The Interactive/Collaborative Classroom Environment

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The Interactive/Collaborative Classroom
Environment

• Staff Development Le Cordon Bleu, College of
  Culinary Arts
• Dr. Barbara Packer-Muti
• Dr. Michael Simonson

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Learning Outcomes

• Participants will be able to
• Describe contrast cooperative learning,
  collaborative learning, and active learning
• Demonstrate examples of at least three
  interactive classroom techniques
• Discuss the responsibilities of the instructor
  and the learner
• Demonstrate at least two active listening
  techniques

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Out with the oldin with the new!

• Changing paradigms The Old!
• Transferring knowledge from faculty to students
• Filling passive empty vessels with knowledge
• Sorting students into categories
• Conducting education in a context of impersonal
  relationships
• Maintaining a competitive structure
• Assume that content experts can teach..without
  training to do so

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The new paradigm

• Jointly constructed knowledge
• Students actively participate, discover
• Faculty develop students competencies and
  talents
• Personal transactions
• Cooperative learning in the class among faculty
• Teaching requires training

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Lectures Whats wrong with them?

• Research shows
• 1. Students recall 70 of the material covered
  in the 1st 10 mins 20 of the material in the
  last 10 minutes
• 2. Students are tuned out of a 50 minute
  lecture about 40 of the time

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One technique for your consideration

• Steps to building an cooperative class
• Read the assigned material in advance
• Instructor does a highlights lecture for the
  1st 20 minutes
• Students break into 3-5 groups to work on a
  pre-determined, assigned problem
• Reconvene class for a brief closing lecture and
  common questions

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Some Definitions

• Active Learning
• Anything students do in a classroom other than
  passively listen to a lecture
• Cooperative Learning
• Subset of active learning groups of 3 or more
  usually formally assigned, usually complex tasks
• Collaborative Learning
• Instructor students on equal footing working on
  designing assignments, choosing texts, presenting
  material

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Techniques of Active Learning

• The One Minute Paper
• Muddiest (or Clearest) Point
• Affective Response
• Daily Journal
• Reading Quiz
• Clarification Pauses
• Response to a demonstration or other
  teacher-centered activity

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Class Activity!

• Form seven groups
• Hand outs
• 5 Minutes to prepare
• 2 Minutes to present
• Summary
• Feedback/Critique

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Ten Tips for Effective Teaching

• Teach according to your personality
• Hand out a complete syllabus and course
  instructions on the first day
• Vary your teaching methods
• Let students choose their grades
• Dont take attendance
• Take a hard line on late and incomplete work
• Give students options for assignments
• Require clear and coherent work
• Combat plagiarism
• Get out of the way!

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What are your responsibilities?

• Content knowledge
• Clear messages
• Clarifying
• Constructive feedback
• Classroom management
• Other thoughts? What else?

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What are their responsibilities?

• Active interest
• Responsible for their own learning
• Being engaged
• What else?

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The Syllabus Exercise

• Hand out a sample syllabus
• Find a partner (or 2)
• Work together to find 3 questions about the
  course that are not clear
• Present!
• Summary feedback!

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The Communication Process

• Effective communication is key!
• The message
• The source
• Field of experience
• Communication competence
• Encoding/decoding
• The channel
• The receiver
• Feedback
• Shared Meaning/Reality
• The effect
• Noise
• The relationship
• The context/situation

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Questions and Answers

• Suggestions to tweak our questioning techniques
  to increase student involvement comprehension

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Wait Time

• Instructor poses question, then waits 15 or so
  seconds.
• No hand raising or calling out
• Forces all students to think about the question
• Ask for volunteers or call upon a student
• Cold calls
• Warm calls

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Student Summary of Anothers Answer

• Promotes active listening
• Call upon a second student to summarize the first
  students response
• Benefits include active participation students
  must listen to one another fosters the idea that
  learning is shared

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The Fish Bowl

• Students are given index cards
• Students asked to write one question re course
  materials (consider applications of the material
  to practical contexts)
• Questions are deposited into the fish bowl
• Instructor chooses to respond or combines the
  previous techniques discussed!

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Quiz/Test Questions

• Students become involved in creating quizzes or
  tests by constructing some (or all) test items
• May be assigned as homework and may be evaluated
• Instructor may use these as the basis for the
  review
• May begin the process of considering higher level
  thinking skills

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Share/Pair

• Grouping students in pairs provides opportunities
  for sharing their own personal viewpoints. Its
  almost impossible for someone to avoid
  participating in this sort of environment.

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One more activity!

• Get into a pair
• Choose one of the following techniques
• Discussion
• Note comparison
• Evaluation of another students work
• Discuss and report back!

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One more activity!

• Form a pair
• Choose one of the following techniques
• Discussion
• Note comparison
• Evaluation of another students work
• Report back to the group!

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Effective Listening!

• Be a model
• Increased knowledge of the subject at hand
• Greater self-confidence
• Improved relationships

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Donts!

• Interrupts in mid-sentence or finishes the
  sentence!
• Poor use of the thinking/speaking time
  differential
• Changing the subject to fit the listeners agenda
• Talking while the speaker is talking
• Information overload

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Non-verbal behaviors of poor listeners

• Signs of impatience
• Lacks direct eye contact
• Maintains a closed body position
• Fidgets
• Fakes attention

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Dos!

• Limit your own talking
• Ask questions/clarify
• Paraphrase
• Avoid interrupting
• Concentrate on the message/speaker
• Make positive comments
• Listen for the feelings behind the words
• Maintain control over your emotions
• Make an effort to listen
• Develop a Listening Challenge Plan

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Listening Challenge Plan

• Name of person
• Reasons for difficulty
• Specific steps I will initiate
• How will I know Ive achieved my goals?

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7 Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate
Education

• Encourage student-faculty contact
• Encourage cooperation among students
• Encourage active learning
• Give prompt feedback
• Emphasize active learning
• Communicate high expectations
• Respect diverse talents and ways of learning
• Chickering, A., Gamson, Z. (1987).

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Collegial Support Groups

• Definition
• Consists of 2-5 instructors who have the goal of
  improving each others instructional expertise
  and promoting each others professional growth

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Keys to success in such groups

• Frequent professional discussions of cooperative
  learning successes are shared problems are
  solved
• Coplanning, codesigning, copreparing and
  coevaluating curriculum materials relevant to
  cooperative learning takes place
• Coteaching and reciprocal observations of peers
  teaching lessons takes place

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Leadership challenge!

• Challenging the status quo
• Inspiring a vision of what the school/college can
  be
• Empowering through cooperative teams
• Leading by example
• Encouraging the heart

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packerb_at_nova.edu

• Thank you for actively listening!
• Email me with questions/ideas
• See you again soon!