The Immutability of Best Practice

1
The Immutability of Best Practice

• Robb Sinn
• North Georgia College State University
• 17th International Conference on College Teaching
  and Learning

2
Conference Question

• Best Practices, Personal Intuition, or Scientific
  Research--How Can Learning Be Most Enhanced?
• My answer?
• Yes we need all three!!
• Best Practice Frameworks
• ADCC

3
Session Objectives

• Lets learn together
• Me
• Present my ADCC framework
• Examples of innovation
• Provide suggestions
• Assessment tips, rubrics
• How to encourage better communication from
  students (writing/presenting)
• You
• Discuss your innovations
• Provide suggestions (assessments, writing, etc.)

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Best Practice Frameworks

• Teachers
• Leaders of learners
• Framework for learning activities
• Grounded in the science of learning theory
• Core strategies identified based on
• Instructors capabilities and subject
• The individual course and students
• Personal best-practice statements
• Do you have one?

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Robbs Framework

• Learning is an action
• Umbrella idea for entire framework
• Learning activities should focus on these three
  components
• Authentic discovery
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Learners should more actively engage in more of
  each of these

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Collaboration Communication

• Cooperative learning
• Synergy of 31 instructors
• Different than 1 instructors, 30 students
• Tasks can be longer and more difficult
• Communication
• Mathematicians often complain about students
  abilities
• Writing about mathematics
• Presenting mathematics orally
• If a math geek can get students to write well and
  present well, anyone can!

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Authentic Discovery Learning

• Fulcrum of my teaching focus
• Place students in an environment that (with as
  much realism as possible) simulates how the
  course concepts are implemented in the real world
• Discovery learning projects
• Team-based communication-intensive
• Real-world settings
• Simulation activities

8
Learning Literature

• My paper highlights some of the learning
  theoretic research that has been done in these
  areas
• If interested, please see my web page for a full
  text version of my paper.
• radar.ngcsu.edu/rsinn
• None of the ADCC components are controversial
  among learning theorists
• They work!!

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ADCC in Action

• Professional Schools
• Medical School
• Gross anatomy lab
• Rounds / clinicals
• Law School
• Law review
• Business School
• Case studies
• Consulting

• Internships
• Engineering
• Co-op semesters
• Education
• Student Teaching
• Peer tutoring
• TAs (either HS or college)
• Journalism
• Campus newspapers

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Service Learning Oxford College of Emory
University

• Advanced statistics example
• Professor Evelyn C. Bailey
• Class studies a campus issue
• Sample at least 10 of college population
• Use techniques from course to analyze data
• Write-up and presentation to interested
  faculty/administrators
• Chemistry example
• Professor Heather Patrick
• Class studied water samples from local community
• Analyzed impurities
• Submitted written report to local government

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When Internships Wont Work

• Some courses and topics are intractable
• What to do?
• If you cant have the student actually do the
  work in the real world, simulate it.
• Example Intro to Stats (Robb)
• Statistical investigation projects
• Sample 75 100 fellow NGCSU students
• Conduct an experiment with variables of interest
• Present findings to class write up results

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Results of Simulations

• Student enthusiasm creativity improve course
• Examples of my students projects
• Does Wal-Mart cause stress?
• Is quality of handwriting related to GPA?
• Attitudes of Cadets/Greeks to interracial dating
• Are blondes really dumber?
• Students repeatedly report they learn more from
  the projects than any other portion of the course

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Other Ideas

• Alien Constitution
• 4 Alien species settle a planet
• The group must write a constitution to govern
  themselves
• Based upon activity, discuss pros and cons of U.
  S. constitution
• I witnessed simulation because I proctored the
  essay final for 3 week unit
• St. Xavier High School, Cincinnati, OH
• Government Course

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Problem with Math Majors

• What is mathematics? What do mathematicians do
  all day?
• Studentseven math majorsdont know
• How do we get undergraduates to write and present
  about mathematics?
• Need an incentive structure

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My Solution Career Simulation

• Students are required to
• Research
• Write articles for peer-reviewed journals
• Teach
• Make conference presentations
• Perform Service
• Edit journals and referee papers
• Organize conferences compile precedings
• Submit their vita for Promotion Tenure Review

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Some Successes

• Students were enthusiastic
• Presentations were beautiful
• Usually used PowerPoint
• Used software like Maple and Excel
• Students wrote exceptionally good mathematics
  papers
• Grading after peer-review was easy

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Difficulties Workarounds

• Its a lot of work
• Course web blog helps
• Service points for a blog site coordinator
• Precedings/Journals published by students
• Not all presentations and papers are equally
  ambitious
• Level multipliers increased value of better work

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What I Learned

• The structure is important
• Faculty Handbook
• Provide incentives for important tasks
• Rubrics for evaluation
• University faculty collaboration!!
• Divide class into 3 universities
• Team is responsible for helping with
• Conference hosting
• Journal refereeing

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Quality Class Presentations

• Conference Structure
• One per week (45 min. of 75 min. class)
• Conference Organizer
• Recruits a slate of speakers
• Allots time based on level of presentation
• Fills out evaluation sheet I use, and provides it
  at the beginning of class
• Posts conference precedings to course blog site

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Quality Mathematics Papers

• Need several journals
• Each journal has a theme
• I post questions to give ideas for papers
• Journal editors
• Publish 3 volumes
• Volumes include 2 articles
• Have papers refereed
• Work with authors to publish on blog site

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Rewards

• Students learn mathematics by doing what
  mathematicians do
• Student enthusiasm/creativity improve course!!
• Top students come to office hours to discuss
  high-level mathematics
• Several students have worked with me on their
  senior research projects
• Easily adjusted for non-math majors grad
  students (MAT)

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Rubrics for Evaluation

• Rubric scoring helps team projects and
  large-scale activities proceed smoothly
• Tasks and rewards are clearly outlined
• Key Point
• Extra Mile category on essay/project rubric
• If a college student follows all directions,
  commits no grammar/spelling errors, and turns in
  a project or paper, what grade do they deserve?
• They get a B above average collegiate work
• Project/papers that earn As require that Extra
  something creativity, connections, more effort

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Activity 1

• In groups of 4 5, take a few moments to discuss
  some interesting teaching ideas for your courses
  that involve
• Simulation activities
• Collaboration
• Writing and Presentations
• These can be ideas youve used or ones you are
  developing
• We will share 1 2 ideas per group in just a
  moment.

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Activity 2

• Ive given some ideas about how to encourage good
  projects and papers. Now you share!
• Get back in groups and discuss some effective
  ways to
• Grade projects and papers
• Set up rubrics and scoring
• Encourage quality written work from students
• We will share 1 2 ideas per group in just a
  moment.

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Questions?

• All resources posted on my web page
• radar.ngcsu.edu/rsinn
• Available Resources
• PowerPoint Slides
• Handouts
• Paper Submitted (includes brief review of
  learning theory literature)

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The Immutability of Best Practice
Web Page radar.ngcsu.edu/rsinn

• Robb Sinn
• North Georgia College State University
• 17th International Conference on College Teaching
  and Learning