Teaching with Fire Blog Posts

Dawn Hawley, Professor

Geography, Planning and Recreation

ACUE Fellow, UDL Learning Community Facilitator

 

The Puzzle of Executive Function

We have a jigsaw puzzle table in our department that I started probably a dozen years ago. I did this to both engage students and to help me relax and clear my mind. This year I noticed differences in how students organized when working on the puzzles. Me? I do a pretty ultra organization, color and texture, then specific shapes:

Standing person, running persons, devil’s tail 4 (top 4), C, box and H (bottom 3).

In the top row, all the pieces have “devil’s tails” as I call them. On the bottom row, the tails are missing, and two shapes look like Hs and Cs. The way I organize is very efficient. If I need a devil’s tail, I have only to look for the color and the three shape types on the top row. If I need a sharp 90 degree, I look at Cs and squares first. Hs are easy to figure out. I decided to see if students would get what I was doing as I organized the pieces. These observations took place over several weeks last fall.

No. No one working on the puzzle worked as I did. Most of the time my organized piles were either destroyed or combined. Students are organized by general color when they are organized. A few used some shapes but not in detailed groupings. Most of the time I found the pieces spread out and unorganized. Sometimes students watched as we worked on the jigsaw puzzles but refused to engage when invited as this was not a cultural norm and unfamiliar (their description) or they couldn’t focus on something like this, and puzzles frustrated them.

This made me reflect on how students organized projects and executive function. The past couple of years I have noticed some issues with student executive function, and I began to reorganize major class projects. These tend to be group projects, and as the puzzle time has shown me, students vary widely in their style or ability to organize. The inability to organize effectively can lead to avoidance, and difficulty completing the assignment.

Executive Function is a set of mental skills that we use daily to learn and manage life such as our working memory, self-control, and flexible thinking. Students lacking in executive functioning may have issues with focusing, emotional regulation, impulsivity, organizing and self-monitoring and task completion, time management and flexible thinking. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23224-executive-dysfunction   As you can imagine, executive functioning helps in the achievement of academic success and life in general.

Some of the reasons for executive function problems might include age, ADD and ADHD, depression, autism, schizophrenia, dementia or brain trauma. The residual effects from Covid are with us as well. https://educationresourcesinc.com/executive-function-and-how-covid-has-impacted-learning-executive-function-skills/  So, what does this mean for students? Stress and anxiety. A challenging time with directions, organizing, focusing and completing tasks. Poorer grades than what might have been. Issues of self-esteem. Manifestations in the classroom. Avoidance. And in group work, there is likely a range of organizational styles and abilities.

Universal Design in Learning is a set of guidelines https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl  for removing barriers to learning. If I am working on removing learning barriers for students with executive function issues, what can I do to help these students (and help others as well such as those with course overloads or jobs and families)? As I reviewed my courses and projects I worked on these aspects:

• Course organization and consistency- organize the course and be consistent in navigation, design and formats. Help students with organization while on the course.
• I use the Canvas calendar and announcements to remind students of each class’s topic and when items are assigned and due.
• Use clear directions for assignments and projects. Recheck to see if students really understand and ask them to reflect those back.
• Provide examples or videos that will help them achieve the assignment goals.
• I have deliverable dates and require check-ins and group consultations on projects. This allows me to chunk project parts into smaller parts and check if the students are on track.
• Have the groups select a project manager to help the group stay on task
• Project reports include a section on project management, who handled what item(s), what problems occurred and how the group could improve the next time. (In some courses I have had students fill out group names, tasks per person, a grade and justification for each member. This is sent to me privately.)
• Student group communication can be used on several platforms, whichever suits the students in each group. They inform me how they will be communicating.

I track the questions students ask about the project. If they are on the instructions, I make sure to review and edit for clarity.

I have seen improvements in the past three years in major projects by using these techniques. Students appreciate the transparency, chunking and set dates. By requiring deliverables, check ins, and using the project manager, students are encouraged not to procrastinate.

 

Resources:

https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23224-executive-dysfunction

https://educationresourcesinc.com/executive-function-and-how-covid-has-impacted-learning-executive-function-skills/

http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/teach_executive#:~:text=Instructors%20can%20support%20EF%20skills,their%20instructor%20and%20their%20peers.

Beverly Amer, Principal Lecturer, ACC & ISM in the W. A. Franke College of Business

Our students come to us for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is guidance and training as they prepare to enter meaningful careers and professions. Colleges and universities have long been regarded as the preparation grounds for students to gain the necessary technical skills and knowledge required to enter such positions, but not the “softer” side of working in a professional role. Until now.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, employers are putting more time and money into learning about the “soft skills” of job applicants: namely, personality traits, communication skills, problem-solving aptitude, and just plain ability to get along with others on a team. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and others have been regularly surveying their members to determine which skills are most in demand. Guess what? Communication skills, teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking ability—all “soft skills”– make the list. LinkedIn, the popular business-based social networking site, found similar results in its surveys.

