Tomorrow's Professor Blog

Folks:

The posting below is an editorial by James Rhem on the work of Michale Strong on the Socratic method. It is number and is #25 in a series of selected excerpts from the National Teaching and Learning Forum newsletter reproduced here as part of our “Shared Mission Partnership.” NT&LF has a wealth of information on all aspects of teaching and learning. Much more about the Socratic method is described in the October, 2004 issue NT&LF. If you are not already a subscriber I urge you to consider becoming one. You can check it out at [http://www.ntlf.com/] The on-line edition of the Forum–like the printed version – offers subscribers insight from colleagues eager to share new ways of helping students reach the highest levels of learning. National Teaching and Learning Forum Newsletter, Volume 13, Number 56 © Copyright 1996-2004. Published by James Rhem & Associates, Inc. (ISSN 1057-2880) All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford,edu
UP NEXT: Organization of a Typical University

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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THE HABIT OF THOUGHT
James Rhem, Executive Editor

Michael Strong’s The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice remains unknown to most faculty and to many faculty developers. It’s a small book published in 1996 by a small publisher in North Carolina (New View). Limited marketing may account for the book’s low profile in higher education circle s, or perhaps the fact that much of Strong’s work has been in the K-12 world. Whatever the reasons, the book deserves wider exposure among faculty not because it offers a “magic bullet” for improving teaching – it doesn’t – but because in clear, no nonsense language it sounds a call to the most noble stance any teacher can take with students, that of “an honest, open, inquiring mind.”

Most faculty believe they understand Socratic practice or “Socratic method,” and most believe they practice it at least some of the time. Indeed, some teachers argue that Socratic practice is simply another name for class discussion. However, Strong reports:

“Teachers trained in Socratic Seminars . . . believe that they are radically different from conventional classroom discussions, or from any conventional pedagogical technique. Many trained teachers, some with twenty years of experience, talk about how leading Socratic Seminars has caused them to question their entire approach to teaching. Some claim that the contact with Socratic Seminars has caused them to become angry at their own previous teaching and their own educations.” (p. 47)

Though he encourages it at every turn and never waivers in seeing it as doable, genuine Socratic practice as Strong describes it seems very challenging, to say the least. But it works, and committed teachers at every level can and do practice it with success.

Strong’s own devotion to Socratic practice began early. He’d heard of St. John’s College (with campuses in Maryland and New Mexico) and visited there and liked what he saw. Still, he first enrolled at Harvard, but there he realized he wasn’t finding the dialogue through which absolutely everything is taught at St. John’s. He transferred.

No “Paper Chase

Early in my interview with Michael Strong, I shared with him my long-standing disgust with the association of Socratic practice with the kind of student abuse portrayed so well by John Housman as Professor Kingsfield in the 1970s film “The Paper Chase.” He laughs. Law schools have been describing this kind of thing as “Socratic” for so long, he says, that we’re not likely to get them to give it up. He compares Kingsfield’s approach to the violent martial arts versus the more philosophical or “softer” ones – Karate versus Tai Chi. Strong sees Socratic practice as essentially “softer.” While some see an aggressive devil’s advocate in the Socrates of Plato’s Dialogues, Strong sees a playful imp committed to teasing out the implications of thought, to seeing the unseen assumptions and implications of what we say we think. “If the Dialogues were staged, I can imagine Socrates being played either way depending on the passage,” says Strong.

Students do follow their leader. In classes conducted according to Strong’s model, groups often start out enjoying aggressive argumentation, but over time it becomes tedious and they begin to value constructive dialogue instead. In “The Paper Chase” world, combat never evolves. Why? Because the teacher never questions his own assumptions, only those of his students. Though he asks questions, he’s not staging a genuine dialogue, an honest conversation in which he too might learn ?something.

“A hostile sort of Socratic social interaction may be the de facto result of teaching students to ‘question assumptions’,” Strong writes. When one thinks of questioning assumptions, he says, one almost always thinks of the assumptions of others. “I maintain,” he writes, “that it is most important to question one’s own assumptions.” Certainly, it’s harder than questioning those of others, and, says Strong, while questioning is an essential part of the intellectual integrity Socratic practice seeks to develop, it leads to something even harder, the necessity of making judgments. “One could ‘question assumptions’ constantly and never recognize a gap in one’s understanding,” he observes.

