Success Stories from UW-Stout
Earlier this month I asked innovative teachers at UW-Stout to share a story of their success in the classroom and to comment on a challenge that they face as a teacher. Quite a few responded, with stories ranging from one sentence to many paragraphs. Below, published with their permission, are those stories. If you have comments, or wish to add your own success story, please do so.
CHALLENGES
Chuck Bomar
teaching challenge--- the ability to stop lecturing and let learning happen
Howard Lee
My greatest teaching challenge is keeping up with the information required for e-scholar. Using this format is more work for an instructor. The content in one of my courses is changing very fast, and thus the updates are a challenge along with the other three preparations.
James K. Tenorio
Challenge: Time management- so many other obligations and duties to do besides preparing for & meeting with classes.
Ken Parejko
One of the biggest challenges in the sciences is dealing with the lack of academic skills that many of our students have. E.g. math skills they need to do scientifically rigorous problems, and simply don't have. We have to dumb down our teaching because of this. Another challenge is the lack of writing skills so many students have; are unable to express their thoughts in a cohesive way, which means when you're reading a short-essay question on an exam, their answers are incoherent.
Helen Swanson
Teaching challenge: appropriate level of material to use in graduate class in which approximately half of the students have a firm undergraduate background in the topic and half have none at all.
Urs R. Haltinner
The challenge--Classroom management issues resulting from students abusing their laptops. Although I am vigilant--students do continually challenge me in the ways that. Some (the minority) use technology to entertain themselves as opposed to engage in learning. Other issues--there appears to be an assumption that freshmen somehow understand how to use e-scholar--many do not. I end up teaching process and procedures relative to this.
Jerry Kapus
Right now, my biggest teaching challenge is to move students beyond simply following a set of directions that results in a product to having a metacognitive understanding of what they are doing and having this metacognitive understanding result in better products, e.g., papers, essays, etc. I think that this relates to the problems of applying skills in novel situation and across disciplines and to what it means to have 'deep' learning. I also thinks that this means that theory needs to be emphasized along with application, but that the connection between the two needs to be made tighter and not simply seen as theory leading to practice but as a two way cognitive street.
Ann Parsons
Challenges in Science: No placement exams for students to enter their Natural Sciences general education courses at an appropriate level. I believe this leads to a high failure rate. Is this what we want from a science and technology institute?
CHALLENGES
Chuck Bomar
teaching challenge--- the ability to stop lecturing and let learning happen
Howard Lee
My greatest teaching challenge is keeping up with the information required for e-scholar. Using this format is more work for an instructor. The content in one of my courses is changing very fast, and thus the updates are a challenge along with the other three preparations.
James K. Tenorio
Challenge: Time management- so many other obligations and duties to do besides preparing for & meeting with classes.
Ken Parejko
One of the biggest challenges in the sciences is dealing with the lack of academic skills that many of our students have. E.g. math skills they need to do scientifically rigorous problems, and simply don't have. We have to dumb down our teaching because of this. Another challenge is the lack of writing skills so many students have; are unable to express their thoughts in a cohesive way, which means when you're reading a short-essay question on an exam, their answers are incoherent.
Helen Swanson
Teaching challenge: appropriate level of material to use in graduate class in which approximately half of the students have a firm undergraduate background in the topic and half have none at all.
Urs R. Haltinner
The challenge--Classroom management issues resulting from students abusing their laptops. Although I am vigilant--students do continually challenge me in the ways that. Some (the minority) use technology to entertain themselves as opposed to engage in learning. Other issues--there appears to be an assumption that freshmen somehow understand how to use e-scholar--many do not. I end up teaching process and procedures relative to this.
Jerry Kapus
Right now, my biggest teaching challenge is to move students beyond simply following a set of directions that results in a product to having a metacognitive understanding of what they are doing and having this metacognitive understanding result in better products, e.g., papers, essays, etc. I think that this relates to the problems of applying skills in novel situation and across disciplines and to what it means to have 'deep' learning. I also thinks that this means that theory needs to be emphasized along with application, but that the connection between the two needs to be made tighter and not simply seen as theory leading to practice but as a two way cognitive street.
Ann Parsons
Challenges in Science: No placement exams for students to enter their Natural Sciences general education courses at an appropriate level. I believe this leads to a high failure rate. Is this what we want from a science and technology institute?
Personal Teaching Challenges: Students who don’t care or don’t appreciate what it means to be educated. Moving students to the next level of knowledge and understanding (Bloom’s Taxonomy). Assessing my standards and my assessment tools.
