The NPTE Workshop for Faculty

Thanks to CETL for supporting my attendance at the NPTE workshop for Faculty. One of the most difficult parts of my job as an Assistant Professor is constructing tests.

This conference focused the entire first day on the process of writing multiple choice questions. They presented the Principles of effective multiple choice item writing and reviewed the common terminology of test questions. The rules for writing items and adding levels of difficulty by changing the word order and the amount of critical thinking needed to answer the questions was also covered.

The conference also covered avoiding cues that may lead a good guesser to the right answer even though they may not know the material.

The second day of the conference covered the National Physical Therapy Exam for Licensure. The process of determining what is "entry level" knowledge and how this can be tested was covered. They defined the entire process from survey to item writing to question banks and then to pulling the right questions to produce different tests that are of the same difficulty was covered.

This was a fascinating workshop and since I am the Chair of the Comprehensive Exam Committee in the Physical Therapy Department of the School of Health Sciences, I will be able to use this information over and over again.

Thanks again for this opportunity.

Building a Study Skills Course from the Ground Up

I attended a Developmental Education conference recently that was sponsored by Houghton Mifflin to help faculty meet the challenges they face when teaching developmental courses. One session dealt with building a study skills course. Of the lessons learned during this session the one that could be applied to any course is to get students to engage in their own learning. One school has a course that is team taught with an instructor and a student that is considered to be a facilitator rather than a mentor. The student is trained to help the instructor in the course by keeping the discussion going, writing items on the board and help with group work. The one thing that I found most interesting was that the student was allowed time at the end of selected classes to discuss student concerns without the instructor present. The general feeling was that students have concerns that they will discuss with peers but don't want faculty to know about such as financial problems, adjustment problems and homesickness. Their peers have possible experienced all of these and can better relate to the student. In selecting students for facilitators we were caution to keep in mind that the brightest student may not be the best facilitator. If they have never experienced failure they will not also be able to relate to students that are having a hard time. Most students will listen to some one that can say "I remember being in a similar situation and this is how I resolved it...".

Carolyn Anderson

Simple Media Creation for Librarians

This was a very good session that was presented at the UNC TLT 2008 Conference. Although it is titled for librarians, everyone could benefit from using the tools that were presented. Audacity was used to create 5 minute updates on what is new at the library. It could also be used to create review sessions for classes or to introduce concepts before a class. Audacity is free and is available on the web at the Audacity website. Another tool that was presented was Photstory which allows you to create a movie from digital pictures. Photo Story is also free from Microsoft at the photostory website. If you want to spend some money Camtasia was also demonstrated. It allows you to do scrren captures of keystrokes which is good for creating training videos.

Carolyn L. Anderson

Developmental Education Conference

Two weeks ago, I attended Houghton Miffin's "Meeting the Challenge, A Faculty Programs Conference on Developmental Education" at Disney's Coronada Springs. I attended sessions on Conceptualization in Basic Mathematics, Engaging All Students in Mathematics, and Teaching Study Skills for Mathematics. I also heard a keynote speech on Embracing the Challenge of the First Year.

In the Conceptualization in Basic Mathematics session, we examined exercises that would encourage students to apply and formulate mathematical concepts. The exercises presented were ones that asked students to determine impossible answers, to decide the operation required, and to explore the reasonableness of an answer.

In the Engaging All Students in Mathematics session, we discussed the importance of engaging all students in mathematics, and we looked at ways that we can ensure that all of our students learn mathematics.

The session on Teaching Study Skills for Mathematics was extremely informative. It focused on how math study skills can be incorporated into mathematics courses. We discussed student motivation, reading the text, completing homework, taking notes, test anxiety, and test-taking skills.

The keynote speech was given by Mary Stuart Hunter, the Director of the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina. She shared theories and research about why students have such difficult times transitioning from high school to college. She described the role faculty can play in this transitional period, and she described various programs offered by colleges and universities.

This conference was great!

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)

Online Course Delivery Enhancement

In March 2008, I had the pleasure of attending The University of North Carolina Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference. Currently, I teach online courses in psychology and am always interested in learning of new ways to infuse technology in the learning process. Recently I have become interested in course redesign which is a method for modifying courses using technology to increase student success. Course redesign was developed by the National Center for Academic Transformation. At the UNC TLT conference, I was a panelist in a session for course redesign. I wanted to take the opportunity to learn about the latest in educational technology and to consider how I could incorporate it into a redesign proposal.

