communicating for
LEARNERS
SUM
MER
2011
featured in this issue
Transformational Learning
Did You Know?
Hot 5
New Learning Communities
Visionary Status
Transformational Learning It’s the secret desire of every educator—that “aha!” moment when a student suddenly “gets it,” when he or she begins to see self, the world, or ideas in an entirely different light. Such moments are usually preceded by “cognitive dissonance,” the failure of a student’s current knowledge and perspective to explain phenomena. Suddenly, the student must unlearn what seemed like common sense and rethink what seemed like truth. This is transformational learning. The Theory
Jack Mezirow, in his book Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (1991), defines transformation as “the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our assumptions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand, and feel about our world; changing these structures of habitual expectation to make possible a more inclusive, discriminating, and integrating perspective; and, finally, making choices or otherwise acting upon these new understandings.” Transformational learning is radically different from assimilative learning—the process by which students simply take on new information that fits easily into their current structures of knowledge. The real question, of course, is how educators can create conditions in which students are more likely to have these transformational experiences. Transformational learning happens as the result of these conditions: • An event/problem that highlights the limitations of the student’s current paradigm or approach
• An opportunity for the student to identify and articulate the assumptions that underpin the current knowledge • An opportunity for the student to reflect critically on the origin and limitations of those assumptions
• An opportunity for the student to discuss his/her assumptions and alternative assumptions with instructors and peers • An opportunity for the student to apply the new knowledge Teaching Strategies for Transformational Learning
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To create the cognitive dissonance that starts the process, instructors can use readings that embody conflicting viewpoints
or case studies/demonstrations/experiments that conflict with students’ expectations. It is only when students experience the failure of their current paradigm that they will be motivated to change. One strategy to help students identify their assumptions is to encourage them to identify and articulate someone else’s assumptions before tackling their own. Here, again, readings and case studies can be very useful. Educators can encourage critical reflection by having students keep journals or answer targeted questions about how their perceptions have changed. One great idea suggested by Kelly McGonigal of Stanford University’s Center for Teaching and Learning is to have students create a perspective history timeline. “For any given topic, from critiquing art to analyzing the ethics of business, ask students to reflect on life experiences and academic experiences that have influenced their current perspectives. When was the first time they remember forming an opinion about this topic? What people and events shaped their assumptions? Have they changed perspectives over time? What people and events triggered this change?” Well-structured online discussion forums offer ample opportunity for the kind of ongoing discussion that promotes transformational learning. In order to allow students to apply new knowledge, educators can return to the original problem that created the cognitive dissonance and approach it with the new knowledge paradigm. Various exercises that ask students to “try on” points of view different from their own can also help them get the “feel” of transformative learning. Role plays and debates are good strategies that can help students learn to abandon their typical ways of perceiving. In general, whatever strategies educators employ to foster transformational learning, it is important to create a climate in the classroom in which students feel free to express their opinions. A combination of challenge and support will make all the difference.
Did You Know New App for Lecture Classes
?
The Office of the CIO has been developing a new web application for lecture-based classes. If you teach from slides or Powerpoint, this new web application will enhance your classroom learning environment without requiring any dramatic shifts in your teaching style. QizBox is a web application that uses game mechanics to create a social learning environment. Developed to enhance the real-life classroom lecture and presentation experience, QizBox offers the presenter the ability to share slides, quiz the audience and provide real-time feedback (no clickers needed!). Robust 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 encourages audience engagement with the presentation. Users can accumulate, create, and distribute awards that contribute to a collaborative and cooperative learning environment. The Center is offering introductory workshops on QizBox on June 28 from 10:30-11:30 and on June 30 from 1:00-2:00. Don’t miss this chance to be among the first to try this great new application. Student Veteran Roundtable Discussions During April and May the Center for Teaching and Learning and Nontraditional and Transfer Student Services (NTSS) sponsored a series of roundtable discussions about student veterans. BGSU has been named a veteran-friendly campus, and the roundtable series was designed to ensure that we continue to be a great place for veterans. More than 70 people attended the sessions, facilitated by Eric Buetikofer, the advisor in NTSS who works specifically with veterans. The sessions were dubbed “train the trainer” because the participants were expected to take what they learned back with them into their departments and areas. Participants will also form a communication network for the dissemination of information about student veterans. Topics covered in the sessions included characteristics and challenges of student veterans, information on educational benefits available to veterans, and a discussion of policies that apply to veterans—especially the need for reasonable accommodations for veterans who may be called to active duty or who must be absent from class because of their military obligations. Eric also discussed what BGSU has already done to become an even more veteran-friendly campus. A student veteran task force, which was formed in 2009, made 40 recommendations, 19 of which have already been implemented. Eric has created a Blackboard community for veterans, and NTSS sponsored a tent at Homecoming that proved to be a rousing success.
