Symposium offers new ideas to engage students

Faculty, staff and teaching assistants are invited to take a fresh look at classroom innovation during the 2005 Teaching and Learning Symposium on Monday-Wednesday, May 23-25, an event that highlights scores of ways to engage student minds.

The symposium is an annual opportunity to showcase creative new techniques to reach students and strategies for applying them to any classroom. This year’s symposium will explore the concept of engagement — the art of getting students actively involved in the learning environment.

“We have a record number of proposals this year for presentations,” says Mo Bischof, a member of the symposium coordinating team. “The variety of topics is very exciting. We’re looking at engagement through new technology, online strategies, field experiences and volunteerism.”

Examples will include a look at personal response systems, or “clicker” technology, and other unexpected ways that technology enhances learning. The symposium also will highlight a number of experiential learning strategies, from local democracy projects to international relief efforts.

Bischof, assistant to the provost, says the practical focus of the symposium adds value for faculty and staff of all experience levels. “People leave this symposium with concrete take-away materials and innovative ideas,” she says. “We emphasize ready-to-use strategies for teachers and learners.”

Registration is required and can be accomplished online by visiting the symposium Web site. It offers a complete schedule of more than three dozen featured speakers, workshops and panel discussions.

A keynote address will be delivered Monday, May 23, by Diane Oblinger, vice president of EDUCAUSE, an expert on the unique learning styles and attitudes of the current generation of 18- to 22-year-olds. Her talk will explore how generational mindsets can impact effective teaching and learning, especially with regard to information technology.

English professor Emily Auerbach, a longtime proponent of bringing literature to new audiences, also will present a keynote address May 23 titled “Teaching Emily Dickinson to Football Players.” Auerbach will describe her boundless approach to teaching that has her setting up classrooms in the back of grocery stores, in prisons, in retirement homes or in community centers.

“I think the symposium is a good way for faculty and teaching staff to get stimulated by other ideas and have a chance to showcase their successes and failures,” Auerbach says. “There aren’t a lot of opportunities to do this in the middle of a busy semester.”

This event is a rare opportunity for faculty and staff to pick from a banquet of new ideas from across the disciplines. Although a complete list can be found online, what follows is a sampling of some of the unique presentations.

Going Beyond Google
When running a keyword search with Google, it’s easy to entertain the notion that one is querying the known universe. But Abbie Loomis, a senior librarian with the general library system, says the ubiquitous influence of Google actually has narrowed student horizons when it comes to research.

“When a faculty member gives out a research assignment, students immediately think: ‘I need to go on Google.’ Not that Google is a bad idea, but very often it’s the only idea for conducting research,” Loomis explains.

In one of the symposium workshops, Loomis and her colleague Steve Frye will explore pedagogical strategies teachers can use to encourage students to take advantage of the more than 300 licensed databases that are available to campus users. They allow students to run searches of massive data sources, such as scholarly journals and popular magazines, which are not systematically available on the Web.

“Our work is a process of expanding horizons,” Loomis says.

Curriculum on the Click
Another unique presentation will look at the use of personal response systems, or “clickers,” in the classroom. It is a growing trend nationally, and a number of faculty are giving them a test run in their classrooms.

Here’s how it works: Students purchase, along with textbooks, a clicker that’s roughly the size of a television remote, with about a dozen different buttons. The infrared clicker response is read by a receiver in the classroom. The results are then formatted into a digital graphic that shows up in Power Point presentations.

Jeffrey Henriques, an instructional staff member in psychology, is a believer in the technology. He uses it in his 200-student introductory psychology course and yields meaningful information on how well students are absorbing classroom material. He likens it to an instant assessment tool, where he can pose hypothetical questions on a future topic or review last week’s concepts.

“There’s an anonymity that students like about this technology,” he says. “When you ask for a show of hands in a lecture hall, many students won’t raise them. This allows everybody to get involved without making yourself conspicuous by committing to the wrong answer.”

Printing in Three Dimensions
Ted Pan, a technology consultant in the Biology New Media Center, will discuss a new technology that has to be seen to be believed: a printer that creates three-dimensional models, such as bones, gears, viruses and molecular structures.

The center purchased the technology several months ago, Pan says, and has been running some pilot projects for classroom use. The printer reads three-dimensional computer programs and, through layer upon layer of powders and resins, begins to slowly construct an accurate model.

“The technology has been around for a long time, and has been widely used by engineers,” Pan says. “What’s newer are the applications as a teaching tool. This is especially useful when teaching about complicated structures like molecules or viruses, where having something in hand makes it easier to conceptualize.”

So far, the center has produced a number of molecular structures and animal bones, including two moose skulls that look so lifelike that students assume one is the original. Pan will discuss the classroom possibilities of the technology, which will be made available for campus use next semester.

Putting Students in Charge
Katherine McMahon, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, will discuss how she employs a number of novel approaches to help break down the passive nature of lecture courses of 50 or more students. She incorporates short, ungraded quizzes, “minute papers” and “critical incident” questionnaires into her lectures that allow students to take stock of what they understand.

“They allow students to try their hand at synthesizing concepts and solving problems with no threat of negative impact on their grade,” she says. “My assessment tools help students gauge for themselves where they are in the learning process long before they will expect them to perform for a grade. It gives them that sense of ownership.”