CAETLInnovation in Education

Issue 12Spring 2013

The Teaching Centre is coming in March 2013!David Hinger, Director – Teaching Centre

The Centre for the Advancement of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CAETL) and the Curriculum Re-Development Centre (CRDC) are critical to the U of L’s commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. The centres have been instrumental in building a healthy community of teachers who are dedicated to improving their teaching. This community has been built through efforts such as workshops, teaching related presentations, community discussion, peer support and one-to-one consultations. Both centres also take action to inform the teaching community about possible avenues of development through investigation and research of teaching innovations and strategies. Although independent units, the two centres have shared a symbiotic relationship that provides vital and fundamental teaching development support to the University of Lethbridge.

Over the past 7 years, the most successful and sustainable CAETL and CRDC initiatives are those that were done in collaboration between the two centres involving both faculty and staff. As a result of this realization, the CAETL Advisory Council tasked the manager of CAETL to investigate the possibility of combining CRDC and CAETL into a single centre to support teaching development at the U of L. The manager engaged past Board of Governor Teaching Chairs, Teaching Fellows, and U of L Faculty to determine the implications of and support for combining the two centres.

Based on the information gathered since September 2011 the Advisory council concluded that the combination of CRDC and CAETL into a single Teaching Centre will meet the growing teaching development needs of this university. The combination of departments also allows the Teaching Centre to better support our U of L Strategic and Academic Plans. Official approval to combine the two centres was granted by the Office of the Provost and Vice President Academic in November 2012, following presentations at Deans Council and General Faculties Council.

Teaching Centre Vision:

Through its commitment to scholarship, research, and best practice in teaching and learning, the Teaching Centre will promote and enhance the professional development of university level instructors. The Teaching Centre will also advance creativity, originality, and discovery in teaching. A commitment to excellence in teaching will ensure that, in a rapidly changing educational environment, the U of L will provide outstanding learning experiences for its students and faculty that are founded on the principles:

• Teaching and learning are fundamental to the purpose of the university, and the university community is committed to excellence in teaching.

• All students must be provided opportunities to learn in ways consistent with most effective instructional practices.• Effective university teaching can be defined, learned, demonstrated, and continually enhanced.• Scholarly inquiry is fundamental to the enhancement of teaching effectiveness.• Teaching development is most likely to occur in a collaborative community characterized by trust and mutual respect.

Teaching Centre Goals:

1. Foster a culture of excellence in teaching and learning inside and outside

the classroom.2. Coordinate and facilitate professional development opportunities for the teaching community.3. Develop, identify, and support innovative teaching practices.4. Deepen the University’s commitment to a scholarship of teaching and learning.5. Investigate innovative educational practices, strategies, technologies and processes.

To learn more about the Teaching Centre and celebrate this important evolution in teaching support at the U of L, we invite you to join us on March 4th at 2:00 pm in the old CRDC office for the official Teaching Centre launch.

New Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Publication Initiative

One goal the Teaching Centre will strive to achieve, is making greater efforts to provide effective delivery of teaching information to the teaching community on campus. Although we will be incorporating more into our online presence and delivering via multiple online mediums, we also feel a high quality publication with academic articles, tips and tricks as well as regular columns would be valued by instructors at the U of L.

We are planning on launching a professional teaching magazine that focuses on teaching and learning in higher education. We hope this magazine will become place where faculty and graduate students can contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning by submitting educational research articles, as well as opinion pieces, tips and tricks or even heart felt inspirational pieces.

Our plan is to release the first issue in September 2013. We are currently looking for contributions to the magazine. If you have any articles or ideas you would like to share in this magazine, please contact the Teaching Centre.

Changes Are Coming...Brad Reamsbottom, Education Consultant - Teaching Centre

What else can you expect with the creation of the Teaching Centre?