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Melissa Miller, a faculty member from Political Science was among the participants at one of the sessions. She says that “the roundtable really helped to familiarize me with the issues faced by our student veterans and the various things we can
do to help them succeed at BGSU.” And she added, “I have already incorporated content from the roundtable into the Blackboard Community being set up for students in BGSU’s new Fire Administration degree program––some of whom are certain to be veterans.” BG grad and Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colonel David Sutherland, stopped by one of the roundtable sessions and was delighted to see what BGSU was doing in order to educate faculty and staff to the needs of student veterans.
HOT 5 (click the link to visit)
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Big Think bigthink.com source of blogs, articles, and ideas all combined to stimulate the mind and keep you informed
Khan Academy khanacademy.org provides free video educational lessons in subjects ranging from calculus to history
Mind Shift mindshift.kqed.org explores the future of learning–covering trends, research, policy and more
Read Print readprint.com offers ebooks from a large variety of authors and provides book descriptions and reviews
Free Documentaries onlineuniversities.com/ blog/2010/01/100-best-freescience-documentaries-online/ best 100 free science documentaries
Book Review Professor of biology and biochemistry James Zull’s From Brain to Mind: Using Neuroscience to Guide Change in Education (2011) is in many ways a follow up to his last book, The Art of the Changing Brain (2002). Zull acknowledges that many areas he neglected in his previous work describing the implications of neuroscience research are addressed in this second book. But filling in the gaps is not his primary focus. Instead, Zull has a message he wants to communicate. Change is not only coming, it is happening now. Technology has changed the way our minds develop and engage with the world around us. Education, claims Zull, is the way to address this change. Zull then spends the next 283 pages convincing his audience that using neuroscience to guide education is the best way to address the needs of the changing world. Zull makes certain initial messages clear. Education encompasses more than schooling. The mind encompasses more than the brain. His book is directed at a global audience: formal and informal educators, anyone who has any interest in education or the development of the mind. Zull is at his best when he communicates complicated neuroscience research in ways that are intended for all readers. He makes the information accessible and interesting for a broad audience. Zull’s central argument is that the purpose of education is to move the brain to the mind—to transform the biological organ into the knowing self. As Zull puts it, “It is the capacity of the brain to organize and change itself through experience that leads to the development of the mind. By sensing, recording, and reproducing our experiences, the brain gains the capacity to think, decide, and act. It makes itself into a mind” (p. 10). This journey from brain to mind is described in seven chapters addressing the topics of perception to action; emotion; meaning making and integration; images and neuronal patterns; symbols in language, mathematics, and music; and memory. In each chapter, Zull describes the features of the brain as an organ and how experience creates learning that develops the mind. He provides pictures and diagrams, tells stories and asks questions, outlines his thinking and reasoning, all in an effort to illustrate the relationship between neuroscience and learning. In the last two chapters Zull summarizes his message and purpose. He provides principles for education (both formal and informal) derived from the research on neuroscience to suggest a pathway from brain to mind. While his suggestions are useful, they are situated in narration that makes for an interesting and informative read, but not a quick, practical guide. Zull’s From Brain to Mind offers the educator an easily-read text on the relationship between neuroscience and education. Zull does not aim to create a textbook or quick-guide, but he provides a fantastic overview of research with practical educative suggestions situated in metaphor and story.