Pete Burkholder
For me, student engagement is a big one. This is especially true for
people in my dept, which doesn't offer majors. Getting students
interested and excited about our courses is a constant challenge.
Evan Sveum
Well, I find it very challenging to engage the student in, what I would consider, deep, rigorous and original thinking. I see some of the challenges relating to time, maturity, etc... However, a rigorous, thought provoking experience is something that the student will likely take with them...Effective communication via writing is another challenge... I used to spend a lot of time dealing with computer issues. Now, it is remedial writing skills.
Mark Fenton
I think one area is getting students to prepare for class. Meaning doing their expected reading. I do think that many at least page through the readings, but maybe 20% do the actual reading ahead of time. One thing that I have done as a result is to tell my classes I know what their reading habits are like and offer them incentives. I use three things, one is class participation points. It is usually clear to me who have prepared and part of their class participation points are assigned on this apparent preparation. This does not fix the issue all of the time. Another thing I do in class is to tell my students the 'must read 'chapters or portions of chapters. I find this does benefit my students.
Laura McCullough
Challenge is grading-with a lecture of 48 students, that's a lot of grading!
Alan Block
Teaching challenge: Students have learned that knowledge is a transferable item. How do I not only communicate to them that knowledge is not something I deliver chastely and perfectly? How do I help students learn to construct their own knowledge? How do I help students learn what knowledge is in the first place?
Anne Hoel
My greatest teaching challenge is having students in class who haven’t experienced a participative learning environment. The teaching methodology of lectures, followed by quantitative tests, is what they are familiar with. Therefore, it takes time to build a comfort level in which students believe that their opinions are valued and there is not one “right” answer to many real-world problems. This challenge is certainly solvable, but it concerns me that our students have been indoctrinated into a traditional model that educational research has shown to be ineffective. There are no weekly, multiple choice exams in the workplace.
SUCCESSES
Stephen C. Nold
I'm teaching a biotechnology course that tries to mimic the research and development arm of pharmaceutical corporation. Students are assigned to product development teams to create a biotechnology product (a purified protein). Student pairs plan and execute experiments and periodically report to the product development manager (me). I provide feedback on student progress and we evaluate each other through peer performance reviews and personal feedback on interpersonal and group skills.
Kitrina Carlson
I wanted to make you aware of a project that we have going on in my botany (Biology 242) course. We are putting together a demonstration rain-garden for the City of Menomonie (specifically at the Moose Lodge). Students are learning how these rain gardens will improve water quality and they are designing the gardens in groups. We will continue the project in future semesters. My plan is to develop tissue culture and other methods of propagation for endangered native plant species to be used in the rain gardens. Students will learn these skills in the laboratory and apply them in the construction of the rain gardens in the community.
The rain garden currently being developed will be used as a demonstration garden for city of Menomonie community members. They can visit this garden to learn about rain garden design and development.
I am the chair of the committee developing this project. Krista James and Chuck Bomar (also members of the biology department) are members of the committee. Krista James was the real instigator of this project, she suggested to me the idea of developing rain gardens in the City of Menomonie and having botany students develop the gardens. So far we have received very positive feedback from various community members and most importantly the students!
Students are very engaged in this project. I think it is a great success so far.
Chuck Bomar
teaching success-- poster sessions- (SSE BIO 111 F04) helping the student invest on a political issue THAT WAS OF INTEREST to them Finding new ways to engage student in thing that interest them... and secretly employing topical content to fulfill requirements for the course.
Howard Lee
Over break I was recruiting students for the MS and EdS programs and visited seven technical colleges. When I was at Lakeshore, I asked about the new instructors and they indicated they had a new auto instructor, I went to visit him to see if I could interest him in the MS program. Found out Ben Adams was in the my Lab and Classroom Management course a year ago.
He indicated to me, that it was the hardest course, but he learned so much, and he is applying what he learned each day. For example he had to come up with a service and supplies list for the coming year (the first week he was there) and place it on purchase orders and that is what we did in class. That is a success.
Jim Tenorio
A teaching success: Every semester seeing students in our practicum class successfully produce projects for our clients. It prepares them for the "real world," and what to expect. We receive re-enforcement from employers who say our graduates "hit the ground running."
Ken Parejko
Success: I use problem-based learning to build concepts and vocabulary around in introductory biology. The three main problems I use are:
1. What happens during metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly? To understand that process they need to know some basic molecular and cell biology.
