Fall_11_Newsletter_#2

communicating for

LEARNERS

FALL #2 2011

featured in this issue

2012 Teaching & Learning Fair

QizBox Rocks

Visionary Status

Did You Know?

Book Review

Hot 5

2012 Teaching & Learning Fair Teaching and Learning Fair Expands Focus

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On February 10, 2012, the BGSU community will again celebrate the best teaching and learning practices at the sixth annual BGSU Teaching and Learning Fair. This year’s event will broaden its scope by featuring original research presentations by undergraduate students. The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is collaborating with the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURS) to present this year’s fair. Because teaching at BGSU is about helping students to reach their full potential, it is fitting that undergraduates participate in the fair to showcase both their research and their creative activities.

The fair will begin at 9 AM in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom at the Bowen-Thompson Student Union. From 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM, faculty, staff, and graduate students will present their best ideas for student learning and development, including learner-centered classroom and co-curricular activities, teaching strategies for inquiry-based and problem-based learning, course design, and approaches for assessment. Student presenters will join educators in the ballroom to share the results of their original research during the 9:00 to 11:00 time period.

Everyone is invited to attend, meet the presenters, and share ideas, strategies, and course materials.

After the poster presentations, the fair’s keynote speaker, Todd Zakrajsek, Executive Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of the National Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching (Traverse City), will speak on learnercentered teaching. After his talk, Dr. Zakrajsek will participate in a regional networking luncheon to share ideas about the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Meanwhile, from 11:15 to 12:30 in the Multipurpose Room of the union, undergraduate students will showcase another aspect of undergraduate research in the form of performances by students in fields such as theater, dance, and art. Performances will be followed by lunch and panel discussion about undergraduate research at BGSU.

At 2:00 PM Dr. Zakrajsek will deliver a second presentation in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom geared specifically for students and stressing the importance of undergraduate research in learner-centered teaching. The presentation will also offer students information about the best study practices for the learner-centered classroom. BGSU educators may also attend this session if they choose.

The Center for Teaching and Learning will issue a call for presenters for the Fair beginning in early January, so now’s the time to start thinking about what you can share with your fellow educators. The Center is interested in presentations from community members who demonstrate a commitment to student learning and development. Presentations may focus on activities inside and outside the classroom that help to foster student learning and engagement.

Chris Mitchell, Coordinator of CURS/AIMS, is currently in the process of recruiting students to participate in the fair and welcomes proposals from any undergraduate student who would like to take part in this year’s Teaching and Learning Fair. The Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarships (CURS) is calling for students to submit an abstract of their research that represents any disciplinary division (Arts and Humanities, Biology, Chemistry, Geosciences, Health Sciences, Mathematics/Computer Science, Physics/Astronomy, Psychology, and Social Sciences). Each abstract should explain the work that was performed and discuss the importance of the work to society (i.e., what larger problem were you trying to solve or understand?). All abstracts should be sent to the CURS office located at 208E Harshman, 125 N. Mercer Rd., or they can be emailed to the Coordinator of the program, Chris Mitchell, at cmitche@bgsu.edu.

QizBox Rocks

George Kuh–Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at Indiana University, Bloomington, and founder of the Center for Postsecondary Research–has written a widely read and influential monograph on the high-impact practices that allow students to reap the full benefits of their college educations. These practices–while they differ considerably from one another–have in common the effect of engaging students fully in the learning experience. There seems to be little disagreement among educators that when students participate fully in their own learning, they learn better and retain more. One obvious outcome of the desire to make education more engaging and active for students is the increasing use of clickers in the lecture classroom.

While clickers can indeed increase student engagement and active learning, one BGSU Instructor has a better idea for encouraging students’ involvement with course content. Anthony Fontana, the Learning Technologist for the Office of the CIO, has created an innovative web application called QizBox. QizBox is a social learning environment for the lecture classroom that uses game mechanics to enhance learning without requiring any dramatic shifts in teaching style. QizBox offers the presenter the ability to share slides, quiz the audience, and provide real-time feedback. Other features allow the audience to discuss the lecture in a chat room, ask and answer questions, and even take notes that are accessible for review at a later time. QizBox also includes a dynamic award system that honors audience engagement with the presentation. Users can accumulate, create, and distribute awards that contribute to a collaborative and cooperative learning environment. Best of all, students can access all the features of QizBox using their laptops, iPads, smartphones, or any other device that can access the web.

When he first began working with an iPad in the summer of 2010, Anthony decided to design an educational app unlike anything he’d seen on the market.

