Teaching Matters at LU

Art Across the Disciplines

2011-04-04T05:54:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Saadia Lawton

During a recent conversation with a colleague outside of the Visual Arts field, she lamented that an attempt to incorporate art into her class discussion about literature did not ago as well as she intended. For her, the discourse with her students was not as lively and did not transcend the common art criticism often heard when people outside the field are introduced to art: “That’s art! It’s ugly. I don’t like it.” What this professor wanted was an opportunity to introduce art to students outside the field and ensure that they would use it as a means to contextualize her literary lesson. As we talked further, I realized how often images are used to provide context outside the field, but rarely discussed in a way that leads to a deeper understanding and appreciation for what the specific artwork conveys about the artist, the subject matter, the event represented or people depicted, and the audience that made/used it at the time of its creation. Rarely do conversations about the artwork, outside the field, move beyond what the art represents to address why it is important and what additional information can its visual cues offer to our greater understanding about a specific period or people being studied.

In order to facilitate a conversation about any form of Visual Culture, it helps to become familiar with the terms used to discuss and describe what the artwork shows. In one of the University required core courses, ART 200: Introduction to Art, we prepare students to observe, discuss and write about different kinds of artwork. One of the first lessons taught focuses on the 15 design elements and principles that comprise the bases of our discourse. Color, line, light (value), mass, shape, space, texture, time and motion comprise the design elements. The design principles include balance, contrast, directional force, emphasis and subordination, repetition and rhythm, scale and proportion, unity and variety. Some of these are self-explanatory, while others require a little more discussion and practice to enable accurate identification of the element of principle in question. Ultimately, the goal in learning these basic terms is to get students adept at seeing an artwork from different perspectives. As they learn to look they systematically use the design elements and principles to collect data, and process the visual cues in order to construct a thesis statement that ties information about how the artwork was created to its content or meaning (why it was created and what it informs us about the event, the people, the period…etc.).

Educators and students who master this approach are capable of using almost any artwork to contextualize the lesson. This is the reason why we see art used for almost everything we experience in our day to day lives. We not only live in a visual world but we form part of the information acquired, processed and meanings ascribed daily. One of the Best Practices that the late Dr. Lori Lynn Kata used in her classes involved the compare and contrast approach. It is relatively simple way to train novices to learn how to look at art and collect the necessary data about the representation that can lead to enlivened debates that move beyond criticism into deeper conversations about what the art is about (content), how the artist used the subject matter to convey certain sentiments, and why the approach was or was not effective at the time. This teaching method can be accomplished with two artworks by the same artists, by two different artists, artworks completed at different time periods about the same subject and so forth. I recommend the use of a graphic organizer, such as a Venn diagram because it aids students in the processes of collection, recording and sharing information later. In my own classes, I have broken students up into small groups that rotate between 3-4 different artworks either collecting data or making notations on large post-it notes. All of these approaches encourage better communication about art within the context of any lesson plan and activates a cross-curricular conversation about art and its important role in any other field.

As we continue to be a society inundated with images, we will realize just how much art is a part of our daily lives. For this reason, the Visual Arts is one of the most diverse and interdisciplinary fields often referenced by outside scholarship. When information garnered from an artwork is observed, collected, and discussed, it opens up opportunities to explore a different field from a new perspective. I encourage you to find innovative ways to introduce art into your class lessons and witness how the visual provides an exceptional tool for learning.

Routine or Ritual?

2011-03-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Mel Leaman

Is it routine or ritual? The former suggests the mundane; merely a thoughtless “it’s just something you have to do” expense of energy. Its purpose is lost in its practice. However, if those first five minutes hold a sense of the sacramental, the seemingly routine is alive with an auspicious presence. It sets the stage for wonder; a mystery of the moment. Someone notices. Something is missed in the absence of the ritual. So it is that everyday I walk into the classroom I share a word of welcome. A half-hearted response by the few who do not have their ears muffed with headphones or their eyes skimming texts messages is a sufficient connection. Someone would notice if the class was not greeted with a smiling face and a “Good morning, class.” The absence of presence would bring a cause for pause: “What’s wrong with Dr. Leaman today?” The ritual plays on as I state the objectives for the day and then remind them that as I take attendance they should be sure to make their last minute calls or text messages. Frequently, as they acknowledge their presence I will say “welcome” to each student. When the final name is called the students anticipate, not necessarily appreciate, the professor’s next line: “Ok, we are ready for the day. Let’s put everything away that is not pertinent to the educational process and get started.”

Since midterm I inserted another part of the ritual. On the first day of class the students were given an information form. In addition to name, major, birthday, and hometown they were invited to list hobbies, a color that represents an aspect of their personality, and a favorite movie and song. They used these forms to introduce themselves to their nearest neighbor. A few weeks ago I started to feature a student and his/her favorite song while I took attendance. Pertinent and appropriate information from the student’s form is flashed on the screen and the You Tube version of his/her favorite song is played. It was stated on the first day of this exercise that if a student did not want to be featured or wanted to change his/her song, it was not too late to notify me of these wishes. One student took advantage of this opportunity. She selected a different song.

Is it routine or ritual? Is it just something you have to do or a sacred, celebrative act that creates connection and community- an auspicious moment of meaning and belonging? Yesterday, the ritual was affirmed. It was test day. We all know the usual anxiety that accompanies exams. Students want to quickly regurgitate what they had crammed down their throats prior to the class. In that light, the professor decided to forego the feature student and song. The test was distributed and instructions were beginning when a student interrupted, “Dr. Leaman, you forgot the song!” I smiled to myself and mused about how religious we had already become in regard to this ritual. My heart was warmed.

Teaching Grammar/Learning Grammar. Sigh.

2011-03-08T06:15:00.001-08:00

Guest Blogger: Linda Stine

Like everyone else, I've been moaning and groaning my way through midterms this week. And, like perhaps at least some of you, I've been wondering if my grammar explanations have been doing more harm than good, as I note fragmented ideas and run-on sentences and commas popping up in locations that just seem to belie any rational explanation.

On a listserv for writing teachers recently, a good conversation has been taking place on the whole issue of grammar instruction, student writing, and transferability of writing skills. We know that learning a new concept causes temporary backsliding as students struggle to fit the new knowledge into their existing sense of language structure and begin questioning everything, even concepts that they had previously mastered. (I like to think that's the reason for all those inexplicable commas...). We know too that the same backsliding occurs when students are asked to write on more complicated issues or in other classes with different content matter. We know too that teaching grammar directly and explicitly does little to improve student writing.

So given that, I was wondering what ways you have found that help your students learn, internalize, master, and transfer effectively to other classes the basic concepts of academic grammar and mechanics? Do you discuss grammar rules and then ask students to practice them in exercises before applying them in their own writing? Do you start with the students' own writing and work mainly on getting them to clarify their thoughts, trusting that grammar issues will clear themselves up without formal instruction simply as a side effect of clearer thinking and wider reading? Do you note grammar errors on papers? How? Where? When? Why? Do you have any techniques that work well for you that you could share with the rest of us? Or do you have questions about the whole pesky "good grammar” issue that you keep wrestling with without finding a good answer?

What should we all be doing, I wonder, to ensure that we are graduating students who can write clear, standard, academic English?

Teacher Education

2011-02-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Dipali Puri

Teacher education programs continue to change and evolve in an effort to address the changing needs concerning what pre-service teachers need to know to successfully function in today's schools. In order to better prepare pre-service teachers for a career in education, where they feel ready and prepared to take on the classroom and address the needs of their students, it is important to look at the pre-service teachers themselves and their perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about education.

The perceptions and expectations of teachers are of crucial importance to the way that a teacher behaves in a classroom (Giovannelli, 2003; Ross & Gray, 2006). The study of pre-service teacher perception is a crucial topic of research for, not only the teacher education community, but for the larger educational community as a whole. Teacher perception, or cognition, is a concept that encompasses what teachers know, believe and think. This concept comes into play in the larger educational discourse through the recognition of the relationship that perceptions and cognitions have with teacher behaviors. In other words, teacher perceptions are an important topic of study because they influence what a teacher does on a day-to-day basis in the classroom

Pre-service teachers should be questioned on what their vision of a classroom looks like, who the students in that classroom are, and where that classroom is located For example, do undergraduate pre-service teachers perceive that ideal classroom as located in an urban, suburban or rural area? What type of student population do they envision teaching in the future? What type of teaching technique do they plan to implement? Student centered, teacher directed, etc? What is their philosophy of education? In turn, how does this influence their beliefs about education?

Through teacher preparation programs, pre-service teachers are beginning to think about and reflect on what they envision their own classrooms will look like. As a result of this, it is important that teacher educators provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to reflect on their own teaching practices and how this will translate into their future career as educators.

Yes, Librarians are Teachers

2011-02-20T06:42:00.000-08:00

Albert Bryson, Guest Blogger

I feel that many teaching faculty do not really understand why librarians at academic institutions are part of the faculty. Our roles are different because we are an academic support service at colleges. We supplement what the teaching faculty do in the classroom.

For years the libraries have provided for the teaching faculty a course reserve area with books and articles that supplement the textbooks student purchase for their courses. We are where the students come to work on their research papers and projects.

Since I came to Lincoln in 1987 the library has progressed from physical card catalog to online public access catalog (OPAC) which lists all the items, primarily books that the library owns which are available for our patrons. I am the Catalog Librarian who decides where the book is located in our library using Library of Congress classification and subject headings. I am the one who knows where everything actually is on the shelf.

We have progressed as well from periodicals in bound volumes and on microfilm to where you obtain full text articles from peer reviewed journals online through the many databases which the library now subscribes to online, using the various computers in the library. We still get many of periodicals and journals in print as well, but we do not need to keep some of them in physical storage due the online databases.

Librarians do the majority of our teaching individually using a technique called the reference interview, where we assist students, staff and faculty in finding materials on the topics they are interested in searching. The amount of time we devote to this could be from just a few minutes to as long as an hour, depending what topic needed to be researched.

On request we do what we call bibliographical instruction in the classroom at the request of the teaching faculty where in one class session we provide a quick introduction to what we have available in the library to the students to assist them as they do their various class assignments. We provide handouts on the library services we offer, and we demonstrate how to use the OPAC and several of the online full text databases we have available on the topic associated with the actual class provide to us by the faculty member.

So remember if you need assistance with your research and you need assistance to get going, please feel free to contact one of the faculty librarians. We are available when the library is open to assist you.

The "A" Word, Again

2011-02-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

Guest blogger: Dave Royer

To the reader: the following blog uses the “a” word, so sufferers of “a” exhaustion, be forewarned.

In one of my recent classes we had a discussion; it was not explicitly planned, but we were covering a topic that had the potential to elicit strong opinions. I enjoyed hearing the students’ opinions, and their perspectives were interesting. I think it was empowering for them to have an opportunity to express their opinion and to use materials they had learned in my course and in other courses they had taken to support their opinions. After the class was over, I realized that the discussion was spontaneous and creative and completely outside my assessment plan for the course. Is that a bad thing?

At times, I have found the assessment process to be exhausting and occasionally frustrating, but it has revealed a lot about how I teach and what and how my students learn. My teaching has changed, hopefully for the better, because of it. But I hope that assessment does not evolve in a way that suppresses spontaneity and creativity in the classroom; I do not ever want to hear myself say to a class that we do not have time for discussion (or some other activity) because it is not in the assessment plan. I feel that the interchange that occurred in my class was as valuable to the students’ learning experience as a well conceived and constructed SLO.

One final thought – someone might suggest that I could have anticipated the possibility of discussion and designed a rubric to assess it, but it was pleasant to listen and participate without having to keep score.

Access, Not Special Privileges!

2011-02-08T05:35:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Cathy DeCourcey

In public education today, the general education teacher should expect to teach students with disabilities, students for whom English is a second language, students with special talents, as well as “typical” learners. Similarly, in higher education, increasing numbers of students with disabilities appear in our classes. What then, does a professor do with a student who has a disability?

Our attitudes about difference and disability have significant impact on our students’ success. Does our attitude suggest an openness so that students feel confident in disclosing their special needs? Does our attitude suggest that there are more ways to learn or demonstrate knowledge? What beliefs do we have, personally/professionally about disability and difference?

A student with a learning disability CAN learn the same content as a student without a disability. However, that individual might require accommodations to be able to demonstrate such. Providing accommodations isn’t about “special privileges” for someone; it’s about providing access.

Think about going for a driver’s license. There’s the written part of the test, the driving part of the test, and finally the vision part of the test. For the privileged few who have excellent, uncorrected vision, I can assure you that if you fail the vision section, no driver’s license! Even if I am successful with the written part, I can’t get behind the wheel without correcting my vision. (At least that’s the theory!)

When a student with a disability submits a letter from Services for Students with Disabilities that recommends accommodations such as additional time for testing or note-taker, that student seeks access to learning, not special privileges. Think of those accommodations as the corrective lens through which they can learn more effectively.

Peer Instruction Using Clickers

2011-01-31T06:48:00.000-08:00

Guest blogger: Mazharul Huq

Our trouble with assessment and Middle States has raised very serious questions about assessment. Successful assessment goes hand in hand with good teaching techniques. Time has come for us to examine very carefully our teaching methods and the tools we use for assessment of student learning.

I have been using a variety of technology in my teaching ranging from online quizzes to PowerPoint presentations. Of course, use of technology does not necessarily mean quality instruction. I must confess that in spite of use of technology my teaching style is not very much different from that used about a hundred years ago for much smaller and specialized audiences. However, it has been changing for the better during the last five to ten years.

The issues that have been troubling me also troubled Eric Mazur of Harvard University, which led him to develop something called peer instruction. Peer instruction is based on concept tests – short conceptual questions on the subject being discussed. The students are first asked to answer a short question (usually multiple choice question) without any discussion with peers. Then they are allowed to discuss the question with students next to them. After the discussion, they answer the question again. The instructor collects the data and analyzes to determine improvement in understanding. In the beginning, Eric Mazur used flash cards and show of hands, which made data collection rather cumbersome and time consuming. Of course, Eric Mazur had graduate assistants to help for classes with a few hundred students. Later on, he used clicker technology to automate data collection.

One and half years ago, with the help of a faculty development grant, I developed a number of instruction modules for peer instruction in my General Physics class with about 30 students. A clicker is a hand-held device with a radio transmitter that can communicate with a receiver connected to a computer at the instructor’s desk. Students log in using user name and password, which identifies the students on the instructor’s computer. The software I used was Notebook, standard software for the Smartboard. Of course, I did not have Smartboard at that time, so I used Notebook with an overhead LED projector.

Each module consisted of five questions. Allowing three minutes for the initial response, three minutes for peer-to-peer discussion, and three minutes for the post discussion response, I could get through a module quite comfortably in a 50-minute period. One great thing about the software was that I could selectively display the results instantaneously including bar and pie charts for the performance. One drawback of the software was that I could not prevent the students from modifying the pre-answer after the discussion. However, that did not happen, except for one or two cases.

The result was quite encouraging showing improvement in learning. However, there were a number of cases when after discussion with peers some students changed their correct answer to a wrong answer. Often students have less confidence in self than confidence in friends. For example, even students knowing Newton’s third law very well fall into a trap with peers and wrongly think: “When a heavy truck collides with a light car, the heavy truck exerts more force on the light truck than the force on the heavy truck from the light car.”

In this season of assessments, the clickers can be a great tool in assessing student learning outcomes. It can be used from student surveys to quizzes and many other innovative assessments. I have a number of suggestions that can encourage faculty to use clickers in classroom instructions.

The receivers should be permanently attached to computers interfaced with Smartboards. Then faculty do not have to carry the receiver to connect to the desk computer or a laptop.

Each student should be issued a clicker, which the student can use in all classes. A student is identified in a specific course by his/her username and password for that course. This would allow the faculty not worry about carrying 30 or more clickers to the class, distributing them, and collecting them at the end of the class.

We should also look for a better type of clicker and software for better delivery mechanism.

I hope Nancy Evans will read this blog and implement these

Reference: Peer Instruction by Eric Mazur, Prentice Hall

How To Get Students To Think About Graduate School

2011-01-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Murali Balaji

One of the most interesting transitions I've made in my year-and-a-half at Lincoln is adjusting my teaching approach to students' expectations. Most of my mass communications majors don't give graduate study a second thought, focusing instead on the quickest way to a job.

But in adjusting my approach, I've also been able to get some students to get interested in graduate study. For me, the best method is getting students excited about topical discussions, especially those that get them to think deeply about answers.

In classrooms, especially larger lectures, some students feel uncomfortable expressing their thoughts. Many usually wait for one person to lead, but once a discussion begins, it develops into provocative and stimulating discourse. In mass communications classes, many contemporary issues can be tied to theories, allowing students to more quickly make the connection between theoretical abstract and practice.

As a result, more students are asking whether the kinds of discussions they have in class are what they can expect in graduate school. I tell them that the conversations at Lincoln barely scratch the surface of graduate discussion but that they are a good starting point.

