Teaching Techniques

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Seminar XIII
Making it Work at Your Institution A Recipe for
Success
Stu BernsteinUniversity of Nebraska Audra
MorseTexas Tech University Whitney LuteyMontana
State University
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Activity

• List one ExCEEd element you plan to implement and
  explain why
• List one ExCEEd element you do not plan to
  implement and why
• You have 2 minutes!

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Recipes of Success

• We want to present how we made the ExCEEd
  elements work
• Call this the ingredients
• Collectively, the ingredients make up the Recipe
  of Success

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The Chef Whitney

• Assistant Professor
• Montana State University
• 32 full-time faculty members and numerous
  adjunct 5 new hires in last 3 years
• About 575 undergraduate students and 35 graduate
  students
• Class size for required junior level courses
  range from 25 to 85 students

• Duties
• 12 units of teaching per year
• Service
• Student advisor 30 students, internship advisor,
  student chapter advisor, etc.
• ExCEEd Graduate 2007(Beautiful Flagstaff, Arizona)

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Lessons From ExCEEd

• Get to know students
• Teach to variety of learning styles
• Be prepared and organized
• Be fair
• Have fun

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Know the students
• First major assignment is their resume gain an
  understanding of their background
• Allows the student to fine tune their resume
  particular to finding a summer internship or
  future employment primarily for the job fair
  early that semester
• Allows you to gather input from the class
  experts during or prior to class lessons

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Preparation - converted 70 of lessons to board
  notes
• Retained pictures, processes, specification
  breakdowns, etc. in PowerPoint ideal for use as a
  follow-up tutorial available in the class file
• All example problems converted to board notes
• Some example problems broken into parts on
  post-it-note sheets which worked well for review

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Assessment of teaching/learning in-class and
  mid-term
• Numerous thumbs up/down questions to determine if
  we were all on the same page in class
• Mid-term anonymous survey
• suggestions for improvement
• Focused on two areas
• one good element that was working and
• one element that was not working in class

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Restaurant Reviews Personal Success!
Student open-response review comments Learning
objectives help outline the objectives for the
day. Organized course material well with
learning objectives. Ive never seen an
instructor give a mid-semester evaluation and
make substantive changes based on it. Im
impressed.
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Tools of the Trade

• Sports analogies work well
• The whiffle ball bat and ball work as a good
  instrument for illustrating proper follow
  through.
• When the subject of safety comes up, I break out
  the gear and put it on in class.
• Created the Construction Family Feud as a
  review tool.

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Tools of the Trade

• Know your gear That fantastic website worked
  into your PowerPoint may not work if your smart
  podium does not have media Flash player or the
  perfect video clip may have to be purchased and
  readily synced for playing to the entire class
  (make sure the speakers work)
• Always have a low-tech back-up plan

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Tools of the Trade

• Tote it all on wheels
• The massive rolling briefcase did make it
  through the snow

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The Chef Stu (Not Stew)

• Duties
• Teach 6 classes per year
• Service
• Service Learning Projects
• Student Organization Advisor
• ASC Competition Coordinator
• Chancellors Committee on Service Learning
• Faculty Senate
• Superintendents Committee on Technical Education

• Newly Crowned Associate Professor
• Last COE Professor to be tenured on a teaching
  portfolio
• I owe it in great part to ExCEEd

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Stus ExCEEd Experience

• ExCEEd Graduate 2006 (Arkansas)
• ExCEEd Assistant Mentor 2007 (Arizona)

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Lessons From ExCEEd
One needs to know something about the learner to
teach them. ---Plat-o-Potatoes

• Get to know your students
• Teach to a variety of learning styles
• Be prepared and organized yet flexible
• Have fun

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Preparation - convert 80 of PowerPoint
  presentations to board notes
• Retain one pinch of PowerPoint
• Stir up more attention and engagement
• Enhances organizational flavor
• Writing on board enhances learning
• Prepares me for class from year to year

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Verify all ingredients before mixing it up
• Take pictures at beginning of semester
• Have students use trifold name cards
• Call on each of them every day
• Ask them their names when outside the classroom

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Put the assistant chefs in charge of the kitchen
  experiential exercises
• Conducted once each week
• Exercises are prepared by students
• Reinforces information discussed in previous
  class
• Reinforces communication, preparation, and
  organization skills