So what are we, as educators, to do? Yes, the technical skill and knowledge are critical. However, employers are now looking to us for help with these soft skills to round out career readiness in our graduates. Yet if you have ever looked at your students while conducting class discussion, you have likely seen more than a few smartphones or tablets, with social media vying for your students’ attention (no, they are probably NOT taking notes, and yes, this is a breakdown in soft skills!). Perhaps paying attention and focusing on the discussion occurring around them should be on the soft skills list, as well.

I’ve written a workbook for college students on practicing soft skills, and I have presented on the topic at conferences around the country. As attendees have talked about this issue, everyone agrees that college students need to develop soft skills, but most instructors are reluctant to add them to their already “full” courses. Some instructors say they are not perfect role models, themselves, and they don’t want to be held up to high standards for communication, problem-solving, and social skills. Others say it’s really the family’s job to teach these things, not ours. Yet here we are: the university is the last door through which many of our students will pass, and they’re missing this part of their preparedness.

May I suggest the following? There are small steps that we, as educators, can do to assist our students in developing their soft skills without affecting the course content already in place. For starters, try holding students accountable for deadlines, requiring civil and thoughtful remarks in class discussion, demanding logical and fact-based arguments in support of opinions, and making them do the dreaded group work. To address communication skills, you might provide students guidance on what you consider acceptable etiquette. For example, my students are told how to format a business email message, complete with opening salutation, respectful body, and proper closing. For problem-solving and critical thinking skills, you might continue to require those challenging individual assignments that go beyond simple pattern matching of the exercises worked in class. My ISM 120 class requires students to take personal responsibility for meeting deadlines on computer-based homework that requires hours of time-on-task each week to complete. Teamwork skill can only be developed through practice, so in-class small group discussions and out-of-class larger projects will lead to valuable lessons in how to deal with different personalities and value systems. In my class, small groups regularly discuss current events and work on projects that test their ethics and require debate so that students come to a group consensus on what to submit for their team.

Will your students thank you now? Not right now, perhaps. However, their employers – and perhaps even society! – will. And wouldn’t it be great if our students were considered first with recruiters because they have the entire package: both technical skills AND soft skills?

Sources:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/employers-find-soft-skills-like-critical-thinking-in-short-supply-1472549400

https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2016/most-indemand-soft-skills

http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?ed=12/31/2014&id=pr817&sd=4/10/2014

Mark Montoya, PhD

Very early in his college career, Mark was to meet with his academic advisor—a graying history professor. On the Monday morning the week of his open advisement, Mark repeatedly went to the professor’s office, knocking on the door about six different times throughout the morning. Mark had assumed that college professors worked an 8 to 5 job, not taking into account the professor’s teaching, research, and service—and certainly not really knowing what office hours meant. Frustrated, Mark went into the department office and asked how he could see his advisor. The very kind and patient woman explained to him the concept of office hours. Figuring that Mark was eager to get his advising paperwork signed, she said to him, “You can talk to the Department Chair.” Confused, Mark replied, “But I’d like to talk to a person.” Mark is now a college professor, hoping to help other faculty understand the myriad issues first-generation (1st-gen) college students, like himself, experience. Many are not aware of the needs of contemporary first-gen students, even if they were themselves 1st-gen. The reason for this is that many 1st-gen students understand their frustrations as a “normal” feature of college life. College is supposed to be difficult and confusing, right?

What we are doing

While college is indeed complicated, 1st-gen students often start in a predicament different from students whose parents went to and graduated from college: without the benefit of handed-down advice on resources, timelines, unwritten rules, and the like. 1st-gen students are essentially starting the “race” on an unequal and increasingly crowded field where the lack of social and cultural capital adds additional hurdles. How can faculty and staff help? Research has shown that we must proactively address the specific needs of 1st-gen students in order to cultivate these students’ success. Beyond the classroom and beyond the underutilized federal programs, 1st-gen students often need one-on-one mentoring and advising—guidance in navigating the university. For four and a half years now, an innovative Professional Development Learning Community of faculty and staff at Northern Arizona University (NAU) has been grappling with 1st-gen college student experiences. Sometimes we are a book club and other times we are hands-on trainers and facilitators, certifying colleagues as tiered 1st-gen allies, advocates, and activists. From our many meetings and discussions, we have developed the following slogan: “best practices for 1st-gen students are best practices for all students.”

