Many students today are over-whelmed with the language, syntax, and density of college texts.  They are confused by primary sources and find academic discourse unfamiliar (it’s very different from their text messages!).  Some students highlight everything they read, unable to discern important information from supporting details.

There are many reasons for these reading difficulties and faculty members can help students to overcome some of these barriers by trying a few of these suggestions:

Explain to students how your own reading process varies with your purpose for reading. When do you skim?  When do you read for gist, not details?  When do you read carefully and slow down your pace?  When do you make margin notes?  When do you read a research article and skip to the discussion section?  How much are you influenced by the reputation of the author?

Show your students your own note-taking and responding process when you read. We all like models.  Explaining what you do as mentioned above is good; but this idea takes it one step further.  Bring in a book or article of your own that has your marginal notes, highlighting, paper notes, etc.  Use those documents to explain what you do.  Many students believe that good readers just “get it” without any effort.  Show them your strategies for comprehending.

Help students get the dictionary habit. Unfamiliar words in a text hamper comprehension.  While reading, a student can make small ticks in the margins next to words they are unsure of and look them up later.  Once they have the definitions,  they can go back and review that section of the text.  However, in this technology age, instant gratification is the norm.  E-readers make this function easy; you just highlight the word and it goes to the dictionary.  Many students have smart phones and can “google” a word immediately.  There’s still a place for a good old-fashioned paper dictionary in the mix also!  The point is to get students to use these tools.  Just skipping over unknown words is not in the students’ best interest.

Devise an interest-arousing pretest. Create an interesting non-graded pretest over the upcoming reading.  Sometimes these can be in the format of an “anticipation guide”.  The purpose is to expose students to the content before they begin reading and to become aware of their own gaps in knowledge.  If the pretest or anticipation guide spark interest, you will have planted a seed of curiosity about the topic.

Help students to see that all texts are trying to change their view or attitudes about something. Students tend to believe that almost everything written in a text is fact rather than an attempt to change thinking.  If students understand this concept, they become more engaged with the reading and begin to “interrogate” the text to decide what to accept and what to doubt.  Free write responses to the following questions will help students to appreciate this role of text:

1. Before I read this text, the author assumed that I believed _____________.

2.After I read this text, the author wanted me to believe ________________.

3.The author was (was not) able to change my view.  How?  Why or why not?

(questions based upon those listed in Engaging Ideas by John Bean)

Source:  Bean, J. (1996). Engaging Ideas:  The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass Publishers.

FGCU Library Collection:  PE 1404.B35  1996

Adapted from an article by Patty Kohler-Evans, www.FacultyFocus.com

A creative way to get students to introduce themselves to each other is to create a T-shirt that represents who they are.  Provide each student with a pre-drawn T-shirt pattern on a sheet of paper.  Students use magazine pictures, markers, crayons, etc. to design the shirt. The instructor should provide these items also.  Post the directions in the classroom for the activity and allow students to start as soon as they arrive.

As the students design their T-shirts, they tend to talk to each other about themselves.  It is recommended that the instructor make a T-shirt also to show that he/she values the activity.  Patty Kohler-Evans reports that students enjoy the activity and work very hard to include multiple aspects about themselves in the collage.  Students share their T-shirts with the class and Patty found that students listen attentively when it’s time to share.  Even at the end of the semester, her students still remembered information about their classmates.

If anyone tries this activity and makes a T-shirt, let me know.  I’d like to see them!

You may also be interested in Teaching Tip #6:  The First Day of Class.

This “Periodic Table of Visualization Methods” seems like a great way to promote exploration of visuals in teaching and presenting.  Doing a “mouse-over” on any of the “elements” will generate a pop-up example of that visualization concept.

Here’s the link:
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

No matter the size of the class, some students are ready to participate in a discussion and others try to blend into the background.  Here is an idea that can work in any size of class to promote rich class discussions and more participation:  Think/Pair/Square/Share.

Think:  The instructor poses a question or problem and tells the students to take a few minutes to write a response on paper.

Pair:  Ask the students to share their thoughts or solution with someone nearby…suggest they turn to the person on their right, or left, or in front of, or behind them.

Square:  After a few minutes of sharing, each “pair” joins another pair sitting nearby and discusses their ideas or solution.

Share:  Bring the class back together and ask 1 – 2 of the “square” groups to share their thoughts/solutions and defend their position.

In large classes this technique could create dozens of small discussion groups before the topic is covered whole group.  The advantage is that all students begin with their ideas and move to group ideas.  Everyone participates.