One session that I found particularly interesting was on engaging students with social software applications such as: blogs, wikis and podcasts. As I further attempt to further infuse technological tools in my online classes and the online component of my face-to-face courses, I was intrigued by the possibilities social applications can offer. For example, blogs would be an easy way to include journaling on a course related topic throughout a semester. Based on the subject matter I could allow other students read and comment on each others entries or only view and comment on a student's entry myself. I also think wikis would be an excellent tool for facilitating exam reviews. Students could be assigned to groups and determine how they would contribute information for the review. Finally for the visual learners, podcasting would be an excellent way for them to view demonstrations of concepts.

There was some discussion about how to infuse social networking sites such as: MySpace and Facebook in courses. I am a little wary of incorporating those tools yet. Inclusion of such sites would have to be considered on a course by course basis. After informally asking a few of my students whether they would want a professor to join Facebook and contact them about school, there was hesitation and responses of 'no'. There are some social environments, I think, where students would not prefer to be contacted by professors for pedagogical purposes.

Finally, I was very impressed with the notion of using virtual worlds for instruction. Based on the demonstration I could see many application centered disciplines, such as health care fields, benefiting from this technology. I also think it would be a useful tool to train counseling psychologists. Meeting different types of clients in a virtual world could teach them about how to handle clients with various psychological issues. I believe that there are many new and exciting ways to use new technological advances to enhance student learning. However, I think we should always proceed with caution in what types of tools we use for the learning environment.

Smarthinking

At the UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology 2008 Conference in Raleigh on March 12-14, 2008, Dr. Barry L.Berman presented research documenting the effectiveness of Smarthinking’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) online tutoring service used by students in over 1000 educational institutions.

Kapiolani and the Broward County Community College conducted a two-year study to document learning gains as a result of tutoring through Smarthinking’s OWL. Results published in the Journal of Applied Research in the Community College show student success rates in Developmental English class improved from 67% to 75%.

Additional data suggests that Smarthinking may have a positive influence on student retention. Sharon Bittner, Director, Tutoring Center at Des Moines Area Community College, Iowa, found that retention rates increase 10-12% for students who used Smarthinking.

Dr. Berman believes WSSU could achieve similar learning gains and retention improvement with Smarthinking. He notes that “It is more expensive to recruit a student than to retain one” and that increased retention rates at WSSU will generate more revenue for the university.

A new textbook, Evergreen: A Guide to Writing with Readings, 6th edition, by Susan Fawcett, was adopted this fall for the ENG 1300 Introduction to College Writing course. This book comes bundled with Smarthinking’s Online Writing Lab and allows students to submit papers for a professional tutor’s comments. Students may then revise the paper before submitting the final draft to the instructor. Overview comments are given in paragraph form and additional comments are embedded throughout the paper. A summary of revision steps is provided, along with additional resources in Smarthinking’s online library, including student handbooks with information about writing, grammar, and usage.

The Writing Center suggests that ENG 1300 faculty design their course syllabus with multiple due dates for drafts. This would allow enough time for students to submit an early draft to Smarthinking. Turnaround time may take upwards of 2 or 3 days. Students would then be encouraged to bring Smarthinking’s E-structor Response Form with embedded comments to the Writing Center at which point peer tutors in the Writing Center could provide additional explanations to help the student understand suggested revisions. Combining instructor guidance with both professional tutor and peer tutor input could provide significant critical thinking and composition support for our students.

Elizabeth S. Priest
Writing Center Director

3D virtual learning environments can make a difference in higher education

Many people talk about 3D virtual environments in higher education but very few have taken the time to explore and integrate them into their teaching. At the 2008 Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) Conference organized by UNC (Raleigh, NC, March 12-14, 2008) I had the opportunity to learn from pioneers in this field who shared their experiences and lessons learned. Let me comment on two of them.

Second Life has been a phenomenon in terms of engaging adults in “real life” experiences that occur in a 3D virtual environment in which users exist as an avatar and interact with other residents. In her presentation “3D Virtual World Learning Environments (i.e., Second Life) in blended and online education”, Victoria Lynn Walker shared her experience creating, implementing and learning from a pilot study in learning nonclinical counseling and group therapy skills. She states, “Virtual environments offer instructors the opportunity to make their classroom come alive. By using well-designed educational environments that match program and course needs, students can be inspired to explore learning and develop understanding of course content”. I was very pleased to realize there is a growing community of researchers who study the educational use of highly interactive technologies that students love using. I would be very interested giving support from WSSU-CETL to WSSU faculty members willing to participate in similar studies.