More Than Cognition

Strong’s emphasis on judgment, independent judgment cultivated through a sharpening of awareness, shouldn’t be confused with a simple emphasis on developing cognitive skills. “Cognitive ability is not an overriding determinant of intellectual genius,” he writes in discussing Einstein (p. 74). Understandings of teaching students to “think for themselves” often take an excessively cognitive focus, he says, while the kinds of insights and judgments that show genuine intellectual development involve intuitive, creative and social skills, all of which Socratic seminars develop. Strong’s “ready for work” rubric for students (see ancillary materials at http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/suppmat/index.htm) includes not only five academic skills (textual understanding, speaking, listening, knowing how to learn, critical thinking) but social skills (teamwork, sensitivity/good manners) and personal skills ( honesty and integrity, willingness to accept criticism, responsibility and initiative!
) as well.

Also early in our interview, I share with Strong both my frustration and my delight in the process of reading The Habit of Thought. The first half of the book is filled with clear, emphatic presentations of the solid philosophical grounding of Socratic practice, but as we are so used to books on teaching that focus on telling us “how” to implement this or that approach, I found myself impatient for exactly that, more nuts and bolts. In the second half of the book, Strong does explore the specific roles and strategies essential for Socratic practice, and it’s a delight to read his descriptions precisely because, even there, he infuses the discussion with the philosophical importance of each. His nuts and bolts actually appear throughout in examples illustrating larger ideas. He gives specifics, but they are never far removed from the all-important “whys” of the practice. On “trust,” for example:

“Obtaining trust is crucial to developing a group, and trust is founded on mutual respect. It is necessary to respect [students'] sincerely held opinions, no matter how false or abhorrent they seem to be. The leader is guiding their understanding, not imposing an understanding from the outside.”

Roles and Paths

Leaders/teachers expect followers/students to end up where they (the leaders) thought the group should go, but in Strong’s view the key to Socratic practice lies in keeping the discussion open, centered on the authority of freed thought. To do it well leaders must have more confidence in their own intellectual and social skills, their “fluency in reasoning,” than in their positional authority.

Strong describes five main roles of the Socratic practice leader:

* Justifier of the activity
* Socratic questioner
* Provider of summary, synthesis, and clarification
* Process coach
* Genuine participant

Strong has led many workshops teaching the dynamics of true Socratic practice. When we talk I ask him which roles people find the most difficult, admitting I thought I’d have trouble with the last two. “It really depends on the individual,” he says. “Some have trouble coming up with questions, others have trouble not getting angry, others with not being dogmatic, but remaining truly open. Each leader has a unique path to follow just as in becoming a great musician. Socratic practice is a ‘path’ and one will not move far down the road if they don’t see that.”

Socratic Seminars and Socratic practice differ. The seminars center on the close study of prescribed texts. Ideas spin out of, around, and back into discussion of the texts. Seminars utilize Socratic practice, of course, but with the text always acting as a governing point of reference. Socratic practice itself need not center on a text, but merely take off from a question or an idea. Texts act as a very useful brake. Personalization through anecdote and personal story acts as an accelerator. In Strong’s view “reason” or the capacity for the kind of sound independent judgment we need to develop in students transcends mere logic. Citing research by Leda Cosmides reported in Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal, he writes: “Our minds, in the evolutionary circumstances in which they were created, developed a sophisticated ability to ‘reason,’ when the object of our reasoning involved basic human relationships: love, power, trust, betrayal.” Hence, once again, the importance of crea!
tivity, intuition, and social skills in addition to cognitive ability in developing a capacity for independent judgment.

Good for Women Especially

If our evolution affects how we think and learn, so does culture and acculturation. Female gains via Socratic practice were 26% greater than male gains in one study, Strong reports. In a four month trial, female students at an urban middle school gained the equivalent of two years of critical thinking skills from Socratic practice. Minority female students gained four years. When I asked Strong why this should be, he replied, “The American norm is against men talking.” Socratic discussions often come back to ideas of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, he says, and “the social norm is against talking about these things these days, but people are hungry for it.”

