EHHP Operations and Accreditation

Have your students requested that you provide them with your PPTs? Lecture outlines? Here’s a research-based must-read article from a couple of years ago by Maryellen Weimer from The Teaching Professor addressing the subject of  providing notes for students in your classes.

Should Instructors Provide Students with Complete Notes? By Maryellen Weimer

Course management software programs make it especially easy for instructors to provide students with a set of complete lecture notes. It seems that more instructors are doing this, as witnessed in the regularity with which students ask that the instructor’s notes be posted. But is giving students a complete set of notes a good idea?

Previous findings (like those of Kenneth Kiewra, highlighted some years back in this newsletter) recommend against this practice. Kiewra’s research demonstrated both a process and a product benefit of note taking. The process benefit accrues when students make selections about what to note and when they use at least some of their own words to record that material. When students record lecture content using their words, it becomes easier for them to connect new material with things they already know. This process benefit is lost when students are provided with complete notes. Even so, students prefer teacher notes because they think that having the content in the instructor’s words will better prepare them for exam questions.

The product benefit of note taking obviously comes as a result of having a product, in this case a set of notes, that can be reviewed and studied subsequently. It is generally thought that instructor-provided notes enhance this benefit because students don’t have to worry about losing notes (they are always available online) and because the material in instructor-provided notes is sure to be accurate.

However, a recent study confirms Kiewra’s earlier findings—but with an interesting elaboration. In this study, psychology students received either a complete or a partial set of instructor notes. The partial notes included major headings and titles made up of definitions and concepts, but students needed to write in the additional information. In both cases, students were instructed to download the notes and bring them to class. About three-fourths of the students complied with this directive.

The researchers looked at the impact of the complete versus the partial notes on exam scores, final grades, and attendance. They found that those students who received partial notes performed better on the third and fourth exams and earned significantly higher course grades. They did not find “differential effects of note type on class attendance.” (p. 10)

There was one other “noteworthy” effect. On the final exam, the students who received partial notes performed better on conceptual questions, those questions that involved “application of a theoretical concept to an example that required additional mastery of the material beyond the definition.” (p. 8) Researchers speculate that the students with partial notes had encoded material throughout the semester, and when confronted with the large amount of material they needed to know for the final, they understood more and so had to rely less on memorization.

Based on their findings, these researchers recommend providing students with partial notes. Giving students some notes conveys the instructor’s sensitivity to their concerns about getting the material they need from a lecture. If those notes provide the outline or structure of the material, students can concentrate on understanding the information rather than on trying to figure out how to prioritize and organize the material. Partial notes also clarify what students need to be writing and still retain the process benefit of note taking by forcing students to encode some of the content. The researchers summarize their results this way: “Partial notes … may provide a nice balance in terms of providing students with some notes, which they report as helpful, and still requiring encoding and higher-level processing of information, which will ultimately improve learning and performance.” (p. 11)

Reference: Cornelius, T.L., and Owen-DeSchryver, J. (2008). Differential effects of full and partial notes on learning outcomes and attendance. Teaching of Psychology, 35 (1), 6-12.

Originally published in The Teaching Professor, June/July 2008

Can you believe we are looking toward midterms–where has time gone?

Have you ever felt that the first part of your course seems more exciting, easier to teach, and more motivational to your students than the second half? If so, Here are some great ideas to enliven the last part of your course so that the semester ends with meaning for both you and your students. This article was unearthed from the May 2008 issue of The Teaching Professor just for you.

End Notes: Distinctive Ways to Wrap-Up a College Course
By Margaret Walsh, Keene State College, New Hampshire

No, even with our best efforts at measuring our students’ learning precisely, we can’t be entirely accurate in assessment for a number of reasons. We can, however, alleviate measurement error. First, here are some ways we can lessen the “human error” in test takers. Next are some ideas for actively engaging in “good” assessment practices.

1. There is such a thing as getting in a “mental rut,” blanking out, or being preoccupied so that we can’t access material in our long term memory, even though a we may understand the material. Stress or other emotional factors can compete for our concentration. My personal examples of the result of this phenomenon are walking out the classroom door and immediately remembering the answer/term/solution to a question, or being able to see in my mind’s eye the page of text and where the term in bold is located, remembering the term’s meaning, but not recalling the term itself. Some tactics for alleviating mental ruts/mental sets are sufficient reviews; preparing students in advance for the type of test items to expect; providing clear, well written items that clarify the expected response; and setting an “assessment climate” early in the year in which assessment is “show what you know” rather than “gotcha on that one!”
2. When we are ill, assessment accuracy suffers. Recognizing when students are truly unwell can allow a teacher the discretion to test ill students at another time for more accurate measurement.
3. Okay, maybe you’ll say there is no such thing as luck, but we all do tend to learn some material better than others and sometimes we can even “luck up” and guess the correct answer on multiple choice items. Providing sufficient reviews can assist students in sufficient preparation. Researching guidelines for writing/selecting appropriate test questions can reveal to us how to write “really good” items that aren’t as susceptible to guessing.

