Sasha Thackaberry's List: Higher Education Curriculum

• studies show that discussions build students’ problem-solving skills more effectively than do lectures. However, fostering productive discussions can be difficult for even the most experienced instructors.
• controversy can be a useful, powerful, and memorable tool to promote learning

• By reading gender and race studies, as well as composition, education, and postmodern theories about the "problem" of silence, I gained a greater understanding of the kinds of classrooms we want to create, and what can go wrong. But it wasn't enough: I still wanted to know why students sometimes speak in class and why, sometimes, they don't.
• I discovered that students understand classroom discussion and silence quite differently than their instructors generally do.
• Instead, in the hundreds of pages of reflections and 15 interviews, students explored their active choices to speak or to be quiet—choices that involve careful analysis of the professor, their classmates, and themselves.
• he overwhelming majority of the students in my study understand speaking in class to be a high-stakes testing situation in which they are expected to provide a right answer. The more pressure a professor creates through grading class participation, the more complicated it becomes for students to speak. By observing an instructor—how she interacts with the class, the kinds of questions she asks, and how she responds to their voices—they determine whether they are expected, in general, to reflect, speculate, and hypothesize aloud or to perform on an oral quiz.
• They understand that their classmates' opinions of them will be affected, if not formed, by the opinions they offer in class.

  • This "in-class" pressure can actually speak to advantages of asynchronous discussions in the online environment, where that level of self-conscious interaction can be taken out of the equation.
• Quiet students understand them in a visceral way and know that they are always being evaluated by their peers and their instructor, even in a student-centered classroom.
• Student silence isn't necessarily a problem. Some students choose silence because it best fits their learning style, culture, or history. Much contemporary pedagogy lauds the calls for "student voice" as empowering. But students who are, for example, visual learners, or whose home cultures have taught them to value speaking and silence differently than the contemporary culture of American higher education does, often benefit from the inclusion of silence in the curriculum. Recognizing that silence can be an active, generative space, those students agree with a small group of theorists who argue that silence can invite meditation, contemplation, and engagement. In other words, silence—along with dialogue—fosters learning.

  • This kind of corresponds with the concept of "wait time" - a K-12 teaching strategy, that silence can provide an opportunity for students to reflect, formulate responses, and do a deeper dive into the content.
• But I have stopped automatically assuming that the silences in my classroom necessarily indicate failure.
• I work harder to communicate with my students about my expectations and theirs, particularly since for many students, my student-centered, dialogical classroom is the exception, not the rule, and the kinds of discussions—and silences—I invite may challenge what they think a classroom should look like.
• First, it is important to distinguish between learning—the real goal of the classroom—and speaking, which is but one means of achieving that goal.
• I've become more explicit about my expectations and objectives. When I expect students to know the right answer, I make that clear. When my goal is the creation of knowledge, I strive to make that distinction clear as well,
• ltering the dynamics of discussions also creates additional opportunities for students to participate. Small groups, student-led discussions, and online discussion boards are a few strategies to invite more students' voices.

10 more annotations...

• Consider your goals for each discussion. How do the ideas and information to be discussed fit into the course as a whole?
• • This would also be important from an efficient instructional design perspective.  You would need to align the course objectives with the specific discussion questions, and how they are crafted, (ie. what level of Bloom's Taxonomy, etc.)
• When you can clearly envision the purpose of the discussion,
• • Goes back to instructional design as well - alignment of assessment with objectives. 
• • Exploratory questions: probe facts and basic knowledge
  • Challenge questions: interrogate assumptions, conclusions or interpretations
  • Relational questions: ask for comparisons of themes, ideas, or issues
  • Diagnostic questions: probe motives or causes
  • Action questions: call for a conclusion or action
  • Cause-and-effect questions: ask for causal relationships between ideas, actions, or events
  • Extension questions: expand the discussion
  • Hypothetical questions: pose a change in the facts or issues
  • Priority questions: seek to identify the most important issue(s)
  • Summary questions: elicit synthesis
• These question types can be mapped onto Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives, which shows increasing levels of cognitive complexity as students move from fairly simple tasks (such as recall of information) to more complex tasks (such as synthesis, evaluation, or creation.)
• Starting with convergent questions helps discussion participants to establish a base of shared knowledge and builds student confidence;
• Provide Direction and Maintain Focus
• It is important to leave time at the end of the discussion to synthesize the central issues covered, key questions raised, etc.
• Synthesizing the discussion is a critical step for linking the discussion to the original learning objectives and demonstrating progress towards meeting those objectives.

  • Again - this goes back to instructional design.
• Demonstrate Relevance
• • When placing online learning in context, my watchwords are always "specific and explicit"
• Require students to prepare for discussion. Discussions often break down because students simply haven’t done the reading or work upon which the discussion is based.
• Model exemplary discussion behavior.
• • Also known as "netiquette"
• Assign pair and small-group work.
• using a rubric for discussion that makes your expectations and grading criteria clear.
• • I like this idea of a collection of participation in class discussions becoming part of a portfolio.
• • "Physical factors" in an online or hybrid/blended environment could refer to the architecture of the online course, the navigation, the way the groups are set up, etc.
• Brookfield and Preskill suggest that students “keep a weekly audit of their participation in class discussions and then summarize and analyze their entries in an end-of-semester learning portfolio”
• Physical Factors

19 more annotations...

• Like all organizations, colleges and universities respond to the demands placed upon them. Students' and institutions' low expectations for the use of technology for learning provide insufficient impetus for faculties to change their behavior and make broader, more innovative use of these tools in the service of learning.
• In short, students are expected to draw on various knowledge bases, integrate them, conduct increasingly more sophisticated analyses as they progress through college, and use their integrated knowledge to solve complex problems.

• What is the current role of technology in the college curriculum? To develop intentional learners, the curriculum must go beyond helping students gain knowledge for knowledge's sake to engaging students in the construction of knowledge for the sake of addressing the challenges faced by a complex, global society.
• As we increase the use of multiple technologies in the service of learning, we will need to assess its impact. Students tend to be more technology savvy than faculty. Faculty are still much more knowledgeable about the subject matter at the heart of what students should learn.
• In light of this, higher education will need to assess the elements of technology that work best to facilitate students' learning—not just generically but under specific circumstances
• The Greater Expectations report calls for a focus on developing intentional learners; it also calls for developing intentional institutions
• With calls for greater accountability for increased spending and for assessment of student learning, we can ask for no less than the effective and coherent integration of technology into an enriched curriculum that meets both student and societal expectations.

5 more annotations...

• Decision making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
• There’s a lot of money to be had in the transition of education so don’t be surprised if this happens no matter what the future holds for MOOCs.