Last year, a number of students asked for extra reading materials that they thought would help them prepare for graduate school. Some admitted that their families were encouraging them to find jobs, or that they were intimidated by the idea of graduate work.

This is where we as educators can help facilitate both the "A-ha" moment and the "can-do" attitude. By being responsive to their concerns and asking them for feedback on critical readings, we are helping to change their perspectives on learning beyond their undergraduate years.

I have also tried to connect students to scholars outside of Lincoln, at least so that they feel like they're not learning in a bubble. When we interact with our students constantly, some of our motivational techniques tend to wear thin on them. That's why a fresh perspective is welcome. In December, I had my dissertation adviser speak at Lincoln, and when he did, he met with several students interested in graduate school but concerned about the steps to getting admitted.

After his visit, a couple of students said they were now excited about the graduate school application process. For me, that's two down, many more young minds to go.

Helping Students Reach their Dreams

2011-01-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Kristin Anderson

It started as a typical Sunday on a bitter cold January morning in 2007. My photographer and I approached the news desk, dreading an assignment outside in the blinding snow. Our editor handed us a police press release detailing the events of a drug deal gone bad. We looked at each other, knowing full well that we would not be welcomed guests in the most dangerous housing project in Cleveland.

We drove up to the scene, now empty of the police presence that had filled the area during the shootout. After many years as a television news reporter I had covered this story too often. This time it was a 14-year-old boy who, ironically, lost his life while selling drugs to survive. He never had a father. His mother left him. His grandmother kicked him out and the Cleveland School district gave up on him when he dropped out at the age of 12. He did not even have someone to give him a proper burial. Everyone in his life failed him, no one told him that he mattered. I was haunted by this teen's death. I could not stop asking myself, "What can I do to make a difference?" I tried to write a heart-touching story that would penetrate the television screen and reach the hearts of viewers. It somehow inspired the community to pull together and bury the teenager, but it wasn't enough for me. A year later, I made a life-changing decision to leave television and start teaching upcoming news professionals about the changing world of news and deliver a message that THEY MATTER!

In the past two years in the classroom, from West Chester University to Lincoln, I have found that students know how to dream. They know what they would like out of a career, but they don't fully realize how important they are and how much they have to contribute. As a result, they don't know how to make their dreams turn into reality. When I ask them what they want "to be" after graduation, they often respond with "music producer, news anchor, radio announcer," and that's just from one student. That's impossible! It's great to shoot for the stars but where is the reality? What I am trying to do this semester is get students to focus on their dream and come with a realistic plan to make it happen. I can teach them how to write in broadcast style, how to use the ENG cameras to record professional video, and how to edit using the highest quality equipment in the industry, but it all falls to the wayside without a focused plan.

I'm going to experiment with one class and have them narrow down their career path to just one position. From there I'm going to have them pick a role model in their chosen industry and research how that person reached the top of his/her field. Finally, students will have to come up with a plan of their own to find internships, meet mentors, create resumes and job search. I wish I could blog that I have attempted this approach in the past, at numerous universities, and 100% of the students are successful in their chosen careers; however, the truth is that I don’t know. I am relatively new to this, but I know that something needs to be done to motivate students to reach their potential, to rise up and not be average.

I can't go back in time and save the life of the 14-year-old boy in Cleveland, but I can try to get students to realize that THEY MATTER, and that the world needs what they have to offer!!!

Start Leading and Stop Profiling

2010-12-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Bob Millette

The challenges for Historically Black Colleges and Universities are varied and complex, and they require the energies, management and leadership skills of the entire university. Administrators should seek to harness the creative energies, academic skills, community and political support of friends and foes alike (Millette 2002, p. 107). Michael Fullan (2001) said that the more complex society becomes, the more sophisticated leadership must become. "Failing to act when the environment around you is radically changing leads to extinction... schools are beginning to discover that new ideas, knowledge creation and sharing are essential to solving learning problems in rapidly changing societies… Thus, leaders in business and education face similar challenges- how to cultivate and sustain learning under conditions of complex, rapid change... Leadership required in a culture of change, however, is not straightforward ...Leaders must be able to operate under complex, uncertain circumstances..." (Fullan 2001, pp. IX-XIII).

In times of economic, political, student, or social unrest, we need leaders who are capable of challenging and mobilizing the university community to "face the problems, and develop practical and visionary approaches to solve them..." (Interview with a Dean of Business at Clark Atlanta University, 2002).

Effective leaders, according to Fullan (2001), "make people feel that even the most difficult problems can be tackled productively. They are always hopeful--conveying a sense of optimism and an attitude of never giving up in the pursuit of highly valued goals. Their enthusiasm and confidence (not certainty) are, in a word, infections, and they are infectiously effective... in their day-to-day behavior... Leaders will increase their effectiveness...if they pursue moral purpose, understand the change process, develop relationships, foster knowledge building, and strive for coherence-with energy, enthusiasm and hopefulness…” (pp. 7-11). Our research found several college and university presidents, vice presidents, and deans who were "leaders without followers" (Interview 2003). As a result, there is a lack of administrative and programmatic continuity at several Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A former vice president for academic affairs and a history professor for nearly 40 years said that the failure of some administrators to seek to reach "common ground" with the faculty and students has resulted in the death of excellent administrative initiatives, academic programs and centers of excellence.

The Need for Visionary Leadership at LU
Some college and university presidents lead by attempting to manage and control the faculty by manipulation, force, direct and indirect threats, the withholding of certain academic incentives, and administrative and bureaucratic means. The "Gamesman Administrator" (Millette 2002) is interested in winning at any cost. He/she governs by "fiat" and "favors" and not by established principles of the academy. The Gamesman Administrator is usually not committed to deeply held beliefs, principles, patterns of behavior, management and administrative guidelines. This type of administrator is always on the lookout for individuals (faculty, students, staff or other administrators) who would assist him/her in managing and manipulating the actions, thoughts and behavior of social actors (pp. 103-104). In addition, the Gamesman becomes so carried away with the game that he/she acts like a jungle fighter. "In some cases, the game becomes reality for the Gamesman. In such cases, the mission, vision and goals of the institution take a back seat to the administrator's personal desire to win" (Millette 2002, p. 104).

Responding to Middle States: Some Recommendations
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education report (November 18, 2010) could be seen as a “wake up call” for Lincoln University. In my view, the report “forces” the institution to pay more attention to assessment of student learning, data analysis and sustainable development. In this regard, the university might want to consider the following:

How to harness the creative energies, leadership and expertise of the faculty. We need to consider having a faculty retreat to discuss how best to position Lincoln to meet the challenges of a changing world.

How to involve the campus community in the decision making process. Shared governance could be used as a mechanism to harness the energies and expertise of the campus community. Imagined or real, some of us feel that our expertise in areas such as fundraising admission, planning and development are not being fully utilized.

How to create a vibrant and academically stimulating campus community. We have to change the widely held image that “Lincoln University is a party school”

Deep and sustained reforms require commitment and involvement from everyone. Leadership knows no racial or religious bounds, no ethnic or cultural borders. We find exemplary leadership everywhere we look. Successful leaders seek to accomplish the following:

Model the way
Inspire a shared vision
Challenge the process
Enable others to act
Encourage the heart

In modeling the way, leaders must be guided by a moral, philosophical and ethical compass. We agree with Kouzes and Posner (2003) that it is your behavior and not your title that will win you respect. "Exemplary leaders know that if you want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must be models of the behavior they expect of others... Leaders must be clear about their guiding principles...Leaders are supposed to stand up for their beliefs... have some beliefs to stand up for...Exemplary leaders go first. They go first by setting the example through daily actions that demonstrate that they are deeply committed to their beliefs..." (pp. 4-5).

Teaching with Technology

2010-11-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

Guest blogger: Maribel Charle Poza

Teaching with Technology

When one looks around Lincoln University these days, there is little doubt that, as far as technology is concerned, we are in a new era. As new buildings rise and others are renovated, we find our classrooms equipped with the best and the newest that instructional technology has to offer. Our old blackboards were replaced by smart boards. We went from maybe having a television monitor in the classroom to having unlimited access to a computer connected to the Internet. At the language laboratory, we moved from cassette tapes to digital files and from CDs to streaming audio from the Internet. Next semester, the university will migrate our online content from obsolete WebCT to new and exciting Desire 2 Learn.

This technological transformation offers a world of possibilities, but also comes with great challenges. Many find themselves wondering if the benefits compensate for the expensive and time consuming nature of teaching with technology. The learning curve can be steep for some, while for others it is hard to find useful ways to incorporate the new tools into their current teaching. Finally, appropriate use of the technology by students can become an issue, especially in those classrooms that double up as computer labs.

It is my hope that the answers to the two questions that I pose in this posting and the comments from the faculty will help those who find themselves at a loss when it comes to integrating technology. The premise of this posting is that while I acknowledge the challenges that come with technology, I believe that it is after all only a tool and that it is the user who determines if it enhances or hinders the teaching and learning process.

Why should I use technology in my teaching?

There are many possible answers to this question. Some would say that if technology is available and a great investment has been made, then it must be used. Others may say that technology is present in the student culture and that we should capitalize on that fact to motivate our learners. A few may point to the fact that there is a great deal of pressure in academia to use technology, as shown in the majority of position announcements in our profession.

These are all valid answers, but they miss the real value of technology integration: We must use technology to provide better learning opportunities to our students. In other words, technology must always be at the service of good teaching, either enhancing our current practices, or allowing us to teach our students in new ways. Therefore, before we decide whether to use a specific tool we must always ask ourselves this question, will this technology improve the teaching and learning process or is it just innovative but non-essential?

How are you using technology?

These are a few examples of how I have used technology at the service of my teaching. I use the communicative approach to language teaching, so my main goal is to provide additional opportunities for my students to communicate in Spanish:

Course Management Software (WebCT): I have integrated this technology to create computer-mediated communication opportunities to my students through the use of tools such as chat rooms and bulletin boards. I have also used WebCT to expose students to authentic input in Spanish through the integration of audio and video files in the language with myself and teaching assistants as actors.

Language Laboratory Technology: Elementary and intermediate Spanish courses include weekly laboratory sessions where students are exposed to different varieties of the language in different formats. Students listen to different varieties of the language, they view educational and authentic videos, and they record themselves speaking in Spanish.

Smart Boards: The addition of this tool to our classrooms has helped me to provide high-quality visual aids to improve student comprehension of the Spanish language. It has also served to increase student motivation and knowledge by becoming a window to the culture of Spanish-speaking countries.

These are by no means the only ways that I could have used the tools available and I am constantly seeking new methodologically-sound means to enhance my teaching through the use of technology. However, I know that most of us on campus are making excellent use of the technologies that we have available. It would be very helpful for all of us to share our ideas in this blog for others to read and maybe adapt to their classes. Please write your comments to this posting and add your ideas on how to make the best use of technology and how to overcome some of the challenges.

LU Faculty’s Interests and Concerns Parallel Those across the Nation

2010-11-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Jim DeBoy

In perusing the last few months of Academe, I was rather surprised by the “hot topics” in higher education, in that those selected for publication were virtually identical to the issues and concerns that have flummoxed us these past three or four months. While the articles themselves may not lead us to the promised land where all students maximize their abilities and talents, the authors do confirm that our difficulties/challenges are shared by most of our counterparts on other campuses. Maybe commiseration is beneficial.

This report will be an attempt to identify some of those issues that faculty (Lincoln and others) deem important and, perhaps more to the point, expend a great deal of time and effort. There is no attempt here to supply answers to the questions raised; I will opt for the Socratic instructional technique and construct additional questions to ones raised by Academe contributors. There are 23 questions in all and, like most important issues in life, there will undoubtedly be more than one reasonable response. Happy problem solving!

1. College Rankings

a. Is a college’s “quality” almost fully determined by its selectivity in admissions?

b. Is not selectivity closely related to first-year students’ SAT scores?

c. Are not college ranking formulae heavily weighted by SAT scores?

d. Are not “high-scoring” SAT students likely from “high-earning” parents?

e. Should not colleges be evaluated for what they actually do for students once they arrive on campus?

f. Should not value-added impact supersede admissions criterion as a factor in rankings?

g.Why do US News & World Report rankings criteria differ for HBCUs (polling of HBCU presidents and provosts)?

h. Want LU to jump in those rankings? Hire 20 more fulltime faculty members, thereby decreasing both faculty-student ratio and number of classes that exceed 50 enrollees

2. Teaching

a. Are colleges truly committed to effective teaching?

b. Do publications and obtaining external funding warrant more consideration for tenure/promotion than teaching?

c. Does knowledge of one’s field make one knowledgeable how to teach it well?

d. Is not teaching effectiveness comprised of the ability to master and articulate the content and control classroom dynamics?

e. Should not new faculty be mentored in educational assessment, classroom management, curriculum development, and student advising?

f. When do students learn best? (Hint: personal investment, active engagement,prompt, helpful feedback, and cooperative learning with peers and faculty)

g. Does assessment of teaching effectiveness (for promotion/tenure purposes) consist only of student end-of-semester course evaluations and chair’s observations?

3. Assessment of Student Learning

a. Is the ultimate assessment goal of “corporate-model” higher education to identify and administer one high-stakes test for all students? And then use those results to reward or punish faculty?

b. Will decisions about promotion and tenure be judged solely by learning outcomes (at least the teaching effectiveness component)?

c. Should not faculty/administrators be more concerned what students did not know/could not do when they first entered college ? (the so-called “value-added” effect )

d. If assessment of student learning is here to stay, how can we increase faculty interest and expertise in the assessment process?

e. Are all faculty presently capable and willing of making informed judgments about curriculum and academic standards? (These duties do fall under the auspices of faculty)

f. Has the government begun replacing both institutional and faculty judgment in academic matters?

g. What happens if/when government succeeds in controlling regional accreditors, e.g., Middle States?

h. Are learning goals in the liberal arts diametrically opposed to the culture of assessment (as some have proposed)?

Using Technology to Address Student Differences

2010-11-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Frank Worts

The university, faculty and students have invested much time and resources into technology as tools for better learning. After review of the Facility Planning Website, I have identified four areas that might lead to further faculty discussion and better differentiated learning for students.

Tomlinson (1995) describes differentiated instruction (DI) as “a flexible approach to teaching in which the teacher plans and carries out varied approaches to the content, the process, and/or the product in anticipation of and in response to student differences in readiness, interests, and learning need” (p. 10).

As I reviewed the material on the , four important issues caught my attention which might provide a framework for using technology to address student differences.

One is the importance of identifying the educational philosophy and methods of learning and teaching of a given department and instructors, before undertaking the discussion of technology. A technology plan can’t be planned in a vacuum;it needs the context for a proper vision to be defined (Brown & Lippincott, 2003).

Second, more and more learning is taking place outside of the physical classroom, especially in higher education. Thus, the meaning of “Classroom” must be defined not so much as a physical space but more of a learning continuum of physical to virtual space. It has to be something that is movable within the bounds of a traditional classroom space, but that seamlessly evolves to other spaces and virtual spaces where individuals continue the learning process. Thus information that is developed should be easily transported from any segment on this continuum.

Third, learning is more and more perceived of as an active, social, collaborative constructive process that requires learning tools that are portable and that encourage debate and discussion, incorporating real life data as well as theory into the learning process in synchronous and non-synchronous media.

Four, the level and number of actors with a say in the process make the planning process more important, and necessitate a broad grassroots continuous process with feedback based on data collected from real educational activities within the educational process. This last point fits nicely into the University’s focus on evaluation. As the NLII White Paper (2004) indicates, administration, faculty, students, facilities management, planning department, information technology, library, teaching and learning support, community, business leaders, and politicians should all be a part of the technology planning process.

______________

Brown, M. B., & Lippincott, J. K. (2003). Learning spaces; More than meets the eye. Educause Quarterly, 1, 14-16.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1995). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

A Luddite Defense of the Book

2010-11-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Steve McCullough

In the history department, we believe one of our missions is to prepare our majors for either law school or graduate school. While I cannot speak of what it takes to succeed in law school, as someone who earned his doctorate in 2007, I feel I am qualified to speak how we can help our students thrive in graduate school. And for me, the answer is more reading.

One of the shocks many first year graduate school students face is the amount of reading they are expected to do on a weekly basis. In history, learning historiography, the essential literature, is just as important as research skills. By the time a grad student reaches his/her comprehensive exam, they are expected to have read or have knowledge on an estimated 300 books.

So can we help out graduates excel in their further studies? I am firmly convinced that one way is to have a reading load of at least three books, excluding textbooks, in almost all history undergraduate classes. While weekly reading of primary source materials is a key ingredient of helping students place historical events into context, we also need to challenge them by assigning monograph length works that examine important topics or people.

When I took my first history class as a freshman at New Mexico State University in 1988, among the books I was assigned was Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972. At the time the names of George McGovern and Richard Nixon only brought vague recollections of political discussions in my house long ago. Thompson made me realize that the 1972 was one of the most exciting in recent history, even though at the end, he admitted McGovern supporters deluded themselves in thinking he was electable. I realized then that I wanted to spend my life exploring the past.