Google Earth has been also a great success, as long as it provides users with the possibility of easily and accurately exploring places on earth that are of their interest. It was announced that this tool “combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips”. I had the opportunity to participate in a demonstration by a group of foreign language professors from UNC Charlotte in which Rosalba Esparragoza Scott, a Spanish teacher, shared her experience using Google Earth-supported web quests as a means of learning foreign language, literature, and culture in an effective way. According to her, “Students can annotate maps on Google Earth with vocabulary terms, historical facts, literary information, or write sentences in the target language describing virtual visits to foreign cities”. Way to go!

I got a couple of coincident clear messages from the above two presentations:

1. Integrating technology into higher education courses requires effort from faculty, in the exploration of educational potential of digital tools as well as in reengineering their learning environments.
2. Students love courses where faculty make sound educational use of digital technologies they use with other purposes; they become engaged and participate more effectively.

Alvaro H. Galvis
Director CETL
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

UNC-TLT: Lessons Learned

I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend the 2008 UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference in Raleigh. I attended several interesting sessions and picked up some innovative ideas. The conference provided a broad range of technological information for teachers in any discipline. Being in the comp/rhet field, I found “Taking Advantage of Technology in Structuring Online Rhetoric and Composition Courses,” most rewarding for designing a hybrid or 100% online course. In this session, the presenter demonstrated how teachers can move beyond the traditional course management system to design a course using http://sites.google.com/. The site allows a teacher to include icons strategically placed in a type of shadow box. These icons lead students to assignments, practice exercises, drop boxes, online class meetings, and tutorials. With the Google site tools anyone can easily and professionally design a virtual classroom. The nonlinear construction of the site creates a welcoming place where students can learn.

Helping faculty create their own online courses

I had the opportunity to participate in a Faculty Development in Blended and Online Learning Institute (Academic Impressions, Atlanta GA March 5-7, 2008) that allowed me reflection on key aspects of our own faculty professional development strategy, and getting in touch with many other faculty development leaders and online course developers.

In this posting I want to share ideas that emerged contrasting our faculty development and course creation strategy with the Jump Start strategy, from Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis—IUPUI. Anastasia S. Morrone, PhD, Associate Dean of Learning Technologies at IUPUI, shared this strategy. In both cases, the challenge is the same, to support faculty in the development of online and blended learning courses. Both cases demand a full immersion in the process, with consultation and production support.

The first great difference is who sponsors the effort: while at WSSU faculty development and course production is sponsored either by Distance Learning (for online courses) or by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning—CETL—(for blended courses), at IUPUI, Jump Start participation demands investment from both Learning Technologies and the faculty’s member department or school, they share stipends to be paid to faculty.

Our approach is to help our faculty members redesign their courses growing professionally both in active learning pedagogy and in the use of web 2.0 technologies through the GOAL—Getting Online Active Learning—netcourse. After that, WSSU support faculty in the course creation process, by coaching them both pedagogically (CETL) and technologically (ITG—Information Technologies group); there are benchmarks that help controlling the quality of the process. We have learned that it is not easy to move faculty from conventional to active learning pedagogy, while they appropriate Web 2.0 tools, but it is viable. Time management has become an issue with faculty members that do not have enough support from their academic unit or that have not organized their agenda for effective participation.

At UIPUI there is a team approach for the design and production of online and blended courses: for each course there is a team including an instructional design consultant, an instructional technology consultant, a subject specialist librarian, a media production staff, and a copyright management consultant, in addition to the course author. UIPUI experience is that there is great commitment from the part of academic units to support their faculty when they are co-paying for the process and assuming the production process as an integral part of the academic load of course authors. They have also learned that the team approach is not easy to implement but it is worth following; it demands a change in organizational culture. They have learned that faculty should participate under a voluntary base and with continued departmental support; that faculty selection becomes a critical process, since faculty should understand time commitment, should feel comfortable and open to working as part of a team, and must be committed to developing appropriate documentation for courses being developed.

Let’s reflect on these issues and find out what might work for our case.

Alvaro H Galvis
Director CETL
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning