The LU campus is beginning to show signs of life as the Spring semester rapidly approaches. This is your last weekend to prepare for your classes. I hope you have done your "spring cleaning" on your syllabi and infused them with some learning experiences that employ teaching methods that encourage active learning. As we move from the teacher-centered methods of the past to more effective student-centered approaches, we will start to reap the benefits of higher retention and graduation rates. If you are interested in using collaborative technologies to enhance your learning experiences, Jason Kalin has a terrific article you will want to access. He raves that we should encourage the use of the available collaborative technologies because it mimics what will occur in the real world when our students report to work. Kalin warns that although our students may be technology communicators, "many students consider these socially-centered online applications as neutral communication tools without learning, or even realizing, how to use these applications in rhetorically aware ways." Just wanted to remind you that our Blackboard support allows you to access SafeAssign, designed to eliminate plagiarism in student assignments. The service detects plagiarized works in student papers and delivers reports on such incidents through the Blackboard Learning System. SafeAssign checks assignments against databases of published articles and also scans the Internet for materials that might have been plagiarized. The interesting thing is that the more we use the service, it creates a database of LU material that is used to check your student's assignments. In this way, we are capturing the "viral sharing" that can sometimes occur in classes. The University of British Columbia Okanagan has issued a call for proposals for the annual learning conference Scholarly Approaches: Evidence-Informed Teaching and Learning to be held May 2 and 3 in British Columbia. Proposals will be accepted through February 29. Educators are invited to share their expertise and experience with the connection between research and learning. The conference intends to explore questions such as how can research inform my teaching and hence enhance the student learning experience; how do students learn best; and, what does the research say about approaches to teaching and learning that are most effective? Michael Theall urges us to help our students stay on track throughout the semester. He says "research on the dimensions of college teaching provides powerful evidence of the importance of helping students to organize their time. With respect to student achievement, the most strongly correlated teaching dimensions are organization and clarity. When teachers make clear how topics fit and how the assigned work can be efficiently carried out, they help students to construct accurate schemas and clarify the structure of the discipline. The result is better student learning and increased student satisfaction because that learning becomes more apparent."

With exactly 15 days until the Spring semester begins, now is the perfect time to take a look at your course offerings. Faculty who plan to try new ideas would be wise to take a closer look at their planned learning experiences. If you have three big ideas that you want to be sure your students are able to understand, integrate and synthesize into their broader knowledge base, now is the time to try a new teaching method that promotes active learning. Having your students take a personal stake in their education not only reduces the stress on you but helps them to grow as a life-long learner. Creating smart and creative citizens for the future benefits all of us. You can find many ideas on this blog but here are a few quick ideas to start the new year. Kathleen Cushman offers a number of suggestions in her book Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery (LB 1031.4 C87). She suggests that you remind your students that people who are seen as experts have worked hard to receive this acknowledgement. She also notes that "experts ask good questions, are curious, and want to know." They typically ask "what would happen if or why did that happen?" Cushman says that experts break problems into parts, rely on evidence, look for patterns, and consider other perspectives. Interestingly, she also found that most experts collaborate and welcome critique. Here is another idea offered by Skip Downing in his book On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and in Life which we plan to use in the University Success Seminar (USS LMAR 1101) in the Fall 2012 semester. Have you ever used a concept map to make notes? If not, you should try it and encourage your students to do the same. It promotes a different type of learning and really illustrates the connection between ideas and topics. Dr. Robert Leamnson has an interesting article in The National Teaching and Learning Forum that is a free download. It is a primer on learning and might be a good handout on day one of your classes this spring. Leamnson says, "a fundamental idea that you will encounter over and again, is that learning is not something that just happens to you, it is something that you do to yourself. You cannot be 'given' learning, nor can you be forced to do it. The most brilliant and inspired teacher cannot 'cause' you to learn. Only you can do that." The call for proposal deadline for the Scholarship of Teaching and Engagement Conference to be held on March 22 and 23, 2012 at Utah Valley University in Orem has been extended to January 15, 2012. All proposals will be peer reviewed and decisions will be made by January 2012. The theme for the 2012 Scholarship of Teaching and Engagement (SoTE) Conference is “Reaching New Heights through Engagement”. When faculty are primarily concerned with student learning and teaching methods are grounded in scholarly evaluation of what works and what does not, learning becomes a revitalized process for all involved, a celebration. They are looking for you to share your experiences and data about how to improve teaching, student learning, and community engagement. All disciplines are welcome.