I realize how in today’s world reading books seems passé, perhaps even obsolete. Students are reading less and less in K-12 as teaching to the standardized tests has gripped schools. Students come into college able to take multiple choice tests, but have little or no experience in reading monograph length works. To me, the lack of historical knowledge is something easily fixable by taking classes. The hard part is teaching critical thinking, including the ability to read a book and offer informed analysis.

To that end, in each of my classes, students are expected to read three books and then write a critical thinking paper based on books of topics I want my students to learn greater knowledge of then I could offer in lecture. For my U.S. History to 1865 class, I used Gordon Wood’s The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin to illustrate how the American colonists in the 18th century went from considering themselves loyal British subjects to creating a new national identity as Americans. I next assigned Peter Kolchin’s American Slavery: 1619-1877 to more fully explore not only how slavery changed from colonial to the antebellum period, but to also discover the world the slaves made. Finally, I used James McPherson’s For Cause and Comrade: Why Men Fought in the Civil War to offer a glimpse into the world of Civil War soldiers. For most classes I assign at least one book on war because of how removed we are as a society from war with the end of the draft in the 1970s and the creation of a volunteer armed forces. I often fear that students only understanding of war comes from popular video games such as Medal of Honor or Call of Duty.

As I end this blog post, I realize I use only anecdotal evidence to make my case. I can offer no research or evidence to support my argument other then personal experiences. But I firmly believe that to help out students succeed in the next stage of their education when they leave Lincoln University, we must prepare them for the rigors of graduate and law schools. And even if our graduates chose not to pursue further degrees, it is vital that we help create not only well informed citizens, but well read ones as well.

Integrating Undergraduate Research into the Curriculum at Lincoln University: Advantages and Challenges

2010-11-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Derrick Swinton

The discussion regarding integrating research into the curriculum at Lincoln University has intensified. Several factors have contributed to this discussion with the most important being the completion of the new science building, the establishment of the Centers of Excellence, mandates and resolutions by the Board of Trustees (resolution whereby LU graduates should be prepared for acceptance into a top 50 graduate or professional school, the charge for LU to be amongst the top 10 HBCUs), the overall financial stability of the university, and more importantly the retention and persistence to graduation of LU students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The topic is very relevant and should take precedence on the agendas of those discussing LU’s future.

It must be noted that although Lincoln University has primarily been an undergraduate teaching institution, faculty at LU have historically engaged in research activities, as is evidence by faculty publications, research quality equipment owned by the Science Departments, and the fact that LU, in its prime, has produced many of the nation's African American medical doctors, scientists, and mathematicians. The list of LU alumni who have impacted the scientific and medical fields is numerous and includes such alumni as Hildrus A. Poindexter, the first African American to receive both an M.D. (Harvard University, 1929) and a Ph.D. (Bacteriology, Columbia University, 1932); Nathan Francis Mossell (1856-1946), the first African-American to earn a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and Member of the Niagara Movement, and others. The aforementioned achievements were unprecedented during the beginning of the 20th century and remain one of LU’s proud achievements. Provided such achievements, it is difficult to envision that at some point in time LU science faculty weren’t actively engaged in research and research integrated into the curriculum. There are other factors that contributed to the success of these students at that time; nevertheless, it is important to note and recognize the significance of research and its impact on the training of our students. With that being said, the dialogue regarding this matter should continue and take priority, concurrently, with other matters.

The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies, noted the importance of undergraduate research (UR) and have adopted programs to support and stimulate UR activities, especially at primarily undergraduate teaching institutions. In fact LU is the recipient of various grants to support and stimulate UR. Nonetheless, challenges remain at LU in making the transition from primarily an undergraduate teaching institution to an institution with an active and effective undergraduate research program. Additionally challenges remain in integrating research into the curriculum. A few of challenges are listed.

1. Administrative Structure.

a. Despite support and efforts by the administration to address the topic, LU does not have a centralized office or position fully dedicated to advancing undergraduate research.
b. The administration has not been fully committed to undergraduate research or made it a priority.
c. The administration and faculty may not be familiar with the impact of undergraduate research on retention and persistence to graduation of minority STEM students.

2. Faculty Engagement

a. For various reasons some faculty aren’t interested in conducting research.
b. Some professors do not have the training, experience, and aptitude to conduct research.

3. CBA

a. The CBA is limited in scope and does not encourage scholarship, post tenure.
b. An incentive to conduct research is lacking.
c. Faculty receive an across the board salary despite performance reviews and pledge to support the LU community at-large, thus encouraging mediocrity, and placing the workload and burden on a few faculty.

4. Students

a. Students aren’t familiar with the expectations related to their career choices.
b. Students aren’t exposed to and are aware of the impact of undergraduate research on their understanding of classroom concepts.
c. Limited on-campus opportunities exist for students interested in conducting research.

Note, the commentary is not intended to be derogatory or an affront to anyone or any group, but is intended to encourage the LU community to continue its efforts to remain competitive and address the issues (retention, graduation rate, student preparedness, degree prestige) important to all of its constituencies: students, administrators, faculty, alumni, and the community at-large. In order to accomplish any initiatives undertaken by the administration and faculty, the issue of undergraduate research should be discussed because it impacts academic competitiveness, student achievement, and LU financial stability/sustainability. To begin the discussion, a few questions are presented and references provided for review.

1. What are some of the existing impediments to LU making the transition?

2. Can LU remain academically competitive and financially stable without some level of research activities?

3. Should LU consider offering a M.S. degree in the Natural Sciences?

4. Should there be differentiated pay scales for faculty who write and receive grants?

5. Should there be a thesis requirement for graduation?

References:

Jones, M.T., Barlow, A. E. L., Villarejo, M. (2010). Importance of Undergraduate Research for Minority Persistence and Achievement in Biology. The Journal of Higher Education, 81(1), 82-115

Gandara, P., Maxwell-Jolly, J. (1999). Priming the pump: Strategies for increasing the achievement of underrepresented minority undergraduates. New York: College Board.

Grandy, J. (1998). Persistence in science of high-ability minority students: results of a longitudinal study. The Journal of Higher Education, 69, 589–620.

Hunter, A. B., Laursen, S. L., Seymour E. (2007) Becoming a scientist: The role of undergraduate research in students' cognitive, personal, and professional development. Science Education, 91(1), 36-74.

Nagda, B.A., Gregerman, S.R., Jonides,J., Hippel, William von, Lerner, J.S. (1998). Undergraduate Student-Faculty Research Partnerships Affect Student Retention. The Review of Higher Education 22(1), 55-72

Russell, S. H., Hancock, M. P., McCullough, J. (2007). The pipeline - Benefits of undergraduate research experiences. Science, 316(5824), 548-549.

Keeping the Essence of What Makes Us Humane:

2010-10-19T16:03:00.001-07:00

The Beauty and Brilliance of the Humanities in All Educational Institutions and Its Importance to the World

Guest Blogger: Nicole Stephens

I walked down the street yesterday morning and I saw a yellow flower and the flower began to dance!
I looked out the window and the tree that greets me every morning started to sing!!
I was sitting in the park and a blue bird started speaking French to me!
Each time I experienced those profound meetings, I smiled, and my heart was filled with glee!!
Oh -where would I be if I did not have that flower, tree, bird- dance, sing, and speak French to me!!

I’m simply tired of the disrespect-the disrespect of what makes us humane! As educators, I often ponder- do we really examine what makes our students (us) get up in the morning and what helps them (us) go to sleep at night? My current blog will help some understand my deep and profound concern about how the humanities and liberal arts education at the university level, K-12 education, and even the world is embraced-I mean truly embraced on a level that helps us understand the importance of what makes us human.

I was reading the New York Times just the other day and I wanted to scream. I had to take a deep breath. The headline under the opinion section read: Do Colleges Need French Departments (October 17, 2010)? It caught my attention, mainly because I majored in International Studies (French) and studied Biology as an undergraduate at North Carolina A & T in Greensboro and I wanted to know what issue they had now about this important major. The article went on to explain that The State University of New York at Albany is cutting most all their foreign language degree majors (French, Italian, Classics, and Russian) and their theatre program. The article focused on cutting the humanities in general from educational institutions not only at this particular university, but universities and colleges all over the United States, because of budget issues.

In my humble opinion, nothing that makes us humane should be cut from the budget from higher education or K-12 educational institutions. Many reading this blog may say that this is not realistic or even sensible when you consider the fact that we are in a technologically driven world that must focus mainly on math, sciences, business, and other majors that are “more important” and bring in more money to the institution. These STEM majors and skills related to them are vitally and profoundly important if we are to survive in this century and beyond. However, I am a firm believer that the humanities are what make us competent, creative, interesting, and even wonderfully profound for all that teach them, take them, or just even embrace them.

At NC A & T, my soul became more beautiful (full of knowledge and deep hunger about many different things) and so did all my other peers that took a similar path. I did not major in education as an undergraduate. However, I took the PRAXIS (formerly NTE) exam and passed with flying colors, simply because of the make-up of the test during that time. The test focused on how much I knew about the Liberal Arts. I passed not because of brilliance or because I belong to MENSA but because of my education in the humanities. My interests grew in many areas including business and biology. Creativity is needed for marketing. The body is a creative gift that moves in lovely ways. I took French, Spanish, History, Art, Music, Philosophy, and any thing that made me smile and then I was able to understand those things that made me marketable for the world today.

This takes me back to my opening blog statement-what makes our students (us) get up in the morning. It is the music that greets us on our alarm clocks and cell phones. It is the dance that we (our students) cannot wait to get to on Friday night, but know that we must be successful on the Chemistry test or finish checking the test so we can enjoy our “night of creative flow.” How many of us cannot wait until we see that special play on Broadway or that basketball player fly poetically to the basket net?

As educators, do we take the time to tell our students to look out the window and admire the natural beauty that the Creator has given us for free?

Educational institutions must find a way to keep humanities in our arenas. It is what keeps us sane and it is what keeps the world humane.

The Mission of the Writer's Studio: Your Help Requested

2010-10-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger: William Donahue

My goal in this post is to involve the Lincoln University community in writing the mission statement for the Roscoe Lee Brown Writer’s Studio. Located in University Hall B-3 with hours this semester on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 p.m. and Wednesdays from 4 until 6 p.m., the RLB Writer’s Studio is based on a writing center model—a collaborative place to create better writers. We offer non-evaluative, one-on-one consultations on any writing matters, for any student at any level, as well as specialty workshops for groups. We also house the English Department’s component of the Humanities Tutoring Program in the core.

Let me start with an anecdote from a class in that core:

In yet another English Composition II class, this first day of midterm week, I explained my “revision” midterm assignment. Students need to take their short story analysis essay, write a revision, then write a meta-cognitive reflection of how they attempted to revise each graded entity on the rubric (thesis, support, etc), and finally address grammar and punctuation issues by writing the rule for their particular pattern of error as well as demonstrating application of that rule to their own writing.

No Scantron here. We are quickly climbing Bloom’s taxonomy and addressing numerous SLOGs.

The students are writing, revising, engaging in critical thinking, and learning about their writing process. But a finer point escaped the students—the difference I was trying to elicit between “editing” and “proofreading.” Even after my powerpoint and class discussion, a student response to the midterm assignment was to “fix the errors” as if there was nothing more to revision than fixing a mistake. That a thesis, although “somewhat effective” on the grading rubric, could not be revised further.

As I discussed with my students today and as I talk about the RLB Writer’s Studio as a “writing center” at Lincoln, I am often reminded of Stephen North’s 1984 essay in College English titled “The Idea of a Writing Center,” which was the basis for a “new” model of writing center that differed from the “basement, fix-it” shop approach to writing (VISIT US IN THE BASEMENT OF UNIVERSITY HALL!) Instead, North argued, “it represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula need to be student-centered” (438) as opposed to the “older” model where “instruction tends to take place after or apart from writing, and tends to focus on the correction of textual problems” (439).

Writing centers focus on creating better writers through collaborative, dialogue/question driven, non-directive measures. The goal is often a better writer, not necessarily a better written text. The analogy I often use is teaching people to fish so that they will never go hungry.

The more recent criticism of the process approach to writing, which developed in 60s through the 90s, comes from post process scholars such as Kent (2003) who assert that writing is social—a situated, public, and interpretative act. The product cannot be ignored.

So the Writing Center is stuck in the middle—which is right where we want to be.

WE DON'T FIX STUDENT WRITING (but we can help students fix their own writing).
WE DON'T DO REMEDIATION (but we can help remediate student writing).
WE WANT STUDENTS TO COME TO US (but any encouragement to help students find us will be accepted).
WE WORK WITH ANY WRITING ISSUE (believe it or not there is more to writing than grammar).
WE WANT TO PROMOTE WRITING (we want to promote writing).

After all as North stated, “if writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms, as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers” (446).

So I now enter into a dialogue with you. Help us create our Mission Statement. What do you see as the mission of the Roscoe Lee Browne Writer’s Studio?

References

Kent, T. (2003). “Introduction.” Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing Process Paradigm. Ed. Thomas Kent. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.

North, S. M. (1984). “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, 46(5), 433-446.

How Can the Learning Resource Center Better Assist You and Your Students?

2010-09-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Patricia Fullmer

All of us at the LRC are interested in continuously improving our services and ensuring that we are effectively helping students and assisting professors. We would like to know your ideas about improving our services.

Tutoring, Persistence, and Retention

Several research studies provide evidence that tutoring can significantly assist a student in earning a higher GPA, persist in their education, and increase the retention of students. Rheinheimer, et al (2010) tracked 129 incoming Act 101 students at a public university in Pennsylvania and found that "…students who were tutored were 13.5 times more likely to graduate than students who were not tutored…" (p. 28). The total number of hours tutored significantly predicted cumulative GPA, credits earned towards graduation, and graduation. This recent study demonstrated that tutoring helps improve students’ academic performance, persistence, and retention.

The immediate positive feedback of an online tutoring system has been linked to an increase of metacognitive and cognitive skills (Saadawi, et al, 2009). In addition, Hodges and White (2001) found that tutoring is a contributing factor to the academic success of students, and Boylan, Bliss, and Bonham (1997) found that the training of tutors related significantly (p=<0.05) to higher first term GPA, higher cumulative GPA, and the retention of students. With the above evidence in mind, the LRC tutors, both professional and peer, are trained and certified through the International Tutoring Program Certification process of the College Reading and Learning Association.

Request for Your Response

We, in the LRC, would like to know how we can work more closely with faculty and rectify any problems faculty see. We also welcome your suggestions on how to have more students utilize the LRC so we can be more effective in aiding students to persist in their education and graduate.

References:

Boylan, H., Bliss, L., and Bonham, B. (1997). Program components and their relationship to student performance. Journal of Developmental Education, 20(3).

Hodges, R. and White, W. (2001). Encouraging high-risk student participation in tutoring and supplemental instruction. Journal of Developmental Education, 24(3), 2-11.

Rheinheimer, D.C., Grace-Odeleye, B., Francois, G.E., and Kusorgbor, C. (2010). Tutoring: A support strategy for at-risk students. Learning Assistance Review, 15(1), 23-34.

Saadawi, G., Azevedo, R., Castine, M., Payne, V., Medvedeva, O., Tseytlin, E., Legowski, E., Jukic, D., and Crowley, R. (2010). Factors affecting the felling-of-knowing in a medical intelligent tutoring system: The role of immediate feedback as a metacognitive scaffold. Advances in Health Science Education, 15, 9-30.

Teaching Matters and So Does Assessment: How Not to Assess Student Learning

2010-09-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Safro Kwame

If the Middle States' visiting team of 24th September 2010 has taught us anything, it may be that teaching matters and so does assessment of teaching! The team's report suggests the following to me:

(a) a need for an immediate change in our habits and assessment of student learning, (b) a need for faculty to take ownership of the assessment of teaching,
(c) a need for appropriate software to collect and analyze assessment data, and
(d) a need for an internal Middle-States type of assessment committee that will do what the external one (from Middle States) has done, i.e. evaluate our assessment efforts and make appropriate recommendations.

QUESTION: What did you get from the Middle States visit of 24th September 2010?

SUGGESTION: Look at Middle States' standards and guidelines on assessment and indicate whether you agree with the visiting team's report (that we are not in compliance with standard 14) and indicate why (you agree or disagree).

REFERENCES

1. See Faculty Meeting Minutes of 29th April 2008 for my original proposal for assessment

We should (1) stop doing what we have been doing about assessment or significantly improve upon it, and (2) immediately implement the Middle States evaluation team's suggestions and recommendations on assessment. Example for Consideration: Each instructor may, accordingly, design a simple test of student learning outcomes which could be electronically scored or graded and automatically processed and analyzed for program, department, school and university characteristics and recommendations. Thus, in addition to submitting a gradesheet at the end of each semester, each instructor can turn in an assessment sheet or report at the end of each semester (after grades have been submitted). – Safro Kwame, 4/29/08

2. See Faculty Meeting Minutes of 3rd February 2009 for my follow-up proposal for assessment

In a simple and easy way, (a) Middle States wants faculty to regularly assess some or a few of the goals and objectives of courses and programs, apart from the courses and students themselves, (b) share and discuss the results, and (c) implement changes resulting from the assessment and discussion.