Coverage, Math & Science

So what about “coverage,” and what about math? “Socratic practice does take leisure,” says Strong. “It’s about exploring, clarifying, but when it comes to coverage, it depends on how you conceptualize content. I understand the problems in the sciences, and I admit it’s perhaps easier in the humanities to deal with these problems. The question is whether you are going for depth or breadth. In art history for example, will you teach more with 1,000 slides or with 40?” A good argument can be made, he says, that introductory science courses would teach more if they offered students an immersion in scientific method and thinking rather than flooding them with a sea of information. In the same way, Strong – who likes math and is good at it – believes that Socratic practice should be a prerequisite for all math education. Why? Socratic practice, whether it traffics in discussions of trust, love and betrayal or other ideas equally remote from square roots and tangents, improves stud!
ents’ facility with abstract concepts, and abstract concepts are the basis of mathematics, which is at root a way of thinking rather than a body of knowledge.

“Socratic questioning,” writes Strong, “is an endlessly sophisticated art. It is the engine that drives Western thought forward. Socratic questioning is not a technique, it is an approach to conceptual understanding which contains within it an intrinsic craving for conceptual refinement at every level of understanding.” (p. 149).

* Michael Strong, The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice (Chapel Hill, NC: New View, 1996).

Available from:
New View Publications
Post Office Box 3021
Chapel Hill, NC 27515-3021
Telephone: 1-800-441-3604
http://www.newviewpublications.com

Michael Strong welcomes email from readers interested in discussing Socratic practice at socraticpractice@yahoo.com

Strong will be speaking at the American Creativity Association international conference in Austin, Texas March 30 – April 2, 2005

© Copyright 1996-2004. Published by James Rhem & Associates, Inc.
(ISSN 1057-2880) All rights reserved worldwide.
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Folks:

The posting below expresses some further ideas about online learning in response to Msg. #601 THE DOs AND DON’Ts OF ONLINE LEARNING. It is by Professor Amram Eshel, Department of Plant Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, who can be reached at: .

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Planning a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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FURTHER IDEAS ABOUT “DOs AND DON’Ts OF ONLING LEARNING”

A recent posting in TOMORROW’S PROFESSOR(SM) MAILING LIST entitled “THE DOs AND DON’Ts OF ONLINE LEARNING” presented a rather grim view of the experience of instructors who are involved in this mode of teaching. This is a discouraging situation when we think that we make a great progress investing large amounts of money and human resources in making the on-line platforms available and end up with disappointed and frustrated instructors. These feelings are probably reciprocated by similar ones at the students’ side.

Reading the entries in this posting made me realize that many of the complaints raised with respect to the way the students behave in on-line environment are not unique to this mode of learning, but are relevant to learning situations in general. However, it does not have to be that way. In the following text I intend to clarify that some of these negative feelings are based on misconceptions that lead to unrealistic expectations by the instructors. Later I will suggest techniques that can help in guiding students towards the desired conduct, emphasizing those that are especially effective for on-line teaching.

The first misconception stems probably from the opening question that was posed to the instructors who took part in the study “How should students go about establishing a good instructor/student relationship with you?” The implicit notion that the students are responsible for the instructor/student rapport is erroneous. The responsibility for establishing and maintaining civilized atmosphere and proper behavior in the classroom or in the on-line teaching environment is totally with the instructor. This is not always an easy task and is influenced by numerous factors which are outside our control, from student age to the time-of-day that the class takes place and many others in between. Nevertheless, the instructor is the one who sets the rules for the activities in the teaching environment and should use disciplinary, or better other means which I will describe later, in order to make sure that those rules are upheld.

The second misconception is exemplified in the following answer by one of the instructors “Students obviously glean instructors’ favor by being dedicated, hard working, and willing to go the extra mile to learn.” This is an unrealistic expectation. Nature favors those forms which make the most gain for the least effort. In biology they are called “the fittest” in engineering “the most efficient” and in economics “the most profitable”. Going a truly “extra mile”, meaning without gaining anything for it, goes against the grain of human behavior. The good news is that students as other humans view non-materialistic entities such as recognition, praise and a good grade as a gain worthwhile making an effort for. Instructors should use that as means to achieve the ends they want. I will explain later how that can be done.