Although the Teaching Centre official launch does not take place until March, we have reorganized our operations to align with our goals and are a fully functional and operational teaching centre. We encourage you to come see us for all your teaching needs. As we get closer to the official launch date, you may notice advertisements from CAETL and CRDC beginning to incorporate Teaching Centre logos. Our hope is that by transitioning our department branding gradually, it will help everyone understand and recognize the strategic alignment and combination of the two departments.

New Web Resources

We are currently building a new, resource intensive website to better help with the teaching communities needs. It will contain resources that can help you engage better with your students, create exams more strategically aligned with your learning objectives, and even resources that can give you ideas for how to better facilitate group work.

As well the Teaching Centre plans to keep you up to date with all of our events, news and articles of interest via the website. We will be posting videos, articles, conference links, calls for publication and many other resources on a weekly basis.

If you have a resource or atricle you would like to showcase on the Teaching Centre website, please let us know. We will be glad to work with you and get that material shared on the site.

Email: teachingcentre@uleth.ca or Phone: 403.380.1856

You can learn more about the Teaching Centre and how it can help you with your teaching by visiting our website.

www.uleth.ca/teachingcentre

Be sure to bookmark this site as the old CRDC and CAETL addresses will be disappearing in March.

Want to publish a teaching related article in our new

publication being launched September 2013?

This is your chance.

Here are some ideas for submissions

• Innovative assessment ideas that you are exploring.• Your experience with online or blended teaching modalities.• Teaching related top 5 and top 10 lists.• Opinion pieces on the changing higher education environment.• Collaborative articles from faculty and graduate students• The graduate student teaching assistant experience• New faculty experiences• Horror stories from the classroom• Humorous experiences related to teaching

This publication will promote scholarship of teaching and learning, but we also recognize the need for faculty to voice their opinions and experiences. As well we hope to engage our teaching community with some advice and some laughter.

Have an idea we haven’t listed here? Let us know and we will work with you to explore your ideas.

Submit your articles, ideas and questions to teachingcentre@uleth.ca before June 1st, 2013.

Come Celebrate the Official Launch of the Teaching Centre

March 4, 2013

2 PM - 3PM

L1126 (top floor of the LINC building)

Come Celebrate the Official Launch of the Teaching CentreJoin President Mike Mahon and Vice-President (Academic) Andrew Hakin as they officially launch the Teaching Centre, and speak about the importance of the Teaching Centre’s role in the teaching community here at the University of Lethbridge.

Visit with Teaching Centre staff and learn about our goals, priorities and new initiatives.

We look forward to seeing you.

I believe that I may contribute to the Teaching Centre, in the areas of conventional (lecture based) and non-conventional teaching. Teaching in a variety of modalities can increase instructor effectiveness by matching teaching method with the material to be examined and the students’ learning style. A PowerPoint based lecture can be an effective teaching tool, but so can group work.

Lecture can be a powerful form of instruction. Information can be packed tightly and delivered to students in a concise package. I would argue that considering Bloom’s Taxonomies, lecture best addresses the Knowledge and Comprehension levels. That is, if an instructor wants students to memorize and paraphrase given information then lecture is arguably the best mode of instruction.

The next two Bloom’s taxonomies, Application and Analysis, can be accessed in a student seated situation however, now students probably have to engage in some activity other than just listening. That is, to have students construct or analyze they have to engage in something more that listening. This could be solitary work such as writing an essay, but it could also be group work. The last two Bloom’s levels are Synthesis and Evaluation. Students are required to create and to evaluate at these levels. Bloom’s examples of what this type of thinking looks like often used examples of groups working together. It may be that the highest level of Bloom’s (Evaluation) requires group work to examine and understand criteria.

My experience has taught me that there is value in using a range of teaching modes. Many students value and appreciate lecture, but there are times when other forms of teaching may match the content and student abilities better.