2. How much grass is required to keep a grasshopper alive in a closed container? Students learn about ecology, photosynthesis and metabolism, and actually calculate and draw the size of grass necessary to produce enough oxygen and food for the grasshopper.
3. What is cancer and how can we prevent it? I help the students learn about DNA, mutations, and genetics by building this unit around the biology of cancer.
Helen Swanson
Success or innovation: grant proposal assignment (graduate level course); students become familiar with grant sources and their requirements which may be of use to them in their profession; not a course requirement that students submit the proposal, but many do.
Scott Short
In the DES.220 course we teach the Adobe Creative Suite. This is a 2D digital imaging course that focuses on the use of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. The context I use is to break it down into the design of a text document, vector images, rastor (bitmap) images and the integration with each application and various formats for print and the web.
I frame it into a creative context where the students have to design artifacts that deal with the ideology (or organization), identity, graphic communication and financial/commercial exchange of a ficticious government or organization.
This is more challenging because of the social and political context, but I do so because it emphasizes that we create for specific purpose and it forces students to see some of the connections between art and society.
Jerry Kapus
One teaching success is rather mundane. It is the increased use of quizzes to reinforce what was covered in a class session and to provide formative feedback on how well students are understanding the material. It also provides students will additional opportunities to apply the material. This relates to the old adage that practice makes perfect or at least better. When it comes to critical thinking, the research in cognitive science supports this old adage with the proviso that the drills or quizzes involve analysis and synthesis.
Urs R. Haltinner
Pushing students to technological proficiency--by simply expecting higher levels of professionalism relative to what they submit as learning artifacts. Although uncomfortable for them initially--it is amazing how they come to know peers that can move them towards new learning's relative to software applications and software application functionality.
Ann Parsons
A very simple formative assessment that I do in class following the lab and lecture on DNA translation and transcription (protein synthesis) is to use the website (http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Biology/aatable.html)to send an encoded message to my students.
If you still think lectures are the way to go, check out video lectures/seminars on the internet I’ve used one that works.
Explore Virtual Tours. I haven’t done any paid virtual tours—they sound great and I wish I had time to explore them.
Pete Burkholder
My "Ivanovo-Wisconsin Project" has gone over well. In it, my 150 students in Modern World History enter into virtual conversations with 60 of their peers at Ivanovo State U in Russia. I also now how five "embedded observers" from Stout (i.e., other faculty who are attached to the student group conversations), and there are also four Ivanovo "observers." It's a complicated project, but one that helps destroy a number of negative stereotypes that our students have of "the other." It's also a great example of interdisciplinary collaboration, both intra- and inter-institutionally. I'll be presenting on this project at the upcoming OPID spring meeting in Madison.
Evan Sveum
Something that I am trying new this semester is a project system called" Gizmo Lab" Creation. It is a system where I am emphasizing a clear connection between concepts / theory and the creation of labs /activities that reflect on the concepts. I call it a system because there are a number of elements that contribute to the end results.
1) I model. Concepts and theory with a lab or activity.
2) Students playing "MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO" with concepts they select.
3) A very detailed evaluation process which helps the students improve.
Includes digital pictures, documents in a PDF form. Embedded rubric...
4) In class peer commentary on the "POSITIVES" and "THINGS TO IMPROVE."
5) Excellence in completion of these labs by tying them to an end of
semester Curriculum CD that ALL of the students will take with them as
curriculum starters (Education Students).
This is truly a work in progress. However, I can say that after completing 2 of 4 labs, the creativity I have witnessed is VERYEXCITING, AND, I think the students are getting it!
Mark Fenton
As an instructor of management, I work to prepare students for life in an environment that stresses interdependency and collaborative work. Ninety five percent of organizations use team work in some format (Williams 2005) and I use a collaborative work environment in all of my classes. I spend a considerable amount of time addressing the salient need to understand interdependency in the workplace. As part of this process, I also spend time on accountability to the individual student, their respective team, and to me as their instructor. I think that this process has had a very good long-term affect on my students and the comments I get during the semester and in the instructor evaluations are generally favorable. I have also heard from former students that have taken many of these concepts to their professions after graduation. Common among their comments was that they were able to draw on their experiences from classes using team work generally and the stressing of accountability and interdependency specifically. When managed properly by an instructor, I think that a collaborative work environment can go along way to preparing students for future professional activities.