An Example: One Type of Assessment:

1. Select 2 or 3 of your most important goals or objectives. Make sure they are (easily) measurable.
2. Set 2 or 3 questions specifically for each goal or objective.
3. Get students to answer the questions.
4. Find an easy, e.g. automatic or electronic, way to score the answers to the questions and analyze the results; e.g. by using assessment software such as Exam View or getting IT to acquire and administer appropriate software.
5. Discuss the results with your colleagues and, preferably electronically, forward the results and recommendations (which may include changes) to your supervisor and/or central coordinating unit which could be IR, Chairperson, Dean, or VP.
6. Make appropriate changes, e.g. to your syllabus, examination or content or delivery of course, as a result of your assessment of learning goals and objectives.

Note: You need (a) software to create, score, analyze, forward and collate assessment, and (b) personnel to support or assist in creating, scoring, analyzing and processing assessment. Consult IT, IR and VP. – Safro Kwame, 2/3/09

3. See News Report on the Need for Assessment Software:

New Software Aids in Assessment, The Chronicle Vol. 53, Issue 30, Page A37 3/30/2007 By Dan Carnevale

Facing greater demands for accountability, colleges turn to technology to analyze mounds of data. Richmond, Va. The last time Virginia Commonwealth University had to prepare for an accreditation review, officials here found themselves overwhelmed with data. The university's accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, was asking for more information than ever before about how much students were learning: grades, test scores, written evaluations, and other measures. Much of that information was scattered throughout the institution - kept in computer files and storage drawers. So Jean M. Yerian, then the director of assessment, led the development of a computer program that would organize and analyze all the assessments of students being done on the campus. The computer program, dubbed Weave, not only helped the university satisfy its accreditors, but also appealed to other colleges, which wanted to use it to prepare for their own accreditation reviews. "We started out as solving our own problem and ended up developing something that can help others as well," says Ms. Yerian. Last year Virginia Commonwealth spun off the project as an independent company called WeaveOnline. Ms. Yerian resigned her post at the university last month to become director of assessment management for the company, which has already attracted more than 40 colleges as clients. Supply is slowly meeting the demand. Companies such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and Datatel have developed software that helps conduct institutional assessments. Other companies, such as Oracle and eCollege, have plans to jump into the game as well.

Caribbean University Selects Blackboard Outcomes System to Assess Student Learning

Dec 11, 2007 University Is First in Latin America to Implement Comprehensive Institutional Assessment to Meet Accreditation Standards PHILADELPHIA During the annual conference of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Blackboard Inc., a leading provider of enterprise education software and services, announced that Caribbean University in Puerto Rico has selected the Blackboard Outcomes System(TM) to assess student learning across its system of four campuses, and plan for and measure continuous improvement in institutional effectiveness, to help continue to meet the rigorous accreditation standards set by the Commission.

WEAVEonline is a web-based assessment system that helps you to manage accreditation, assessment and quality improvement processes for your college or university.

The Blackboard Outcomes System helps institutions efficiently meet the demand for increased accountability and drive academic improvement with evidence-based decisions. The Blackboard Outcomes System makes planning and assessment easier and evidence-based.

The TrueOutcomes Assessment Manager is a complete, web-based solution that facilitates every aspect of Learning Outcomes Management from assigning, assessing, and tracking to analyzing and making evidence-based decisions to improve student learning outcomes and facilitate continuous improvement.

eLumen Achievement is an information system for managing a college's attention to student achievements, learning outcomes and education results. It is specifically designed to facilitate authentic assessment processes that are faculty-driven, student learning-centered, standards-based, and (now, with eLumen) system-supported.

Tk20 provides comprehensive outcomes assessment systems that let you collect all your data systematically, plan your assessments, compare them against specified outcomes/objectives, and generate detailed reports for compliance, analysis, and program improvement. A leader in assessment, Tk20 offers a complete set of tools for managing outcomes-based assessment and measurement of student learning as well as institutional activities such as program improvement, curriculum mapping, institutional effectiveness, and reporting.

Teaching Service, Learning Fun

2010-09-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Michelle Petrovsky, Guest Blogger

Our recent discussions of assessment seemed to give short shrift to an important teaching tactic: service learning. Relating classroom activities to conditions, events, and trends in the larger world enhances students’ interest in those activities. That in turn reinforces competencies and skills gained.

In my Web Programming class (CSC 201) in Spring 2009, service learning was at first absent. Students were lectured on, led through lab work in, and mentored regarding topics including:

HTML (the “native language” of web pages, that uses components like the ‘tag’ BODY and the ‘attribute’ BGCOLOR)

MySQL (a full-function database management system quite comparable to high-end packages like Oracle; widely used on servers that offer Web-based functions that require dynamic data, such as purchases)

PHP (one of two programming languages – the other is Perl – almost universally used to provide interactivity between Web browsers and servers; such interactivity can’t be provided by HTML)

Despite their all being upperclass computer science majors, and therefore having significantly more than a nodding acquaintance with programming concepts and practices, my students slogged. Writing lines like

<BODY TEXT="#435D36" BGCOLOR="#F5F5F5">

to define the background and text colors of a web page, rather than pointing and clicking in a program like DreamWeaver, is both challenge and effort, even for the computer-very-literate.

Noting the slog and seeking some way to ameliorate it, I talked to the class about reworking their semester project, by including in it a service learning experience. At first skeptical, they quickly warmed to the idea. The group's first design decision? That the web site they would create, and the MySQL database and PHP programming that might be needed to support it, should address topics my folks felt would be of interest to the entire LU student body.

Direct, indirect, and even outright subjective assessment tools indicated that connecting classroom activities to a larger context improved student performance. Grades on subsequent quizzes and exams were higher than those on the midterm. Projects began to be completed with fewer requests for assistance. Group work proceeded more smoothly, with less and less instructor monitoring needed. And I saw clearly that my students’ enjoyment of and enthusiasm for CSC 201 had increased. They were not only learning, but having fun doing so. The website they created is still available, at

http://compsci.lincoln.edu/csci/csci.htm

Lincoln's Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement: What Can We Offer?

2010-09-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Yvonne Hilton

The Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (CTLE) is this year working to make a remarkable impact in the area of faculty development at Lincoln University. As the director of this program, I see it as a resource providing various workshops, seminars and activities to help strengthen the pedagogical acumen of faculty. CTLE wants to provide opportunities to glean from the wealth of wisdom we have within our walls, as well as from other knowledgeable professionals that reside outside of our campus.

We (the CTLE Advisory Board) believe a good place to start is to hear from you. We want to know what are your interests and challenges as university faculty. To this end, we have developed a survey that we will ask you to complete at this week’s faculty meeting. Feedback from this survey will give us insight on the types of programs faculty want and need to be the best they can be.

CTLE is very small as it is in the beginning stages of existence. Therefore, we ask for your cooperation, your understanding, and your patience as we grow and mature. Meanwhile, please share with us some of the things you would like to see CTLE do this year. Perhaps you have taught at other institutions with similar programs. Share the types of programs and services you experienced there. Tell us your thoughts and opinions so that we can work toward making this year beneficial for everyone.

Whence Cometh Academic Excellence and Student Success at Lincoln University

2010-04-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Grant D. Venerable

I want to return to the theme of the first faculty meeting of the academic year on September 8, 2009 when I presented excerpts from Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize Lecture in Literature:

"Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me whether it is living or dead."
"I don’t know," she says. "I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands."

But that is exactly our case today, at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania.

And if you think we have problems, consider number one ranked Harvard University, which is having an identity crisis of the first order. Harvard is struggling with whether or not the scholarly study of theology or faith is a proper mission of a great university in a secular society that prizes reason as the greatest of all human attributes. Not even the Harvard Board of Overseers has stepped in to take sides in the debate. That makes me feel for Harvard, as I sense that the exercise of free will to ignore the scholarly study of faith in human societies will spell ultimate educational peril for Harvard. I would also say that Lincoln University can count itself fortunate as Lincoln’s Trustee Board has viewed our national rankings with alarm and taken a definitive step in the new overarching themes to appeal to the Lincoln University faculty to radically transform how we manage teaching, learning, advising, and all facets of student life outside of the classroom.

Trustee Boards signal their desires through the passage of resolutions and the pronouncement of policy. By law, it may do this without any formal consultation with anyone outside of itself. Many current notions of shared governance consider this to be illegal (It isn’t.) or unconscionable (Possibly.), but be that as it may, the states have charted universities to operate and have vested all of the power and authority in a Board of Trustees.

The Lincoln University faculty now has opportunity to ignore, resist, or embrace the institutional reality of a Trustee Board empowered to set policy. It has opportunity to embrace and participate in shaping policy implementation in a way that accords with its view of higher education practice that helps our youngsters succeed.

Regional accreditors―like the Middle States Commission on Higher Education―are voluntary and associational entities. They are federally chartered to impose rules on how educational entities must operate. But these are voluntary associations; entities that do not measure up face sanctions of varying levels of severity, the most severe being loss of association membership and loss of accreditation and the right to receive Title IV financial aid for students.

The most recent accreditional mandates require that all institutional decisions are to be made on the basis of assessment of measurable student learning outcomes in each class that is taught and in every co-curricular activity. Lincoln just submitted its report to Middle States and we will know by the end of June 2010 if we passed muster on having in place an assessment plan that yields assessment results that are no longer “limited and sporadic,” but comprehensive and systematic. We will know in June how well cooperation of the faculty and student affairs staff played out with the assessment effort to help or hinder us.

The next test we face is the current reality of the Trustee Board’s strategic priorities embodied in the new overarching themes. The faculty will be asked to give formal consent to the following themes and the student outcomes to which they are coupled.

Overarching Themes

Embrace an academic culture that improves the university’s reputation measured by teaching, research, and service, and to embrace an ethic that fosters Graduate School-Ready Standards for all Lincoln students.
Structure and sustain an environment that provides each student with the best opportunity for their academic, cultural, social, physical, mental, and spiritual success.
Provide a mechanism to financially support the university’s strategic initiatives and to ensure the effective delivery of the university’s operational and support services measured by both professional efficiency and customer service.

Specific Objectives

Recruit and enroll 35% freshman with SAT scores of 900 or better for Fall 2010.
Increase freshman to sophomore retention rates to 85% by Fall 2012.
Increase the six year graduation rate to 48% by Fall 2012.
Rank among the top ten HBCU Ranking by Fall 2012.

Student outcomes
How good do we want our students to be?

Academically capable to matriculate at a top-fifty graduate or professional school
Professionally prepared to be identified as a high-potential employee and fast-tracked within the company.

Finally, paraphrasing from Toni Morrison’s story when the old woman says, "I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive," I would say that I am optimistic about the path forward for this historic and venerable institution. I cannot know whether the future of Lincoln University is dark or bright. But what I do know is that it is in your hands.

How Not to Become Tools of Our Tools

2010-03-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Nancy Evans

We have been using WebCT since 1999 and it is soon to be defunct when Blackboard, its current owner, will no longer support it. I have invited faculty to review some options and we have narrowed our search to Desire2Learn, a Canadian company which has managed to escape Blackboard's buyout, and Moodle, an open source course management system supported by Moodlerooms.

Let's clarify. An open source course management system is based on software which is not copyright protected. Since the source code for the software is available to anyone, users may change it, add to it and improve it as they see needs arise. And it is free.

So, why use a course management system? It is most advantageous to non-traditional students who may live at a distance from campus or cannot come to campus for classes. But these are not the only students who can benefit.

Perhaps an instructor wants computer-based or internet-based enhancements to their instruction. This is done by giving students access to specific information, access to each other in discussion groups, by calculating and posting grades online, by creating test banks and controlling access to tests, or by providing a learning environment very different from a traditional classroom — all in a password-protected online world.

And what about the online world at large? How can one gain access to people and information on the internet? A course management system can gather in one place controlled access to social networking tools and provide guidelines for students working on the internet.

Let's clarify. Social networking tools are free internet-based applications that allow one to share information and media with others. Examples include the ubiquitous Facebook, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr, as well as the somewhat lesser-knowns, such as Ning, Meebo, dimdim, and SlideShare (see the ATS website for explanations). Note that though you may be able to control your privacy to some extent, you should consider social networking tools as opening your life up to the world.

So why not use a blog instead of a course management system? Simply put, ease and control. Most course management systems are quite linear in design, offering a default set of elements: drop box, discussion list, gradebook, chat room, email. These tools reflect a fairly traditional teaching approach - presentation, discussion, assessment - and most instructors use these elements easily and successfully. And most instructors are effective in classes organized on this model, whether in class or online. Here is a traditional course management system.

However, more modern course management systems offer more customization and new features associated with social networking tools, such as wikis and blogs. The course itself can look different and can be laid out as a portal (or not - there are choices). The portal layout will still give access to the traditional course management tools, but it changes how the instructor designs the course and how students interact with the tools. The portal design looks more like a website or a blog and may encourage delving into the tools to see which ones serve one's needs and which tools will further the learning objectives of the course.

Most instructors want to know what a course management system - or any technology - can do and how hard is it to learn. I think a better question is how can a course management system, or any technology, meet my pedagogical goals and my students' learning objectives?

How might an instructor's choice of course management tools be affected or determined by learning objectives? Consider these broad learning objectives:

Students will demonstrate a depth of knowledge and apply appropriate methods of inquiry
Students will interpret information, respond and adapt to changing situations, make complex decisions, solve problems, and evaluate actions
Students will demonstrate the inclination to be life-long learners, a concern to become and remain well informed, the ability to retrieve and manage information appropriately, open-mindedness regarding divergent worldviews, and a willingness to reconsider and revise their own views when warranted (K-State Undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes. http://www.k-state.edu/assessment/slo/undgradobj.htm Retrieved 3/30/10).

In response, consider these questions:

How is a student's understanding of drug rehabilitation programs (for example) enhanced by access to actual programs and counselors online? How can that knowledge be share and compared with other students, even those at other universities?
How does a student-run blog help students interpret, respond and adapt to new information?
How can an instructor encourage students' innate or latent curiosity in a subject with internet and course management tools?

We will move into a new phase of online learning and teaching when we choose a new course management system. How will we make our courses more effective, more responsive to learning objectives, more responsive to students? How can we enrich our students' learning? What new tools, or old ones, will we choose?

And, finally, how will we avoid this technology trap:

"Men have become the tools of their tools." -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Teaching/Politics

2010-03-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer: Chieke Ihejirika

Teaching is a lot of things. It is an exercise in delivery and the midwifery (Plato) of knowledge about certain subject matter. It is for me an opportunity to do, at least, four things, namely: put forward my original ideas seeking publication; comment on other people’s ideas in a systematic manner; ensure that the students participate in the discourse in a way that leads to some expansion of their awareness of the subject matter; and it must involve some extrapolation seeking relevance for their daily life.

When I teach American government and politics, I am confronted by the current quagmire or deadlock in government, especially the inability to solve any of the major problems facing America. Common sense seems to suggest several solutions, but the reality seems impossible to manage. But what is the reality? The reality is artificial complications created by self-seeking persons playing God in their opposition to change.

One theme I want to share with the community is the future of America as we know it. This country was founded on the principle of "No taxation without representation." This principle held sway until the 20th Century. Yes! Prior to the Great Depression America operated on the Jeffersonian dictum that "Government is best that governs the least." Under the political economy of slavery and discrimination, government was able to escape its basic duties to the people under the 'social contract', by simply denying some of its citizens their basic rights.

Things have changed as justice seems to have been enthroned universally in the country. Hence, citizens who were earlier denied basic rights and privileges of citizenship now demand and get those rights, including social security and unemployment benefits, and these have to be paid for. Yet the only way government gets money is through taxes. Since the twentieth century, the people have gotten used to getting benefits from their government to help them with economic difficulties, and the national government itself has also grown very big as a global power which is also carries a big price tag. Can the country continue its aversion to taxation? I think the real fraud is making the people believe that the country can sustain itself and provide them with the necessary benefits they now cherish only by borrowing. American politicians, especially those of the ideological right, have since adopted the strategy of deception by making the people vote for only those who claim they will not raise taxes. Unfortunately, the people have naively, bought this baloney. Yet, when they get in there, they only borrow more, thus mortgaging the future of their posterity. The politicians have chosen to represent the people but without allowing themselves to be taxed. They still take all the financial remunerations of the offices they occupy on borrowed funds, even from the countries future rivals. They cynically know that it the poor masses that will pay this debt they continue to accumulate on the country. Besides, the interest alone is sure to deprive the government of future resources with which it could provide for the most vulnerable member for decades to come.