I am now getting to the Dos. What are the actions the instructor, and especially the on-line one, can take in order to have students act the way it will be acceptable and meet all the expectations. The most important thing is stating clearly and in full your expectations from the students. Do not be annoyed by “those who assume I should be online 24/7 to answer their questions”. Simply state: “Questions will only be answered once a day, in the afternoon except on weekends” or whatever you see appropriate. This way they will know what to expect and act upon it. Anyone who does not comply will not get it his way. It is very important to lay down those ground rules clearly at the start. Do not give the students the feeling that you invent them as you go along. These rules should be put in writing and made available to all students. Here is an advantage for using a course website, no one can say they misplaced that page or wasn’t there when it was handed out. Make sure it is marked clearly and easy to find in your website and refer to it in your answers and instructions.

Another effective communication tool, that is used in numerous websites in order to lower the burden of repeating answers, is having a “FAQ’s” section in your website. This is especially important if there are many technical details the students should be familiar with in order to perform their assignments. When you get questions related to an item you took the trouble to explain among the FAQ’s simply answer by “See FAQ #X”. They will soon come to recognize it as a valuable resource to check instead of writing and waiting for this simple answer. Remember that the responsibility for establishing and maintaining a courteous atmosphere in the teaching environment lies totally with you. If you act that way, in most cases students would respond in a similar fashion. Address your students respectfully and try to start every communication with a positive note, even if your main message is criticizing e.g., “I appreciate the effort you made, however …” There will always be those who require a disciplinary action, but in order for it to be effective they should be informed what are they disciplined for, and the ground rules I mentioned earlier will be of great assistance here.

I suggest you set aside a certain fraction of the final grade for management purposes. Much the same way that my elementary school teacher used to give 5 points for tidiness and 5 points for clear handwriting out of the grade of every paper we handed in. If you want the students to make an effort, make it worthwhile to them by giving extra points. For example, if you want them to search the literature for certain information, announce that the first one who will post the correct reference will gain some points towards the final grade. Give them points for participation, if this is important, but remember that stalkers may learn as much as those who are active. This may work both ways. A good technique that reduces tardiness is announcing that a certain amount of points will be deducted from late submissions for every day that passes since the deadline. By giving points for meeting your demands and deducting points for failing to do so you establish an atmosphere of student accountability that should be of general educational value.

Finally, plagiarism can be dealt with rather effectively in on-line courses. I do that by announcing that after all papers will be submitted electronically they will be posted in the course website under their names for everybody to see. I do not see any problem with that. Student papers are not privileged information as long as you do not openly publish the grade each one was given. This will eliminate copying form one another and obvious cut-and-paste from common resources. In my experience it will also make the students regard their assignments more seriously. They usually regard peer opinion higher than that of the instructor, and would not want to be caught by their friends doing a sloppy or a dishonest job. Another use of this is when you think they can learn by reading each other’s works e.g., seeing other points of view or different styles. I use a polling tool available in our on-line teaching platform to get the students elect the best paper. This make them read the papers you posted, provided there are not too many students in the group. The winner is recognized and may also get an extra point.

In summary, it is the instructor who is responsible for the student behavior in the teaching environment. By encouraging desired behavior and discouraging undesired one the instructor should maintain good and productive atmosphere. A precondition for it is setting clear ground rules at the start and making them known to everybody. Giving appropriate rewards will persuade the students to make the efforts you expect them to do.

Folks:

The posting below looks at integrating project design across more than one course. It is Chapter 5, Problem Solving Through Design BY Wayne A. Nelson, in Problem-Based Learning in the Information Age, by David S. Knowlton, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. David C. Sharp,
University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast, editors. The book is part of the Jossey-Bass NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING series Number 95, Fall 2003, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. [www.josseybass.com] Copyright © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Engaging Students Politically Goes Beyond the Voting Booth

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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PROBLEM SOLVING THROUGH DESIGN

To design is to solve problems. The author describes a model of problem solving through design that can be used to restructure courses, programs of study, or entire institutions.