Laura McCullough
A success or innovation? I think of two right off the bat. One is that I ask students to buy 3x5 cards and bring them to every lecture. Then in lecture when I'm making them do something (solve a problem, answer a multiple-choice question) I have them write it on their card. They turn in the cards and I get to give them credit for attending lecture and participating without having to do a head count or take attendance. I also see who's not doing well or not really participating.
Another thing I do that is good for lecture participation is the multiple-choice peer instruction questions. Not my idea, but I don't know how many people at Stout know about them. I put up a multiple-choice question, often conceptual, and ask them to pick an answer. They hold up a large card with A-G on it (whichever answer they picked). I see if the class is doing well or not. If everyone has the right answer, I go on. If there are a lot of wrong answers, I have them spend a minute discussing their answer with their neighbors. Then we vote again. Usually the number of correct answers goes up. Then I discuss the question at whatever level is called for based on the vote.
Alan Block
Teaching success: I have asked students to meet in book groups to
explore complex texts. I ask students to read multiple texts: I assign up to six texts for a single class. In group discussions and without teacher presence, I asked them to attempt to understand the texts and to make connections between texts. They must write summaries of these discussions, and turn polished drafts of them into me. These summaries are summaries of group work, and represent the attempt to construct knowledge of subject from multiple perspectives. They are also student work: I do not intervene in the process.
Juli Taylor
A teaching success I'd like to share is the creation of a DVD on the topic of resilience for educators. The initial idea stemmed from the challenge of getting a subject matter expert to be able to present at the time of day my Educational Psychology class is held each semester. I had the expert come to campus and videotaped the presentation. The project grew to include an interview with an expert from the U of MN and a panel of high school juniors and seniors. The U of MN liked their portion of the video and purchased it for distribution. There is great flexibility built in to the format of the DVD so that it can be used in a variety of teaching situations with diverse audiences. This project involves a partnership with the Menomonie School District. They will also be using the DVD to train faculty, staff, and students in resilience
Marty Ondrus
I didn't think I was doing anything great, but....
There are several somewhat innovative approaches that I am using, and I will summarize one or two.
First, I am trying to incorporate lecture demonstrations and short video clips of chemical properties and chemical reactions into the regular lecture hour. As you know, chemistry is heavily content oriented. One way or another, we have to get a lot of material covered. However, chemistry very much involves the senses of seeing, hearing, touching, etc. In, my two-credit (non-lab) Visualizing Chemistry, I try to do as many lecture demonstrations as possible so that students can see chemistry happening. This semester, I had a sign-up sheet so that every student will assist me once with either the setup or the cleanup for a class. That gets them involved a little. In the past, I have required every student to do at least one classroom demonstration, but with a class of 100 it is impossible this semester.
One thing that I did this semester (that you will probably like) is asking the students to write up a summary of a demonstration every day we have class (see attached pdf file). The "Demonstration Summary Sheet" asks three simple questions, and the students are required to submit their writeup (answers to the questions) on the summary sheet. A copy of the summary sheet was posted for them on e-scholar, and they each made many copies. I do not read them all, but I quickly check each one and give each completed paper 5 points. So far, the students have completed and have been given grades for 16 demonstration summaries. They will do 16 more before the semester ends and will be able to drop two missed grades. I asked them to keep all their papers in a three-ring notebook (along with course notes and completed quizzes) and will give them a few final exam questions related to the demos to keep them honest. I have been very very impressed with how seriously the students have been taking this writing-across-the-curriculum activity. It also is an excellent way of keeping class attendance right up where it should be.
Nearly all of the students in the class are education majors (Early Childhood), and I try do many demos that are safe and that they might try some day in their own classroom. Examples include the Cartesian Diver and the Bottle Emptying race. I recently did a demonstration in which bubbles were floated on carbon dioxide gas in a fish aquarium filled with CO2 gas from dry ice. It is really a very magical demonstration but can be easily explained in terms of differences in gas densities. Kids in K-3 would love it, it is safe, and it helps teach science principles.
When I have a demonstration that is difficult for a class of 100 to see or that is very dangerous, I use Quick Time videos that have been imported into PowerPoint. Some of the videos (such as the making of a mercury barometer are quite fascinating and would be quite difficult to do in the classroom. One day I showed videos of the reactions of the alkali metals with water. I also did the exact same reactions in the classroom and used a video camera attached to my Mac to project the demo onto the screen. It was fun, everyone could see what happened, and the students really wrote some great summaries.
