I found several of the sessions at the Teaching and Learning Conference in San Juan very informative and useful. Critical thinking was connected to Bloom's taxonomy in a session that also provided tools for its assessment. The formative evaluation techniques that were presented could be easily implemented in any course that proposes to improve critical thinking. Another session that I found particularly valuable was entitled "Preparing students to be global citizens". This was directly in line with the NC Tomorrow Initiative that we have been working with for the past several months. I discovered that the term "global citizen" really has no operational definition, but rather consists of elements that are subscales on the Global Citizenship Scale, an instrument developed by the presenters to assist in their research. The elements consist of environmentalism, social justice, and civic participation. I plan to incorporate this into an environmental issues course next year.
The sessions were not limited to the teaching-learning process; they also included sessions related to other aspects of the academy, including hiring and retention of diverse faculty. Since I have been active on search committees, I was particularly interested in that topic. Some of what I learned reinforced my own experiences, such as the importance of new faculty having a sense of belonging, feeling valued and supported, and being treated fairly. I also learned much about campus climate issues that affect retention of diverse faculty. These included the institution's goals for diversification, the provision of balance across the campus community, and the contributions new hires were expected to make to the department and campus.
All in all, this was a very worthwhile experience, and I look forward to implementing what I have learned in my academic endeavours at WSSU.
Showing posts with label 2008 TLC SanJuan PR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 TLC SanJuan PR. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Clute Institute for Academic Research Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico
The Clute Institute for Academic Research
2008 Teaching and Learning Conference
San Juan, Puerto Rico
March 17-20, 2008
The Clute Institute for Academic Research Conferences take place in the United States and in exotic foreign locations. Puerto Rico was the destination for this teaching and learning conference this year. In general, this conference was very loosely organized with no opening or closing plenary sessions. The panels were combined with the IABR Business Conference and I found this organization quite confusing because participants interested in teaching and learning were forced to listen to business presentations. There were generally five to six panelist for each session and presentations were always rushed and had to be truncated. This structuring was very distracting and counter productive. Presentations such as “Rubrics: The Key to Fairness in Performance Based Assessments” by Carol Shepherd from National University was very basic adding nothing new to the literature and repeating what is generally considered to be standard fare in education. “Critical Thinking Made Blooming Easy: Using Blooms Taxonomy to Encourage Critical Thinking” by Amy Macpherson and Jennifer Mansfield was also very basic and common knowledge to all formally educated teachers. Critical thinking is inherent in Bloom’s Taxonomy. These presenters, however, did focus on the higher levels of the taxonomy: analysis, synthesis and evaluation and applied it to literature in the classroom demonstrating how the children’s story “The Empty Pot” by Demi Ping could be used to develop higher levels of thinking. This portion of the presentation was interesting. Other sessions that I attended—“Post-Secondary Education’s Role in Creating Global citizens by Jade G. Winn,” “Peer Assessment: Students Helping Students Learn by Melissa Marty, Jolen M. Henning and John T. Willse were very weak, and in my opinion, unscholarly. In general, I would not recommend this conference for participants who are seriously interested in teaching and learning. The destinations, however, are marvelous.
2008 Teaching and Learning Conference
San Juan, Puerto Rico
March 17-20, 2008
The Clute Institute for Academic Research Conferences take place in the United States and in exotic foreign locations. Puerto Rico was the destination for this teaching and learning conference this year. In general, this conference was very loosely organized with no opening or closing plenary sessions. The panels were combined with the IABR Business Conference and I found this organization quite confusing because participants interested in teaching and learning were forced to listen to business presentations. There were generally five to six panelist for each session and presentations were always rushed and had to be truncated. This structuring was very distracting and counter productive. Presentations such as “Rubrics: The Key to Fairness in Performance Based Assessments” by Carol Shepherd from National University was very basic adding nothing new to the literature and repeating what is generally considered to be standard fare in education. “Critical Thinking Made Blooming Easy: Using Blooms Taxonomy to Encourage Critical Thinking” by Amy Macpherson and Jennifer Mansfield was also very basic and common knowledge to all formally educated teachers. Critical thinking is inherent in Bloom’s Taxonomy. These presenters, however, did focus on the higher levels of the taxonomy: analysis, synthesis and evaluation and applied it to literature in the classroom demonstrating how the children’s story “The Empty Pot” by Demi Ping could be used to develop higher levels of thinking. This portion of the presentation was interesting. Other sessions that I attended—“Post-Secondary Education’s Role in Creating Global citizens by Jade G. Winn,” “Peer Assessment: Students Helping Students Learn by Melissa Marty, Jolen M. Henning and John T. Willse were very weak, and in my opinion, unscholarly. In general, I would not recommend this conference for participants who are seriously interested in teaching and learning. The destinations, however, are marvelous.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Helping student perform better in Science Courses
Last month, I had an opportunity to attend a conference on Teaching and Learning (TLC) at San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA (March 17-20, 2008 IABR &TLC). A few presentations during conference reinforced my own approach to help student perform better in science courses.