Although problem-based learning (PBL) can be successful in individual classrooms, I am advocating a broader and more sweeping implementation of PBL that can extend across courses, degree programs, or even institutions. Specifically, I advocate the notion of PBL through design. In this article, I begin with a description of the relationship between design and problem solving. Next I offer an example of how I implemented “problem solving through design” across three graduate-level courses. Finally, I offer considerations for implementing a model of problem solving through design.

Connection Between Design and Problem Solving

Designing is a problem-solving process, and design problems are usually described as open-ended, unstructured, or “wicked” (Rittel, 1984). Whether designing something highly technical, like a computer-based flight simulator to train future pilots, or something far less technical, like a centerpiece flower arrangement for a formal table setting, we cannot design without inherently thinking and working in a problem-solving mode. Through both design and problem solving, we are focused on “changing existing situations into preferred ones” (Simon, 1996, p. 130).

Across disciplines, designers tend to share a common problem-solving process that is an open-ended analogue of the scientific method (Newell and Simon, 1972). Designers solve problems by employing a cyclical process of problem identification and analysis, research, and inquiry that leads to the ranking of design priorities, testing multiple solutions through prototyping, and evaluating the design artifacts against performance criteria (Davis, 1998). To conceive this cyclical process in slightly different terms, we can note that design typically flows through major stages: naming (identifying main issues in the problem), framing (establishing the limits of the problem), moving (taking an experimental design action), and reflecting (evaluating and criticizing the move and the frame). Schön (1991) notes that designers reflect on moves in three ways: by judging the desirability and consequences of the move, by examining the implications of a move in terms of conformity or vio!
lation of earlier moves, and by understanding new problems or potentials the move has created. Regardless of how we describe the process, the point is that designing, like problem solving, is based on systematic processes and situational “rules of thumb” (Perez, 1995) that should lead to purposeful and practical outcomes.

Example of Classroom That Uses Problem Solving Through Design

In a recent semester, I incorporated a problem-solving-through-design method into three graduate courses in instructional technology-an instructional design class, a software development class, and a project management class.

In the past, I had taught these courses using traditional approaches, including the use of in-class exercises based on decontextualized examples, readings from texts and journals, and final projects as a basis of evaluation. In these courses, collaboration was minimal. I recognized a huge limitation of this traditional approach. Because courses are removed from practical and authentic contexts, students come to see the content of courses as isolated stages of a process, not as integrated activities within a single process.

To “transform” these classes using a method of problem solving through design. I compiled several problem scenarios that included possibilities for real and simulated interaction with clients. I also designed a set of performance expectations that established major deadlines and described my ideas of various working relationship among the three classes. As I introduced the various problem scenarios to students at the beginning of the semester, I invited each class member to volunteer for problem scenarios that were personally appealing, although I monitored the process to ensure that at least one student from each class was on each design team. Once all students had volunteered for a team, I distributed the performance expectations document, members of each team collaboratively worked to devise processes of design that would result in suitable artifacts.

Because each team was autonomous, no single description of the events that semester could fully capture each team’s approach to design. In general, members of the project management class were in charge of the various projects. The project managers worked with the clients to establish project goals and tasks. Members of the design class assisted project managers in completing a needs assessment and analysis. Members of the design class also developed a design plan that members of the project management class presented to the client for approval. After the clients approved the various design plans, members of the software development class produced prototypes based on the plan created by the design class. The prototypes were tested with target audiences. The project management class then produced an evaluation report and held a culminating meeting with the design team to reflect on the process and outcomes of the design project.

Because students were enrolled in three different courses that met on three different nights, communication within each team was a potential problem. Project managers maintained Web sites for each problem scenario. These Web sites allowed all team members to view work schedules, drafts of design plans, and prototypes. Team members could communicate with each other and the client through e-mail. An important feature was that, using the Web sites as guides, each group, for the most part, was self-directed and self-sufficient.

I served as a consultant to the teams at various points of difficulty, as a “client” when quick decisions were necessary regarding project goals or vision, and as a team member when production problems arose. By the end of the semester, students had successfully completed seven projects, and students remarked that the process, while arduous, was also meaningful, fun, and afforded them opportunities to learn in ways that were different from those in traditional graduate classes.