Directly from Free Technology for Teachers blog by Richard Byrne is an idea for locating music for student videos. Check out his blog for some fabulous tech for the classroom ideas.

“I always encourage people to use their own music creations in the videos they produce, but I recognize that that is not always possible or practical. My next recommendation then is to use Creative Commons licensed music (here are seven good sources). This morning through Pitchanan Gaysornmas I learned about another good place to search for and find Creative Commons music, the Vimeo Music Store.

“The Vimeo Music Store offers more than 45,000 music tracks. Not all of the tracks are free or Creative Commons licensed, but roughly one-third or more of them are. In the Vimeo Music Store you can search for music by genre, license type, price, and length.

“Applications for Education
The next time your students are developing multimedia projects for your class, have them take a look through the Vimeo Music Store to see if they can find a tune to enhance the message of their productions.”

Defining Active Learning
By Maryellen Weimer, PhD In Faculty Focus Online

There’s a definitional “looseness” about many of the terms commonly used in higher education. I know, I’ve written about this in previous blogs, but when terms are bandied about assuming everybody defines them similarly, that’s a recipe for misunderstanding. Equally important, we can be using terms without having done the intellectual homework necessary to precisely understand their referents.
Case in point: active learning. Not so long ago in a workshop discussion, I asked for definitions. I gave participants a couple of minutes to think or jot notes. Here’s some of what I got, “students doing” “activities that engage students” “passive learning is an oxymoron” “teaching that gets student involved with the content” “when students participate or do group work.” Although similar, I would say that all those descriptors are different. None of them are bad or wrong; most of them are pretty superficial when compared to a definition like the one for active learning that appears in The Greenwood Dictionary of Education.
Greenwood defines active learning as “The process of having students engage in some activity that forces them to reflect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skill at handling concepts or problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking and problem solving.”
I’m not proposing this as the “right” “best” or “only” definition for active learning, but I am proposing that it’s a good deal more specific than most of us would offer. Now, if we sat down and thought about active learning, if we talked about it with colleagues, I’m pretty sure that the definitions we’d develop would rival this one. But my point is we can regularly use terms like this without having done that careful thinking.Carefully crafted learning experiences 
There are some things about this definition that I do like. Sometimes we think active learning is “activity for the sake of activity” without being mindful that it’s equally about what students are doing. According to this definition they are engaged in activities designed to encourage reflection, designed to confront them with their knowledge and skill levels and designed to get them interacting with information. That’s not just any old activity—that’s a carefully crafted learning experience.
Most faculty know that active learning is important even though many still lecture pretty much exclusively. Most will even go so far as to admit that students learn better when they are active, not passive. And almost all faculty report that they use active learning. But I’m hoping this discussion is making clear that there is active learning and then there is active learning.
Student engagement exists along a continuum. I think the Greenwood definition is active learning at a highly engaged and highly effective level. The nice thing about a continuum is that things can be moved along it. So, if you don’t have time at the moment to create one of those carefully crafted learning experiences, you can take an active learning strategy you currently use, say participation, and make it more active. You can do that by asking a good, thought provoking question, following it with 30 seconds of silence and follow that with two minutes during which students share their thoughts with each other before discussing the answer with the whole class.
Or, you could pause after presenting a chunk of content and tell students you don’t intend to proceed until they’ve asked at least two questions about the material. You might jot those questions on the board, type them into the computer and then let the class take a crack at answering. Write down the essence of their answers and then discuss the merits of their various replies.

Planet Orange – Money Lessons for K-6 Students
by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)

Planet Orange is a website developed by ING Direct for the purpose of helping elementary school students learn some basic money skills. Through a series of “missions” (games) to Planet Orange students gain or lose money. Students can design an avatar to represent themselves on their missions. The students gain invest or spend the money they gain to match their budgets and reach their goals.