Another thing I am doing this semester that is kind of interesting involves my Instrumental Analysis class. The 21 students (junior, senior, or graduate) do six labs over the course of the semester (groups of 2) and are required to prepare a written report on each lab. I try to get them to follow a format that is similar to a research paper, and I expect them to find related information on the web or in the literature, incorporate their experimental data (numbers) into tables, and incorporate their spectra or chromatograms into figures. We have been doing this kind of lab reporting for years, but the presence of laptop computers has changed the nature of the reports. The reports are considerably more professional in appearance, better organized, and more complete than in the past. I have attached a sample report from the second half of our first lab of the semester (lab 1.2). What I like about these reports is that they involve real data gathered by the students. Therefore, they have to write the paper themselves even though they may get some figures and photos from web sources. It is fairly difficult to cheat when the student must describe the actual kind of instrument that they used, what his/her group did, and the experimental data/results that they collected.
The students in Instrumental Analysis are also expected to prepare a video presentation on one of the instruments that they used in the course.
Yvonne Nelson
I do service learning when I teach Science Society and the Environment. The students are required to do a project to help the environment. Some of them choose to join Greensense in their regular highway cleanups or work in the local parks or around campus. Some choose to do a cleanup in their hometowns and get their parents involved. Some of the students in Early Childhood Education prepare a lesson plan to teach some environmental fact.
SUCCESSES
Stephen C. Nold
I'm teaching a biotechnology course that tries to mimic the research and development arm of pharmaceutical corporation. Students are assigned to product development teams to create a biotechnology product (a purified protein). Student pairs plan and execute experiments and periodically report to the product development manager (me). I provide feedback on student progress and we evaluate each other through peer performance reviews and personal feedback on interpersonal and group skills.
Kitrina Carlson
I wanted to make you aware of a project that we have going on in my botany (Biology 242) course. We are putting together a demonstration rain-garden for the City of Menomonie (specifically at the Moose Lodge). Students are learning how these rain gardens will improve water quality and they are designing the gardens in groups. We will continue the project in future semesters. My plan is to develop tissue culture and other methods of propagation for endangered native plant species to be used in the rain gardens. Students will learn these skills in the laboratory and apply them in the construction of the rain gardens in the community.
The rain garden currently being developed will be used as a demonstration garden for city of Menomonie community members. They can visit this garden to learn about rain garden design and development.
I am the chair of the committee developing this project. Krista James and Chuck Bomar (also members of the biology department) are members of the committee. Krista James was the real instigator of this project, she suggested to me the idea of developing rain gardens in the City of Menomonie and having botany students develop the gardens. So far we have received very positive feedback from various community members and most importantly the students!
Students are very engaged in this project. I think it is a great success so far.
Chuck Bomar
teaching success-- poster sessions- (SSE BIO 111 F04) helping the student invest on a political issue THAT WAS OF INTEREST to them Finding new ways to engage student in thing that interest them... and secretly employing topical content to fulfill requirements for the course.
Howard Lee
Over break I was recruiting students for the MS and EdS programs and visited seven technical colleges. When I was at Lakeshore, I asked about the new instructors and they indicated they had a new auto instructor, I went to visit him to see if I could interest him in the MS program. Found out Ben Adams was in the my Lab and Classroom Management course a year ago.
He indicated to me, that it was the hardest course, but he learned so much, and he is applying what he learned each day. For example he had to come up with a service and supplies list for the coming year (the first week he was there) and place it on purchase orders and that is what we did in class. That is a success.
Jim Tenorio
A teaching success: Every semester seeing students in our practicum class successfully produce projects for our clients. It prepares them for the "real world," and what to expect. We receive re-enforcement from employers who say our graduates "hit the ground running."
Ken Parejko
Success: I use problem-based learning to build concepts and vocabulary around in introductory biology. The three main problems I use are:
1. What happens during metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly? To understand that process they need to know some basic molecular and cell biology.
2. How much grass is required to keep a grasshopper alive in a closed container? Students learn about ecology, photosynthesis and metabolism, and actually calculate and draw the size of grass necessary to produce enough oxygen and food for the grasshopper.
3. What is cancer and how can we prevent it? I help the students learn about DNA, mutations, and genetics by building this unit around the biology of cancer.
Helen Swanson
Success or innovation: grant proposal assignment (graduate level course); students become familiar with grant sources and their requirements which may be of use to them in their profession; not a course requirement that students submit the proposal, but many do.
Scott Short
In the DES.220 course we teach the Adobe Creative Suite. This is a 2D digital imaging course that focuses on the use of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. The context I use is to break it down into the design of a text document, vector images, rastor (bitmap) images and the integration with each application and various formats for print and the web.