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Zull, J. E. (2011). From Brain to Mind: Using Neuroscience to Guide Change in Education. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
meet the VISIONARY John Seely Brown scholar, adviser, author
John Seely Brown is a visiting scholar and an adviser to the provost at the University of Southern California. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Power of Pull (2010); The Only Sustainable Edge (2005); and The Social Life of Information (2000). He is widely known as a futurist, and his primary research interests include the management of innovation, digital youth culture, digital media, and emerging forms of communication and learning. Before coming to USC, Brown was the chief scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of the company’s Palo Alto Research Center. He was also a co-founder of the Institute for Research on Learning. Much of Seely Brown’s work to date has dealt with the impact of technology on the fabric of social life. His most recent book, A New Culture of Learning (2011), written with Douglas Thomas, has particular relevance for educators. In keeping with the authors’ message about cultural change, Brown and Thomas self-published the book with a digital on-demand publishing service. They hired an editor who excised the original manuscript’s academic jargon and cut the length of the book in half. In place of the peer review process, Thomas and Brown included 18 online reviews and blogs as part of the book’s content. A New Culture of Learning revisions learning as an all-encompassing environment where “digital media provide access to a rich source of information and play, and [where] the processes that occur within those environments are integral to the results.” Learning will no longer be a series of ideas and concepts to be mastered in lockstep fashion. In the new culture of learning “the point is to embrace what we don’t know, come up with better questions about it, and continue asking those questions in order to learn more and more, both incrementally and exponentially.” The new culture of learning is fundamentally collective and social, a synergy in which the whole group produces greater learning than any individual can alone. In a radical assertion, Brown and Thomas claim that massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) “are almost perfect illustrations of a new learning environment” where “the engine that drives learning . . . is a blend of questioning, imagination, and—best of all—play.” Learn more at John Seely Brown’s website at http://www. johnseelybrown.com/
Recognizing Learning Excellence On May 5, 2011, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and the Student Achievement Assessment Committee (SAAC) held a “Recognizing Learning Excellence” dinner. The Center’s director, Bonnie Fink, and SAAC chair, Susan Kleine, joined forces to celebrate the accomplishments of faculty and staff members who worked to improve teaching and learning at BGSU. Among the more than 70 attendees were members of the Center’s learning communities, SAAC committee members, and this year’s SAAC award recipients, who were recognized for promoting student success through program assessment and improved instruction. Learning community members presented posters detailing their accomplishments for the year. The Center’s learning communities include Active Learning and the Transition to Digital, Applying Learner-centered Teaching Practices for Curricular and Co-curricular Learning, Improving Student Learning with STEM Education, Interdisciplinary Peer Review and Assessment of Writing, Internationalizing the Curriculum, Making Great Teachers, Pedagogy and Scholarship using Virtual, Online, and Mediated Environments, Service-Learning, and High-Impact Practices – Firelands College. Learning community facilitators presented a variety of
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accomplishments ranging from peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations, to the development of new courses, to establishing partnerships with community organizations. Criteria for the SAAC Awards include the extent to which programs used direct assessments of student learning tied to their program learning outcomes, the clarity of the reporting and analysis of those assessments, and the extent to which they used the results to improve their programs. The 2011 winners were General Studies Writing, Sociology, Theater & Film, the BSBA program, Interior Design, Human Development and Family Studies, Physical Education Teacher Education, Exercise Science, HMSLS, Food and Nutrition, Reading, Bowen-Thompson Student Union, and the Counseling Center.
Apply Now for 11-12 Learning Communities The Center for Teaching and Learning is pleased to announce a great slate of learning communities for the coming year. They are open to faculty, staff, and graduate students. Deadline for application is August 5. Download the application at: http:// www.bgsu.edu/ctl/page96821.html Active Learning and the Transition to Digital Facilitators: Paul Cesarini and Elainie Lillios Description: The Active Learning and the Transition to Digital Learning Community focuses on integrating technology and pedagogy to foster active learning environments that challenge students to think critically and solve problems in creative ways. During meetings the community will actively investigate methods for employing technology in engaging and authentic ways to promote student learning; we will reassess instructional delivery styles and question how we teach with a goal of shifting pedagogy from traditional, instructor-focused methods to studentcentered community building and learning; and we will work to transform our pedagogical styles by sharing knowledge, resources, ideas, tools, and solutions. (Meets bi-weekly on Fridays, 9:00-10:30; specific dates TBA.) Editing Wikipedia with an Inclusive Focus Facilitators: Tori Ekstrand and Suzanne V. L. Berg Description: The intention of this learning community is to learn how to edit and use Wikipedia in the classroom. This community will seek to answer the question of where Wikipedia belongs in scholarship and teaching. Editing Wikipedia will provide insight into the process, which can improve discussion of the site in the classroom. The goal of this community is to put theory into practice by becoming editors of Wikipedia and working to make the encyclopedia inclusive of issues of culture and sex/gender. (Meets bi-weekly on Mondays, 1:00-2:30; specific dates TBA.)
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Enhancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at BGSU Facilitator: Tim Brackenbury Description: Research on the effectiveness of educational practices has blossomed over the past 20 years. Once the domain of departments of education, scholarship in teaching and learning is now being conducted within and across a variety of disciplines. The goals of this learning community are to examine the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) being done at BGSU, to learn about research methodologies in SoTL, and to develop and conduct research in teaching and learning. (Meets bi-weekly on Thursdays, 1:00-2:30; specific dates TBA.)