For more information on this technique, see What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain, p. 130.

Faculty and students can be overwhelmed by the information overload available in our respective disciplines.  To help us sift through all of the information, our talented research librarians at FGCU have developed Research Guides in 69 different areas.  In these guides you will find suggested databases for research, new additions to the library collections related to the academic area covered in that guide, and some opportunities to post comments.  The librarians maintain and update these guides on a regular basis; so consider adding a link to the guides for your students in Angel.  The research librarians will meet with your class to help your students use relevant research guides in their coursework and assignments. 

“Our research guides provide suggested reference sources, specialized databases and websites for each subject compiled by your friendly librarians. Know what we know – find it in the FGCU LibGuides! “ 

-LibGuides webpage

The guides can be accessed through a link on the library home page:  http://library.fgcu.edu or directly at http://fgcu.libguides.com/

Some of these ideas may be common knowledge for our “seasoned” faculty members, some things you may have forgotten about, and others may be new to you or spark an idea to modify something you currently do.

By Mary C. Clement, Berry College, GA
As published in The Teaching Professor, Volume 21, Number 7, August/September 2007

Before the semester ends, survey your students on how much time they spend on your class each week outside of class time.  It could be a real eye opener for you!

Most professors expect students to spend 2-3 hours of work outside of class for every hour of class to complete readings and assignments. A student enrolled in a 3 credit-hour course should spend 3 hours in class and 6 – 9 hours outside of class each week. For students taking a load of 15 credits, that equates to 30 – 45 hours of course work outside of class time per week.  During summer school, the whole process is compacted into 6 – 10 weeks of instruction so even more time needs to be devoted to course work.  However, a study conducted by the National Survey of Student Engagement in 2007, indicated that full-time students reported spending about 13 – 14 hours per week (for a 15-hour load) rather than the recommended 30 – 45 hours due to family obligations and work schedules.

You may want to share this information with your students and discuss with them time expectations on the first day of class.  You can inform them that a study by Stinebrickner & Stinebrickner in 2007 revealed that studying an extra hour per week is estimated to have the same effect on achievement as a 5-point increase in ACT scores.  Students need realistic estimates of how much time is appropriate for them to spend on assignments, readings, research, projects, and study groups.

Source:  Davis, B.  (2009).  Tools for Teaching (2nd. ed.).  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass.

Citations: 

National Survey of Student Engagement.  Experiences That Matter:  Enhancing Student Learning and Success.  Bloomington, IN:  Center for Postsecondary Research, 2007.

Stinebrickner, T. & Stinebrickner, R.  “The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic Performance.”  Working Paper W13341.  Cambridge, MA:  National Bureau of Economic Research, Aug. 2007.

Seasoned faculty members recommend that online discussion groups contain 4 – 12 students and routinely aim for 5 or 6 members. Once those small groups are set up, it’s another issue monitoring each one, especially in large sections. One helpful feature in ANGEL will allow you as the instructor to view each team discussion, grade it, or comment back to that group only in the Team Journal mode. Below are directions for accessing this feature.

Go to the Discussion Forum –> Click on “Settings” –> go to “Content” Tab –> Scroll down to “Discussion Forum Settings” and if you look at MODE, from the drop down menu you have 3 choices, Normal, User Journal, and Team Journal.

Normal: Everyone can see
User Journal: Only between the student and Instructor
Team Journal: Only between the Team and Instructor

With the start of the semester looming just a few days from now, the attached document may be helpful as you polish up course objectives.  This document was shared with me by Francine Glazer, Ph.D., Assistant Provost and Director, Center for Teaching and Learning New York Institute of Technology.

Link to Bloom’s Taxonomy File:

 http://bit.ly/5A7xyW

Dr. Glazer’s document puts Bloom’s Taxonomy into college level terms with task prompts and what she calls “digital tools”.  If anyone is interested in joining a group discussion on using the taxonomy in course development and assessment, please contact me and I will organize a session.

Have a wonderful semester!

Dr. Linda Ray

How we end a course speaks volumes about the impact our teaching will have on our students.  Take some time to provide closure for you and your students.  During the last class meeting, have a discussion about “lessons learned”.  Put students in small groups and ask each group to reflect upon the content covered in the course and be prepared to share with the class 1 – 2 significant ideas generated by their group.  Have each group share the ideas generated, chart the responses, and then post the list to ANGEL for students to access.  As the instructor, you’ll be able to see which ideas strongly resonated with the students over the semester.

Dr. Linda Ray