7 Mysteries of Teaching and Learning Revealed- Confessions of a Lilly Teaching Fellow

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7 Mysteries of Teaching and Learning Revealed-
Confessions of a Lilly Teaching Fellow

• Geoffrey Habron
• Fisheries and Wildlife
• Sociology
• Bailey Scholars
• Lilly Teaching Fellow 2005-2006

Bill Taylor
Jan Bokemeier
Frank Fear
Deb DeZure Patty Payette
2
What in the world is a Lilly Teaching Fellow?

• MSU Office of Faculty and Organizational
  Development
• http//www1.provost.msu.edu/facdev/lillyFellow/abo
  ut.asp
• The primary objective of the MSU Lilly Teaching
  Fellows Program is to provide a diverse group of
  tenure-stream faculty with the opportunity to
  enhance their teaching abilities through a series
  of activities designed to focus attention on the
  art and skills of teaching both generally and in
  their particular disciplines.

3
Features of Lilly Teaching Fellows

• Pre-tenured faculty
• Competitive 7 fellows/year
• Mentor
• Project
• Budget
• Meetings/readings
• Lilly Teaching seminars

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But Geoff, why the need for this topic?

• After all, many of us got into academia due to
  our passion for teaching and impeccable teaching
  qualifications.
• Lets take a scene from my job interview. Many of
  you may recognize a similar scenario.

To Sir With Love (Columbia Pictures 1966) 1124
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Geoffs Story Genesis

• Oregon State
• TA
• Senior seminar
• Spring Break courses
• Oregon Innovator Award

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Geoffs Story Exodus

• MSU
• Bailey Scholars
• Lilly Teaching Seminars
• Curriculum committees
• Habron, G.B. 2005. Infusing democratic,
  constructivist and active learning in fisheries
  education, Fisheries, 30 (4), 21-26
• Habron, G.B. and S.L. Dann. 2002. Breathing Life
  into the Case Study Approach Active Learning in
  an Introductory Natural Resource Management
  Class, Journal on Excellence in College Teaching,
  13 (2), 41-58

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Geoffs Story Revelation

• Surprise
• Geoff knows diddly!
• A lot of people know a lot
• Teaching as art and gift
• Teaching as science and scholarship
• Why the secret?
• Pay it forward!

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Learning Instructor Students
Instructor
effective
Student Learning Outcomes
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Learning Outcomes
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MSU Boldness by Design

• http//strategicpositioning.msu.edu/default.asp

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Report of the Working Group on Improving
Undergraduate Education Goals for Liberal
Learning

• 1. Integrated Judgment
• 2. Advanced Communication Skills (both writing
  and speaking)
• 3. Cultural Competence (addressed in
  recommendation 2)
• 4. Analytical Thinking
• 5. Literacy in Science and Mathematics
• 6. Effective Citizenship

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Enhancing the Undergraduate Experience Task
Force Recommendations

• 6. Modify the undergraduate curriculum and
  related policies so that our goals for
  undergraduate liberal learning are met
• 7. Enhance the physical environment in ways that
  support learning for the students, faculty and
  staff at MSU
• 8. Continue the review of graduate programs and
  graduate teaching and the mentoring of graduate
  students.

http//strategicpositioning.msu.edu/documents/BbDI
mperative1_002.pdf
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Learning Instructor Students
Instructor
effective
Student Learning Outcomes
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Teacher/Instructor Dimension
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Learning Paradigm

• Bailey Scholars
• Barr and Tagg 1995
• Student-centered vs teacher-centered
• Learning vs teaching

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Disciplinary Adoption

• With such an approach, the impact on student
  learning is the key variable in all course,
  department, and institutional decisions. From
  this perspective, we must consider, for example,
  student variables and diversity, the impact of
  the environment on learning, learning styles, and
  the scaffolding for learning. Covering the
  content is not the important objective in this
  paradigm rather, it is nurturing student
  learning.

American Sociological Association 2005
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Teaching Strategies
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One perspective

• Of course we try lots of tried and true methods
  and conduct rigorous research to see what works,
  and when that fails we conduct some peer review
  to utilize the best available methods.

To Sir With Love (Columbia Pictures 1966) 3040
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Strategies7 Principles of Undergraduate Education
Ta Dah!!

• Encourage student-faculty contact
• Encourage cooperation among students
• Encourage active learning
• Give prompt feedback
• Emphasize time on task
• Communicate high expectations and
• Respect diverse talents and ways of learning.