Questions:
Can the American political economy continue to grow as it did under unfettered laissez faire in the era when welfare capitalism has become the norm in the major industrial economies of the world?

Could it be that the American capitalist is moving abroad because of the loss of slave labor in America?

What is Praxis and how can every department help our students pass it?

2010-03-13T16:23:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Emery Petchauer

Praxis I is the common name for the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) or teacher licensure test(s) that all students in Pennsylvania must take in order to become certificated teachers. Not only must students pass it to become licensed teachers, they must pass it (i.e., a reading, writing, and math test at roughly 8th grade content—approximately 40 questions each) before they can declare education as a major. Thus, education is a major that students must test into. This gatekeeper position of the exam is not because it identifies students who hold promise as effective educators; rather, the position is due to program accreditation demands set by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (as it the 3.0 minimum GPA requirement)

At time of this writing, there are 41 students enrolled on the main campus who have passed Praxis I. Some of these students passed all three parts on their first attempt, and some passed on multiple attempts. There are approximately 25 more students who have passed different combinations of the three required sub-tests and are working toward passing all of Praxis I. This number of passing students has increased since the education department centralized our preparation efforts in 2007 by creating the Praxis Cohort tutorial, and these efforts are modified each year to continually improve our program.

Despite these improvements and efforts, passing Praxis remains a significant challenge for many of our students and is the most common reason students change majors or are counseled to do so. This difficulty in passing Praxis is due to (a) some inadequate high school educations, (b) previous failure experiences with standardized tests, (c) the cultural and social class bias of such tests, and (d) misinformation about the test, which creates cognitive and affective dispositions that decrease the likelihood of passing (i.e., the ideas that “nobody” passes the test).

Since Lincoln University holds accredited teaching programs in many secondary fields (e.g., mathematics, biology, English, Spanish, history and social studies, etc.), each school on campus graduates teachers. In this way, each school can be a part of successfully preparing our students to pass Praxis by content and disposition. Preparation in terms of content is rather straightforward in that some classes in the mathematics, English and mass communications, and education departments (and thus our three schools) connect most directly with the three areas of Praxis I. The second area, dispositions, I believe is equally important and is more relevant to every department on campus.

What people believe about their capabilities on specific tasks significantly shapes the decisions they make, how much effort they exert, how much they persistence through obstacles, how much stress and affective burden they experience, and their perceptions of accomplishment. Beliefs, in fact, are often more important to motivation and affective states than what is objectively true. These points come from the extensive body of research on self-efficacy ala Albert Bandura (1997). Self-efficacy is shaped by four information sources: previous mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal and social persuasion, and physiological states.

What all of this means to every department on campus is that by giving students vicarious successful experiences (e.g., highlighting the successful experiences of students “just like them”), and by giving students positive verbal and social persuasion about Praxis related skills (e.g., “I’ve seen your writing in class, and I think you will pass Praxis writing), professors play an integral roll in helping improve students’ Praxis efficacy. Similarly, being careful not to talk about the test and testing experiences in ways that decrease self-efficacy (e.g., “Lincoln students don’t do well on Praxis”) helps our students pass.

Here are some other factual pieces of information that you can easily tell students when the topic of Praxis comes up:

People just like you pass Praxis all the time
Some people pass the first time they take it; some have to study to pass
There are over 40 students on campus right now who have passed all parts of Praxis
One students last year missed only 1 question on the math test
Another student’s math score improved 13 points (out of 40) after studying for the math test for 8 weeks
You only have to get about 55% correct to pass—not 100%

Here are some things to avoid saying because they will likely decrease self-efficacy and/or they are not true:

African American students do not perform well on standardized tests
Lincoln students don’t to well on Praxis
You can’t really study for Praxis
I was never good at tests like that

Related Resources:

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of self control. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Bennett, C. I., McWhorter, L. M., & Kuykendall, J. A. (2006). Will I ever teach? Latino and African American students’ perceptions on PRAXIS I. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 531-575.

Goldhaber, D., & Hansen, M. (2010). Race, gender, and teacher testing: How informative a tool is teacher licensure testing? American Educational Research Journal, 47, 218-251.

www.ets.org/praxis

The Six Principles of Effective Teaching

2010-03-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Guest Writer, Safro Kwame

What do you think of the new (February 2010) book, Teaching as Leadership by Teach For America, which claims that highly-effective teachers do the following?

"(1) Set ambitious goals for student achievement; (2) maintain high expectations for their students at all times; (3) begin every endeavor with the key questions “Where are my students now versus where I want them to be?” and “What is the best possible use of time to move them forward?;” (4) make good judgments about when to follow through on their plans and when to adjust them in light of incoming data; (5) are their own toughest critics; and (6) refuse to allow the inevitable challenges that they face to become roadblocks."

One of their slogans is: “In God We Trust. Everyone Else Bring Data.”

Please post your data and answer. I would love to "hear" from you. The question is: do you agree with Teach For America about the six principles of effective teaching (either for college or pre-college teaching, for underprivileged or privileged students, or both)?

See excerpts from the book:

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/61/04704328/0470432861.pdf

See articles about the book:

What Makes a Great Teacher? The Atlantic Monthly January/February 2010

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/

Six Principles to Teach By, The San Francisco Chronicle, February 9, 2010

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/08/EDHU1BUEQB.DTL

See video about the book:

Secrets of America's Greatest Teachers, ABC World News, 2/26/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UmVXxpnB70

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/secrets-americas-greatest-teachers-9961455

Learner Centered Education

2010-02-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Frank Worts

There is much talk today concerning the movement from teacher centered education, “the sage on the stage” as identified in an earlier posting on this blog, and student centered learning. From my perspective, student centered learning encapsulates many of the issues that we have been discussing on this blog and at our Faculty forums. Let me begin by identifying my view of learner-centered education.

To me, student-centered learning relies on the identification of the experiences, interests, capacities and needs of the students as the starting point of the educational experience. Based on this view of the learners, the learning focus then must include the best theories of learning and practice that are effective in promoting high levels of motivation, confidence and achievement Concretely, again from my perspective, there are four concepts that I believe are needed to support learner centered education.

Each learner’s life experience, environment, culture, interests, goals, and beliefs need be identified and respected to create independent thinkers.
Unique differences such as emotional perspectives, learning styles, rates of learning, talents, confidence and motivation must be addressed to promote the highest achievement.
Real life learning activities must help learners connect new learning with prior knowledge and experiences. This produces better learning.
An environment with positive interpersonal interactions facilitates the learner to feel acknowledged, respected, and validated (Henson, 2003).

So how would one address these five concepts in creating a learning centered environment at Lincoln University? From my perspective, the overarching prospective to accomplish this perspective is that the Masters of Human Services Program (MHSP) has to be extended beyond the Graduate Center Classroom environment to the adult students’ personal life, family life, community life, and their work and environmental realities. WebCT (or other good course management system) provide useful tools to expand the classroom to better engage the adult student in applying the MHSP content to their multiple environments. I will attempt to address how the above four concepts are integrated into the Introduction of Applied Sociology & General Systems Theory of the (MHSP), and perhaps generate some discussion that positively addresses our undergraduate and graduate students educational experiences at Lincoln.

Student Perspectives and Frames of Reference

To identify the perspectives and frames of references for each of the student, WebCT’s student profile module is used. Each student completes a personal introduction template and posts their picture with the profile. This exercise is followed by a personal, in class introduction where classmates can ask questions of the presenter. I model the interaction by asking elucidating comments and supporting areas that are identified and have individual classmates offer support or connect to the life events. To enhance this self understanding, the discussion module is used on a weekly basis where course concepts are applied to either the family, community or work environment with connection to their personal learning. To promote positive interaction, each student must academically critique or support the discussion posts of at least two of their classmates. My experience indicates that students will continue the discussions during class to gain clarity. My role in the discussions is minimal except to redirect if discussions are off target or if concepts are used incorrectly and no other student has intervened to make the needed adjustment. This outside the class interaction provides a context for my face to face interactions during the time available during the Saturday classes.

Learning styles and intelligences, emotional, developmental and learning rate differences

I believe we all learn differently. The WebCT, the Electronic White Boards, and the Notes software can help to address these styles. I find that students who have great concerns about understanding a concept, assignment, or a work situation will use WebCT, e-mail, a messenger service to address their concerns, more readily that using the phone. To address learning rates, Web CT offers the possibility of learners being able to supplement their classroom interaction with non synchronization use of resources that are provided to clarify and intensify the understanding of course content. For instance, I have a “Current Events” discussion section where students discuss how concepts that were raised and discussed in class are viewed in the real world through press and academia. Using the White Board in conjunction with small group discussions/case studies/problem based learning provides an opportunity for individual student to exercise their various learning styles. Visual learning is facilitated by the students posting, finding, and noting critiques and finalizing group positions. These visual presentations can be saved and forwarded for either future discussion or a lesson summary. More time is spent in the higher learning activities --analysis, synthesis and evaluation-- with the materials being posted. Students use the linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal intelligences in organizing, designing and explaining and working with the group findings.

Real Life Learning and its connection to prior learning and experience

All content of the course is applied to the real life activities of the adult students. In Year One of the MHSP, all system concepts that are discussed are applied to the Master of Human Services program. These concepts are personalized when students apply and discuss themselves as systems and how they fit in with their families, work place and the MHSP. Since students enter the program often with the goal of being promoted in their agencies or organizations, real life examples or case studies generate enthusiasm.

A Positive Environment through Interpersonal Relationships

To facilitate a positive interpersonal environment and to develop meaningful personal relationships, the classroom is divided into learning clusters of 5 or 6 students. Tables are organized into squares so students can face each other and interact. Class time is divided between small group, large group and mini lectures that present material and set context for projects. Learning clusters work with each other around understanding and applying concepts on a weekly basis. In addition, the clusters are assigned a group project which requires research, analysis and a 30 minute presentation using appropriate multimedia to engage their classmates. All presentations are evaluated verbally by classmates and the instructor after completion, and each group is provided with a written evaluation and grade developed by the instructor.

Do these personal applications have applicability to education practices across the university? If so let’s dialogue.

______________

Henson, K. T. (2003). Foundations for learner-centered education: A knowledge base. Education, 124(1), 5+.

McCombs, B. L., & Whisler, J. S. (1997). The learner centered classroom and school. San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers.

Can We Save The World By Shopping?

2010-02-19T14:32:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Nancy Shahani

Initially when contemplating what to write as a seemingly appropriate blog the topic of plagiarism in the graphic arts came to mind – it seemed academic in nature and somehow revealed if not validated what it is that one as a Professor of graphic arts does and what it is the students are pushed so hard to achieve; but then, with inspiration to think on a larger scale, another topic came to mind; one that will hopefully engage in a dialogue by touching on several issues. It was a book lecture on Cspan featuring authors Raj Patel (The Value of Nothing) and Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine) which fostered a rethinking of the role of graphics even though in these pre-mentioned writings there was no mention of graphics or advertising but more so of human need and consumption in relation to the current state of the world, they were, none-the-less thought provoking and inspiring - but let’s back track a little. Since the topic of plagiarism was something that would be deemed as important, here is how it was going to be addressed; plagiarism in graphics is a valid concern; graphic art is hard and entails a great deal of work; graphic design is the new art of today and is part of our everyday lives; graphics include the language of slogans, the colors of products and their logos, and of course the imagery which accompanies them; authenticity in graphics is essential since it is questioned more and it must be maintained with original imagery and a composite of sources; poor writing in other courses is as bad design is in graphic design courses.

The conclusion of this piece was to state how we take graphics and advertising for granted since the medium itself is so accessible as many think they can design since they do use a computer just as many think they take a photograph simply because they have held and can hold a camera; however graphics is a challenging and powerful art form which drives the economy. Since business today is the image business this medium should not be taken for granted; but now this serves as an introduction.

In this world of what can be deemed as one of moral depravity and a dying economy does graphic design still have a place? Does the spending power of the individual still exist? Can we save the world by shopping? Eventually everything and everyone becomes a commodity – we market ourselves the way we market products and if a person or thing does not exist in its marketing bubble its value ceases to exist – one becomes off the market. When we think of brands that had power ten years ago and how some are not heard of nor discussed today we realize that it was the advertising which ended – the graphics cease to be. When we as humans stop our job search, when we no longer update our resume when we no longer publish, create or exhibit, then in some way from a marketing stand point, we cease to exist. Basically when the marketing bubble deflates the exposure ended and when the bubble bursts, the exposure went into overload. The question is can someone or something become a branding threat? When is promotion too much? And how does graphics play its part?

Graphic design is advertising and advertising promotes the good, the bad and the ugly of today’s corporate world; and everything in the world can be viewed as a corporation. We advertise to raise awareness – we advertise so society will want; we advertise so society will need. Having said this, are graphic designers responsible for the mass consumption of the world today? Are graphics responsible for our living beyond our means? It may seem absurd to blame the creative thinker for the world’s economic crisis, but the mind behind some of the greatest campaigns has proved to be quite powerful, in fact never before has the creative mind been so valued. Companies today (and everything in the world can be viewed as a company) recognize more and more the increasing value of a creative mind so much that it has been noted by author Daniel Pink, the MFA is now the new MBA. The true creative mind understands not only design and necessity, but economics and psychology.

The statement ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ is still one designer’s abide by today – however it is the term ‘necessity’ which has changed over time. Frankly when it comes down to what it is humans really need the list is very short – yet in today’s world one’s lists has now become a book. We buy into the fantasy of an image and to the power and self worth we think that fantasy will bring. The size of our home, the car we drive the labels we wear were all brought to our attention through skilful manipulative advertising – through well designed imagery and graphics. Now, we as humans are smart, we know we are being branded to – so then why buy? Well, to be frank, the opposite can lead to cynicism. The very idea of limited capitalism can seem peaceful and more humane it is then upon visiting other parts of the world and that one discovers this lack of free enterprise often lends to an unmotivated and almost depressed society; a cynical unhappy place because as humans – we want. For the majority of one’s life, the desire for material things seems innate and it is with clever advertising that this desire becomes enhanced. It is from childhood to adulthood that we are targeted; in fact advertising does not leave us alone until we are near death. Perhaps it is because as one enters into their senior years the desire for material things lessons; this lack of material desire can be explained by either a lack of interest in the world they know they will soon leave and / or an appreciation of what they deem as truly important in life; however, not all of society reaches seniority at the same time - perhaps why the creative mind rarely targets to this demographic but rather to the world’s increasing middleclass or flatness (as Thomas Friedman’s book Hot, Flat and Crowded addresses); the world’s increasing latte factor.

The creative mind convinced the consumer that Starbucks is worth the extra money since any product with a healthy green and mother earth branding cannot be all that bad for you. Target’s re-vamped logo brought a company back from the grave and suddenly represents products that are better designed and more in tune with a younger and hipper demographic than its competitors. Furthermore, the purity of Dove’s white soap is indeed the campaign for real beauty; one does in fact need to ask themselves if they “Got Milk?” as oppose to if they “Got Soy?”; it is the yellow arches of McDonald’s utopia which is the happiest and sunniest place for children to beg their parents to take them there; and those who drink Pepsi are indeed part of the new generation. The little girl innocent pink color of baby aspirin makes it okay to give a child; and one harmless white aspirin pill a day is good for the heart. Hershey’s chocolate will bring love into your life; and a MAC computer is more futuristic and humane than others; clearly noted by their everyman spokesperson Justin Long. Raj Patel’s book The Value of Nothing, begins with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” One can blame the creative mind for this.

Then we ask how happy are we broke? And how happy are we without? The happy medium would be the ideal – the problem is in knowing when enough is enough and when to stop buying and consuming. So do the graphic arts serve any good? Well, we can argue that people like things and they like to shop and we as humans need fantasy and luxury and more so desire to feed our drive, and as such, graphics help. But let’s talk about the accessibility of graphics since one cannot go without mentioning ‘the good’ that well designed graphics serve. Advertising can be used to raise awareness; from human issues, to world concerns, graphics can inform one of a non-profit organization, of health issues, and of political leaders. From the public art of billboards to the target marketing of direct mailers, graphics can help initiate change – and dare we say aid to saving the world.

Do We Share our Passion for Reading?

2010-02-12T09:56:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Joanne DeBoy

Reading is a subject and a process that reaches all levels of the education world and is a topic of discussion by students, parents, teachers, professors and politicians. It has been used as a political football in terms of funding; Should schools/programs receive funding for their poor reading performance? Should schools receive incentives monies for exceptional reading performance as measured on a standardized test? Debates ensue as to which strategy should be used to improve reading performance by those in the field and well as by those without formal education in the psychology of reading (the process). Some questions that confront the reading field today are:

What is meant by “proficient” reading performance?
Do standardized tests deliver what they purport to deliver?
How can we obtain the critical reading performance levels of 53.2 million K-12 students in a cost-efficient manner?
How does critical thinking relate to reading comprehension? Can critical thinking be taught?
Which instructional approach is more beneficial: top-down or bottom-up?
How and to what extent does decoding and phonemic awareness relate to reading performance?
How has the view of reading instruction changed with the increased use of technology?
Given the wide range of available electronic information, will books be essential in the future?
Will email, texting, etc. undermine or enhance writing/reading proficiency?