Planet Orange offers teachers a series of lesson plans for students in grades K-7. The lessons are designed around student play in the Planet Orange environment. The highlight of the teacher section are two 65+ page activity books. The activity books include materials for pre-teaching important money-related vocabulary prior to having students go on Planet Orange missions. The activity books also include worksheets and lessons to build upon the student missions in Planet Orange.

Applications for Education
To use Planet Orange kids have to enter a parent’s email address so to use it in your classroom you will have to contact parents. That could be a good way to communicate with parents about what’s going on in your classroom. In the event that you can’t get students online to use Planet Orange, some of the lessons in the activity books could be used effectively without going online.

Teaching Strategies That Help Students Learn How to Learn
By Sara J. Coffman

What skills do you wish your students had prior to taking your course? Reading comprehension, time management, listening, note-taking, critical thinking, test-taking? Let’s face it, most students could benefit from taking a course in learning how to learn. But who wants to take a study skills class?
My solution: sneak study skills into your class along with the content.
Course structure:
• Select a textbook that has learning aids (study guides, online materials, and/or audio files) and encourage your students to use them.
• Craft your syllabus carefully. By setting the right tone, you can motivate students.”
• Design clear, meaningful assignments that enable students to accomplish course objectives.
• Space the workload out evenly throughout the semester.
• If students don’t master an assignment the first time, give them constructive feedback, and the chance to redo it. You may not want to do this for every assignment, but doing it for one early in the course “sets the bar” and encourages them to do quality work.
When it comes to retention, the traditional view is that it’s the students’ responsibility to “retain” themselves by doing the work that is assigned in a course and achieving passing marks on tests. However, the growing focus on student success and retention involves increased efforts to help students from admission through graduation. And that means faculty have a big role to play
The first week:
• If your class is small, set up interviews with students individually or in pairs to find out why they’re taking the course and what they want to get out of it. Not only will you learn about who’s in the class, but you’ll increase students’ commitment to work hard and communicate with you. If the class is large, use email to collect information about students and to establish connections.
• Talk to students about how to study for your course. Give them a list of study techniques recommended by students who’ve taken the course and earned A’s.
• Early in the course, have students use their textbooks in class. By using class time, you acknowledge the book’s value. If you can’t afford class time, have students do a homework assignment that they can’t complete without using the book.
• Offer students time management suggestions. Let them know approximately how much time they should spend on the course each week. Talk about how daily study keeps the information fresh and helps avoid cramming. Show how longer assignments can be broken into small pieces.
Techniques for teaching:
• Start class with something that gets their attention and then quickly review what was covered in the previous class.
• Show students “tricks of the trade,” or how you learned the material. Talk aloud when you solve a problem. Show students what you do when you get stuck.
• Provide a partial outline and have your students fill in the missing material during the lecture.
• Leave five minutes at the end of each class for students to check their notes with those of their neighbor, review major ideas, and indicate what they thought was important and why.
Testing tips:
• Assign study groups prior to the first exam, have them exchange contact information, and require a one-hour study session outside of class. Help them be more productive by providing a study guide and/or sample test questions they can submit for bonus points.
• Give students frequent tests and constructive feedback throughout the course.
• Give a practice test before the actual exam so students get a feel for the types of questions you ask. If you use essay questions, share an example of an A, C, and F answer.
• Take class time to go over the first exam. Talk in detail about the questions most often missed.
• Have students analyze the first exam, or quiz, by writing you a memo that responds to questions like these: Was it harder than expected? Were any of the questions a complete surprise? If so, which ones? Were there any questions you didn’t understand or found confusing? If so, rewrite them using your own words. What one change are you going to make when studying for the next quiz? What study strategy did you use that worked well?
These simple strategies teach students learning skills that will make them better students in every course.
Excerpted from “Teaching Strategies That Help Students Learn,” The Teaching Professor, 23.7 (2009): 1,8.
Sara J. Coffman, Center for Instructional Excellence, Purdue University.

Vocab Ahead: Learning ACT and SAT vocab by video. Vocab Ahead also gives teachers the ability to create custom playlists of vocabulary videos. The playlists can be shared via email, a posted link on a blog, or by posting a vocabulary video widget on a blog or website.

Bubba Brain: Review games with AP and SAT vocabulary.

Flashcard Flash: A search engine that searches twenty-two different flashcard services including Flashcard DB, Quizlet, and Study Stack.

Using publishers ABC, NBC, Fox, AP, and AFP, mapeas maps the most representative video news around the world. View the map and click on the circles to see the video news. The larger the circle, the more recent the news video. Good for current events.

http://www.braineos.com/