Chickering, A. and Z. Gamson. Seven Principles
for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.'
American Association for Higher Education,
1986. http//honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committe
es/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm http//
www.byu.edu/fc/pages/tchlrnpages/7princip.html
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Enhancing the Undergraduate Experience Task
Force Recommendations

• Enhance the first year experience assist
  students in making a strong academic and social
  transition, and in creating appropriate
  expectations about their undergraduate education
• Promote the improvement of and rewards for
  successful college teaching
• Articulate, target and expand opportunities for
  undergraduate students to develop cultural
  competencies.
• Promote and integrate more active and applied
  learning in undergraduate education
• Modify the undergraduate curriculum and related
  policies so that our goals for undergraduate
  liberal learning are met
• Enhance the physical environment in ways that
  support learning for the students, faculty and
  staff at MSU
• Continue the review of graduate programs and
  graduate teaching and the mentoring of graduate
  students.

http//strategicpositioning.msu.edu/documents/BbDI
mperative1_002.pdf
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Learning Instructor Students
Instructor
effective
Student Learning Outcomes
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The Learners
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The Outlook Pop Culture View of College Student
Experience

• I went to see the doctor of philosophy
• With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his
  knee
• He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
• He graded my performance, he said he could see
  through me
• I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind,
  got my paper
• And I was free.
• -Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls
• http//www.indigogirls.com/lyrics/byalbum/indigo.h
  tml

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Intellectual development position
1st year undergraduate (Dualism/ Received Knower/ Pre-reflective) right or wrong answers and seeking ultimate truth from a limited set of authority figures
4th year undergraduate (Multiplicity/ Subjective knower) accept the possibility of having several correct answers and that various sources of possibly valid knowledge exist other than an expert authority figure
Graduate (Relativism/ Procedural knower/ Quasi-Reflective Reasoning) recognition that uncertainty is a part of the knowing process, the ability to see knowledge as an abstraction, and the recognition that knowledge is constructed. Aware that different approaches or perspectives on controversial issues rely on different types of evidence and different rules of evidence, and that factors like these contribute to different ways of framing issues.
Professional Development Program (Contextual/ Constructed knower/Reflective Reasoning) some answers fit various situations as appropriate, that some questions may not have certain answers and that asking questions may provide a basis for further understanding
Lee Knefelkamp. Models of Intellectual and
Identity Development http//www.greaterexpectation
s.org/briefing_papers/ModelsIntellectualIdentity.h
tml
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Learning StylesMultiple Intelligences

• Intrapersonal self smart
• Interpersonal people smart
• Visual image smart
• Musical sound smart
• Logical-mathematical logic smart
• Bodily-kinesthetic body smart
• Naturalistic nature smart
• Verbal linguistic word smart
• David Lazear. Eight Ways of Knowing Exploring
  Multiple Intelligences
• http//www.davidlazear.com/Multi-Intell/MI_chart.h
  tml

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Bailey Scholars Program

• Connected learning
• Individual, community, personal, professional,
  intellectual, social, emotional, physical, human,
  spiritual, and natural worlds

www.bsp.msu.edu
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• Once the latest teaching techniques are pulled
  from the literature they are quickly and
  enthusiastically implemented systematically.

To Sir With Love (Columbia Pictures 1966) 4135
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Learning Instructor Students
Student-centered - ASA
?
?
Intellectual development William Perry
Instructor
effective
?
Multiple intelligences Howard Gardner
?
7 Principles - Chickering and Gamson
Student Learning Outcomes
Boldness by Design
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So What!?

• How did the Lilly year impact Geoffs teaching
  and learning experiences?

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Plugging into Millennial Learners

• Geoffrey Habrons Lilly Learning

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• Oblinger, D. 2003. Boomers, Gen-Xers,
  Millennials Understanding the new students.
  Educause July/August37-47

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Use of Digital Audio on ANGEL

• FW100 Audio Only Introduction
• (You can listen to these files as well as
  download them to an MP3 player)
• Welcome from Dr. Habron
• Oh the Places You'll Go
• Course Outcomes
• Portfolio assignment
• Spartan Safari
• Cover Letter and Resume
• Field Project Part 1
• Field Project Part 2
• Final Exam

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Online Greeting for Introduction to Fisheries and
Wildlife
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Policy, Schmolicy

• Whats the role of public policy?
• Heres a current take on public policy across the
  globe and how people react
• Youth Hostile The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
  (Comedy Central) http//www.comedycentral.com/show
  s/the_daily_show/videos/headlines/index.jhtml

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Other Consequences

• ISS 310 guest presentation in Lilly Fellow John
  Norders class
• SOC undergraduate retreat and quality learning
  presentation May, 2006
• FIPSE grant submission July 10, 2006
• NSF grant submission August 18, 2006
• SOC 490 section 1, fall 2006
• ANR 311 spring 2007
• ISS 310 summer 2007
• FW GSO seminar, September 15, 2006!!

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Deciding to Learn, Learning to Decide The
pedagogy of risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking

• Our project aims to rigorously research the
  ability to improve knowledge, skills,
  understanding and application of risk,
  uncertainty and decisionmaking. The project will
  
• 1) assess the effect of intellectual development
  levels on the ability to understand and apply
  principles of risk, uncertainty and
  decisionmaking and
• 2) develop and assess various pedagogies and
  professional development strategies to better
  prepare those interested in teaching others about
  risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking.
• One hypothesis suggests that those with more
  developed intellectual positions can better grasp
  concepts of risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking.
  
• A second hypothesis proposes that certain
  pedagogies better facilitate learning about risk,
  uncertainty and decisionmaking.