Congratulations to all of the new LU graduates. The holiday season is quickly approaching and as your mind works overtime to come up with that perfect gift, we want to encourage you to find some time to rest during the break. One way to do that productively is to take a look at your teaching philosophy. It might be time to update it especially if you were able to critically self-reflect about your work during this past semester. The journaling community at LU continues to grow and we want you to be a part of it. Look for the announcement of self-reflection sessions in the spring semester. University of Iowa professor Stephen Bloom created quite a stir with his op-ed piece in The Atlantic. Nate Kreuter's response in Inside Higher Ed provides a nice counterbalance. His thoughts validate the efforts we have pursued by creating the Faculty Learning Communities program at LU. The four current FLC have flourished and continue to work hard. Remember that we will be asking for suggestions for FLC for the 2012-13 academic year. Think about what you are missing most in your academic career and suggest that as a FLC. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is moving forward with the new Core Curriculum requirements that will take effect in 2014. Your LU Core Committee, chaired by Rebecca Boone, has completed the first phase of the review of the current core at LU and will begin to meet again in 2012 to look at modifying the new core curriculum under the revised guidelines. The main change is that the component requirement has been limited to 42 hours which is a reduction of six hours from the previous limit. That means that the core curriculum will look different at LU come 2014. Dr. Patricia Alexander will be visiting LU to present an interactive workshop on February 6, 2012. The session will be held in 702 MJGL from 1:00 until 2:00 PM. Look for more information to come in January. Happy holidays!

Have you seen the Moneyball movie? If so, you might understand what is happening in some classrooms around the country. Data is being mined to help the teacher provide the best learning experience. Marc Parry wrote a very interesting article about this technique. "Today, half of students quit college before earning a credential. Proponents feel that making better use of data to inform decisions, known as 'analytics,' can help solve that problem while also improving teaching." Quantitative literacy (QL), also known as numeracy or quantitative reasoning (QR), is a "habit of mind," competency, and comfort in working with numerical data. Individuals with strong QL skills possess the ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situations. They understand and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence and they can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety of formats (using words, tables, graphs, mathematical equations, etc., as appropriate). The preceding definition comes from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) of which Lamar University is a member. You can find all sorts of useful information on the AAC&U website including rubrics that can be used to measure learning outcomes. If you still haven't reached your QL quotient, take a look at this terrific article by Rose Marie Ward, Monica Schneider, and James Kiper titled Development of an Assessment of Quantitative Literacy for Miami University. As advocates for enhancing the QL abilities of all students, they write, "assessing the QL of a university's students can help inform the development of QL initiatives; these initiatives can also push students one step closer to being quantitative literate adults. While one would presumably never be proud to say that they cannot read, there is a wide social acceptability of dismissing quantitative concepts by saying, 'I am not good with numbers." We hope you have had a wonderful semester. Hopefully at this point you are seeing the fruits of your labor. By that we mean that your students have met all of the learning outcomes you set for your class. If they have not, perhaps it is time to ask for help. The CT+LE is here for you. We encourage you to take a look at the services we offer and do not hesitate to contact us to set up a consultation. If you are looking for a good book to read over the holiday break, we recommend Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do. The MJGL has a copy and so does the CT+LE.

Some new evidence in the continuing debate over the impact of large classes on teaching and learning: The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario has just released a report that notes a lack of consensus on whether class size alone is a key factor in learning. However, the report concludes that "if size matters ... teaching methods and course design probably matter more." Dr. Alice Cassidy offers this teaching methods that promotes active learning especially when you ask your students to read material to prepare for class. Have your students read a newspaper article about Killer Whales and Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to prepare students (most logically for biology non-majors) to conduct scholarly research in the discipline. Along with this assigned pre-reading, give each student a colored slip of paper (1 of 3 colors). Each color is a different question, such as ‘What words in the article would you use to find out more about the subject in a web search?’; ‘What would you do first to find a peer-reviewed journal article that relates to this article?’ Tell them to come to class with their answer. You can then pass the tickets along to a reference librarian in MJGL and ask them to lead a computer session for the students to teach them about databases, Google scholar, etc. The student answers on the tickets end up guiding the computer lab, showing the students that we are helping them by using their feedback, hence it is highly relevant to them. This teaching method provides relevant skills that can be used in any situation. A good way to align this learning experience with your learning outcomes is to assign them a research essay. The 15th annual Wakonse South Conference on College Teaching will take place March 30 through April 1, 2012. The conference will be held at Canyon of the Eagles Resort in the Texas Hill Country. The conference features engaging conversations about learning and teaching among college faculty, many stimulating presentations by conference participants, and beautiful surroundings all combined to create a renewing, refreshing, and wonderful conference. Past participants have reported that they were re-energized and enjoyed learning, teaching, socializing, and relaxing. The cost for the entire conference, including all meals and two nights of accommodation for a Non-TAMU faculty member is $395.00. For a single occupancy, add $140 (subject to availability). Please note that registration is first come, first serve.