There are two (related) dimensions of teaching practice in which I am particularly interested at the moment. The first is peer evaluation processes. In my practices, the specific mechanism varies depending on the particular course and assignment, but the general principle is to have students submit complete drafts of their work, receive feedback on it from a number of classmates and from me, and revise their work in light of the comments they receive. The second dimension of teaching in which I am

especially interested is evaluative measures that go beyond simply assessing learning. For example, I have recently instituted pyramid exams (Zipp 2007) in several of my courses, and have been very pleased with the outcomes. The general idea is that students write a particular exam individually, and later write the same exam in small groups. It is tremendously rewarding to watch students learn the material during the exam as they develop and debate answers with each other (and, as an aside, bond and laugh with one another in an environment often characterized by anxiety).

There are two main ways I plan to contribute to the Teaching Centre in my time as a Fellow. First, I plan to undertake some formal research on assessment strategies like those outlined above. Second, I plan to help foster further discussion (e.g., Talking about Teaching sessions; written fora) about critical questions with which many of us are concerned. These include:

1) How can we help students express their own ideas in sophisticated ways? 2) How can we help students to improve their writing and research skills?3) How can we help students think more critically about their perspectives, the evidence upon which they draw, and, indeed, the world around them? 4) How can we help students become more engaged citizens, bringing with them the skills and perspectives they develop here and elsewhere?5) What can we learn about our own teaching practices (and how to improve them) from our students and colleagues methods. Just as importantly, my ISW colleagues inspired and reminded me of why and how teaching matters.”

The Teaching Centre Welcomes Our New Teaching Fellows

Dr. John Poulsen - Faculty of EducationDr. Jason Laurendeau - Faculty of Arts and Science, Department of Sociology

Interested in becoming a Teaching Fellow? Come talk to us. You have a lot to offer.

L1126 in the LINC Building

Library Resources

Because digital writing matters: improving student writing in online and multimedia environments. Danielle N. DeVoss, Elyse Eidmann-Aadahl and Troy Hicks

UofL Library Main Collection: PE 1404 B43 2010

Book Description (from Amazon.ca, access 16 January 2013, http://www.amazon.ca/Because-Digital-Writing-Matters-Environments/dp/0470407727/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358371565&sr=1-1). How to apply digital writing skills effectively in the classroom, from the prestigious National Writing Project.

As many teachers know, students may be adept at text messaging and communicating online but do not know how to craft a basic essay. In the classroom, students are increasingly required to create web-based or multi-media productions that also include writing. Since writing in and for the online realm often defies standard writing conventions, this book defines digital writing and examines how best to integrate new technologies into writing instruction.

• Shows how to integrate new technologies into classroom lessons• Addresses the proliferation of writing in the digital age• Offers a guide for improving students’ online writing skills

The book is an important manual for understanding this new frontier of writing for teachers, school leaders, university faculty, and teacher educators.

Review: Choice (May 01, 2011; 9780470407721) Accessed via Books in Print Online, 16 January 2013.

A publication of the National Writing Project and companion to its Because Writing Matters (CH, Nov’03, 41-1698), this work focuses on the forms and forums for digital writing and their impact on the teaching of writing. The volume explores how writing has changed in the digital world, how these changes can be translated into classroom practices to support students’ development as writers, the impact of digital media--particularly social networking--on students as writers and on teachers and schools, the assessment of digital writing in schools, and professional development for teachers to incorporate digital writing into their curricula. DeVoss (professional writing program, Michigan State Univ.), Eidman-Aadahl (National Writing Project, Univ. of California, Berkeley), and Hicks (English, Central Michigan Univ.) do an admirable job of capturing the current state of digital writing, analyzing its ramifications for education, and suggesting ways

of incorporating it into schools. They include extensive chapter notes, a good bibliography, a listing of Web resources, and a solid index. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and graduate students concentrating on education; language-arts teachers at all levels. G. A. Mayer SUNY College at Oneonta.

Embedded Formative Assessment Dylan William

UofL Library Main Collection: LB 1025.3 W47 2011

Product Description (from Amazon.ca, accessed 16 January 2013, http://www.amazon.ca/Embedded-Formative-Assessment-ebook/dp/B005ISU2AC/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358370007&sr=1-3).

