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Sara Thompson

New interactive teaching techniques | Harvard Magazine Mar-Apr 2012 - 0 views

harvardmagazine.com/...twilight-of-the-lecture

teaching learning education online-learning bcushare future

shared by Sara Thompson on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • The epiphany came via an article in the American Journal of Physics by Arizona State professor David Hestenes. He had devised a very simple test, couched in everyday language, to check students’ understanding of one of the most fundamental concepts of physics—force—and had administered it to thousands of undergraduates in the southwestern United States. Astonishingly, the test showed that their introductory courses had taught them “next to nothing,”
  • “They had a bag of tricks, formulas to apply. But that was solving problems by rote. They floundered on the simple word problems, which demanded a real understanding of the concepts behind the formulas.”
  • More important, a fellow student is more likely to reach them than Professor Mazur—and this is the crux of the method. You’re a student and you’ve only recently learned this, so you still know where you got hung up, because it’s not that long ago that you were hung up on that very same thing. Whereas Professor Mazur got hung up on this point when he was 17, and he no longer remembers how difficult it was back then. He has lost the ability to understand what a beginning learner faces.”
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Reviewing the test of conceptual understanding, Mazur twice tried to explain one of its questions to the class, but the students remained obstinately confused. “Then I did something I had never done in my teaching career,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Why don’t you discuss it with each other?’” Immediately, the lecture hall was abuzz as 150 students started talking to each other in one-on-one conversations about the puzzling question. “It was complete chaos,” says Mazur. “But within three minutes, they had figured it out. That was very surprising to me—I had just spent 10 minutes trying to explain this. But the class said, ‘OK, We’ve got it, let’s move on.’
  • This innovative style of learning grew into “peer instruction” or “interactive learning,”
  • Interactive learning triples students’ gains in knowledge as measured by the kinds of conceptual tests that had once deflated Mazur’s spirits, and by many other assessments as well.
  • Peer-instructed students who’ve actively argued for and explained their understanding of scientific concepts hold onto their knowledge longer.
  • Interactive pedagogy, for example, turns passive, note-taking students into active, de facto teachers who explain their ideas to each other and contend for their points of view.
  • “Now, think of how you became good at it,” he says next. Audience members, supplied with wireless clickers, can choose from several alternatives: trial and error, apprenticeship, lectures, family and friends, practicing. Data from thousands of subjects make “two things stand out,” Mazur says. “The first is that there is a huge spike at practicing—around 60 percent of the people select ‘practicing.’” The other thing is that for many audiences, which often number in the hundreds, “there is absolutely zero percent for lectures. Nobody cites lectures.”
  • The active-learning approach challenges lecturers to re-evaluate what they can accomplish during class that offers the greatest value for students. Mazur cites a quip to the effect that lectures are a way of transferring the instructor’s lecture notes to students’ notebooks without passing through the brains of either.
  • So I began to ask my students to read my lecture notes before class, and then tell me what questions they have [ordinarily, using the course’s website], and when we meet, we discuss those questions.”
  • Students find a neighbor with a different answer and make a case for their own response. Each tries to convince the other. During the ensuing chaos, Mazur circulates through the room, eavesdropping on the conversations. He listens especially to incorrect reasoning, so “I can re-sensitize myself to the difficulties beginning learners face.” After two or three minutes, the students vote again, and typically the percentage of correct answers dramatically improves. Then the cycle repeats.
  • ‘We’ve never done a problem of this kind.’ I tell them, ‘If you had done a problem of this kind, then by definition, this would not be a problem.’ We have to train people to tackle situations they have not encountered before.
  • “It’s not easy. You get a lot of student resistance,” he continues. “You should see some of the vitriolic e-mails I get. The generic complaint is that they have to do all the learning themselves. Rather than lecturing, I’m making them prepare themselves for class—and in class, rather than telling them things, I’m asking them questions. They’d much rather sit there and listen and take notes.
  • In addition to student resistance, there is architectural resistance. “Most classrooms—more like 99.9 percent—on campus are auditoriums,”
Sara Thompson