I was particularly impressed by the approach of William Amadio from Rider University in NJ who delivered a lecture on “Self Expression in Technical Courses: Making it Happen”. We had a lengthy discussion after his lecture and compared our approaches which were similar in many respect. As some of you may know, I am strong proponent of students taking ownership of their learning process. In the courses I teach, I facilitate team learning in the class rooms. Because this process provides me with the opportunity to observe possible flaws or need of improvement in a student’s learning. It also provides me with insight into their minds which some time is missed during formal class room settings. In all my courses, I include group projects, group research and presentations along with conventional lectures by me. I make sure that at least one lecture from the syllabus is taught by team of students. This activity in my classes provides students an opportunity to gather analyze and present information in a logical manner on their own (all higher level of learning). I have seen during student’s presentations, other students are better motivated to analyze and critique information presented to them which, they failed to do when a teacher is presenting the same information. This way I have found a way to interject analysis, synthesis and evaluation in student’s learning process.
This team learning activity also provides student an opportunity to peep into minds of their teachers during class room lectures and a basis for comparison to evaluate their subject matter presentation vis a vis of their teacher. William Amadio and I agreed that there are enormous advantages of team learning. We have seen best student work and best student-teacher and student-student interaction ever. Since students are working on their projects that might have sprung a few problems, their questions were always focused and they were highly motivated during discussion.
One thing on which we agreed to disagree, during our discussion, was team composition. I mix student from higher-medium and low GPA pools representing a team, where as, he believed forming teams from similar GPA groups. I believe a low GPA student can learn a lot from high GPA student on punctuality, study behavior, self motivation, responsibility for ones learning and better communication skills. It also helps a low GPA student to know why he or she may not be getting better grades. In my opinion this realization opens up ones mind to propel him/her for better learning. Bill thought it makes better sense to group high GPA student and low GA student separately. That way low GPA student is also forced to do their group project on their own and not be dependent on a high GPA student.
We also discussed about benefits of small groups, assigning professional level problems, student teach themselves and their participation in a community to make students more responsible individuals. Over all it was a very enjoyable conference which was organized in a beautiful setting of San Juan.
Dinesh K. Singh, DVM, PhD
Department of Life Sciences, WSSU (4/4/08)
I was particularly impressed by the approach of William Amadio from Rider University in NJ who delivered a lecture on “Self Expression in Technical Courses: Making it Happen”. We had a lengthy discussion after his lecture and compared our approaches which were similar in many respect. As some of you may know, I am strong proponent of students taking ownership of their learning process. In the courses I teach, I facilitate team learning in the class rooms. Because this process provides me with the opportunity to observe possible flaws or need of improvement in a student’s learning. It also provides me with insight into their minds which some time is missed during formal class room settings. In all my courses, I include group projects, group research and presentations along with conventional lectures by me. I make sure that at least one lecture from the syllabus is taught by team of students. This activity in my classes provides students an opportunity to gather analyze and present information in a logical manner on their own (all higher level of learning). I have seen during student’s presentations, other students are better motivated to analyze and critique information presented to them which, they failed to do when a teacher is presenting the same information. This way I have found a way to interject analysis, synthesis and evaluation in student’s learning process.
This team learning activity also provides student an opportunity to peep into minds of their teachers during class room lectures and a basis for comparison to evaluate their subject matter presentation vis a vis of their teacher. William Amadio and I agreed that there are enormous advantages of team learning. We have seen best student work and best student-teacher and student-student interaction ever. Since students are working on their projects that might have sprung a few problems, their questions were always focused and they were highly motivated during discussion.
One thing on which we agreed to disagree, during our discussion, was team composition. I mix student from higher-medium and low GPA pools representing a team, where as, he believed forming teams from similar GPA groups. I believe a low GPA student can learn a lot from high GPA student on punctuality, study behavior, self motivation, responsibility for ones learning and better communication skills. It also helps a low GPA student to know why he or she may not be getting better grades. In my opinion this realization opens up ones mind to propel him/her for better learning. Bill thought it makes better sense to group high GPA student and low GA student separately. That way low GPA student is also forced to do their group project on their own and not be dependent on a high GPA student.
We also discussed about benefits of small groups, assigning professional level problems, student teach themselves and their participation in a community to make students more responsible individuals. Over all it was a very enjoyable conference which was organized in a beautiful setting of San Juan.
Dinesh K. Singh, DVM, PhD
Department of Life Sciences, WSSU (4/4/08)
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