In a recent article for the Educause Review Anthony writes, “My app had to be useful, social, mobile, student-savvy, and faculty–friendly.” Anthony took his original design to Dr. Joseph Chao, Director of BGSU’s Agile Software Facility, who worked with his students to design the software.

Associate Professor Lori Young of the Graphic Design Department helped design what Anthony calls a “sleek user interface.” The Office of the CIO has funded the project, allowing Anthony to continue to improve the software.

QizBox is currently being used in several classes at BGSU. Ray Schuck’s COMM 4060 (Special Topics: Organizational Rhetoric) is both using and studying the application’s award function as a form of rhetoric (what Ray calls “badge rhetoric”). Ray has taken advantage of one of the app’s special features: each element can be introduced and used separately. He started with the notetaking function, then added chats and awards. So far, Ray says he likes the app and is considering how he might

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Want to Learn More about QizBox? The Center for Teaching and Learning is pleased to present: Introduction to Qizbox November 29, 2011 from 9-10 AM 201 University Hall Anthony will review the many features of this new and exciting app and answer all your questions. Please feel free to register at http:// www.bgsu.edu/ctl/page10718.html.

use it next semester. His students’ reactions have run the gamut from indifference to enthusiasm. Dina Carrisalez is among the enthusiastic. “I am really liking QizBox. I wasn’t at all sure about it in the beginning, but it has worked out well for me, and because of the option to take notes, I’ve become a faster typist as well.”

Here at the CTL one of our undergraduate Teaching and Learning Consultants, Kelsey Mugler, has attended Anthony’s workshop on QizBox and is writing a paper on the application. She is a big fan of QizBox and says she particularly likes the question and answer feature, the notes feature, and the awards feature. About notes, she says, “I really like that I would be able to view the slides that go along with my scribbles. Too often I go to study and can’t remember what my notes are referring to or which slides go with which notes. QizBox allows you to type your notes right under that slide and go back later and view the entire presentation.”

QizBox is available to all BGSU community members at http://qizbox.bgsu.edu/public/login. Just log in with your BGSU name and password.

meet the VISIONARY Cathy N. Davidson scholar, advisor, author

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When serving as the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University in 2003 Cathy N. Davidson was behind the university initiative to give all incoming freshmen an iPod. When upperclassmen complained that they paid the same tuition as freshmen and felt they too should receive iPods, Duke agreed to provide iPods to all students and professors who could devise an educational application. Critics called it a waste of money, dismissing the popular device as a means of entertainment with little pedagogical use. In spite of the criticism, the students at Duke found various uses for the iPod ranging from listening to recordings of class lectures, language lessons, and authors reading their own works to biomedical engineering students diagnosing heart conditions by accessing the National Institute of Health’s audio library of cardiac arrhythmias while simultaneously listening to a heartbeat through a stethoscope. For Davidson, the iPod experiment was not simply about the development of educational applications for new technology, or just adding technology to the classroom. To Davidson’s mind, technology such as the iPod should be viewed as a catalyst in rethinking education in the Information Age.

Davidson earned her BA in Philosophy and English from Elmhurst College, both her MA and Ph.D. in English from SUNY Binghamton, and has done postdoctoral study in Linguistics and Literary Theory at The University of Chicago. She worked as a professor of English at Michigan State University before joining the faculty at Duke where she has served as the Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English since 1996 and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies since 2006. From 1998 to 2006 she served as Duke’s Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies where, in addition to her instrumental role in the iPod experiment, she co-founded with David Theo Goldberg the virtual organization HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, pronounced “haystack”).

Davidson also serves on the Board of Advisors for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Digital Media and Learning” book series and in 2010 was nominated for a six-year term on the National Council on the Humanities by President Barack Obama and was confirmed in this position by the Senate in 2011.

Davidson is also the author or editor of over twenty books including Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (Norton, 1998) in collaboration with photographer Bill Bamberger, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (Oxford, 1986; Expanded Edition 2004), and her latest, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn (Viking, 2011). In this new work Davidson uses research on the human brain to examine the challenge of “attention blindness” in school and in

Did You Know?

On Friday, November 18, about forty members of the BGSU community will spend an evening at the Toledo Museum of Art enjoying the ambiance and learning about the various educational resources the museum has to offer for students in higher-education. The BGSU Educators Workshop will begin with a wine and cheese reception and a welcome by Toledo Museum of Art Director Brian Kennedy.

