Getting Started: Communicating with Students Julanna Gilbert Director, Center for Teaching & Learning Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Communicating with Students Part I: Just because you explain it doesn’t mean they get it! – the disconnect between faculty & students Part II: Midnight musings ** and the power of the syllabus **Why aren’t they doing the reading? Why did they do so poorly on the mid-term? How can I get them to participate in class discussions?

Faculty members are knowledge experts in their fields Experts have well-developed ability to process knowledge about their own discipline Experts are not necessarily able to teach others about their disciplines Experts need to learn how to teach in their disciplines (“pedagogical content knowledge”) to be effective teachers From Shulman, L., “Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform”, Harvard Educational Review 57:1-22, 1987.

Knowledge processing National Research Council, “ How people learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School”, eighth printing, Experts Significant knowledge of field, new information easy to retain/interpret See patterns of information & organize knowledge to support understanding Have “conditionalized” knowledge  Can easily retrieve & use relevant information Novices Little knowledge of field – new information hard to retain/interpret, may have preconceived ideas that are wrong See surface characteristics, organize information sequentially to support recall, hang onto their preconceived ideas Have difficulty considering conditions  Struggle to retrieve & use relevant information – fall back on preconceived ideas!

Implications for communication between faculty & students The structure of a discipline is at least as important as the “facts”  Make your own thinking visible to students  Find out how the students are thinking  Emphasize relationships that support recall and help to build structure Identify preconceived ideas that are wrong  Find out what the students are thinking  Provide opportunities to explore and explain common misconceptions Explore conditional understanding  Describe contrasting situations to students, and apply the concept to one  Listen to the students as they apply concepts to the other situations Tackle these issues in the classroom with student-student & student-faculty communication.

Communicating with Students Part I: Just because you explain it doesn’t mean they get it! – the disconnect between faculty & students Part II: Midnight musings and the power of the syllabus

The importance of the syllabus (course outline) (from Michael J. V. Woolcock The quality of the course outline usually aligns with the quality of the teaching & learning Many teachers attribute success & failure of their teaching to individual student behaviors not to the structure of the course itself The syllabus is part of a four-way agreement between instructor, students, the department and the university. A good syllabus has a HUGE role in facilitating student learning

Syllabus development mirrors course development A simple approach to course development Determine course content and organization, and overall learning objectives Organize course into sections and determine learning objectives for each section Outline content in each section and determine content learning objectives and how students will accomplish the objectives

Learning Objectives and Bloom’s Taxonomy (see handout for more complete info.) Cognitive Level KNOWLEDGE COMPREHENSION APPLICATION ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS EVALUATION Learning Objectives Learn ideas facts, repeat them in similar form. Communicate knowledge, interpret earlier learning. Use learned knowledge, rules in new situations. Take apart an idea into its parts, perceive relationship. Use ideas in new patterns and relationships. Make judgments based on chosen criteria or standards. Increasing cognitive level Starter Verbs match, list, write, recite explain, reword, reorganize, translate, restate, outline apply, solve, make use of, use, try, demonstrate sort, discover, separate, identify parts, compare create, develop, produce, compose, invent, design evaluate, decide, rate, rank, recommend, grade, judge

How will students accomplish the learning objectives? Each learning objective needs an accompanying learning activity Chemistry Objective: Students will describe the relationship between electron configurations, the periodic table, and chemical reactivity, & apply the relationship to any group on the periodic table. Activity: Individual work: Read pages , work problems Team work: Each team will be assigned a group of elements and prepare a presentation on how the chemistry of the group is related to their electron configurations

A few words about assessment (from Michael J. V. Woolcock Course objectives shape student assessment procedures Assess early and often Weighting reflects importance that was made clear in the course objectives Variety in work assessed (audio, visual and kinesthetic learners) Firm deadlines Clear submission procedures

The syllabus document o Organization scheme o see page 10 in Woolcock o Syllabi from DU faculty members o Professor Lisa Conant (Political Science) o Professor Ruth Jebe (Business) o Professor Catherine Reed (Psychology) o In addition o Academic integrity (The DU Honor Code o Students with disabilities (see the handout “Students with Disabilities – Sample Syllabus Statement)

Assignment: Developing course objectives, course organization, learning activities Meet with your group for 45 minutes Introduce yourselves to each other Each person will describe (10 minutes) Course learning objectives Basic topic organization scheme Learning objective for one section of the course Learning activities associated with the objective Feedback from group for each person (5 minutes)