How 1st-gen students perform once they get to the university is of utmost importance. This is especially true from a moral standpoint—if institutions raise students’ hopes by admitting them, then they should also provide accessible tools to support students’ success on campus. 1st-gen students are far less likely to graduate than their non-1st-gen peers As such, supporting and retaining 1st-gen students are critical not only to the University’s core value of “placing learner needs at the center of our academic and service planning, policies, and programs” but also to its survival as an institution. It is for this reason that NAU has constructed a growing suite of programs and initiatives designed to provide multifaceted, sustained support to its 1st-gen students.  Like many universities, NAU has long provided advising, academic support, and financial guidance to hundreds of 1st-gen students. The First Generation Programs and Initiatives Office works across campus to coordinate existing resources, develop and cross-link web pages, and spread the word about programs, tools, and support for 1st-gen students.

What we need to do

Despite the availability of resources on-campus for 1st-gen students and their families, there are obstacles that often prevent students from making the best use of these resources. The first obstacle is awareness: not only are many students and parents unaware of these resources, but so are many faculty and staff. There is also the problem of identifying 1st-gen students. Currently, NAU relies on self-identification, which typically takes place in admissions forms, and not all 1st-gen students identify themselves as such. Moreover, only certain personnel on campus have access to information that would help to identify these students. NAU’s qualifications for 1st-gen consideration are aligned with the federal government’s qualifications: neither parent nor guardian has received a four-year degree. While 40-45% of the incoming freshmen at NAU self-identity as 1st-gen, based on anecdotal information from the Office of Admissions and Orientation we know there are more 1st-gen students.

The challenges of understanding the needs of and supporting the 1st-gen population at NAU are wide and varied, but we can make good progress if we focus on three action areas:

1. Faculty and staff need to be trained to understand the NAU 1st-gen student population and their needs for support;
2. faculty and staff need consistent guidance on what each person can do to help support these students; and
3. faculty and staff must understand the resources available to that student population.

Together these three action areas point to the way to implementing best practices for 1st-gen students.

Best practices      

1st-gen students benefit from targeted coursework. Why? The demographics of the United States are changing. Accordingly, the demographics of U.S. colleges and universities are changing. In the past several years, more universities have admitted more students of color and more students from low-income situations, contributing to an already greater number of 1st-gen students. This higher percentage of 1st-gen students can often mean more tutoring, more advising, and more mentoring than before. 1st-gen students, however, do not need remedial college courses, or University 101 courses, but instead general education or liberal studies courses such as Ethnic Studies, taught with students grouped in a cohort. Faculty ought to develop assignments connected to 1st-gen experiences, so that students participate in class activities together as mentors and mentees. The rationale is that students must pass these classes, because they are for-credit, not skills, classes.

1st-gen students need clear language associated with financial aid. Why? In addition to academic engagement through targeted courses, we must also address 1st-gen students’ financial needs and clarifications of language associated with financial aid. Most 1st-gen students have to work, at least, part-time while attending classes full-time. On-campus employment is essential and allows for additional study time, often becoming a true “work-study.” Besides academic and financial preparedness, the primary concern is graduation. Thus, any program needs to focus on the student for the entire four years of an undergraduate education. Too often, students are dropping out or being pushed out when they lose contact with their support system that had been there for them during their first year. Colleges and universities need to provide 1st-gen students with a continued sense of community and connectedness. It is not enough to get a 1st-gen student to college, if we are not equipping them with the tools they need to graduate—the tools ALL students need to graduate. It may be the difference between knocking on a door for several hours and actually talking to a person. Now, if Mark could only figure out how not to talk to empty chairs.

Dr. T. Mark Montoya is Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Northern Arizona University (NAU), Co-Facilitator of NAU’s First-Generation Student Experiences Faculty/Staff Professional Development Learning Community, and member of the NAU Teaching Academy. This blog is an abridged version of a research report written by Montoya, Esther V. Cuellar, Mark Despain, Alicia Krzyczkowski, and Michael J. Rulon.

John Tingerthal, EdD, SE, PE

I think that it is safe to assume that college faculty are interested in improving the learning experience for students.  There is substantial literature on overall course re-design models that supplement or fully replace traditional lectures with technology, online or emporium-style resources. ‘Flipping’ a class, in which content delivery is moved online allowing students to actively engage with that content in class, has received considerable attention at NAU.  But the reality is that the demands on our time only allow for such dramatic redesign in select cases. Fortunately, there are small changes that you can make that can pay large dividends in student achievement.  The intent of this post is to stimulate reflection on your own teaching practice and consider how you can make your class more learner-centered with minimal additional effort.