Recommendations for Implementing Problem Solving Through Design

So far in this article, I have made a connection between design and problem solving. I also have described my attempts with implementing a problem-solving-through-design model across three higher education courses. In this section, I offer a vision of an environment that would fully support such a model. To implement a problem-solving-through-design approach, professors should reconceptualize curriculum as problems, places students in the role of designers, and reconfigure classrooms as design studios.

Curriculum as Problems. In a problem-solving-through-design model, professors cannot preestablish a curriculum. Even the idea of teaching design sensibilities as a topic in the curriculum is problematic because design is not an object of study; design is a mode of inquiry and exploration (Davis, Hawley, McMullan, and Spilka, 1997). Instead of a contrived curriculum presented through an artificial context, design tasks are supported by learning on demand, where learning goals emerge from the situation at hand. In other words, because design problems are ill structured, professors cannot determine a standard curriculum until students actively devise methods for addressing the design problem.

Although a predesigned curriculum is irrelevant in a problem-solving-through-design model, professors are necessary and vital to students’ success. Professors serve as facilitators and share their expertise as experienced designers. Facilitators can help participants establish individual and small-group goals through the use of performance contracts (Rieber, 2000). The facilitator also can moderate evaluations, helping and encouraging learners to offer feedback to their peers. Most important, however, professors must serve as experienced designers by helping students formulate alternatives to solutions as students design.

Students as Designers. In a problem-solving-through-design model students become designers. Designers work collaboratively and use conversation, argumentation, and persuasion to achieve consensus about perspectives and actions that might be take to solve a design problem (Bucciarelli, 2001). Conflicting viewpoints are debated, and differences of opinion are negotiated. In this way, dialogue transforms individual thinking, creating collective thought and socially constructed knowledge within the team (Sherry and Myers, 1998). To further a shared understanding of the problem to be solved, designers create representations to solidify their design ideas (Hedberg and Sims, 2001).

Beyond working collaboratively, designers tend to be self-organized both individually and within their collaborative groups (Thomas and Harri-Augstein, 1985). Designers accept responsibility for their own learning by identifying their own purposes, setting goals for learning, implementing learning strategies, and identifying appropriate resources and tools (Fiedler, 1999).

Classrooms as Studios. To organize and manage design activities, professors can create an environment that is more akin to a studio than to a traditional classroom. Design studios are common in fine arts, architecture, and other fields that emphasize design (Orey, Rieber, King, and Matzko, 2000). Studios provide a learning environment in which participants use design tools and processes to complete real-world, and often self-selected, projects.

First, a design studio supports the use of appropriate design tools to craft models, drawings, narratives, and other representations of solutions. In many situations, professors may find that design activities provide excellent opportunities for the integration of computers into the classroom (for example, D’Ignazio, 1989; Liu and Pedersen, 1998). In other contexts, a consideration of communication tools can facilitate good design. As I note in my problem-solving-through-design example, students were officially registered for different courses, so a Web site became a valuable tool for promoting organization among students, and electronic communication tools became important tools for fostering clear communication.

Second, design studios support the use of processes that assist students in the design task. In general, students work independently and within teams to design a viable product that will solve their problem. For many students who have experience as designers, the idea of reflection may be natural and innate. But professors should consider building into the studio environment processes that will promote reflection among students. Professors need to scaffold reflection through concrete activities. For example, designers often maintain sketchbooks and diaries to support reflection (Cheng, 2000; Webster, 2001).

Also, professors can use numerous evaluation processes in design studios. They can conduct informal “desk critiques” on a regular basis. These desk critiques serve to provide students with cursory feedback about their work products. More formally, design studios imply the use of “juried” presentations of works in progress. In juried presentations, groups summarize their processes and showcase their products to professors and students who are working on other design projects. Juries provide an opportunity for formative peer review. In studios, summative evaluation often comes in the form of portfolios or formal presentations to faculty committees, other students, and possible even real-world clients.