Decision, Risk and Management Sciences Program of
the National Science Foundation
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Natural Resource Management Context

• Addressing issues such as endangered species
  recovery (Pacific salmon, Tear et al. 2005),
  energy extraction (Arctic National Wildlife
  Reserve, Flanders et al. 1998 Teel et al. 2006),
  nuclear waste disposal (Yucca Mountain, Brown
  2005 ), and global climate change (Hurricane
  Katrina resettlement, Tompkins and Adger 2004
  OBrien et al 2006) requires making decisions
  from a variety of plausible alternatives with
  uncertain risks.
• Such a risk society (Giddens 1990 Beck, 1992
  Fear et al 2006) requires more diverse approaches
  to science incorporating more civic and lay input
  and participation.
• Decisionmaking approaches such as adaptive
  management are increasingly seen as crucial. Such
  decisionmaking requires, a variety of tools to
  share and communicate understanding of resource
  issues, to expose key uncertainties, embrace
  alternatives, develop resource policy and use
  their consequences to modify and adapt policies
  and actions further (Gunderson et al. 1995490).

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The Hitch

• Humans inherently seem to seek certainty in
  life. For example, we are trained in school from
  an early age that there are right and wrong
  answers on tests. We memorize established facts
  and relate them back when asked, and if we do
  that well enough, we progress through the
  educational systemand we are angry when these
  diagnoses and prognostications are not borne out
  the rained-out picnic can result in some choice
  words for the weather forecaster! We become
  confused when there seems to be more than one
  right answer, or no right answer (Meffe et al
  200279)

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The Need

• Efforts to improve environmental decisionmaking
  remain futile if participants harbor intellectual
  positions that view science in a dualism of
  simply right or wrong or yes or no.
• In order to engage in the analytic-deliberative
  group processes to improve decisionmaking (Renn
  et al. 1995 Webler et al. 2002 Brewer and Stern
  2005), participants must possess the intellectual
  and cognitive ability to value the opinions of
  others and weigh evidence. Such ability is found
  more often among those holding relativist or
  contextualist intellectual positions.
• As such, understanding and addressing the
  intellectual positions of participants involved
  in considering decisions should aid in improving
  the time, effort and legitimacy given to a broad
  range of deliberative processes such as those
  emerging in the literature (National Research
  Council 1996 EPA 2001 Brewer and Stern 2005).

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An Integrated Approach?

• Therefore there is a need to both understand the
  cognitive and intellectual positions of those
  engaging in decisions within a context of risk
  and uncertainty, as well as understand how to
  provide strategies to teach the skills necessary
  to engage in decisionmaking. After all, though
  adaptive management emphasizes the value of
  learning from failure, it requires individuals
  with a high tolerance for risk to carry it out
  (Lee 1995230) because social learning requires
  the integration of idealistic science and
  pragmatic politics (Lee 1995230).

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• And of course the halls and offices are full of
  conversations among fellow peers about the
  success and strategies occurring in classrooms
  right?

To Sir With Love (Columbia Pictures 1966) 4622
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Shifting Teaching from Private to Collective
Endeavor
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Connected Learning for Environmental and Social
Sustainability

• Michigan State University seeks to develop a
  holistic approach to sustainability that
  establishes a campus-community-state-international
  community of practice network that will impact
• a) undergraduate and graduate students through
  development of a trans-curricular sustainability
  specialization
• b) the operations of Michigan State University
  and the 10 affiliated institutions in the
  Michigan Higher Education Partnership for
  Sustainability (MiHEPS)
• c) on the ground community engagement in our
  region, and
• d) academia in general through professional
  development of faculty, graduate students,
  teachers, and operations staff within the MiHEPS
  network.
• Outputs will include identification of key
  sustainability concepts and ways of learning and
  applying those concepts across institutions and
  scales (academics, operations, community, and
  personal).

Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary
Education (FIPSE)
44
(No Transcript)
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Bailey Scholars Program

• The Bailey Scholars Program seeks to be a
  community of scholars dedicated to lifelong
  learning. All members of the community work
  toward providing a respectful trusting
  environment where we acknowledge our
  interdependence and encourage personal growth.
• Connected learning
• faculty, staff, graduate students and
  undergraduates
• Individual, community, personal, professional,
  intellectual, social, emotional, physical, human,
  spiritual, and natural worlds

www.bsp.msu.edu
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Resource

• MSU Office of Faculty and Organizational
  Development (grad students too!)
• Deb DeZure, Director
• Patty Payette, Coordinator
• Lilly Teaching Seminars
• Meet Michigan
• Mid-term class assessments
• http//www1.provost.msu.edu/facdev/index.asp

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Lilly Teaching Seminars Fall 2006

• Issues in Evaluating Teaching A Comprehensive
  Perspective
• Using Demonstrations to Promote Conceptual
  Understanding in Chemistry Making Connections on
  the Macroscopic, Microscopic, and Symbolic Levels
  
• Making Classroom Lectures Interactive and
  Effective Engaging Students in Course Content
  through Interactive Lecturing  
• Getting Beyond Covering Content in your Courses
  Introduction to the Readiness Assurance Process
  and Team-Based Learning
• Designing, Managing and Grading Effective Group
  Assignments
• Designing Games and Simulations for Learning
• Teaching for Successful Intelligence Teaching
  and Assessing Students with Diverse Learning and
  Thinking Styles