The group will then be divided into smaller groups to tour the museum, with docents describing particular collections and areas, and also learning resources at the museum, including visiting the print study room and the library.

After the planned activities, guests will be invited to tour other areas of the museum independently or to watch a glassblowing demonstration in the Glass Pavilion.

This Educators Workshop is designed to launch an educational collaboration between the BGSU community and the museum staff by sharing with BGSU educators the many resources available at the museum.

the workplace. Attention blindness refers to the fact that we only perceive a fraction of what is occurring around us at any given moment, which allows us to stay focused on specific tasks but also leaves us unable to perceive a great deal of what is going on around us. Davidson argues that attention blindness represents a challenge in our current interconnected and collaborative world where the ability to multitask and manage the various demands upon our attention is necessary in the modern work environment.

While the information age of the 21st century has brought about these changes in how information is accessed, most classrooms and places of employment are still organized on an outdated model where attention is focused on single tasks. This mismatch between the skills needed in the current workplace and the rigid standards and routines of the previous century is a central theme of the book.

Davidson visits innovative classrooms and workplaces that are adapting to this changing paradigm by integrating video games into the curriculum and using virtual training programs that show a forward-thinking approach to the challenge of learning and working in the Information Age. Duke University Profile: http://english.duke.edu/

people?Gurl=/aas/English&Uil=cathy.davidson&subpage=profile

Website and Blog:

http://www.cathydavidson.com/

HASTAC YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/video4hastac

Book Review: Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment

In his 2008 book, Helping Students Learn in a LearnerCentered Environment, author Terry Doyle notes that “My own frustrations as a teacher were greatly reduced years ago, when I accepted that my job was to teach the students who were sitting in my class, not those I wished were sitting there.” Helping Students addresses this perspective and offers readers practical pedagogical tips about how to apply learner-centered techniques in their classroom.

Doyle, the former Senior Instructor for Faculty Development at Ferris State University, approaches concepts in a grounded and practical way. He defines his stance on learning by citing psychologist R.A. Bjork’s notion that learning is “the ability to use information after significant periods of disuse and the ability to use information to solve problems that arise in a context different (if only slightly) from the context in which the information was originally learned.” This definition helps drive home the idea that rote memorization is not a skill that will serve students well in the long-term and explains the need for learner-centered techniques.

Doyle believes that successful learner-centered practice must include orienting students to their role in the learning process. The primary skills he regards as important are: “finding and evaluating quality sources of information, identifying important information within quality sources, organizing information in quality sources, writing reports and papers, managing time, remembering what has been learned, using problem-solving systems and monitoring one’s own learning.”

These skills prepare students to better understand what is being asked of them, participate more actively with coursework and learn more. Doyle admits that this transition process is not an easy one. The extra work required of students in a learnercentered environment often creates student resistance to new techniques. Additionally the need to help students develop new skills puts additional pressure on the instructor. While the techniques associated with learner-centered teaching can be more labor intensive for both the instructor and student, the long-term benefits of being prepared as a lifelong learner are well worth the effort.

Doyle believes that learner-centered pedagogy best prepares students to be lifelong learners. Life-long learning, he says, involves four key skills: learning to manage oneself, developing communication skills, managing people and tasks, and mobilizing innovation and change. He also offers tips on developing students’ communication skills, preparing students as instructors, and creating practical assessment rubrics to match his pedagogical techniques.

As Doyle says, “Not a single employment recruiter or graduate school admission recruiter has ever said, ‘What we are looking for in a college graduate is someone who is great at note taking and excels on multiple-choice tests.’ ” The effort to prepare students with skills for life-long learning is important both for the institution and the later success of students. This

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book serves as a tool-box for executing learner-centered teaching methods as they are applied to a wide variety of instructional situations and could be helpful to anyone who wants to focus more closely on their students’ learning.

Doyle, T. (2008). Helping students Learn in a Learner-centered Environment. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

HOT 5

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(click the link to visit)

Student–Centered Teaching and Learning http://www4.ncsu.edu/ shift from the teacher to the learners, using readings and videos.

Grants.gov http://www.grants.gov/ your source to find and apply for federal grants

University of Minnesota CTL http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/ teachlearn/resources/jit/index.html “just in time” resources for faculty and instructional staff

Google for Educators http://www.google.com/educators tools for teachers to aid in their efforts to empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge

SHFT http://www.shft.com/about/ a more sustainable approach to the way we live through video, design, art and culture

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

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