I frame it into a creative context where the students have to design artifacts that deal with the ideology (or organization), identity, graphic communication and financial/commercial exchange of a ficticious government or organization.
This is more challenging because of the social and political context, but I do so because it emphasizes that we create for specific purpose and it forces students to see some of the connections between art and society.
Jerry Kapus
One teaching success is rather mundane. It is the increased use of quizzes to reinforce what was covered in a class session and to provide formative feedback on how well students are understanding the material. It also provides students will additional opportunities to apply the material. This relates to the old adage that practice makes perfect or at least better. When it comes to critical thinking, the research in cognitive science supports this old adage with the proviso that the drills or quizzes involve analysis and synthesis.
Urs R. Haltinner
Pushing students to technological proficiency--by simply expecting higher levels of professionalism relative to what they submit as learning artifacts. Although uncomfortable for them initially--it is amazing how they come to know peers that can move them towards new learning's relative to software applications and software application functionality.
Ann Parsons
A very simple formative assessment that I do in class following the lab and lecture on DNA translation and transcription (protein synthesis) is to use the website (http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Biology/aatable.html)to send an encoded message to my students.
If you still think lectures are the way to go, check out video lectures/seminars on the internet I’ve used one that works.
Explore Virtual Tours. I haven’t done any paid virtual tours—they sound great and I wish I had time to explore them.
Pete Burkholder
My "Ivanovo-Wisconsin Project" has gone over well. In it, my 150 students in Modern World History enter into virtual conversations with 60 of their peers at Ivanovo State U in Russia. I also now how five "embedded observers" from Stout (i.e., other faculty who are attached to the student group conversations), and there are also four Ivanovo "observers." It's a complicated project, but one that helps destroy a number of negative stereotypes that our students have of "the other." It's also a great example of interdisciplinary collaboration, both intra- and inter-institutionally. I'll be presenting on this project at the upcoming OPID spring meeting in Madison.
Evan Sveum
Something that I am trying new this semester is a project system called" Gizmo Lab" Creation. It is a system where I am emphasizing a clear connection between concepts / theory and the creation of labs /activities that reflect on the concepts. I call it a system because there are a number of elements that contribute to the end results.
1) I model. Concepts and theory with a lab or activity.
2) Students playing "MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO" with concepts they select.
3) A very detailed evaluation process which helps the students improve.
Includes digital pictures, documents in a PDF form. Embedded rubric...
4) In class peer commentary on the "POSITIVES" and "THINGS TO IMPROVE."
5) Excellence in completion of these labs by tying them to an end of
semester Curriculum CD that ALL of the students will take with them as
curriculum starters (Education Students).
This is truly a work in progress. However, I can say that after completing 2 of 4 labs, the creativity I have witnessed is VERYEXCITING, AND, I think the students are getting it!
Mark Fenton
As an instructor of management, I work to prepare students for life in an environment that stresses interdependency and collaborative work. Ninety five percent of organizations use team work in some format (Williams 2005) and I use a collaborative work environment in all of my classes. I spend a considerable amount of time addressing the salient need to understand interdependency in the workplace. As part of this process, I also spend time on accountability to the individual student, their respective team, and to me as their instructor. I think that this process has had a very good long-term affect on my students and the comments I get during the semester and in the instructor evaluations are generally favorable. I have also heard from former students that have taken many of these concepts to their professions after graduation. Common among their comments was that they were able to draw on their experiences from classes using team work generally and the stressing of accountability and interdependency specifically. When managed properly by an instructor, I think that a collaborative work environment can go along way to preparing students for future professional activities.
Laura McCullough
A success or innovation? I think of two right off the bat. One is that I ask students to buy 3x5 cards and bring them to every lecture. Then in lecture when I'm making them do something (solve a problem, answer a multiple-choice question) I have them write it on their card. They turn in the cards and I get to give them credit for attending lecture and participating without having to do a head count or take attendance. I also see who's not doing well or not really participating.
Another thing I do that is good for lecture participation is the multiple-choice peer instruction questions. Not my idea, but I don't know how many people at Stout know about them. I put up a multiple-choice question, often conceptual, and ask them to pick an answer. They hold up a large card with A-G on it (whichever answer they picked). I see if the class is doing well or not. If everyone has the right answer, I go on. If there are a lot of wrong answers, I have them spend a minute discussing their answer with their neighbors. Then we vote again. Usually the number of correct answers goes up. Then I discuss the question at whatever level is called for based on the vote.