A recent series of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education by James Lang (2016) proposes some small changes that can have a powerful impact on student learning.  Lang suggests techniques that are easy to implement are supported by the research on learning and get at what Chickering and Gamson (1997) classified as seven principles for good practice in higher education:

• Good Practice Encourages Contacts Between Students and Faculty
• Good Practice Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students
• Good Practice Uses Active Learning Techniques
• Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback
• Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task
• Good Practice Communicates High Expectations
• Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning

Techniques suggested by Lang include the following elements:

• Leverage the moments before class to set the stage for learning
• Rethink how you spend the first five and last five minutes of class
• Help students make connections between content and their world
• Space out content and assessment to improve depth of learning
• Give students some control over their learning

For instance, leveraging the minutes before class to informally connect with your students and create wonder about the day’s topic can set the stage for engagement with the content.  In the first five minutes, opening the class with questions about the previous class or homework reading instead of spending time on administrative tasks can also work to engage the students by getting them active in the process.

It is well documented that experts (read: instructors) organize information differently from novices (read: students).  Lang discusses some techniques that can help students make connections between the course material and their everyday lives, which can assist them in formulating their own ideas.

Research on learning also supports the notion that we can only take in so much information at once.  Spacing out the content and assessments while including some cumulative questions along the way can keep the information present and active.

In the last five minutes of class, it may be futile to try to cram in new content.  Instead, use this time for students to reflect on the day’s work and process it in the context of their own experiences and learning.  A simple technique called the ‘minute paper’ has the students summarize most salient point of the class and codify any confusion that remains on the topic.  These minute papers can be collected and quickly reviewed as to assess the effectiveness of the day’s lesson, prompting the preparation for the next class meeting.  Classroom Assessment Techniques by Angelo and Cross (1993) is a handbook that provides other ideas for real-time assessment.  This book cross-references techniques to individual disciplines and provides a measure of the required effort associated with administering each.

Giving students control can be a scary proposition. It can be a simple as soliciting questions for inclusion on quizzes and examinations or as involved as letting the students collectively design an assignment.  I have gone so far as to use a technique called Specifications Grading (Nilson, 2014), which makes every assignment pass/fail, but gives students the opportunity to select which assessments to complete.

There is no lack of advice on ways to improve student learning. In fact, I would argue that there may be too many ideas, with the difficulty being in having the time to evaluate the appropriateness of these ideas for your students and discipline. I therefore suggest starting small. Here are a few things that you can do right now:

• Reflect on your own teaching practice and evaluate it against the seven principles listed above. Ask yourself whether you can make a small adjustment to better align with these good practices.  I keep this list posted at my desk as a reminder for when I am preparing a lecture, assignment, or learning module.
• Pick one technique from Lang’s suggestions above and make it your own. Tailor it to your own teaching style, students,and discipline.
• Review the online resources below and make it a point to subscribe to at least one of them.  I find that I cannot digest all of the ideas that come into my inbox, but at least once a week, a topic catches my eye and inspires me to think about my own practice.

It is in making small changes that we can make a difference for our students.

Additional online resources:

• Faculty Focus newsletter. Through its free e-newsletter and dedicated website, Faculty Focus publishes articles on effective teaching strategies for the college classroom.
• Monday Morning Mentor. 20-Minute online programs each week of the school year designed for busy schedules. Contact the  NAU Faculty Professional Development office to sign up for the weekly password.
• Tomorrow’s Professor. An eNewsletter which seeks to foster a diverse, world-wide teaching and learning ecology.
• TILT Blog: Techniques in Learning and Teaching.  Short, research-based, locally tested, globally minded and timely learning/teaching ideas, insights and resources.

References:

• Angelo, T. A., & Cross, P. K. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (second). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Available at the NAU Teaching Commons, Room 169 Cline Library)
• Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. Biochemical Education, 17(3), 140–141. http://doi.org/10.1016/0307-4412(89)90094-0
• Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Changes in Teaching. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/specialreport/Small-Changes-in-Teaching/44
• Nilson, L. (2014). Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Faculty Time. Stylus Publishing, LLC. (Available at the NAU Teaching Commons, Room 169 Cline Library)

It’s that time of year when many of us have looked at our student evaluations (or opinion surveys, as they’re now called), to see whether there are comments that might point to aspects regarding our teaching methods, syllabi construction, or course content that we would do best to revisit, revise, and improve.  We certainly can’t please all students in our classes, no matter whether we choose to revise our techniques or ignore the students’ comments altogether; nor is “pleasing one’s students” always the primary aim of our courses. However, when I seem to do things right, and when I seem to have a high percentage of students who have truly appreciated my courses, I can point to one feature that seems to have a salutary effect on the students’ perceptions, and that is the aspect of class participation: namely, students feeling proud and accomplished about their contributions to class-wide discussions and their concomitant judgment (or opinion) that I’ve somehow helped them shine in this regard. Regardless of the failings or weak spots that my students may observe about my courses (and there are a few persistent ones despite my thirty-four years of teaching), I seem to have found a way to “do” discussions well. In the interest of sharing some tips with all of you, I’ve gleaned some techniques from my own classes over the years that may be useful for any one of us wanting to improve class discussions. Perhaps one or two of these might be blessed in standard accounts of “how to run a great class discussion,” and yet I’m certain many others that I’ve mentioned below would never make anyone’s top ten list of great discussion techniques. However, they’ve worked very well for me over the decades, they are tried and tested at least in my own classes, and I hope you’ll find them useful as well, for your upcoming semester.

Subjective-to-objective discussion

I teach a lot of literature from the Middle Ages, literature that is, for most students, simply alien. They have no idea what to make of it at first, so I allow my students to respond to the literature subjectively first – “I liked it; I didn’t like it; this confused me; this is weird” – and then I channel those gut responses into a discussion of the literary features of the readings for that day: plot, characterization, style, setting, symbols, themes. I even can branch out into important discussions about historical context. With this discussion technique, almost everyone has something to say; in addition, the students realize that their gut responses actually can be used to make sense of the work’s literary features, as well.

Three-at-a-time discussion

For classes that have several quiet students who would rather go to the dentist than contribute to a discussion, I will use a focused approach that allows me to go around the room and throw out a leading question to just three students at a time, usually those who are sitting next to each other. These three students are then allowed to run wild with that one question. When one of the three students responds, then this encourages the other two to contribute something new, or to reaffirm or disagree with that first student’s comment, and thus they model a civilized, three-way conversation for the rest of the students who are, by the way, listening carefully to the conversation and taking notes because they now realize that they also have something to say about this question. After these three students have exhausted their responses for that question, I open up the question to the entire class, and then the magic happens: many more students are now willing to contribute, and they want to add to the conversation and throw their ideas into the ring.  I then move to the next three students, and we start all over again. A teacher can cover lots of ground this way, in addition to empowering the quieter students to contribute to a discussion that they normally would have avoided, otherwise.

An “anything-goes” conversation, but with limits

Sometimes students just want some free rein over their class participation. It might be a rainy day; students might be recovering from a difficult mid-terms week; or it might just be the case that the readings for that day are highly provocative. For a class period like that, I might simply say, “so, what do you think about this author, this text, this novel, this method of writing?” and then allow all students to say whatever comes to mind as I sit there quietly, letting this discussion unfold for ten minutes or so.  As often as not, the students do not simply want to kvetch about the reading. They actually will have valid issues and concerns that they want to share with their classmates without any interference from me. In a free-flowing discussion like this, it’s a pleasure to see the students honing in on major aspects of the reading without my ever needing to cover a set of discussion questions. But the students are sometimes not aware that they are, indeed, hitting on major issues. So, after ten minutes, I start shaping the discussion along the lines of key issues and concerns that they, themselves, have raised at some point during their free-ranging discussion. I draw their attention to all that they have covered (and uncovered) in their discussion, and I let them know that they have offered interpretations of the readings that are worthwhile, interesting, and valid.

Teacher-as-note-taker

For this type of discussion, I will go to the whiteboard, marker in hand, and will ask each and every one of the students to come up with something, anything, that they want their classmates, and me, to cover in our discussion of a certain reading. These items can be major or minor, overt or subtle, but all students must ask me to write something on the board. As they do this task, the students start to see collections of ideas that belong together, or other ideas that warrant their own special time allotted for class discussion. And then, when the whiteboard is all filled up with wonderful discussion-worthy elements, I use the rest of the class period to have students interpret as many of these as we can, making sure that students are also finding page references that may help support their points of view. A student feels proud when other students discuss their whiteboard idea and when others devote good energy to unpacking that particular idea. And, as in the techniques above, a teacher can achieve nearly 100% participation that way.

Parlaying the “I don’t know” answer into something better

Nothing can stymie a class discussion more quickly than a student who looks down or away, or who finally says “I don’t know” to a leading question. For students who are simply unprepared, then there’s not much a teacher can do except raise the same question with another student who is willing to take on the challenge. But for students who are more or less prepared for the class but who just haven’t thought deeply enough about the question, or who are a little embarrassed at having to speak in front of the class, then I use these moments as opportunities to do one of two things: I can either rephrase the question in a way that the student understands, or I can say to the student, “well, then, give me an answer to a different question, or a related question.” And then, in most cases, a student will be delighted to contribute to the class discussion in a slightly different way from the one that was planned by me. Now, it’s true that some semi-unprepared students may get off the hook that way, but even so, the situation becomes a teachable moment for students, in that they all can see that even under some duress, they have something to say that furthers a class discussion.