Formative assessment plays an important role in increasing teacher quality and student learning when it’s viewed as a process rather than a tool. Emphasizing the instructional side of formative assessment, this book explores in-depth the use of classroom questioning, learning intentions and success criteria, feedback, collaborative and cooperative learning, and self-regulated learning to engineer effective learning environments for students.

Review: Reference & Research Book News (August 01, 2011; 9781934009307). Accessed via Books in Print Online, 16 January 2013.

William, an educational assessment consultant, presents simple, practical changes every teacher can make in the classroom and shows how these changes will result in improved outcomes for students. He explains that previous attempts at reform went wrong because they didn’t take into account the most important variable--teacher quality. He shows why some popular initiatives, such as learning styles, have had no effect on student achievement. He summarizes research proving that classroom formative assessment practices have a greater impact on educational achievement, and describes five practical strategies of formative assessment: clarifying learning intentions, finding out what students know, providing feedback, cooperative learning, and self-regulated learning. William is former deputy director of the Institute of Education at the University of London. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Upcoming Events

Talking About Teaching

January 25th - Talking About Student Writing: The Good, The Bad, and The Inappropriate2:00 - 4:00 PM , L1168

February 15th - ONLINE via Adobe Connect Topic will deal with assessment strategies10:00 AM - 12:00 PMwww.uleth.ca/teachingcentre for information how to participate online.

March 15th - TBA2:00 - 4:00 PM , L1168

Upcoming Graduate Teaching Assistant Professional Development Program Workshops

January 30th - Managing Class Discussions1:00 - 3:00 PM, L1168

February 12th - Creating a Lesson, Lecture, or Presentation3:00 -5:00 PM, L950 Graduate students need only attend one of these sessions.

February 14th - Creating a Lesson, Lecture, or Presentation1:00 -3:00 PM, L1170G Graduate students need only attend one of these sessions.

March 21st - The Multicultural Classroom1:00 - 3:00 PM, L1170B

April 5th - GTA Reflections & Wrap-Up3:00 -5:00 PM, L1168

Teaching Day

May 3rd, 2013, AH100More details to come on www.uleth.ca/teachingcentre.

New Faculty Teaching Development Program

January 24th - “Wielding the Power of the Red Pen” – Effective Assessment Strategies12:00 - 2:00 PM, L1170G Lunch provided

February 7th, “You Told Me to What?” – Dealing with Difficult Students12:00 - 2:00 PM, L1170G Lunch provided

March 7th, “Mapping the Big Ideas” – Powerful Course Design12:00 - 2:00 PM, L1170G Lunch provided

April 12th, Year-End Wrap-Up Conversation Wine and Cheese2:30 -4:30 PM, L1126

[He]art of Teaching - Peer Support Drop-in

These sessions are designed to be drop-ins and you are welcome to attend when you can within the times scheduled.

Wed., Feb 6, 2013, 9:00 - 11:00 AM (AH100)Harold Jansen and Sheila McManus Thurs., Feb 28, 2013, 1:00 - 3:00 PM (AH100)John Sheriff and Michelle Hogue Mon., March 18, 2013, 9:00 - 11:00 AM (AH100)Phil Jones and Jason Laurendeau Fri., April 12, 2013, 9:00 - 11:00 AM (AH100)Harold Jansen and John Sheriff

Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW)

ISW - (1) August 12 – 16, 2013

ISW - (2) August 12 – 16, 2013

Instructional Skills Workshops are an intense four day course that help you improve your teaching skills. Past participants of the ISW workshops not only gained a great deal from the content of the course but built strong professional relationships with the participants in their cohort that have lasted beyond the workshop experience. If you wish to be part of the ISW workshops please let us know via email or phone. The workshops are tailored for small groups; space is limited.

Phone: 403.380.1856Email: teachingcentre@uleth.ca

Teaching Centre Official Launch

March 4th, 2 -3 PM, L1126 - The Teaching Centre (former CRDC office)