Integrative Learning Through Writing: Helping First-year Students Enhance their Written Communication Facilitators: Amy Rybak and Lee Nickoson Description: This learning community will examine the theories and practices of first-year writing, with goals of improving students’ understanding and awareness of the expectations of college-level writing and building instructor confidence in assigning and evaluating writing. Members of this community will investigate strategies to help students make connections among their classes that require significant written work. In addition to helping students improve, this learning community will also explore ways to recognize and celebrate those first-year students who arrive at BGSU as strong writers. (Meets bi-weekly on Wednesdays; 3:00-4:30, specific dates TBA.) Interdisciplinary Peer Review and Assessment of Writing (IPRAW) Facilitator: Cynthia Ducar Description: This community serves to promote scholarly writing that enhances education by providing teacher-scholars with a forum in which they take on the role of student; in each meeting, members submit scholarly work to a review by their peers. In addition, we will pilot the rubric that the same learning community developed last year as a constructive guide, providing tangible feedback to peer members. The group will also offer one or more workshops on the implementation of using the rubric as one of several key components in the peer-review process. Finally, the LC may produce online resources such as workshop videos, peer review videos, and a blog detailing the group’s experiences regarding both the rubric and the overall peer-review process. (Meets bi-weekly on Fridays, 1:00-2:30; specific dates TBA.) Pedagogy and Scholarship Using Mobile, Online, and Virtual Environments (PSMOV) Facilitators: Anthony Fontana & Bonnie Mitchell Description: This learning community focuses on innovative strategies of integrating new, engaging technologies into the classroom as well as into academic research. We are interested in forming a community of faculty, staff and graduate students who are interested in the subject so we can further our collective knowledge and experiences. We hope to enhance teaching and learning by effectively integrating digital tools into classroom and online instruction. (Meets bi-weekly on Wednesdays, 9:00-10:30; specific dates TBA.)
Learning Communities Continued Practicing Diversity and Inclusion in the Curriculum Facilitators: Susana Peña and Dafina Lazarus Stewart Description: The Practicing Diversity and Inclusion in the Curriculum Learning Community will strengthen teaching around issues of diversity at Bowling Green State University and foster the inclusion of diverse perspectives throughout the curriculum. Topics to be covered include different pedagogical models for teaching diversity; challenges of teaching intersectional approaches to diversity; dealing with student resistance to diversity; curriculum development and “blue-sheeting”; disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and practicing diversity and inclusion in the curriculum; and examination of the personal competence required to teach and lead class conversations about diversity and inclusion. (Meets bi-weekly on Thursdays, 4:00-5:30; specific dates TBA.)
Understanding Student Information-seeking Behaviors to Enhance Student Learning Facilitators: Colleen Boff and Cathi Cardwell Description: Recent studies of information-seeking behavior indicate that students develop relatively narrow search strategies and employ a minimal range of tools in their academic work. Members of this learning community will explore ways to improve students’ abilities to contend with obstacles inherent in the research project. They will also expand their students’ awareness and use of academic information and research tools. (Meets bi-weekly on Mondays, 10:30-12:00; specific dates TBA.)
STEM Classroom Assessment and Course Evaluation Facilitators: Matt Partin and Bob Midden Description: This learning community will combine two goals: 1) developing educators’ ability to design valid and authentic assessment of their courses; and 2) developing educators’ ability to use assessment of student learning as part of their education research agenda. The focus on course assessment is especially timely because of the urgent need to improve student assessment across the curriculum. This faculty LC would provide an excellent development opportunity to help create a core of educators with special expertise in this important aspect of teaching that could help promote a greater appreciation and understanding of assessment throughout the entire campus. (Meets bi-weekly on Thursdays; 12:30-2:00; specific dates TBA.)
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Student Learning Facilitators: Tim Brackenbury and John Folkins Description: Once derided as a waste of time and potential cause of educational decline, gaming is now being analyzed for its powerful effects in motivating students to learn. Research is showing that games provide a high level of motivation that leads to focused attention, social interaction, tolerance for failure, and complex problem solving, and this carries over to real-world applications. Researchers across the country are now considering how the principles of gaming can be incorporated into the curriculum, especially in the K-12 sector. This learning community is designed to explore the literature on gaming and education to determine how we might use videogames to “level up” student learning at BGSU and go for the “epic win.” (Meets bi-weekly on Thursdays, 11:00-12:30; specific dates TBA.)
For information on our workshops or to register, contact the Center at: ctl@bgsu.edu, 419.372.6898, or http://www.bgsu.edu/ctl/page96846.html
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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Center for
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eaching earning