Alan Block
Teaching success: I have asked students to meet in book groups to
explore complex texts. I ask students to read multiple texts: I assign up to six texts for a single class. In group discussions and without teacher presence, I asked them to attempt to understand the texts and to make connections between texts. They must write summaries of these discussions, and turn polished drafts of them into me. These summaries are summaries of group work, and represent the attempt to construct knowledge of subject from multiple perspectives. They are also student work: I do not intervene in the process.
Juli Taylor
A teaching success I'd like to share is the creation of a DVD on the topic of resilience for educators. The initial idea stemmed from the challenge of getting a subject matter expert to be able to present at the time of day my Educational Psychology class is held each semester. I had the expert come to campus and videotaped the presentation. The project grew to include an interview with an expert from the U of MN and a panel of high school juniors and seniors. The U of MN liked their portion of the video and purchased it for distribution. There is great flexibility built in to the format of the DVD so that it can be used in a variety of teaching situations with diverse audiences. This project involves a partnership with the Menomonie School District. They will also be using the DVD to train faculty, staff, and students in resilience
Marty Ondrus
I didn't think I was doing anything great, but....
There are several somewhat innovative approaches that I am using, and I will summarize one or two.
First, I am trying to incorporate lecture demonstrations and short video clips of chemical properties and chemical reactions into the regular lecture hour. As you know, chemistry is heavily content oriented. One way or another, we have to get a lot of material covered. However, chemistry very much involves the senses of seeing, hearing, touching, etc. In, my two-credit (non-lab) Visualizing Chemistry, I try to do as many lecture demonstrations as possible so that students can see chemistry happening. This semester, I had a sign-up sheet so that every student will assist me once with either the setup or the cleanup for a class. That gets them involved a little. In the past, I have required every student to do at least one classroom demonstration, but with a class of 100 it is impossible this semester.
One thing that I did this semester (that you will probably like) is asking the students to write up a summary of a demonstration every day we have class (see attached pdf file). The "Demonstration Summary Sheet" asks three simple questions, and the students are required to submit their writeup (answers to the questions) on the summary sheet. A copy of the summary sheet was posted for them on e-scholar, and they each made many copies. I do not read them all, but I quickly check each one and give each completed paper 5 points. So far, the students have completed and have been given grades for 16 demonstration summaries. They will do 16 more before the semester ends and will be able to drop two missed grades. I asked them to keep all their papers in a three-ring notebook (along with course notes and completed quizzes) and will give them a few final exam questions related to the demos to keep them honest. I have been very very impressed with how seriously the students have been taking this writing-across-the-curriculum activity. It also is an excellent way of keeping class attendance right up where it should be.
Nearly all of the students in the class are education majors (Early Childhood), and I try do many demos that are safe and that they might try some day in their own classroom. Examples include the Cartesian Diver and the Bottle Emptying race. I recently did a demonstration in which bubbles were floated on carbon dioxide gas in a fish aquarium filled with CO2 gas from dry ice. It is really a very magical demonstration but can be easily explained in terms of differences in gas densities. Kids in K-3 would love it, it is safe, and it helps teach science principles.
When I have a demonstration that is difficult for a class of 100 to see or that is very dangerous, I use Quick Time videos that have been imported into PowerPoint. Some of the videos (such as the making of a mercury barometer are quite fascinating and would be quite difficult to do in the classroom. One day I showed videos of the reactions of the alkali metals with water. I also did the exact same reactions in the classroom and used a video camera attached to my Mac to project the demo onto the screen. It was fun, everyone could see what happened, and the students really wrote some great summaries.
Another thing I am doing this semester that is kind of interesting involves my Instrumental Analysis class. The 21 students (junior, senior, or graduate) do six labs over the course of the semester (groups of 2) and are required to prepare a written report on each lab. I try to get them to follow a format that is similar to a research paper, and I expect them to find related information on the web or in the literature, incorporate their experimental data (numbers) into tables, and incorporate their spectra or chromatograms into figures. We have been doing this kind of lab reporting for years, but the presence of laptop computers has changed the nature of the reports. The reports are considerably more professional in appearance, better organized, and more complete than in the past. I have attached a sample report from the second half of our first lab of the semester (lab 1.2). What I like about these reports is that they involve real data gathered by the students. Therefore, they have to write the paper themselves even though they may get some figures and photos from web sources. It is fairly difficult to cheat when the student must describe the actual kind of instrument that they used, what his/her group did, and the experimental data/results that they collected.