Despite the many discussions regarding the above topics and many more issues, the numbers of students in the United States who are avid and enthusiastic readers is shockingly small (Guthrie, McGough, Bennett & Rice, 1996). Research suggests that even those who have the cognitive ability to read choose not to read; thus, they have been dubbed “alliterate”.

Reading instructional programs designed to improve students’ performance have been in the K-12th grade curriculum since the establishment of normal schools (teacher preparation programs) and has been in the media recently, courtesy of the federally-funded No Child Left Behind mandate. However, the reading instruction issue does not stop at the basic education level; both community colleges and 4 year colleges and universities have recognized the need for reading support and instruction for college students for some 35 years. This, too, has engendered heated discussion at many levels.

Four years ago, Lincoln University’s Board of Trustees, administrators and many faculty members identified the need to require our students to read beyond assigned textbooks. For that reason we have been creating a reading list of books that students should read. It should be noted that Lincoln University is not alone in providing a reading list of extra-curricular books with content to which our college students should be exposed.

However, I am recommending an additional step to enhance a love of reading based upon research by Applegate and Applegate (2004) that connected the teaching of reading (or any other subject) to the Peter Effect. The subjects in the research were pre-service teachers, many of whom mirrored the reading behaviors of many college students: they have the cognitive ability to read but choose not to do so. The authors identified the problem in somewhat biblical terms, recalling the story of Apostle Peter who, when asked for money by a beggar replied that he could not give what he did not have (Acts 3:5). The research finding was disheartening; many pre-service teachers do not have a love of reading to pass on to students. How can teachers/ professors give what they do not have—a love or passion for reading, learning or specific content? How can we share the feelings, the insights, the connections and relevancy that we receive through the written word if we don’t possess it ourselves? We must share that love of reading that we feel when we reflect on those books that resonated with us, touched our souls and remained a part of our very being. Those are the books, ideas, topics, essays that we need to share with our students so that they might become afire with a love of reading/learning.

A book that was recommended by the Biology Department for the Lincoln University Reading List, still being developed, was “The Double Helix” by Watson and Crick (1951). I was moved to remembering the pictures I had in my head in my earlier college years when I was given the assignment to read that book. I can still visualize the two graduate student researchers in the early years of their careers doing their work and discussing their ideas about DNA in that small cluttered room. I don’t remember if the book was assigned for Biology, Microbiology or the Physiology of Behavior but I do remember connecting to those graduate students doing their research as I read that book.

There are reading skills and strategies that can be taught to students to help with their reading comprehension. However, most college professors have not had formal instruction regarding the reading process, reading skills or strategies. What all educators should model to our students is our love/passion for reading and learning and what we have experienced through the written word.

Academic Integrity: A Constant in a Sea of Change

2010-02-05T08:35:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: James DeBoy

American higher education embarked upon the road of mass education after World War II. The elite education system, designed for what WEB DuBois termed the Talented Tenth, was perceived by many in 1945 as undemocratic. With the influx of returning GIs and the emergence of community colleges, many of the traditional universities supplemented or revamped their classical- liberal arts focus with professional and or pre-professional programs of study. Normal schools (traditionally the providers of basic education) evolved into state teacher colleges while certain professional schools (e.g., pharmacy and more recently, PT and OT) escalated their credentials that would require graduate study. The late 1960s witnessed a proliferation of developmental/remedial courses designed to increase the likelihood of “underprepared” college freshmen achieving sophomore status; such actions were justified as college administrators more fully embraced the “mass education” model. One could argue that Lincoln entered the mass education fold in the late 1960s—a time when opportunities to enroll in white, “prestigious” colleges became available for high-performing African Americans.

Throughout all of these aforementioned challenges and concomitant changes to academe, one variable was constant: the academy’s adherence to principles of academic integrity was paramount. Students needed to adapt and adopt mindsets and behaviors if, in fact, they entered with values perceived as opposed to the academic culture. Yes, the more honest institutions provided additional opportunities for students with different feelings and habits to embrace/demonstrate the requisite skill set thought to be the necessary variables for degree completion. Despite the apparent change in (many) students flocking to our nation’s colleges in the post-war years, the university’s commitment to its “academic culture”, i.e., academic integrity, should not be compromised nor diminished. The academic integrity component to which I refer is the SLOs that are part-and-parcel of every academic/professional discipline: the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and habits of mind that academicians hold dear and deem absolutely essential for disciplines to be studies worthy of pursuit.

I have heard in recent years that faculty, curricula, and pedagogy must change to better meet the needs and wants of today’s “net generation”. I agree… to a point. First and foremost, we need to differentiate between needs and wants. Secondly, we need to keep in mind that one of the hallmarks of higher education has been its success in transforming students. Students of the net, me, and gimme generations (all generations) can, and should, change after experiencing 4 years of study. One operational definition of intelligence is the ability to adapt to a changing environment. Thus, if faculty teach and expect students to master x, x must be mastered. By all means, x must be authentic… connected to the real world of one’s chosen field. If faculty cannot justify x for being a part of the curriculum, if we cannot make connections of x to our profession or life, then we should probably not teach it.

Faculty can, and must, have standards to which they hold all students. To do otherwise is, in my opinion, a disservice to the students whom we are entrusted. Having said that, I am fully cognizant of unique learning styles, extenuating circumstances, and the like. While I can empathize, I must guard against sympathizing lest I lower my expectations. Students at all levels of the educational system (and marketplace) are better served for life after school when they consistently hear and see that performance supersedes intentions, promise, and ability. Students must learn early that causes (including inaction) have consequences: missed classes, late submissions, and blown opportunities are simply that… missed.

Pedagogically, many HPER faculty may be considered “conservative, old-fashioned, behaviorally rigid, and authoritative.” Formal training in the health sciences and physical education often times shapes that viewpoint. Perhaps, the content of the fields exacerbates a personal predilection for closure, structure, and practice. Principles and laws that guide HPER-related disciplines afford a sense of order in a chaotic world. In any event, HPER faculty seem to prefer environments and phenomena that are measurable, objective, and operationally defined. In short, we seek to identify, arrange, regulate, manage, systematize, classify, fix, and establish parameters that will assist our understanding of (and co-existence in) the world. We strive to share that approach/methodology with our students. In our opinion, the most efficient manner for doing so involves, by necessity, boundaries. At first, these boundaries may appear as deterrents to student growth and development but the opposite is true. Limits, i.e., faculty expectations/standards of conduct, will eventually set students free. To be truly free, one must be self-disciplined. Initially, some/many 18 year olds will need those limits imposed by faculty. Over the course of 8 semesters, other-imposed is gradually replaced with self-imposed. It has been HPER’s position that all students can learn and it is our responsibility to teach whoever enters our classrooms. While we start where students may be, we are obligated to take them where we (and those practitioners in the fields of HPER) believe they need to be in order to effectively deliver their services to society.

The beauty of higher education (critics will see it as the bane) is that multiple paths exist to truth. Each discipline may be different in its approach to understanding (and even defining) the problem. Within each discipline there exist myriad models to address the targeted concept. Academe is, by its very nature, diverse and, yes, sometimes divisive. Differences of opinion are expected and encouraged in a climate of open dialog. Some of my colleagues may agree with much of what I have said, some will accept parts, and others may reject my arguments wholly. And that’s OK—conclusions should be challenged… it is the stuff that shapes academe; it should be one of the constants in the sea of change.

How Do You Write?

2010-01-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: William Donohue

This year marks my 10th anniversary in the “Writing Industry.” Since I graduated college in 2000, I have been drawing a paycheck from something I wrote. (Of course like most writers, I have had a slew of part time jobs too!) I have written for nationally published magazines and weekly, local newspapers. I have written feature articles on the “Top Ten Best Running Cities” that landed me radio interviews, and I have covered local zoning board meetings (more sleep inducing than a class after lunch).

Through it all I have developed and redeveloped my writing process. As Donald Murray asks and answers “Why do writers write? To inform, to persuade, to entertain, to explain, but most of all to discover what they have to say” (3). (Spell-check says that is a fragment sentence, but breaking grammar rules just might another reason that writer’s write.)

When someone asks me what I am writing now, I know they are looking for an exciting answer. Have I written a memoir about my 1,165 mile, month-long bicycle/camping trip from Philly to Boston and back? Maybe I started that “Great American Novel,” or finished the screenplay about teenage angst.

“No,” I disappoint them. “Most of my writing is ‘Academic’ now,” which allows me to sneak away to refill my drink as they divert their eyes to the floor, both of us feeling inadequate—them because of an incorrect assumption of their intellectual inferiority and me because of my intellectual inferiority. But what is it that I do spend my time writing? And more importantly, how does what I write inform my teaching as a writing teacher?

When pressed about my “Academic Writing,” I bring up the latest paper submission to a conference or periodical. This year I have both. (Commence shameless plug.) A soon-to-be-published book series and Creative Commons shareware entity entitled “Writing Spaces: Readings on Writings” (http://writingspaces.org/) has accepted a paper jointly written by myself and Lincoln University colleague and creative writer David Amadio. The essay entitled “The Voices in My Head: An Experimental Essay with Multiple Authors and Voices,” was also accepted at the College English Association Conference (http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2010.htm) fittingly themed “Voices.” I learned more about writing from that experience than any single writing event in my life. Of course, it helps to when all I had to do was take notes as David sounded off on voice in creative writing then fill in some spaces as the representative “academic voice” in the essay. Here come the insecurities again. Luckily, David is a brilliant editor too, which says much about his popularity among the students.

Beyond that, most of my day-to-day writing is classroom related, specially writing comments on student essays. I joke and perhaps how I rationalize my procrastination to start that novel or finish that screenplay is because my writing is so bad because all I do is read bad writing. This week, I am in the middle of grading and, more to the point, commenting on 50 narrative essays. I have 25 more narrative essays coming in on Monday. Then, next Thursday, assuming every one of my students turns in the essay on time, I will have 107 essays to grade. Every single essay is a teachable moment, but what is my process for writing those comments? How can I solve such problems as indicating a poorly written sentence while not shattering a student’s confidence? How can I teach that student to develop a personal writing process, while not over-steering the writing to the “correct answer” (the way that would earn the student a better grade).

Murray breaks the writing process into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Students are often amazed at the time breakdown Murray assigns these three stags. Prewriting, everything before the first draft, “takes about 85% of the writer’s time” (15). Writing the first draft is a mere 1%, which leaves 14% of the time for rewriting. Next Thursday 107 essays that are handed to me will hopefully have gone through this process in close approximation to Murray’s breakdown, or at least in a way that works for each individual student. The very last step in the rewriting phase that all 107 of those essays will share is a reflection paper.

They will reflect on the writing process. They will list the steps that they took, and they will comment on those steps.

“This is the corpse pose in Yoga practice,” I will try to entice them. “It locks in the practice.” This is my way of tempting the students to “know thyself.”

During my “prewriting” this week, I read Dr. Dade’s essay “Forwarding the Legacy of Horace Mann Bond” asking the faculty to reflect on the curriculum and “know thyself.” As a composition teacher at Lincoln University during a time when the subject of student writing is often discussed and there is a movement to take writing “Across the Curriculum,” I welcome your own “reflection comments.” As Murray suggests in an essay written in 1970, “more scholars, using information from the social sciences and the sciences, should be encouraged to contribute to the study of the writing process” (7). Do you write along with your students as my narrative essay/blog posting has allowed me to do this week? How do you approach writing instruction in your classroom? How do you write?

Works Cited
Murray, Donald. Learning by Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Boyton/Cook, 1982.

Teaching at an HBCU: How Do/Should We Do It?

2010-01-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

Linda Stine, Guest Blogger

In the Teaching Matters blog this week, I hope we can continue some of the discussion raised in Dr. Dade’s recent letter to the faculty “Forwarding the Legacy of Horace Mann Bond.” Lennell points out that master teachers help their students to understand themselves while simultaneously understanding the subject matter of the course, and she questions whether we are doing this adequately at Lincoln, asking “"to what degree has African culture and history been placed as the center or at least given a strong presence in what we teach our students?" Her suggestions are that all of us educate ourselves on Lincoln’s and Black cultural history, consider what changes we should make within our curriculum and courses, and reinstitute a Black Studies major.

I thought it would be both interesting and educational to hear if you feel that you teach different content or that you teach content differently because you are teaching at an HBCU. As a white teacher educated in majority institutions from K through Ph.D, I must admit that this issue is one about which I can pretend no expertise, and I look forward to learning from the rest of you.

Here’s one small example I can offer. In my basic writing classes, I approach grammar teaching from the context of “Standard Written English” as presented in their grammar handbooks being simply one dialect among many, no more “right” than the others but currently the “power dialect” (definition: the one spoken by those in control of the country’s major institutions) and the one used in most academic and professional settings. We discuss how grammar changes over time, along with the importance of learning the current grammatical conventions of that dialect so that they have the choice to use it as they want.

The Power of Economic Analysis: The Theory of Rational Self-interest and the Theory of moral Sentiments

2010-01-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: William Kwame Dadson

Through out my years of teaching economics, I have developed what I consider to be the most effective way of preparing students and developing their economic and business leadership skills through the theory of rational self-interest and the theory of moral sentiments. Incorporating these two theories in my economic lectures, has improved the students’ understanding of “the power of economic analysis.” The power of economic analysis is a framework that enables a person to understand and seek solutions to economic problems. (Miller, 2010). It helps students to decide whether to study or not study; to buy a book for a class or spend the money on something else. In all these decisions, the student must accept the consequences of their decisions in terms of their impact on their grades, and graduation. The power of economic analysis teaches the students the economic way of thinking. It enables an individual to make informed decisions or judgments and prepares them for the dynamic global economy. You may ask: "What is the theory of rational self-interest?" or "What is the theory of moral sentiments?" Here, below, is an explanation of the two theories.

The Theory of Self-Interest or Self-Love

In the minds of economists, an individual’s actions are motivated by self-interest. In other words, an individual is a rational economic person whose actions are driven by incentives or rewards which should not leave them worse off in the end. This idea was developed by Adam Smith in his 1776 book, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” Through his observations of human nature and individual self-interest, Adam smith concluded “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regards to their own interests” (Becker,1976i). In other words, individuals are rational beings driven by monetary gains, power and other incentives that help to realize their self-actualization. This is the driving force behind capitalism and the success of western economies. Under capitalism, individuals pursue their own entrepreneurial interests, which eventually become public interest. Examples are Graham Bell, Madam J C Walker, Bill Gates, and Steve Job. To follow the footsteps of these great entrepreneurs the student must master the “The Power of Economic Analysis." Even if the student wants to be an intrapreneur or work for somebody else, it is important that he master the concept of the power of economic analysis. I want to make it clear that whether you become an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur, you must be able to make use of available information in making sound judgments or decisions. Either way there is no free lunch. There is a price for every action we take.

The power of economic analysis helps us to understand that every action results in two consequences, positive and negative externalities. The positive externalities can be the monetary rewards received from a business transaction and the negative externalities may be a defective product or service, causing an injury to the consumer or the society in general. There is nothing wrong with becoming wealthy through an entrepreneurship venture. However, it is important to understand that in pursuing a self-interest endeavor, you and your activities become public interest. You must become familiar with the rules and regulations governing the modus operandi of the industry. What role does ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’ play in the ‘Power of Economic Analysis?

Theory of Moral Sentiment

The other issue I have been driving home to my students is that "the power of economic analysis" is incomplete without the understanding the “theory of moral sentiments.” This theory was also developed by Adam Smith in 1759. For Adam Smith, the market system is beneficial to the society as a whole; the individual self-love that drives the market system is instrumentally valuable to the society as a whole. In the modern translation, the pursuit of self-interest or individual self-love cannot ignore the moral responsibility in the process. Society’s interest must be given due consideration at all times. When self-interest eventually becomes public interest, a social contract has been established between the individual and the society. For example, AT&T was broken up in 1980, because it was deemed a monopoly and a threat to competition. Martha Steward went to jail for insider trading. Enron went out of business , its executives were tried and some jailed for financial fraud. It is important that every student any aspiring entrepreneur , individuals and companies learn from these mistakes.

The theory of moral sentiment is an important part of the power of economic analysis. It reminds us of our moral responsibility towards the society. Adam Smith believed that self-interest or self-love is a necessary condition for unleashing humankind’s productive energy and creativity. He stressed that this was not sufficient and warned that an unfettered freedom to pursue self-interest could undermine constructive liberal society. In other words, if laws and regulations are not put in place or enforced to curb excessive market abusive practices, there will be dire consequences for the society. Detrimental consequences such as individual or national economic disaster can lead to a degrading society or "a rent seeking society” may result. (Krueger, 1974; Evensky, 2005i).