Conclusions

>From students learning through the design and production of multimedia (Kahn and Taber Ullah, 1998) to students learning science by designing and testing solutions to problems (Harel and Papert, 1991), problem-solving-through-design tasks have become an effective model for teaching and learning. For students and professors, the use of design in the classroom presents new challenges and fundamentally alters their roles. In accepting the challenges of incorporating design into the classroom, professors create new learning experiences that are more appropriate for students rather than relying on tradition exercises or lectures from a textbook.

References

Bucciarelli, L. “Design Knowing and Learning: A Socially Mediated Activity.” In C.M. Eastman, W.M. McCracken, and W.C. Newstetter (eds.) Designing Knowing and Learning: Cognition in Design Education. Amsterdam, N.Y,: Elsevier, 2001, pp. 297-314.
Cheng, N. “Web-based Teamwork in Design Education.” Paper presented at SiGraDi 2000: 4th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics, Rio de Janiero, Sept. 2000.
Davis, M. “Making a Case for Design-Based Learning.” Arts Education Policy Review, 1998, 100(2), 7-14.
Davis, M., Hawley, P., McMullan, B., and Spilka, G. Design as a Catalyst for Learning. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1997.
D’Ignazio, F. “The Multimedia Sandbox: Creating a Publishing Center for Students.” Classroom Computer Learning, 1989, 10(2), 22-23, 26-29.
Fiedler, S.H.D. “The Studio Experience: Challenges and Opportunities for Self-Organized Learning.” Department of Instructional Technology, University of Georgia. [http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/studio/fiedler.html]. 1999.
Harel, I., and Papert, S. (eds.). Constructionism. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1991.
Hedberg, J., and Sims, R. “Speculations on Design Team Interactions.” Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 2001, 12(2-3), 193-208.
Kahn, T.M., and Taber Ullah, L.N. Learning by Design: Integrating Technology into the Curriculum Through Student Multimedia Design Projects. Tucson: Zephyr Press, 1998.
Liu, M., and Pedersen, S. “The Effect of Being Hypermedia Designers on Elementary School Students’ Motivation and Learning of Design Knowledge.” Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 1998, 9(2), 155-182.
Newell, A., and Simon, H.A. Human Problem Solving. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1972.
Orey, M., Riever, L., King, J., and Matzko, M. “The Studio: Curriculum Reform in an Instructional Technology Graduate Program.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, Apr. 2000.
Perez, R. “Instructional Design Expertise: A Cognitive Model of Design.” Instructional Science, 1995, 23(5-6), 321-349.
Rieber, L.P. “The Studio Experience: Educational Reform in Instructional Technology.” In D.G. Brown (ed.), Best Practices in Computer Enhanced Teaching and Learning. Winston-Salem, N.C.: Wake Forest Press, 2000, pp. 195-196.
Rittel, H.W. “Second-Generation Design Methods.” In N. Cross (ed.), Developments in Design Methodolofies. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 1984.
Schön, D. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Teachers College Press, 1991.
Sherry, L., and Myers, K.M. “The Dynamics of Collaborative Design.” IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Professional Communication, 1998, 41(2), 123-139.
Simon, H.A. The Sciences of the Artificial. (3rd ed.) Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996.
Thomas, L., and Harri-Augstein, S. Self-Organised Learning. London, U.K.: Routledge, 1985.
Webster, H. “The Design Diary: Promoting Reflective Practice in the Design Studio.” Paper presented at the Architectural Education Exchange, Cardiff, U.K., Sept. 2001.

WAYNE A. NELSON is a professor of instructional technology and chair of the department of educational leadership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Folks:

The posting below gives ten simple suggestions on maintaining student interest in the classroom. While written with engineering classes in mind, much of it is relevant to all areas. It is by Phillip Wankat and Frank Oreovicz from the September, 2004 issues of ASEE Prism, Volume 14, Number 1. . Copyright © 2004 ASEE, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Regards,

Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Problem-Based Learning in the Information Age

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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A PERFECT 10 -YOU CAN SCORE BIG WITH YOUR ENGINEERING STUDENTS BY USING
THESE TEACHING TIPS.

By Phillip Wankat and Frank Oreovicz

Do you find yourself teaching to a room full of zombies? The class seems enthusiastic at first, but their attention inevitably wanes. And the apathy is contagious. Even you lose interest. Here are 10 proven steps that can bring you and your class back to life.