The students in Instrumental Analysis are also expected to prepare a video presentation on one of the instruments that they used in the course.
Yvonne Nelson
I do service learning when I teach Science Society and the Environment. The students are required to do a project to help the environment. Some of them choose to join Greensense in their regular highway cleanups or work in the local parks or around campus. Some choose to do a cleanup in their hometowns and get their parents involved. Some of the students in Early Childhood Education prepare a lesson plan to teach some environmental fact.
Some of the students work with Lynn Peterson, on some of the grounds projects like cutting Purple Loosestrife or cleaning up parking lots. One year we helped plant grasses and native plants.
Last semester one student attended the city of Menomonie’s tree board and brought back information to the class about the activities they were planning. He came back very impressed with what the community is doing.
Three girls couldn’t think of anything so they joined me on a Habitat build in Menomonie and learned how to pound nails. It is a stretch but we did discuss the problems with an increasing population and the need to house and feed people.
We also do cleanups at Gilbert Creek and Galloway Creek during the class periods.
Krista James
A component of U.W. Stout’s mission is to support a curriculum that incorporates student involvement in outreach and public service. This important concept was central to the development and implementation of laboratory exercises for the new Science, Society and the Environment (BIO 111) course which was offered for the first time during the fall 2003 semester. During a series of labs, students monitor the health of Galloway Creek, a small urban stream that runs through the heart of the City of Menomonie and within walking distance of U.W. Stout.
Water quality monitoring is one method available for determining the degree to which a stream has been affected by pollution or development. Urban development increases the amount of impervious surface in a watershed as farmland, forests, and other areas with natural water infiltration characteristics are replaced by buildings with rooftops, driveways, sidewalks, roads, and parking lots, all having virtually no ability to absorb water. Stormwater and snow-melt wash over these impervious surfaces, picking up pollutants along the way, while gaining speed and volume because of their inability to naturally disperse into the ground. In many urban locations, this runoff is diverted to storm sewers which often empty into nearby small streams. As small streams become severely degraded, they lose their natural ability to control flooding and maintain water quality. As a result, downstream lakes and rivers have poorer water quality and less reliable water flows.
At least a dozen storm sewers drain directly to Galloway Creek; however, the effects of this runoff is unknown, since water quality monitoring has never been in place for this neglected urban stream. In order to remedy that situation, BIO 111 students collect water quality data along specific sections of Galloway Creek (see enclosed map) and compare the results from year to year. Due to the outreach efforts between BIO 111 students and faculty and City of Menomonie officials, the following statement was included in the updated City of Menomonie Stormwater Management Plan: “We recommend that the City and the University of Wisconsin-Stout partner and work together to ensure that positive steps are taken within the City of Menomonie watershed and Galloway Creek sub-watershed”. To meet that specific storm water management recommendation, BIO 111 students submit their findings using a City of Menomonie Stream Monitoring Report, specifically created for this unique partnership. In the first part of the report, water quality is assessed using the following parameters: ph, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, nitrogen and phosphate levels, fecal coliform, habitat assessment, and water quality biotic index. In the second part of the report, students discuss their recommendations for improving the health of Galloway Creek within their specific stream sites; photos are included to help illustrate some of the problem areas for each site.
Recently, with the help of U.W. Stout funding, automated stream monitoring equipment was purchased for the BIO 111 course; data generated from this equipment will help provide a more complete picture of the health of Galloway Creek. To help manage both student and automated equipment water quality data, a website is currently being created for the course. Eventually, students will be able to use their laptop computers to enter and retrieve data, and develop tables and graphs to incorporate into their stream monitoring reports.
Due to the outreach nature of the BIO 111 water quality labs, a “win-win” scenario has been established. Students “win” by having the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge about how to develop and test hypotheses, and collect and interpret scientific data. They also have the satisfaction of knowing they are performing a valuable community service through their monitoring efforts. The City of Menomonie and U.W. Stout “win” by sharing data and ideas towards the common goal of improving the health of Galloway Creek. Obviously, the ultimate “winner” in this scenario is this small urban stream which is an integral part of the natural community for both the City and the University
Anne Hoel
The teaching successes which are most memorable are related to the teaching challenge described above. Having a student who initially resisted interactive learning take the time to share their discovery of how valuable the process is to developing a deeper level of learning is very rewarding.
posted by Dan Riordan @ 6:58 PM
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