Strategies for Enhancing Your Teaching Effectiveness

School of Public Health and Information Sciences

December 2, 2011

Marie Kendall Brown, Ph.D., Assistant Director

Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning

Sessions are designed to accomplish the following goals:• Share best practices and emerging scholarship in

teaching and learning,• Strengthen a unit-wide culture of conversation

about teaching and learning,• Provide an interactive and collaborative learning

experience, • Offer participants concrete teaching strategies

and “take-aways” for immediate implementation,• Disseminate relevant resources and scholarship

for further exploration and learning.

Workshop Goals

Since October 2010, ten workshops have been offered on topics such as:Active Learning Instructional TechnologyRubrics Syllabus DesignAssessing Critical Thinking Improving Retention of Information

45% of SPHIS faculty have attended 5 or more sessions

SPHIS Workshop Summary

• You are an expert and critical thinker in your field.

• You are open to thinking in new ways about teaching content that is very familiar to you.

• We are sharing ideas, strategies, and insights as teachers and learners.

• Talking about teaching effectiveness is part of an ongoing, intentional conversation that is critical to enhancing student learning.

My Key Assumptions

Discuss four lenses of practice for becoming a critically reflective teacher and explore your own development in each area of practice

Gather resources and strategies for documenting your own good teaching

Identify an action plan for enhancing your teaching effectiveness

Session Objectives

What makes an effective teacher?

Student PerspectiveFaculty Perspective

Chalk Talk

Good practice: Encourages student-faculty contact Encourages cooperation among

students Encourages active learning Gives prompt feedback Emphasizes time on task Communicates high expectations Respects diverse talents and ways of

learning

Seven Principles for Good Practice

Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” The Wingspread Journal. Racine, WI: Johnson

Foundation.

• Demonstrates that you are reflective and purposeful about your teaching

• Allows you to articulate and make explicit your goals as a teacher

• Helps you identify and use appropriate teaching approaches to achieve your teaching goals

• Helps you think through the specific ways you want to make a difference in the lives of your students

• Gain greater awareness of your progress and development• Guides you in determining your path to professional

improvement

In short: It promotes genuine reflection about teaching.

Critically Reflective Practice

To garner an increased awareness of one’s teaching from as many different vantage points as possible.

Why be a critically reflective teacher?

• Questioning what, why, and how one does things and asking what, why, and how others do things

• Seeking alternatives• Keeping an open mind• Comparing and contrasting• Seeking the framework, theoretical basis,

and/or underlying rationale• Viewing from various perspectives• Asking “What if..?”

Reflective Practice Process

Roth, R. A. (1989, March-April). Preparing the reflective practitioner: Transforming the apprentice through the dialectic. Journal of Teacher Education, 40(2), 31-35.

1. What worked well?2. Why?3. What did not work well?4. Why not?5. What will I do the same next time?6. What will I do differently next

time?

Some Questions for Reflective Practice

Critically reflective teachers seek a greater awareness of teaching by gathering information from:

1. Self-reflection2. Students’ eyes3. Our colleagues’ perspectives4. Theoretical literature

Brookfield’s Four Lenses of Practice

Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• What is one thing that you have learned about teaching from each lens of practice?

• How has each lens influenced how you think about your own teaching effectiveness?

Think-Pair-Share

Self-Reflection

Colleagues’ Experiences

Theoretical Literature

Students’ Eyes

– Analysis of what works and what doesn’t and why (formal and informal)

– Course portfolio– Teaching portfolio– Philosophy of teaching statement– Your own teaching and learning

experiences– Teaching Perspectives Inventory:

http://www.teachingperspectives.com/

Self-Reflection: Tools and Resources

–Student evaluations of teaching (SETs)–Classroom assessment techniques (CATs)–Student reflection papers–Course pre- and post-tests–Prior knowledge probes–Mid-semester feedback questions–Formative feedback

Students’ Eyes: Tools and Resources

WARNING: There are limitations!SETs are:– a snapshot of students’ reactions and

experiences at one moment in time– student self-report

SETs don’t:– assess the developmental progression of

your course (e.g., curriculum design, teaching development; your ongoing professional development)

– assess student motivation

A few words about SETs

Clayson, D. E. (2009, April). Student evaluations of teaching: Are they related to what students learn? A Meta-analysis and review of the literature. Journal of Marketing Education, 31(1), 16-30.

– Conversations with those both in and outside of your course/practicum setting (informal)

– Unit-wide or university-wide cohorts, committees, groups, etc.

–Mentoring relationships (in or outside of UofL)

– Peer classroom observations and debriefing

– Programs with peer-to-peer sharing– Chronicle of Higher Education– Inside Higher Education

Our Colleagues’ Experiences: Tools and Resources

Teaching and Learning Center Websites• MSU: http://fod.msu.edu/OIR/index.asp• U-M:

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/teachings.phpTeaching Listservs: Tomorrow’s Professor Mailing List• http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/posti

ngs.php?way=5Journals in the Field• New Directions in Teaching and Learning• Journal on Excellence in College TeachingDelphi’s Resource Library• http://www.librarything.com/catalog/DelphiCenter201

1

Theoretical Literature: Tools and Resources

What are the key insights and take-aways you discovered during today’s workshop?

What are three things you will do starting today to enhance your teaching effectiveness?

Your Action Plan