1. Prepare a list of educational objectives. They will help students know what to study and what they’ll be able to do after completing the class. Studies show that students learn more when provided with this information. Use the well-known Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop objectives.

2. Teach inductively. Undergraduates generally learn new material best when it’s introduced with simple, specific examples. Once these are mastered, more difficult ones can be presented and a general procedure developed.

3. Avoid MEGO (”my eyes glaze over”) by dividing lectures into segments separated by activity breaks. The maximum attention span of most students seems to be about 15 minutes.

4. Practice active learning during the activity breaks. Ask small groups of students to undertake activities such as brainstorming, developing questions for the instructor, or solving a problem. This activity will energize students for the next lecture segment.

5. Be enthusiastic. The reason most of us became professors is because we love the material we teach. Share that enthusiasm and explain why the material is important. Enthusiastic professors have enthusiastic students.

6. Learn students’ names. Knowing the names of students is absolutely necessary for developing a rapport with them. By doing so, you’ll reduce discipline problems and cheating.

7. Come early and stay late. Coming early allows you time to set up the classroom and sends the message that you want to be there. Staying late is the best way to answer questions.

8. Increase student work time. Students who study more learn more. Encourage study groups for homework and projects. Have one question on the test that is closely related to homework so that its benefits are obvious.

9. Reduce or eliminate time pressure on tests. The purpose of a test is to distinguish between students who know the material and those who don’t. Students need time to show what they know. Reduce the length of tests or provide more time.

10. After the first test, ask students how you can help them learn. Give them five minutes to fill out 3″ x 5″ cards. You will get a number of useful responses. But for this to work, you must follow up on some of them. In large classes we’re usually asked to tell students to shut up. By reading such requests out loud, it makes it OK to ask students to be quiet.

Phillip Wankat is head of interdisciplinary engineering and the Clifton L. Lovell Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. Frank Oreovicz is an education communications specialist at Purdue’s chemical engineering school. They can be reached by e-mail at purdue@asee.org.

Folks:

The posting below announces the launch of a new web site on elearning to make it easier to track and review research literature in the field across its multiple disciplines.

Regards,

Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: A Perfect 10

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

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E-LEARNING REVIEWS AVAILABLE ON NEW WEB SITE

The Swiss Centre for Innovations in Learning (SCIL Switzerland) this fall announced, in a joint effort with the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL Stanford), the launch of a new web site on elearning to make it easier to track and review research literature in the field across its multiple disciplines, something that is difficult to do since the field is so vast.

The website, [http://www.elearning-reviews.org] provides those interested in research on elearning with concise and thoughtful reviews of relevant publications. The goals of the collaborative project are to provide ongoing updates, a solid base of existing literature from the various disciplinary perspectives, and the further the development of elearning as a scientific research-oriented discipline.

The project continually surveys new publications from a broad spectrum of journals, conferences, reports, and books. Each review is carefully written and critically reflects the publication in an accessible and concise manner so that readers can easily decide whether the publication is relevant to them. [http://www.elearning-reviews.org] offers a variety of useful ways to access its reviews. Users can browse the elearning classification scheme covering the wide range of elearning topics: Strategy, Quality, Pedagogy, Technology, Human-Computer Interaction, Change Management, and more. They can search for publications by specific authors or scan the lists of reviewed publications of particular journals or conferences.

[http://www.elearning-reviews.org] targets those at the intersection of elearning theory and practice. Researchers find relevant reviews from the different disciplines constituting elearning. Practitioners appreciate the wealth of research results they can put into practice. Students of elearning programmes will profit from the literature overview provided by the reviews sorted into helpful subject categories.

The project was initiated by the Swiss SCIL, which maintains and continues to further develop the web site. The editorial team is made up of researchers from the Swiss SCIL, as well as researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland, and the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning. All three of the partner institutions will regularly contribute reviews to the website.

Reinhold Steinbeck, Director of SCILNet, the international program of the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning, and topic co-editor, hopes that “elearning-reviews.org could become the ‘Google’ of elearning, just better, because you know that what you will find will meet the highest standards.”

For more information visit the website: www.elearning-reviews.org