Is it possible to apply the theories of rational self-interest and moral sentiments to the role the banking industry played in the current economic conditions in the United States? The answer is yes.

In "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," Adam Smith stressed the need for law and order in the free society. He Wrote:

The sine qua non for successful liberal

system, of free people and free markets

are security. For all participants. Society

cannot subsist among those who are at

all times ready to hurt and injure one

another. (Becker, 1976ii).

He believed that the source of this security must be a system of justice that establishes and enforces the principles of interpersonal behavior that insure individuals’ security. (Evensky, 2005ii)

There is nothing wrong with making money. I am a capitalist to the core. I assure the students that there is nothing wrong with being a capitalist and pursuing self-interest ventures to become wealthy. If citizens of a nation become wealthy, the nation prospers. However, the interest and the security of the society cannot be ignored in the pursuit of self-interest. The legal systems must be in place to protect individual liberty and the society as a whole. I believe that teachers of economic can benefit from this approach and equip their students with knowledge required for successful self-interest venture pursuits. It should be emphasized that teachers who adopt this approach must live by examples.

References:

Becker, Gary, 1976i.The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. University of Chicago Press. Page 27

Becker, Gary, 1976ii.The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. University of Chicago Press. Page 86

Evensky, Jerry. 2005i and 2005ii. "Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments: On Morals and why they matter to a Liberal Society of Free People and Free Markets." Page 111

Krueger, Ann O. 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent seeking Society” American Economic Review. 64:3, pages 291-303.

Miller, Roger LeRoy.2010. Economics Today, the Macro View, and the Micro View. Page 2

Problem-Solving Leading to Self-Renewal and Change

2009-12-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Dana Flint

Thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you.

Not long before his tragic death in 1951, Albert Barnes sent a couple of pages of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education (pp. 177-178 of the 1916 edition, if you want to know) to his good friend Horace Mann Bond. Those pages emphasized the central role of thinking as problem-solving, and highlighted some educational emphases that Barnes hoped Lincoln would adopt. He highlighted the now familiar problem-solving steps of an initial sense of a problem, observation and investigation of factors, construction of solutions, hypotheses, and conclusions, and testing those constructions. In the spirit of Dewey, he understood that this process of problem-solving towards more “intelligent” adjustments (to use Dewey’s term) would be repeated again and again in the constant self-renewal of human living, and, Barnes hoped, in the self-renewal of the educational process at Lincoln. That was then. Nowadays, it seems that this is what we commonly do in our instructional approaches. Here are a few examples from my FYE class this semester:

I wanted students to come away with a usable skill associated with each subject area in the course, for example, the module on Research. Previously, I brought students to a Library computer lab to receive instruction on searching Library databases. This year I continued in an analogous manner with an in-class demonstration using my laptop and a projector. But somewhere along the line I had a “sense of a problem.” Do students come away from such demonstrations with a usable skill? How could I know? So I got them to define some problems which were of interest to them: abortion, war and technology, global warming, and violence and Grand Theft Auto. Then I showed them a web site that demonstrated the format of annotated bibliographies, and asked them to submit an annotated bibliography, with five varied references, as a demonstration of their skill in doing research. Well, I am still in the process of “testing” (that is, assessing) this solution.
Second, I thought the usable skill associated with the Speech module would be pretty easy: Let the students make speeches before the class and have another group of students evaluate them. I have done this before, but this semester I got a surprise. Instead of speeches, the students did PowerPoint presentations with the lights out and which ended with a movie, of course. The trouble was that there was a lot more high tech and a lot less speaking. So I went with the flow and found a web site containing a PowerPoint presentation on how to do PowerPoint presentations, and I presented this PowerPoint presentation while instructing the student-judges to critique the PowerPoint presentations of the students, using what they had learned about PowerPoint presentations. This seemed to represent a double process of self-renewal going on at instructional and learning levels.

Am I right in assuming that nowadays we commonly see the process of teaching and learning as a process of facilitating ever more educated adjustments to ourselves and world? Would the “Fitness for Life” course be another such example of this process, or would it not?

Teaching Philosophy / Classroom Technology

2009-11-27T13:53:00.000-08:00

Guest Blogger: Michele Petrovsky

I’d like to chat with you about the dovetailing of teaching philosophy and classroom technology.

I’ve designed and implemented software that administers and grades exams; draws exam questions from a single test bank, regardless of question type (e.g., true/false versus fill-in-the-blank), exam type (e.g., quiz versus midterm), or course; and uses randomization to help ensure that no two students receive exactly the same exam. Since I wanted to present the whole package, including graded exams, through the Web, I ended up with a rather extensive web site, of which the test generator makes up only about 20 per cent. The generator was built with MySQL 4.0.15 and PHP 4.0. It runs under SuSE Linux Professional 9.0 (kernel release 2.4.21-99-default), using Apache 2.0 as its Web server and HTML 1.1 as the basis for its forms. The server that supports the generator also provides a variety of administrative tools such as scheduled backups and rotation of log files, as well as a firewall that monitors HTTP, FTP, and TELNET (that is, Web, file upload/download and remote login, respectively) traffic.

That’s some fairly serious tech. I’m proud of it, but no more proud than I am of knowing how to drive a stick-shift car, and being able to hold said car on a hill with a skillful combination of clutch and gas pedals. In other words, I think it’s neat. What’s more, I firmly and deeply believe that it’s neat, that I enjoyed creating it as much as I did, and that it works as well as it has, because of the perspective that led me to the project in the first place.

I’m not trained as an academician. But, I’ve been reading and talking and learning since the age of three. My father was a teacher, who, when I was five, enlisted me as his assistant in grading his middle school students’ papers and exams. It simply never occurred to me until I was well into adulthood that learning was anything out of the ordinary, or anything one needed to work at. Rather, it, like the clutch/gas combo, was something ‘neat’ that was available to anyone.

When I began teaching, it was in a community college. Most of my students were out of work or had never worked, and were attempting not only to
gain a certificate or degree but, also, to embark on a new life. To stand in front of a room full of such folks is a humbling experience. It taught me in no uncertain terms the truth of the saying, “A master is someone who started before you.” For both these reasons, I saw little role then, and see no larger one now, for an ivory-tower approach to education, even when the ivory tower is built in part of silicon and copper.

I hope none of this seems disrespectful of the sincere and strenuous efforts so many of you have made to become and remain effective educators. Those who love teaching and learning have my utmost respect. But, in this as in everything, I feel strongly that individuality and individual means and styles of expression, including the choice of classroom technologies, must be honored. The marvelous tech we have available can make our teaching more effective. But it can never substitute for excitement about the process of learning.

PowerPoint in the Classroom

2009-11-20T09:39:00.000-08:00

Guest Writer, Dave Royer

PowerPoint – so who has the power and what’s the point? What a great opening this could be if I had a clever answer. But you do get the message that I have chosen to write about PowerPoint, hereafter abbreviated PP. I will give you my perspective and then my students’ multiple perspectives, the latter being the more important as they are the ones who are doing the learning. Based on no reliable or systematic data, I would say that PP is used in more than half the classes at Lincoln, but have we investigated whether it improves student learning, compromises student learning or is neutral? It certainly offers more versatility as to what I can offer in the classroom; I can show pictures, animations, diagrams, figures, etc. that I could never adequately draw on the whiteboard so I feel my lectures are more interesting and engaging. I can go beyond talking about global warming by embedding video of glaciers crashing into the sea in my PP presentation. My students can see the results of extended droughts in sub-Sahara Africa that are more graphic and provocative than my recitation of statistics of rainfall amounts. PP also makes my life easier, and I admit that with some guilt. Nearly every textbook in the sciences comes with a companion website that includes an instructors’ section with a full set of PP lectures. One could simply copy the PP lecture onto a computer or flash drive and present it in the classroom with minimal preparation, and while the quality of these PP lectures varies, most of them are, at the very least, adequate. So even though I routinely edit these PPs by adding, deleting and modifying slides, it is still much easier than preparing a lecture from scratch and thus my guilt. My lectures are being at least partially prepared by a person or team at the publisher with whom I do not need to share my office or my salary. Another advantageous aspect of PP lectures is the ease with which they can be posted to WebCT, where they are accessible to students at any time and from nearly any location.

So what are my concerns about PP lectures? First, I think they contribute to our perennial problem of students not purchasing textbooks; the students feel that the PPs give them all the information that they need to prepare for exams, making the text an unnecessary expense. Second, many of our students have poor note-taking skills, and PPs prevent the development of those skills as students see little or no need to take notes when the PPs will be posted for them.

And for those students who do want to take notes, there is no training available on how to take notes during a PP lecture. My last concern is whether students are learning better, learning more, and developing effective critical thinking skills with PPs, and I have no information or impressions about this.

The second part of the story is what the students think so I took some time with my General Biology II and Microbial Ecology classes to get their thoughts on the subject. I started my classes one day recently by asking whether I should teach with PP or with a traditional write on the board lecture, and more than half voted for the latter. When I asked why, I received a variety of responses. One student stated that if I wrote the information on the board, he would copy it and begin the learning process with the act of writing the information in his notebook. Another said that when I write on the board, it slows things down a bit, and when she copies from the board, it gives her time to think about what is being taught and to come up with questions. She sees PP lectures as going too fast and not allowing for some thoughtful consideration of the material being covered.

Several students thought it was easier to follow the lecture when the instructor wrote on the board, and one student said he was less likely to fall asleep if I wrote on the board; presumably the act of copying something would keep him awake. And many students felt their notes were better when the professor was writing on the board.

As for the students who preferred PP lectures, they cited the ability to include various types of media in the presentation. They also liked that the lectures are available online; the word “convenient” came up several times. Last, they felt that material missed when they could not attend lecture was easily obtained because most faculty post their PPs to WebCT.

In general, the students also noted that the quality of PPs varied considerably from course to course with the worst ones being those that were slide after slide of just text.

So what can be drawn from all of this information? While there are some implicit suggestions above, I invite you, the reader, to share your thoughts, experiences and responses. Barring some new technology, we will be using PP for many years to come.

Last, special thanks to my students in Microbial Ecology and General Biology II for their input on the use of PowerPoints in classes.

Three Easy Steps to Excellence or The Courage to Lead

2009-11-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

Guest Writer, Abbes Maazaoui

Monday 10/19/2009, 7:00 AM. I check my email for any message sent with “High” importance. Nothing. Wonderful. Among the new messages, I spot an email message from one of my students. What could it be about? Without any particular expectation, I read it.

“Bonjour Professor Maazaoui.
I am [SM], I recently just checked my mid-term grades and I see that I have a C- in your class which basically means I didn't do what I was supposed to do but I have room for improvement and that is what I am going to do. There is no need for extra credit work. But I will bring my grade up by attending your class daily and doing all work especially with extra tutorial. As you say if I pay attention, attend class and work on my pronunciation I can improve and that’s what I intend on doing. Thank You.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here is a student who does not consider “C-” an acceptable grade. More importantly, she does not blame me for this grade. Even better, the student understands what areas of her performance need attention. No excuses, nothing, but determination and confidence in her ability to change things for the better. This Monday is already looking good!

I wanted to use this email to frame the discussion on academic excellence. I have attended many discussions and forums regarding this matter. The faculty, the library, or the bookstore was cited, at one time or another, as the key factor in our pursuit of the promised glory. I have yet to see participants address in depth the role of students. I believe that students are at the center of it all, and must be involved in the conversation, simply because they are not just passive receptors of our efforts and wisdom. As the email quoted above magisterially illustrates, students “can” do (or not do) things (“pay attention”, “attend class” “work on” their area of weakness, “improve” the result). We tend to forget that they, more than the faculty or the administration, will determine whether the university ranks high or low.

Of course, if all our students were like the author of this email, Lincoln would achieve all the wonderful goals set by the president in just one year. Unarguably, this is not the case. Fostering excellence will require courage and leadership. Here are some suggestions that can be put immediately into action:

1. Scrap (and replace) the current Lincoln policy on attendance. It is a toothless policy precisely because of its so-called built-in flexibility (“Four absences may result in an automatic failure in the course”). This loophole is at the heart of students’ absenteeism and tardiness, which are reaching epidemic proportions. Whom are we kidding? Students know it and instructors know it. Has anyone ever heard of a Lincoln professor who failed a student just because of four-five-six,… unexcused absences. Let’s have a policy that is enforceable, not subject to the interpretative whims of individual instructors. Let’s agree on a fixed number of allowable absences and then require all faculty to enforce it. Furthermore, let’s make the faculty accountable by making “attendance taking” part of the student evaluation form.

2. Every student should be required to have/buy/borrow/ etc. (in digital format or otherwise) mandatory textbooks and materials of instruction. By the way, this requirement is stated in most syllabi. Students who can’t afford to purchase textbooks should be allowed to seek an exemption from the bursar’s office. Let’s also work on a solution whereby textbooks might be “awarded” to hard-working needy students. If we can judge by the high-end electronic gadgets and texting services used on campus, only few students would qualify for any type of assistance.

3. The administration should be required to lead this effort, not (just) by sending memos and emails (that the majority of the students don’t read anyway), or by giving speeches at board, faculty and school meetings, but by going to classrooms and talking to students face-to-face. Since most students don’t show up at convocations and large gatherings, members of the Board of Trustees, the president, vice-presidents and deans should bring this message to students in class and promote these simple policies that must be upheld by all, so that there is no confusion in the minds of the students or the faculty. FYE classes offer the best time and place for spreading the message.

Yes, these are simple steps. Yet very often, the secret of success is in keeping things simple, and getting back to the basics. Sending an unequivocal message is one of them. Our students cannot afford to be absent an average 5 or 6 times in every class, nor can they go through college without ever using a textbook. If we are serious about academic excellence and Lincoln’s reputation, we have to involve students in a serious conversation and begin at the beginning.

Are We Doing Right by Our First Year Students?

2009-11-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

Guest Writer, Pat Joseph

We know the first year represents a critical and important time in the life of a college student. There seems to be a trend that every five years or so, as varied colleges and universities put forth “new and improved” efforts aimed at helping first year students succeed and persist in college. Lincoln University has offered a vibrant Freshmen Transition week of activities where new students practically have the campus to themselves to comfortably move in, get to know others, take placement exams, get their class schedules, and of course learn the LU pride chant. In the fall of 2006, First Year Experience (FYE101) became a course requirement, where freshmen students study and are exposed to a common set of assignments designed to help them adjust to the college experience.

Our latest endeavor, the recently implemented Split Model of Advising Program, immediately assigns new students to Academic Advisors in the college major/department of their choice. Within this plan there are potential advantages and challenges. For example, it’s a good idea to provide new students with a department “home” but many students are not realistic in their choice and/or are not aware of the difficult requirements of a number of majors. Some may realize later that they do not have the aptitude and/or interest to continue with their initial selection of a major. Thus, I think we must now figure innovative ways to ensure these new students make good career decisions in a timely manner.

This cursory review does not include other freshmen-related issues including the large number that test into developmental courses, the need for an adequate number of courses for them to choose from, and student experience with enhancement programs like the reading & writing labs, and tutoring.

Initiatives for new students may come and go, but what should remain constant is our ability to positively (or negatively) answer the question, “Are we doing right by our first year students?” It would be interesting to learn your thoughts and ideas.

Learning to Teach or Teaching to Learn?

2009-10-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

Guest writer, Anna Hull

"So, Anna, are you a better teacher or student?" asked my friend as we were discussing my latest Spanish class that I attended as a student last Sunday. Hmm. Well, answer the question – are you a better teacher or student? It seemed like a simple enough question to my friend, but I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t answer quickly enough. Of course I wanted to say that I am a better teacher; after all, that is my chosen profession. Within seconds it dawned on me that I cannot claim to be a better teacher than I am a student. The two are too intimately linked; I don’t know if it is truly possible to be a good teacher without also being an excellent student.

Case in point: Do you remember the very first time you had to teach a difficult concept to a class? My memory comes from graduate school: I was leading a discussion group of about twenty students and I was due to teach how the energy in food is converted to another type of energy (ATP) within the cell. I thought my grasp of the concept was sufficiently clear, but as I reviewed the material, I realized that all I had was a "grasp"; I didn’t own the knowledge in a way that would allow me to teach it efficiently. Since then, the story has repeated itself many times; only after I have taught the material in class, or given a seminar, do I have the feeling of actually owning the knowledge and therefore doing a better job the next time I teach it.

Even when I am well prepared and know the concepts that I am planning to teach, I constantly ask myself how the students perceive my words and the points that I am trying to convey. So often, it seems like they are hearing something completely different than what I think I’m saying. How would they try to explain the same concept that I don’t seem to be able to communicate, and how can we as teachers tap into that? How can we utilize the willingness of the students to learn by letting them be the teachers?