Unbundling Higher Education | From the Bell Tower - 0 views

lj.libraryjournal.com/...-education-from-the-bell-tower

libraries education online-learning future

shared by Sara Thompson on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • You can still buy albums, but what Jobs and Apple did was completely unbundle how music is sold. We now buy just those songs we prefer from individual artists, and create our own playlists. Now apply that idea to higher education.
  • but for the most part only a single institution can provide the whole bundle. This makes a great deal of sense for accreditation purposes. If your university is accredited, then every course and degree earned from it has the seal of approval. Now a new group of providers are bringing courses to the market, and their goal is to do to higher education what Apple did to music.
  • What they all have in common is unbundling. None offers degrees, and even if they did there’s no accreditation to back them up. In time that barrier will likely be eradicated. Recall that for-profit online universities once faced challenges obtaining accreditation in many states, but it is a thing of the past. Their growth was unstoppable, and in time states and accrediting agencies has to capitulate.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Khan Academy is equally well known, and an Inside Higher Ed news report shares some of the founder’s views about how his open learning website could provide competency-based credentialing as opposed to traditional accreditation.
  • Then there are some new entries into the open course market, such as Udacity, Coursera, Good Semester and Udemy.  These newer competitors are starting off with just a few courses, mostly free, but they give the impression that as many different providers become available a strikingly different model of higher education – alt-HE – could emerge.
  • An unbundled system of higher education might require academic librarians to think more entrepreneurially about how they operate.
  • The growing popularity of unbundled higher education also demonstrates there is a huge global audience for these courses; citizens around the world are seeking higher education that is unavailable or too costly in their own community. The forward-thinking traditional universities are looking at how they can capitalize on that market.
  • Sara Thompson on 23 Feb 12
     
    Steven Bell looks at trends in unaccredited education (OER, for-profit) and postulates on what it might mean for academic libraries. 
Sara Thompson

Nobody cares about the library: How digital technology makes the library invisible (and... - 1 views

www.foundhistory.org/...isible-and-visible-to-scholars

libraries usability userstudies training professional

shared by Sara Thompson on 23 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Yet, while it is certainly true that digital technology has made libraries and librarians invisible to scholars in some ways, it is also true, that in some areas, digital technology has made librarians increasingly visible, increasingly important.
  • The invisible library
  • Let me offer three instances where the library should strive for invisibility, three examples of “good” invisibility:
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Search:
  • APIs and 3rd party mashups:
  • Social media:
  • The visible library
  • Focus on special collections
  • Start supporting data-driven research
  • Start supporting new modes of scholarly communication—financially, technically, and institutionally.
  • Here I’d suggest tools and training for database creation, social network analysis, and simple text mining.
  • Sara Thompson on 23 Feb 12
     
    Skip the first bit about the Chuck clip - not important and too long. Scroll forward to the part starting with "The Invisible Library" -- excellent food for thought about the roles we play. 
Sara Thompson

Microsoft launches no holds barred anti-Google campaign [video] - 0 views

www.bgr.com/...red-anti-google-campaign-video

cloud google funny videos software

shared by Sara Thompson on 22 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Sara Thompson on 22 Feb 12
     
    "Googlighting Stranger" ... to the tune of the theme song from the old Moonlighting TV show.  Love that. Also love that Microsoft feels this threatened. 
fleschnerj

Watch | Everything Is a Remix - 0 views

www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series

Copyright remix legal

shared by fleschnerj on 22 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • fleschnerj on 22 Feb 12
     
    An ambitious four-part documentary on the history and cultural significance of sampling and collaborative creation. The latest installment covers the three basic elements of creativity and explores how innovations emerge.
Sara Thompson

project curve, part six: collaborative instruction portfolios. « info-mational - 0 views

infomational.wordpress.com/...orative-instruction-portfolios

instruction portfolios info-literacy libraries training professional prof-dev articles

shared by Sara Thompson on 17 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Faculty (post-instruction and end of term) and student survey instruments are available online.
  • An important deliverable of this project is that it creates an lasting, annualized archive of the cumulative efforts, learning objects, and outcomes related to a given instruction program on both the course and aggregate level
  • Portfolio projects of this nature also streamline group efforts and produce ready programmatic evidence of instructional effectiveness and outcomes, crucial to the processes of accreditation, review, and value demonstration
Sara Thompson

VALA2012 Plenary 1 Griffey - VALA - 0 views

www.vala.org.au/...vala2012-plenary-1-griffey

future gadgets technology libraries videos presentations

shared by Sara Thompson on 17 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Sara Thompson on 17 Feb 12
     
    The video is a look at some upcoming technology and the potential impact on libraries. Very interesting, but no mention of the sustainability of these things / these directions. Long, but worth watching.
Sara Thompson

Harvard Seeks to Jolt University Teaching - Teaching - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...130683

teaching learning bcushare innovation students education

shared by Sara Thompson on 16 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • In large part, the problem is that graduate students pursuing their doctorates get little or no training in how students learn. When these graduate students become faculty members, he said, they might think about the content they want students to learn, but not the cognitive capabilities they want them to develop.
  • Such approaches would demand much more of students and faculty. Students should be made to grapple with the material and receive authentic and explicit practice in thinking like an expert, Mr. Wieman said. Faculty would need to provide timely and specific feedback, and move beyond lectures in which students can sit passively receiving information.
  • Higher education once was immune, he said, until the spread of online learning, which will allow lower-cost providers to extend into the higher reaches of the marketplace. "Higher education," he said, "is vulnerable to disruption." And, while students are changing, several speakers described conventional teaching approaches as being ineffective.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "We assume that telling people things without asking them to actively process them results in learning," Mr. Wieman said. The conference, which also featured demonstrations of innovative approaches to teaching, was the first event in a new Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching
  • Take, for example, the lecture, which came up for frequent shellacking throughout the day. It is designed to transfer information, said Eric Mazur, professor of physics at Harvard. But it does not fully accomplish even this limited task. Lectures set up a dynamic in which students passively receive information that they quickly forget after the test. "They're not confronted with their misconceptions," Mr. Mazur said. "They walk out with a false sense of security."
  • The traditional lecture also fails at other educational goals: prodding students to make meaning from what they learn, to ask questions, extract knowledge, and apply it in a new context.
  • Asking students to explain concepts or to teach one another the material they have just learned are also effective.
  • Writing is often an effective pedagogical tool, too, several speakers said. For his history of psychology course, Mr. Roediger asks his students to send him short essays before each class meets. They respond to the reading. (Others at the conference who use this method said they sometimes ask their students to identify outstanding questions or relevant areas of their reading that have been left unexplored.) Mr. Roediger reads the one-page essays before class and works their thoughts into his comments.
fleschnerj

Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos - 0 views

fnoschese.wordpress.com/...ffectiveness-of-science-videos

Teaching video physics

shared by fleschnerj on 10 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • fleschnerj on 10 Feb 12
     
    Just a video explaining a novel approach to teaching.
Sara Thompson

CreativeMornings | a monthly breakfast lecture series - 0 views

www.creativemornings.com

creativity innovation presentations social people ideasfile

shared by Sara Thompson on 10 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Sara Thompson on 10 Feb 12
     
    I watched one of the CreativeMornings talks online and emailed them to see how we would start a chapter in Sioux City.  
Mark Lindner

Q&A: SirsiDynix CEO Bill Davison on Social Networking, Self-service, Mashups, and Ebook... - 0 views

www.thedigitalshift.com/...ashups-and-ebooks-in-libraries

Sirsi librariana social media

shared by Mark Lindner on 09 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Mark Lindner on 09 Feb 12
     
    SirsiDynix CEO interviewed by LJ
Mark Lindner

Comparison - Unified Resource Discovery Comparison - 0 views

sites.google.com/...comparison

libraries search

shared by Mark Lindner on 09 Feb 12 - No Cached
Deb Robertson

Is There a Difference Between Critical Thinking and Information Literacy? | Weiner | Jo... - 1 views

ojs.lboro.ac.uk/...1575

critical thinking information literacy thinking

shared by Deb Robertson on 09 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Deb Robertson on 09 Feb 12
     
    This paper investigates the similarities and differences between two important ideas in information processing and knowledge utilisation. Those ideas are [critical thinking] and [information literacy]. This suggests that [information literacy] and its associated procedures could significantly augment current instruction in [critical thinking] and indeed, the possibility has been explored by some authors in the current literature. A merging of the two ideas would involve [information literacy] providing tools and techniques in the processing and utilisation of knowledge and [critical thinking] supplying the particulars and interpretations associated with a specific discipline. This type of integration could lead to instructional programs similar in concept and application to those in research methodology where methods from statistics are integrated with the techniques and skills associated with a specific discipline. The development of a curriculum of this type would change functions and perceptions from private, individualised mentation, now associated with [critical thinking], to a more easily learned and practiced process suitable across the breadth of disciplines.
Sara Thompson

How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box - 2 views

crl.acrl.org/...crl-321.full.pdf

search libraries research assessment data webdesign OPAC

shared by Sara Thompson on 08 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Sara Thompson on 08 Feb 12
     
    Article from ACRL, due out March 2012 This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single search box on the library website. The article examines two semesters of real-world data, totaling nearly 1.4 million transactions...
Sara Thompson

Information Literacy Instruction and Student Achievement | ACRL Value of Academic Libra... - 1 views

www.acrl.ala.org/value

instruction info-literacy students libraries education assessment

shared by Sara Thompson on 08 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Early last month Megan posted about recent research connecting academic libraries and student achievement. She mentioned that there are multiple projects in the U.S. currently underway to correlate library use and GPA, and I have results from just such a project to share with you all!
  • In a recently completed study at University of Wyoming I discovered a positive correlation between upper-division library instruction and higher GPA at graduation (by upper-division, I mean post-first-year). This is based on an analysis of 4,489 transcripts of graduating seniors at the University of Wyoming, and the transcript analysis was supplemented by focus groups with graduating seniors
  • Look for the article in the March or June 2012 issue of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. Here’s the citation: Bowles-Terry, M. (2012). Library instruction and academic success: A mixed-methods assessment of a library instruction program. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.
fleschnerj

The approachable reference desk - 1 views

crln.acrl.org/...70.full.pdf

Reference Desk Library

shared by fleschnerj on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • fleschnerj on 06 Feb 12
     
    A faithful retelling of a library's desire to replace their reference desk.
fleschnerj

Learning Spaces - 1 views

net.educause.edu/...P7102cs29.pdf

shared by fleschnerj on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • fleschnerj on 06 Feb 12
     
    A sample chapter out of the book, Learning Spaces. This chapter focuses on Virginia Tech's Math Emporium.
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