The name-game

I’ll share one more technique, perhaps an obvious one, that seems to do wonders for me in even the most recalcitrant of classes. After two weeks of learning students’ names and learning where the students often sit, I’ll throw out some ideas and issues for discussion, making a mental note of the students who often wade into the fray first. Then, I can do a couple of things subsequently: I can either start calling on students from way across the room and ask them to respond to the  more vocal students’ responses (a tactic which takes their focus off me and places it on a peer-led discussion instead); or when the discussion moves to a different topic, I can deliberately call on those more quiet students and can ask them to field the questions first, making sure that the more loquacious students are quiet and respectful while these more quiet students contribute something. When I’m convinced that nearly all students have made a serious attempt to further our class discussion, I then ask those students who haven’t said anything all class period to identify themselves. I may get two or three students raising their hands. I then turn over the remaining discussion to them, asking them to share an observation, any observation, about the readings before our class ends for the day. All of the students leave the classroom with a sense of fulfillment, even the ones who may have waited till the last minute to contribute. (I may, indeed, begin the next class discussion with those quiet students next time.) The students also begin to learn their classmates’ names that way, and later on, they can say, “I agree (or disagree) with what Jim (or Jane) said earlier,” which forces students to pay attention more closely to the person who is speaking or being referenced. Simple but effective.

I’m sure that many of you have your own successful ways to generate class discussion: e.g., preparing discussion questions ahead of time and having students study or answer some of them prior to class; having students generate their own topics or questions for discussion ahead of time; having students engage in blogs or short writing assignments ahead of time so as to focus their attention on key issues; small group work. There are many beneficial techniques that I haven’t had the time to touch upon, here. In addition, I have not addressed the issue of how credible the students’ contributions might be, whether the students are way off base or are just talking in class for the sake of talking, or whether they might unfortunately start to value the quantity over the quality of their participation. To address this issue briefly: in each of the methods I’ve discussed above, I’m often engaged in shaping, directing, reaffirming, framing, reframing, and summing up our class discussions to meet certain goals that I’ve set for myself to cover specific material, ideas, issues, and concerns for each of the readings I’ve assigned. I also do these things because I want to model critical reading skills. But in the end, I suppose my most important goal is to get my students talking, talking, and talking some more. In doing so, I’m rarely if ever disappointed by what my students have to say and am always pleased to see them taking cognizance of how they’ve supplied something important and relevant to our class community.

Wishing you a wonderful spring semester!

Pam Stephens, PhD, Retired Professor of Art Education

During the weeks before summer break, I am prone to contemplating how I will take a breather from the hectic pace of teaching. For me, summer is a time to gather my thoughts, reflect, and experience something new or out of the ordinary. It’s a time to travel and experience the world first hand.

How will you spend your valuable free time this summer?  I encourage you to consider using your break to travel someplace new to you. Whether your journey takes you near or far, to a national park or a bustling city, a domestic destination or someplace foreign, travel has the power to re-energize while informing personal understanding of places and the people who live there.

Explore

When traveling, search for the unfamiliar whether it is food, shelter, language, customs, or any number of differences. Evaluate these dissimilarities in relation to your prior knowledge. What is the common ground? Where do you find connections? How can knowing these similarities make a difference in the way you understand the world? How will you bring these ideas back to your students? Having an awareness of the connective nature of humanity brings with it a sense of empathy and acceptance of others.

Dream

Inform yourself about local customs for safeguarding nature. Not all societies and cultures will be the same. For example, in many large cities carbon footprints are minimized with denser, smaller housing, public transportation systems, and state-of-the-art recycling facilities while rural areas typically have more single-family homes, personal transportation, and landfills where all refuse goes. Consider why such broad differences occur. What are the benefits and disadvantages of each approach? How can you encourage students to dream about making a better planet that protects and preserves natural resources and the environment?

Discover

Discover the uniqueness of other places and people. Diversity suggests the condition of being different or varied while welcoming the uniqueness of others. Exploring the qualities of individuals and communities dissimilar to your own provides opportunities to embrace the unknown. Take advantage of travel to experience local festivals, visit street markets, take in a movie, walk through a city, hike through the countryside, or enjoy a concert. Personal moments in unfamiliar places bring a kind of understanding that cannot be found in any other way.

A Final Thought       

American author Mark Twain once said, “…throw off the bowlines; sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore; dream; discover.” As summer break approaches, I can think of no better advice for educators.

