Group items tagged

When the teacher dominates the learning, students take shallow approaches to learning.

1.  Teachers do learning tasks less. Assign to students some of the tasks of organizing the content, giving examples, summarizing discussions, solving problems, and drawing diagrams, charts, and graphs.            2.  Teachers do less telling; students do more discovering. Give a quiz on your syllabus and policies without going over it first. Let students discover information in assigned readings without presenting it first or summarizing it later.  3.  Teachers do more design work. Design activities and assignments that move students to new skill levels, motivate engagement in the course content by doing the work of practitioners in the discipline, and that develop self-awareness of their learning of the content. 4.   Faculty do more modeling. Demonstrate how a skilled learner (the teacher) continues to learn. Show them drafts of your articles, notes on your own reading in professional journals; talk aloud as you solve a problem, thereby revealing  and modeling your thinking process. 5.  Faculty do more to get students learning from and with each other. Create work for small groups to do in class. 6.  Faculty work to create climates for learning. Create a climate that promotes interaction, autonomy, and responsibility (more in chapter five). 7.  Faculty do more with feedback. In addition to assigning grades, use other means of providing frequent feedback (more in chapter six).

focuses on student responsibility for learning and how to promote it.

transforming passive students into autonomous learners

The more structured we make the environment, the more structure students need

The more motivation we provide, the less they find within themselves. The more responsibility for learning we try to assume, the less they accept on their own. The more control we exert, the more restive their response. We end up with students who have little commitment to and almost no respect for learning and who cannot function without structure and imposed control. (p. 98)

The more we decide for students, the more they expect us to decide.

eimer explains several strategies for creating a climate that produces self-regulated intrinsically motivated learners: 

The instructor should “make the content relevant, demonstrate its power to answer questions, and otherwise show its apparent intrigue.” Make the student responsible for learning decisions by relying on logical consequences of action and inaction, rather than punishment. For example, to deal with lateness, present important material or assignments early in the period that you do not repeat, rather than deduct attendance points for lateness. Do not summarize chapters if students have not read them. If they arrive unprepared, put the unread material on a test; give frequent tests. Be consistent in administering policies. If your syllabus says late homework is not accepted, never accept late homework despite the heart-wrenching excuse offered by the student. Involve students in a discussion of creating a climate that promotes learning. Have this discussion early in the semester. Weimer’s suggestion for starting the discussion is to have students complete sentence stems such as “In the best class I ever had, teachers . . .” “In the best class I ever had, students . . .” “I learn best when . . .” “I feel most confident as a learner when . . .” (p. 108) Obtain feedback on the classroom climate occasionally and revisit the discussion of policies and procedures. Employ practices that “encourage students to encounter themselves as learners” (p. 111). Explain the purposes and benefits of assignments and projects; tell students what problems they might run into in doing the assignments and suggest remedies. Help them with time management. With group projects, provide guidance in managing the project, handling group dynamics, and assigning individual responsibilities.

helps us deal with the fact that almost all students will resist their teacher’s learning-centered approaches. Most of the learner-centered strategies recommended in this book change what students have become accustomed to. Understanding the reasons will help teachers deal with the inevitable student resistance when they present learner-centered practices and policies that withdraw the support students have become dependent upon during their first twelve years of schooling. The good news is that most students see the benefits of learner-centered approaches and benefit from them.

, why do students resist it? Based on her research, Weimer lists four reasons: Learner-centered approaches are more work. When the teacher does not summarize the important points in the chapter, the students will have to read it for themselves. When the teacher asks small groups to produce five applications of a concept, rather than supply it in a handout, the students have to do more work. Learner-centered approaches are more threatening. Students who lack confidence in themselves as learners become filled with anxiety at the prospect of becoming responsible for decisions that might be wrong. Students who are not used to questions with no single, authority-approved right answer are fearful of being wrong. Learner-centered approaches involve losses. The strategies recommended in this book are designed to move students to higher stages of self-directedness and higher stages of intellectual development. Moving from one stage to another requires a loss of certainty and the comfort that certainty brings. Learner-centered approaches may be beyond students. Some students’ lack of self-confidence or intellectual immaturity may prevent their accepting responsibility for their own learning.

overcome student resistance to learner-centered approache

The communication is frequent and explicit The communication encourages and positively reinforces The communication solicits feedback from students The communication resists their resistance.

developmental approach to transforming passive dependent learners into self-confident autonomous learners. Learners become self-directed in stages, not in one sin

moment of transformatio

For example teacher educators identify time constraints as one of the biggest barriers in providing an effective overall class on how to educate students with disabilities in the general education classroom

Assistive Technology Outcomes and BenefitsFocused Issue: The Role of Higher Education in Preparing Education Professionals to Use AT

proposition that effective technology integration occurs at the intersections of teachers’ knowledge about technology, pedagogy, and content, or TPAC (see Figure 1).

A good strategy for developing a supportive online course community is to design a course with a balanced set of dialogues. This means designing a course so that the three dialogues of faculty to student, student to student and student to resource are about equal. In most online courses, the dialogue of faculty to student is provided with (1) mini-lectures in text or video or audio podcasts, (2) weekly coaching and reminder announcements and (3) explanations/interactions with the students.

Online learning is just as intensive as learning face-to-face, and time to do the work needs to be scheduled and planned for, just as if one were attending face-to-face classes. Being clear as to how much effort and time will be required on a weekly basis keeps surprises to a minimum.

Early feedback surveys or just informal discussions ask students to provide feedback on what is working well in a course and what might help them have a better course experience. This early feedback is done early in the course so corrections and modifications can be made. It is an easy opening for students who might have comments or suggestions or questions.

Quick One-Liner Hints Create open-ended questions that learners can explore and apply the concepts that they are learning Model good Socratic-type probing and follow-up questions. Why do you think that? What is your reasoning? Is there an alternative strategy? Ask clarifying questions that encourage students to think about what they know and don't know. Stagger due dates of the responses and consider mid-point summary and /or encouraging comments Provide guidelines and instruction on responding to other students. For example, suggest a two-part response: (1) what you liked or agreed with or what resonated with you, and (2) a follow-up question such as what you are wondering about or curious about, etc.

As courses come to a close, it is easy to forget the value of a good closing experience. In the final weeks of a course, students are likely to be stressed and not take the time to do the lists and the planning that can help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere. A favorite image of mine is from David Allen of Getting Things Done. Allen notes that making a list helps us to clear the "psychic ram" of our brains and we feel more relaxed and more in control. Once we have made our list and schedule, we don't have to continually remind ourselves of what needs to be done and when. Here are a few hints for closing out a course experience with style and panache. Take time to remind students of what's next and when assignments and readings are due. Announcements of this type provide a "To Do" list and schedule for the learners. And by implication this list provides a helpful "To Do" list and schedule for you. As always, it is good to post reminders and make references to the planning list in your comments. And update as you go. Plan the ending of the course experience. A well-designed ending of a course provides opportunities for reflection and integration of useful knowledge. It is also a time to wrap up positive social and cognitive experiences.

How is the learner supporting the community of learners and contributing to the overall growth of the group? We have much to learn about teaching and learning and specifically about teaching online. The good news is that in 2011 we now know much more than what we did in 1990 or even 2000. The list of references that follow are starting points for both general teaching and for teaching online.