I am slowly learning to turn many of the students' "hows' and "whys" into mini-assignments, sometimes worth extra credit. When my students in Molecular Biology asked for a study guide for their midterm exam, I told them how I usually make the guide by going through all my PowerPoint lectures and writing questions to each slide. This is clearly an excellent way for the students to study the content for the exam, so I had them make the study guide and submit it to me for extra credit. It probably helped the students to study, they earned much-needed extra-credit, and it reduced my workload (at least up front; I did read all the submissions and compile a study guide that I shared with the entire class in the end).

I would love to hear what you do in your classroom. What have you tried that works and what doesn’t? And for extra credit: How would you answer the question, "Are you a better teacher or student?"

Learning A Language

2009-10-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Maribel Charle Poza

My first experience with foreign languages was not a very pleasant one. It was September of 1986 and I had just started sixth grade in my native country of Spain when I got sick and had to stay home from school. Needless to say, I missed what would have been my first ever English lesson. The events of the next day, when I returned to school, have stuck to my memory until today.

Class time arrived and Don Javier, the school’s new English teacher, walked into the classroom, put his books down, and immediately started to ask a series of unintelligible questions to the students. To my surprise, my classmates had no problem understanding and answering his questions in English. As I prayed that Don Javier would not call on me, I looked at my classmates in astonishment. I could not believe that after only a day of class, they were already communicating in another language!

Rather than having a discouraging effect, that first experience instilled in me a deep desire to master the English language. This desire led me to live in three different English-speaking countries, and to become a foreign-language professor in the United States. Today, I have no doubt that learning a language has changed my life in ways that I could never have imagined.

Similarly, I am convinced that language-learning can be life-changing to American students in both their professional careers and their personal lives. Being fluent in another language not only opens doors in a job market that is more competitive than ever before, but also gives students greater insight into their own language and opens their minds to a world that is culturally and linguistically diverse.

In 1996, the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning were published as an answer to a concern from educators and the government about the role of foreign languages in American education. Furthermore, in 2006 the government called for an increase in the number of Americans that are fluent in critical-need languages. Surprisingly, and in spite of the emphasis at the federal level, foreign language study has not received the attention that it deserves in American education. Furthermore, over the past three decades, scholars in the language profession have called attention to the low numbers of African American students in foreign language programs in the United States. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), only 4.1% of the bachelor’s degrees in foreign languages were awarded to African Americans in 2006.

Personally, I believe that we, at Lincoln University, have a unique opportunity to turn this state of affairs around by increasing the percentage of African Americans who are fluent in a foreign language. At the departmental level, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to recruit new students. We emphasize the importance of language study not only in the classroom, but also on the entire campus with events such as Language Day, Language Night, the International Food Festival, and the Study Abroad Convocation. Over the years, we have shaped our curriculum so that it matches the latest research on language-teaching methods, and we have established ourselves as a vibrant, open, and friendly department. However, we cannot do this alone. We need the help of the entire Faculty and Administration to change the NCES gloomy figures. Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to achieve this goal, and only through collaboration will we succeed in this endeavor.

Many in the Faculty have experienced learning another language, either by taking courses, traveling abroad, or talking to immigrants in their communities. For many, English is their second (or third, maybe fourth) language and they use it to conduct their professional life in the United States. I think that it would be very enriching if we all shared our thoughts and experiences about language learning in this blog. I’m very interested in reading your comments to this post. As a final point, I would like to thank Nancy Evans and Linda Stine for making the discussion possible through the creation of this blog.

Academic Excellence

2009-10-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Zizwe Poe

I would like to begin my comments by thanking you, my colleagues, for allowing me to kick off this week's blog on academic excellence. I want to touch on two aspects and I will attempt to do this in the most succinct way I know how.

Aspect 1: There is no way around it. We need physical space that supports academic excellence. This means the library AND an academic presence in the residential space of the campus. The completion of phase 1 of the library's renovation makes the edifice usable as a library. Reading the meticulous report of the president we should be able to see that phase 2 is not about library functions. Glossy pictures aside I want our students and faculty to benefit from the opportunity of stumbling upon texts that they did not intend to use because of the text's juxtaposition to a targeted text. This is the type of serendipity that can only come by walking through the stacks. Our students are tacitly being prepared to seek answers without knowledge and a degree without collegiate research. Our president's post said that the students and faculty currently have all the library and library services needed to facilitate learning. I hope that this isnot true for if it is we may never have a true library again.

Aspect 2: Lincoln University needs a Pan-African Studies program. Lincoln University has a historic relationship with Africa and the most diverse population of students from African countries than most HBCUs. This is an undervalued niche that we should take advantage of. A Pan-African Studies program would strengthen relations with African countries and Caribbean countries while assisting with connecting African American students with our international populations.

I will begin with these concerns as I expect there will be some feedback on both issues. Again, thanks for allowing me to initiate this week's string.

Intellectual Capital

2009-10-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Jorge Majfud

In 1970 the General Motors workers’ strike cut the U.S. GDP by 4 percent and is estimated to have been the reason for the poor 2 percent growth that the country experienced in the following years.

Today the decline of all U.S. automotive industries affects just one percentage point. Almost all of the GDP is in services, in the tertiary sector. In this sector, intellectual production resulting from education is growing, not to mention that today almost nothing is produced without the direct intervention of the latest computer inventions from academia, from agricultural production in exporting countries to heavy industry, mostly set in countries known as emerging or developing.

For much of the twentieth century, cities such as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, flourished as industrial centers. They were rich and dirty cities; such was the legacy of the Industrial Revolution. Today Pittsburgh is a clean city that lives and is known for its universities.

In the past year, the "research corridor" of Michigan (a consortium made up by the University of Michigan and Michigan State University) contributed 14 billion dollars to the state from benefits generated by their inventions, patents and research. These benefits have grown over the last year and still more in proportion in a state that was the home of the big automotive industries of the twentieth century, which are in decline today.

That means that a part of the direct benefits from one year’s production of "intellectual capital" of a university in 27th place and another one in 71st place in the national ranking, equals the total monetary capital of a country like Honduras. This intellectual production factor explains, in large part, why the economy of New York City and its metropolitan area alone is equivalent to the entire economy of India (in nominal international terms, not in domestic purchase power), a country of over a billion inhabitants and a high economic growth due to its industrial production.

Today 90 percent of U.S. GDP is derived from non-manufacturing production. The monetary value of its intellectual capital is 5 trillion dollars, nearly 40 per cent of total GDP, which amounts in itself to all the items together in the dynamic Chinese economy.

If the American empire, like all empires, has incurred and, directly or indirectly has pirated the raw materials from other countries, the fact remains that especially today the emerging countries pirate a large part of the copyrights of American inventions. Not to mention that U.S. trademark counterfeiting alone subtracts from the original products $ 200 billion annually, which exceeds by far the total GDP of countries like Chile.

Looking at this reality, we may predict that the increased risk of emerging countries is to rest the current development in the export of raw materials; the second risk is to trust too much on industrial prosperity. If the emerging countries do not deal with investing heavily in intellectual production, they will confirm, perhaps in a decade or two, the international division of labor that sustained most of the big economic disparities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Now it is fashionable to proclaim in the media around the world that America is finished, broken, three steps far from disintegration into four countries, two steps from final ruin. I get the impression that the methodology of analysis is not entirely accurate because, as revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara himself criticized those who lauded socialist industrial production over capitalist production, it confuses desire with reality. Guevara himself complained that this passion disturbed any objective criticism or prevented us from seeing that the central human goal was not simply to increase the production of things.

When making predictions about the year 2025 or 2050, people used to project the present conditions to the future scenario. That underestimates the radical innovations that even a prolonged status quo can produce along with the inevitable change on any present condition. In the early '70s, analysts and presidents like Richard Nixon himself were convinced that the emergence and ultimate success of the Soviet Union over the United States was inevitable. The '70s were years of recession and political and military defeats for the American empire.

I think that since late last century we all agree that the 21st century will be a century of major international balances. Not necessarily more stable, perhaps the opposite. It will be good for the American people and especially for mankind that this country stops being the arrogant power that has been for much of its history. U.S. has many other merits which engage, as history also shows: a people of professional and amateur inventors, a people of Nobel prizes, an excellent university system and a class of intellectuals that has opened pathways in diverse disciplines, from humanities to the sciences.

The dramatic rise in unemployment in America is its best opportunity to accelerate this conversion. In all international rankings, American universities occupy most of the first fifty posts. This monopoly can not last forever, but right now that is where its principal advantage lies.

Probably we will need to focus on “how” to develop a better understanding of “intellectual property” and its real importance in our global economy, but it is not a bad idea first — or, at least, meanwhile — to think a little about “why”. For instance, why produce too much useless stuff, why consume too much beautiful trash, such as a cheap blind that has to be replaced every semester, because it is cheap and because it does not resist normal use, both in behalf of “keeping the economy moving”. That is, in short, why are wasting, burning and throwing away the new source of wealth? And so on and so forth.

For both questions, universities have one of the most important roles. Traditionally, the “how” is in the hands of technicians. The “why” has traditionally occupied most of the humanists. Scientists used to be between both of them.

Fortunately, there are still a lot of people thinking outside and inside academia. But also there are a lot of people without enough time to do that, too many isolated and hyperconnected individuals, too worried and too busy thinking about how to do the same thing faster, bigger or smaller, and always better, both out of and in academia.

So, some final questions:
1) Do we really live in a bubble or has the academy become “the new real world", that is, “the productive/political world”?
2) Why has thinking “too much” traditionally been considered a waste of time, a “patriotic peril” such as an unproductive “bubble creator”?
3) Do we teach the way we think, the way we see the world, the way power wants us to think?
4) Can we achieve any excellence in teaching just by learning a new and better teaching methodology?
5) Can we be good teachers being clerics of “hows” instead of researchers of “whys"?

Cell Phones and Chatty Students

2009-10-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Mel Leaman

I’m the pushing sixty guy, who still likes the one-knob tuner in the car radio, a phone conversation that can’t be interrupted by a beep of an in-coming call, and a sidewalk discussion that does not have to compete with digital distractions. It has always been important to me to give a person my undivided attention. In that light, one can deduce that despite my better judgment I still experience sidewalk ‘O, I gotta’ take this”interposes as disrespectful and rude. My head tells me to not be offended and simply accept this scenario as a trend of the times, but my heart feels like a second-hand rose. Now, with a confession like that, how do I handle the use of cell phones and corner conversations in the classroom?

The first day of class I tell the students that this place will be a sanctuary. It will be like a bird sanctuary where each feathered friend can sing its song without fear of danger and with the knowledge that his/her song will be heard. The students will need to partner with one another to maintain the sanctuary experience. A commitment to this partnership will create the kind of positive educational environment that complements someone’s financial investment. Part of the listening process is to, in Buddhist terms, “be where you are.” This means that anything that takes us away from the priority of tuning in to one another must be turned off. This action shows respect. To thwart off temptation I ask them to put all cell phones in their pockets. Pocketbooks must be slung over the chair or put on the floor. I let them know that if I see someone using the cell phone or texting it will be interpreted as a sign that this person does not want to participate in the educational process on that day. I will kindly ask him/her to leave upon the first offense. This will not be done with anger, facial expressions of disgust, or raised voice. I will simply stand beside the individual, make my request, and close with an open invitation to attend the next session. Students were asked to leave on two occasions this semester. I have decided that if a student refuses to leave I will offer him/her the option of staying until the security guards come to usher him/her from the room. The intent is to be kind,but firm and to avoid making a scene out of the situation. A similar process is followed when tangent conversations persist. It has worked, so far. The students seem to accept, if not appreciate the boundaries. The classroom for today, feels like a sanctuary. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

It is my hunch that some of the readers do not appreciate my strategy or they may have an approach that works better for them. Share it. How do you handle the issue of cell phones and discipline in your classroom?

How Much is Too Much?: Balancing the Course Content

2009-09-23T12:04:00.001-07:00

Guest Writer, Lynnette Mawhinney

Fifteen weeks. Fifteen weeks is what we, as faculty, are given in order to provide our students with foundational knowledge to be utilized in the workforce. For the last six years I have been teaching in higher education, I continually find myself overwhelmed at the beginning of the semester. I am trying to think how I can fit all the vital information my students need in order to be successful teachers themselves. How am I supposed to do that in fifteen weeks!?!

But faculty historically find a way to cram all the information students need to know into a lecture form. On the other hand, as we are taught early on in teaching, all information needs to be scaffolded (Lev Vygotsky). So we slow down, break the information up, and reinforce it with hands-on activities. We find a pace that suits the students and ourselves.

Yet, I cannot seem to get my mind around a keynote speech I saw this summer. Howard Gardner, father of multiple intelligence theory, said that faculty should take one important concept they would want their students to know in an hour. Then take that same concept and break it up over the course of a whole semester. As one who teachers Educational Psychology, I immediately think, “he’s right!” This is the most effective way for our students to retain information. Although, at the end of fifteen weeks, it is only one concept they know, when they will need multiple concepts for the workforce.

So I am left asking the question, how much is too much content? Where is the balance between covering all the content students need to be successful verses overloading them with information they will never retain?

Teaching, Technology and the Liberal Arts

2009-09-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Nancy Evans

The 1990s was, among otherthings, the decade of the "change agent" in education. Change was tocome from the ground up, starting in classrooms, and for many, technology wastouted as the change agent of choice. This was back in the time when instructional technologists and "early adopters" were trying to lead the way and the unstated goal in many cases was to change the way students were taught under the guise of using technology. In other words, technology was one way to get rid of the"sage on the stage" and replace her with the "guide on the side." But the technology itself was a big obstacle. It was new and complicated and made for a lot of uncomfortable moments — losing documents, breaking floppy disks, crashing operating systems.

Technology was not yet wellfunded and granting agencies tended to focus on training; that is, training inhow to use the darn thing. All-in-all, the focus was on the technology (and, tosome extent, still is). We needed to know what is new, how do we get it, how dowe use it. Instructors have been particularly frustrated with this approach since it hasn't left much room for the art of teaching or even to ask "Why?"

But today is different. Jose Bowen is on to something new in "Teaching Naked" and it isn't the technology or even the information that is new. It is learning that matters andteaching that facilitates it. If a liberal arts education encourages communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creative problem-solving, expanding one's thinking, and making connections between subjects, then technology opens the world for students to ask questions and discuss with students elsewhere, to experience the lives of others in other places, to pick the brain of an expert,and put it all together with other students in a variety of ways. It's agreat big open library where we are all curious. A bit of the old with the new. (see Laura Blankenship, "Technology as a liberal art" for more on the liberal arts and technology.)

Much of the next generation of technology is found in Web 2.0 which refers to web development characterizedby communication, collaboration, and shared resources; nothing solid and tangibleat all. Examples of Web 2.0 tools are blogs, wikis, shared documents, studioprojects, and the plethora of web-based, free tools to organize and sharestudent work (see tech tidbits on the ATS web site). Technology has never been more conceptual. Web 2.0 is notjust the Web technology. It is a way of using the Web as a gathering placewhere students can create, cooperate, and experience the world. This technologydoes change how one teaches.

Web 2.0 is not really veryscary. It has something in common with drinking wine (or a beer) and with your colleagues and talking about your favorite research topics. (Don't be cynical, it could be lively.) If we are all curious and creative and have a natural desire to learn, then given facts and guidance from professors and some quiet moments to take it all in, perhaps students can allow their natural curiosity to take over as they collaborate, create and share.

Teaching with, and, or vs. Technology

2009-09-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer, Linda Stine
Discussions of academic excellence, it seems to me, start and end with the teaching/learning environment. How are we presently trying to make sure our students learn well? How can we do it better? Does technology help?

In June the Department of Education published a scientifically rigorous meta-analysis of studies comparing online vs. in-class learning in a wide range of settings and populations. The two main conclusions:
* students learn just as well online as they do in face-to-face classrooms
* hybrid classes (ones that combine online learning elements with face-to-face instruction, such as a WebCT-enhanced course) are more effective than traditional in-class instruction alone.

Having spent much of my summer researching the problems and promise of online learning for my adult writing students, I’m still unsure what kind of educational technology to use and how best to use it. I would love to hear what the rest of you are doing. Are you using technology (WebCT, Smartboards, websites, clickers, multimedia, etc.) to do things that you couldn’t do otherwise or that you couldn’t do as effectively? What have you tried that proved to be more trouble than it was worth?

And how much technology should be used during the class period itself? Should we all be teaching naked?

No, no—not that kind of naked! “Teaching naked” is how the president of SMU describes reserving technology for the purpose of increasing student learning and engagement outside the classroom, creating online activities that require students to learn the content before coming to class and thus freeing up the actual class time for the kinds of personal interaction that only work face to face. His belief:

Coming to class has to ‘add value,’ and reducing the technology and increasing the human interaction is the best way to create something interactive that cannot be duplicated online.

He’s not arguing against educational technology, just against using it during classroom time when he thinks we could be more effectively engaging our students in conversation. (I’d be interested in your reactions to the article—it’s brief but quite thought-provoking.)

So, any thoughts on the complex technology/teaching/learning issue?