Jeff Berglund, PhD, Professor of English

When I was nineteen I felt as if every college course I was taking was part of some bigger class, that everything was interconnected and resonating with deeper meanings. What I studied in Introduction to Philosophy permeated my work in Expository Writing and influenced what I was seeing in Biology 101, Sociology 101, and The History of Western Civilization (this was 1985, after all). Higher education was an intricate web of intersections.

My life outside of the classroom—informally and through more formal co-curricular activities—sustained this sense of interconnectedness. During study breaks my friends and I would pass around notebooks we kept—what I later learned were called “commonplace books”—to share the latest quotations we had copied down from our course readings, lectures, and other books we picked up for pleasure. This was a pre-internet, pre-social media world. We were an eclectic bunch, studying Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, and Economics. Some of us had been raised in the country, some in the city, and others in the suburban in-between. I was pre-med and a declared Biology major.

Early on I came to think that this was the best part of university life—that we all participated in the great circulation of knowledge and that this circulation of methods, theories, and data had untold consequences and reverberations. The waves of knowledge collided in untold ways, bending, refracting, and producing unique undulations, never-before-heard sounds and, in some cases, very familiar ones.

What does this have to do with my teaching and how I stay passionate about this work? Well, for one, this awareness of interconnectedness informs my interest in interdisciplinarity, intersectionality, and relationality and drives my research and teaching interests in Indigenous literature and film. In the pursuit of this work I’m not far away from my nineteen-year-old self; though I’m no longer sharing a commonplace book, I’m still following connections across disparate fields and pursuing the work of thinkers far afield from my home disciplinary field of literary studies. In this way I stay impassioned about the work because I continue to see multiple, seemingly endless strands in a larger web. It informs the way I try to encourage students to pursue their own passions and to discover meaningful connections between the work they’re doing in my class and the other courses they are taking. Last month, in line at a café, I encouraged a Construction Management major to take an art history class; just the other day, a former student thanked me for encouraging her to take a course in Anthropology and one in Ethnic Studies. I make these suggestions because I want students to make discoveries in unexpected places in ways that may indelibly alter how they think about academia and their future roles once they graduate.

In quite another way, though, I foster a learning environment that prioritizes if not encourages self-discoveries that rely on intuition, exploration, serendipity and the willingness to try and retry. I recently heard a musicologist discuss his cross-disciplinary course on sound. In the course, as in academia more generally, he argued that any artistic practice is “disciplined dreaming.” I would take this perhaps one step further: any intelligent practice should call on the power of disciplined dreaming. I’ve read in numerous biographies of Albert Einstein that he felt his most significant breakthroughs emerged out of the experience of being creative, of being attuned to his imagination and intuition. Often, his greatest discoveries were inspired by listening to music.

Deep learning, deep thinking takes time and there are no direct paths in the web of meaning. Serendipity can’t be programmed. Heading down unpredictable paths and finding the way on your own are not efficient strategies. At NAU our Liberal Studies program is designed in part to support opportunities for students to discover connections on their own in ways that are personalized and meaningful. Rather than think about non-major courses as the fulfillment of a checklist of requirements, or as a “brick” in the foundation of learning, I hope students will see that courses in other disciplines are the means by which we develop new neural pathways that spark the fire of our imaginations.

This is the inaugural column for “Teaching with Fire,” a new feature sponsored by the Teaching Academy at NAU. We conceived of this space as a way to sustain (and initiate, in many instances) a conversation about what keeps us impassioned about teaching, what keeps us connected to what our students need as learners, and what we need to foster student learning. Columns will initially be written by other President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellows and members of The Teaching Academy, but we hope you’ll join the conversation and pitch an idea for a future column. What keeps you fired up about teaching? Do you have specific strategies, pedagogical philosophies, or pragmatic approaches that evoke student learning and that keep you tuned in? We’re sure you do. Please share them with us.

Mary T. Harmon, PhD., CCC-SLP
Monica Lininger, PhD., ATC

In most university classrooms, instructors use a range of small and large group activities that require students to work collaboratively.  The assignments are prepared with the expectation that students work efficiently, effectively, and respectfully together. Because many of our classrooms are comprised of different generations of learners, including individuals with very diverse cultural backgrounds (i.e., age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, etc.), this may be an unfair expectation to place on students. We intend to discuss some principles that have emerged from the health-care disciplines that could be incorporated into any curriculum to support all students engaged in collaborative activities.