There is good news on the student success front at LU as the course proposal was approved by the curriculum committee. That means that University Success Seminar LMAR 1101 will be offered in the Fall semester of 2012. We will be in need of a number of student-centered, empathetic and passionate faculty to teach this very valuable course. The syllabus has a heavy emphasis on both hard (critical thinking, quantitative literacy) and soft (study skills, time management) skills. The text being used for the first round will be On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and in Life by Skip Downing who believes that students should accept personal responsibility, discover self-motivation, master self-management, and employ interdependence in order to be successful. Look for more information about this exciting development very soon. The Active Research and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Learning Community (FLC) met again recently to continue their discussion on this very topic of student success. As active practitioners, they have identified several challenges to teaching and are developing strategies to address each impediment. Their ultimate goal is to develop new scholarship that can benefit all of us. If you are curious about the latest developments, we encourage you to dialog with current members including: Chiung-Fang Chang, JJ Chen, Jessica Dandona, Debra Greschner, Ashwini Kucknoor, Charlotte Mizener, Randy Smith, Vanessa Villate, or Christine Wilbur. The Midwest Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is currently accepting proposals for their annual conference to be held on April 20 in South Bend, Indiana.This year’s theme is “At Home and Abroad: Teaching and Learning Without Borders,” and the submission deadline is set for 11:00 AM Tuesday, January 17, 2012. Acceptance notification for proposals will be sent out Wednesday, February 15, 2012. CT+LE has donated the most recent edition of Diane Halpern's book Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking to the Mary and John Gray Library (MJGL). You can find it on the faculty development recommended reading bookshelves on the sixth floor of MJGL just outside the CT+LE suite.

During the last eighteen months that the CT+LE has been operating, we have had the joyous occasion to engage in many stimulating conversations about teaching and learning. When the conversation turns to the use of teaching methods that promote active learning, we receive a variety of opinions. Very frequently we hear the oft repeated excuse that there is no way we can use those methods in our (insert discipline) class because we are required to teach large amounts of information. The use of team-based, problem-based, or collaborative methods (to name a very small few) is bemoaned because it takes longer to get students organized in class. We also hear that the faculty feel a lot of pressure to get through a very specific amount of topics before the end of the semester. What is lost in all of this talk is the idea of learning. At the end of the semester, we might be quiet proud that we were able to get through all of the material, but what did our students really learn? If we presented the material to them, does that presuppose that they learned it? Of course we know from experience that this is not true. In fact, research proves that this type of teaching is not effective for the long term and usually promotes memorization for recall on tests rather than deep learning. If we are helping students to be critical thinkers, then the focus needs to be on what they are learning not how much. Now we know that this breadth versus depth argument is complex. But let's take a step back and think about it for a moment. When you are creating your course and you write down the outcomes, what you are truly expecting your students to be able to do when they finish your class, aren't you expecting them to learn? So what is really important is that they fully grasp the concepts that you are teaching and be able to apply them to different situations. In most instances, you are beginning the class with the most basic and usually the most important concepts. Once you have them understanding those concepts, you are scaffolding newer more difficult material on top of that. The entire concept is based on establishing an anchor of information that they can then attach new material to. The long term memory is what is really important. Especially if these students are your majors but even if they are not. Isn't it important for them to know the concepts of your discipline for their general everyday lives? If not, why are we teaching them things that really don't matter? Further, don't we want to move them up the hierarchy of Bloom's Taxonomy? Moving your students from remembering information to application and then to synthesis and judgement is the ultimate goal of teaching. Mary E. Berg, who edits The Teaching Professor writes, "During [a recent faculty development] discussion, many of my colleagues commented that using engaged learning techniques in the classroom took too much time. They weren’t able to teach all the material and ended the term with way more content than they could possibly cover. I’ve sat in enough lecture halls to know that neither I, nor my fellow students, have necessarily learned all that professors attempt to “cover” in a course. Yes, the professors lectured. Yes, I took notes, read the textbooks, memorized the materials, and took the tests. But at the end of the term, at the end of my degree, and 10 to 20 years later, what courses and what materials do I remember?" It is something to think about. We will be providing some foundational research articles over the next posts that will be interesting to anyone who is struggling with this dilemma.