, the availability itself will psychologically ease off the stress of the students. The writing assignment is due on Mon night, so I let the students know if they can have a draft version on Friday noon, I'll be happy to give them some revising advice. Also I let them know it is possible to rewrite after the submission and earn some of the lost points back.
- Recognize students' efforts, and the difficulty of the writing assignment. Scientific writing is a long term battle. It is normal that most of the students receive low grade in their first trial. This year, we mentioned it in the very first class, so they are very mentally prepared at least.

Ideas/Improvement for next year
- Provide student's examples and clearly mark and comment on the document (where they did well/where they didn't; how each section fits into the grading rubric requirement)
- Start the writing assignment from the most straight forward one. This year, the order is Introduction - Discussion - Experimental - Tables. However the table appears to be the most straightforward one while the introduction is truly difficult for second year students.
- Introduce literature research method before Introduction writing assignment. SciFinder/Chem Draw lab should be scheduled right before Introduction writing assignment. First of all, students have additional opportunity to practice SciFinder, secondly, they'll be able to locate more accurate & relevant historical literature