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Implementation being there for the students
• My office door is philosophically always open
• The students know I am available to discuss
  school work, job problems, and personal issues
• Contributes to establishing interpersonal
  rapport (time investment worth every minute of it)

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Implementation keep moving, questioning, having
  fun, and smiling
• Keep the interchange with students light and
  comical (stir with caution!!!)
• Establish classroom ground rules on first day
• No eating in the kitchen
• Students and teacher are required to sing or
  recite poetry for rule infractions

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Implementation classroom discussions
• Present question and call on student to respond
• If they cant answer, they can ask for assistance
  or I call on another student
• Occasionally have students explain their answers
• Encourage students to disagree with given answers
• Contributes to reading of text and active learning

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Assessment of teaching/learning
• Expectation paper at beginning of semester
• Fulfillment of objectives and further
  expectations at midterm
• Student assessment paper at end of semester

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The Chef Audra

• Associate Professor (almost)
• Texas Tech University
• Approximately 500 Undergraduate Students
• Approximately 150 Graduate Students

• Teach 22 each year (sometimes more, sometimes
  less)
• Mixture of UG and Grad classes
• UG Class 40-60 students
• G Class 10-20 students

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The Chef Audra

• Duties
• Teach
• Research
• Advising
• ASCE Advisor
• ABET!!!!

• ExCEEd Graduate 2004 (Fayetteville)
• Assistant Mentor 2006, 2007, 2008

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Objectives
• Must use!
• Practice making sure the action verbs are
• Appropriate for what you are asking
• Cover all taxonomies
• Varieddont use the same ones!
• Keeps lectures organized!

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Objectives
• Post them using an overhead because of a room
  with a poor layout
• Great review
• Clearly stated so the test questions are clear

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Laugh at yourself and they will laugh with you!
• They know I cant spell
• I like to incorporate the Shel Silverstein poem
  Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The
  Garbage Out into the solid waste lecture
• Come up with a few catchy sayings to make things
  memorable
• Humor, as stressed, is a great communication tool

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Bring in current events
• Possible for every discipline of civil
  engineering
• Assign articles from ASCE Magazine or other trade
  journals
• Newspaper current events show that you are
  up-to-date with your trade
• Discuss your research

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Ask questions
• Be sure to ask the question then the name
• Be sure questions are clear
• Great for bringing people back to the fold
• Encourages them to pay attention
• Provides opportunities to reward the students

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Reward the Students
• Worked at ExCEEd
• Works in the classroom too
• Reward participation
• Smarties
• Loved by all age groups
• Hand out trophies for top 3 test grades

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Mid-semester performance review
• What works well in this class? What do you like?
  What helps you learn?
• What does not work well? What do you not like?
  What does not help you learn?
• What suggestions or recommendations do you have?
• Allows changes to be made before final review
• Encourage students to participate by providing
  bonus homework points

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Restaurant ReviewsPersonal Success!

• Improved teaching evaluations
• Feeling of competence in the classroom
• Recognized by my peers and students
• University and national teaching awards
• Finalist of the Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Teacher
  of the Year (2005-2006)
• Recruiting top-notch undergraduates for graduate
  school
• Respect from my peers

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Restaurant ReviewsPersonal Success!

• Relaxed and confident
• Some days it is hard to be at the top of your
  game but I know I have the mechanics!
• More fun

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Fusion Cuisine(results of the activity)

• What are you going to implement this semester?
• What arent you going to implement?

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to get started?
• Start with objectives and board notes
• Easy to do, low risk - high reward
• Incorporate a new ExCEEd element each time you
  teach the coursedont try to change everything
  over night!
• How to maintain energy?
• Have fun (music, candy, etc.).
• Build rapport with students get their ideas and
  feedback to tell you what works and what else to
  try.
• Tie teaching to other interests (research,
  service, volunteer activities)

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to survive the heartbreak of failure
• Need thick skin and short memory
• Consider partnering with a colleague on your
  efforts - spread the pain
• How to be efficient
• Stick to your schedule but take breaks

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to convince administrators (Chair, Dean,
  etc.) to value effective teaching
• Student enthusiasm high teacher ratings
• Awards and recognition
• Better learning (good for alumni, employers,
  accreditation)
• Make a broader impact
• Higher efficiency, means more time for research
  or other activities

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to get your colleagues involved
• Start with one willing partner
• Success attracts more partners
• Encourage colleagues to attend ExCEEd
• Build rapport with colleagues

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Bon Appetit!