It is fair to assume that most of us use a range of teaching approaches and activities with our students. Among these approaches may be small group and large group projects. Because these activities can be considered a student’s first foray into working collaboratively with colleagues from different generations (i.e., millennials, baby boomers, Gen-Xrs) and cultures (i.e., gender, religions, ethnicity, and so on),  we must provide them with the skills necessary to share ideas while also recognizing and appreciating differing points of view and background knowledge. Unfortunately, what often occurs is that we assign these small or large group activities, assuming students will know how to navigate these differences. In reality, we may be providing a disservice by not explicitly teaching students how to navigate these waters.
Accredited health-care related disciplines have been mandated to embed interprofessional education (IPE) into their pre-practice curriculum. Interprofessional education is defined as two or more disciplines working together to improve the quality of care for patients and to reduce the overall cost of health-care. In our disciplines, speech-language pathology and athletic training respectively, our accrediting bodies have charged us with preparing students to work collaboratively, as members of health-care teams. Fortunately, to support us in this endeavor, the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC; 2016), consisting of numerous professional organizations, has identified four competencies and sub-competencies to guide our teaching of effective interprofessional collaboration. It is these competencies we suggest can be used by any profession to prepare all students to be competent, collaborative, and competitive professionals of tomorrow.

The IPEC identifies four essential competences when working as members of teams. The four competences, communication, teamwork, values and ethics, and roles and responsibilities are areas any faculty member can emphasize when teaching students about successful collaborations. Under each of these competencies are specific sub-competencies, which are essential elements of any collaborative endeavor. By teaching these competencies, instructors can support how students work together.

We will discuss three of the competences and highlight several of the sub-competencies under each. (We encourage you to investigate the IPEC documents for a listing of all sub-competencies.

Values and Ethics highlight working respectfully with colleagues from other disciplines   while recognizing common values. This includes accepting cultural diversity and the individuality of each team member and using honesty and integrity in interactions with team members.

Interprofessional Communication highlights engaging with team members in a manner that is beneficial to all members of the team. This competency includes sharing one’s knowledge with confidence and respect to ensure all members have a common understanding and appreciation for the unique and varied backgrounds brought to the assignment. The discussion surrounding these competencies should not be designed to change a person’s point-of-view or beliefs, but rather to discuss with them that differing points-of-view exist and that our role, as team members, is to respect that we will have different perspectives.

Roles and Responsibilities encompasses not only having an understanding of our role as a member of the team, but also having the knowledge and skills brought to the learning table by our colleagues. This includes the ability to communicate our role as a member of the team while recognizing what we may not know about other roles.

Ultimately, when working successfully as a member of a team, we want our students to be aware of the strengths and abilities brought to the table by all team members.

How Can We Teach These Competencies?

At the college level, our goal is to prepare students to be successful in their chosen professions.  We provide them the knowledge and skills specific to their respective programs. For example, in speech-language pathology, we prepare our students to work with adults and children who have a range of communication disorders. In the field of athletic training, we prepare our students to work with athletes and various sports-related injuries. Alternatively, in the field of business and finance, students are preparing to become financial analyst or stockbrokers. If we are not taking the added step of teaching students how to work effectively as members of teams during their schooling, how can we expect them to navigate teaming when they enter the workforce? Giving students the knowledge and skills to work as members of a team could go a long way to ensuring successful membership in any organization. By embedding the principles of interprofessional education into our different programs, university faculty will be giving students the opportunity to practice navigating professional relationships, respecting the viewpoints of others and communicating effectively to improve their chances of being welcomed into the culture of an organization or company.

Interprofessional Education Collaborative Activities

Using workshops that include case-based scenarios, which require students to solve a problem, has proven effective for teaching many of the competencies, including values and ethics (Manspeaker, Brown, Wallace, DiBartola, & Morgan, 2017).  Once our students understand what it means to work collaboratively, how can we help them apply these concepts? In other words, how could we teach them to work collaboratively with students both within and across professions? One way is to have students from one discipline “teach” students of another discipline. For example, having business student’s work with culinary students to develop a business plan for a new restaurant. Or, interior design students might work with engineering students to learn about tamping down the noise in a home with high ceilings. The goal is to get them thinking together to solve a shared priority. However, for this interprofessional engagement to work, both groups must enter the activities with a shared spirit of collaboration. The students have to come at the problem with a shared language, respect for the background knowledge provided by each member, and the ability to communicate differences of opinion respectfully.
In summary, incorporating IPE in your classroom may seem daunting but simple collaboration with others outside of your field is one way to start. We can model this by the work we already do on interdisciplinary teams. As with all new teaching techniques, they may not be successful with the first iteration but your students are better because you took the risk.

References

• Interprofessional Education Collaborative (2016). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: Report of an expert panel. Washington, DC. Retrieved from: http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/Interprofessional-Collaboration-Core-   Competency.pdf
• Manspeaker, S.A., Donoso Brown, E.V., Wallace, S.E., DiBartola, L., & Morgan , A. (2017).  Examining the perceived impact of an ethics workshop on interprofessional values and teamwork. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 31(5), 628-637.