tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51801973876377437212024-02-08T11:42:04.693-08:00UCD Teaching Resources Center BlogLeslie Madsen-Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280429613302243248noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-62956941835852553832008-08-20T13:03:00.000-07:002008-08-20T13:28:50.944-07:00Writing exam questionsHere's a tip courtesy of UCD alum Erin Espeland.<br /><br />Resist the temptation to teach your students while testing them. Writing exam questions with too much information -- or unnecessary, irrelevant information -- creates cognitive overload, making it hard for students to do what you're asking. Here's an example of an overloaded exam question:<i><o:p></o:p></i> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>The presence and association of the male seems to have profound effects on female physiology in domestic animals.<span style=""> </span>Research has shown that the presence of a bull in cattle has the following effect:</i></p><p class="MsoNormal">Eliminate "info overload" by simplifying questions and cutting unnecessary words and prhases. Here's a revision of the example:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>The presence of a bull has what effect on cattle?</i></p><p class="MsoNormal">For more discussion of writing exam questions, come to the workshop on Monday, August 25 at 1 pm in Wellman 25!<i><br /></i></p>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18134287322082293341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-91729872806293109832008-07-17T14:18:00.000-07:002008-07-17T14:24:19.848-07:00Teaching tip<span style="font-weight: bold;">Did you know?</span><br /> <p>The ET Partners program is available to UC Davis instructors for help with efficiently incorporating technology into teaching. ET Partners are undergraduate students who can show you how to use and bring you up to speed with technology including PowerPoint, document cameras, Photoshop, SmartSite, and more.</p>To contact ET Partners, call <strong style="font-weight: normal;"> (530) 754-2115</strong> or email <a href="mailto:etpartners@ucdavis.edu">etpartners@ucdavis.edu</a>.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18134287322082293341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-40105616811445500052008-07-14T10:30:00.000-07:002008-07-14T10:31:47.161-07:00Digital Literacy at UC Davis<span style="font-weight: bold;">What does it mean for UC Davis students to be "digitally literate"?</span><br /><br />This is a question on the minds of many of us at the TRC--and many of your minds as well, as I know from talking with you. We're drafting a guide for students to help them understand what skills faculty believe they'll need to succeed as undergrads.<br /><br />Some skills on our list:<br /><br /><ul><li>Use the full feature set of a personal computer to support learning through course work, analysis and preparation of documents, review of online resources. In particular, learn how to prepare, edit, save, transfer, label, store and retrieve digital files that correspond to text, audio, video and numerical data.</li><li>Critically examine digital files of all sorts –text, audio, video, numerical and hypermedia--in terms of their publication history, authorship, social and technical origins, credibility, copyright status, and privacy status.</li><li>Manage your computer files, email and web links to ensure that you can find and respond to what’s most important when you need to.</li><li>Recognize and avoid problematic software, including email SPAM, phishing, and viruses.</li><li>Install and uninstall software, including “player” plugins such as Adobe Reader, RealAudio, QuickTime, etc.</li><li>Determine and recognize different attributes of a digital file, including: file types and “extensions” for text, image, audio, video, spreadsheet; file size, locations and paths; creation and modification dates.</li><li>Find and evaluate online collections and digital resources related to your program of study and individual learning objectives.</li><li>Search through UCD library from on-campus and off-campus locations.</li></ul>What's on your list? Please share your thoughts in the comments.Leslie Madsen-Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280429613302243248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-76970491082976922452008-07-10T09:59:00.000-07:002008-07-10T10:03:46.851-07:00Has reading changed?When UC Davis faculty ask their students to read for a class, what are they asking? In most cases, the implication is, "Read all of the assigned texts, and come to class (or lab) prepared to consider or talk about them."<br /><br />Any seasoned UC Davis instructor knows that students frequently interpret reading assignments differently. The student version might be "If I can't get the material elsewhere, read just enough of the course texts to pass the midterms and final exams, or to write an essay for the course." We may regale students with tales of how we read a book per week per course when we were undergraduates, but they'd never believe us--it's as if we're telling them we walked uphill, both ways, in the snow to get to and from our classes.<br /><br />In the face of such an attitude toward reading, it can be tempting to dismiss (with an angry sigh) kids these days. But before we criticize their lack of intellectual curiosity and their disinclination to read, we need to take a look at what--and more importantly how--Americans read. And this includes ourselves.<br /><br />Recently overheard:<br /><br /><blockquote>UC Davis Professor #1: I'm really enjoying this book I'm reading.<br /><br />UC Davis Professor #2: Really? I think I'd like to read it.<br /><br />UC Davis Professor #1: You can borrow the CDs as soons as I'm done with them.</blockquote><br />Clearly, we have some reflecting to do.<br /><br />Since 2004, <a href="http://www.arts.gov/pub/pubLit.php">the National Endowment for the Arts has published two reports</a>, Reading at Risk and To Read or Not to Read, on the practice of reading in the United States. Each includes alarming statistics and draws disheartening conclusions about Americans' interaction with literary texts:<br /><br /><ul><li>Americans are spending less time reading literature and books in general.</li><li>Reading comprehension skills are eroding, especially among teenagers and young males.</li><li>These declines have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications.</li><li>65% of college freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week or not at all. The percentage of non-readers among these students has nearly doubled.</li><li>Reading has declined over the past 20 years among every group--including those with bachelor's and graduate degrees.</li><li>Literary reading strongly correlates to other forms of active civic participation, including volunteer work, museum visits, and attendance at performing arts or sporting events.</li><li>In 2002, only 57 percent of Americans read any book. During the same time period, 95.7% of U.S. adults watched at least one hour of TV per day on average; nearly half of American adults watched three or more hours of TV each day on average.</li></ul>Can we blame the internet and digital media for this decline in time spent reading books and especially literary texts? Some have tried. In the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Nicolas Carr raises this possibility in his article <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google">"Is Google Making Us Stupid?"</a> He believes his use of the Internet has rewired his brain:<br /><br /><blockquote>I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.</blockquote>Carr and others in the article postulate that not only the way we read, but more importantly the ways we think, have changed as a result of our becoming netizens. Reading online is different from reading offline. Carr argues that our use of web browsers encourages us to skim rather than to really take the time to dig into complex arguments. And as the NEA studies on reading have suggested, it is easy to get out of the practice of reading thoughtfully.<br /><br />Others are less eager to villify the Internet and the intellectual habits it engenders (or fails to engender). Barbara Ganley, for example, has found the web to be <a href="http://bgblogging.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/free-flow-watching-learning-from-my-students/">an excellent medium through which students can engage with ideas</a>. Laura Blankenship reminds us that students see the Internet as entertainment rather than learning tool, and that <a href="http://geekymom.blogspot.com/2007/11/internet-is-making-us-stupid-and-it.html">we need to teach students how to use the Internet in their learning</a>--just as we need to teach them how to read as college students.<br /><br />Over the next year and beyond, the UC Davis Teaching Resources Center will be looking into both student and faculty reading habits. And so we want to know: When you ask students to read, what are you asking them to do? Are your students reading in the ways you wish them to read? And where, what, and how do you read these days? Please leave your comments, if you're so inclined, in the comments below, or e-mail them to Leslie Madsen-Brooks at ljmadsen -at- ucdavis -dot- edu.Leslie Madsen-Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280429613302243248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-89993169731148560142008-07-03T15:39:00.000-07:002008-07-03T15:46:43.470-07:00Teaching Tip of the WeekInstead of throwing out the ubiquitous "Any questions?" at the end of class, try asking your students to recap or summarize the lesson or lecture. This will allow you to gauge their understanding of the material, which in turn will give you a chance to clarify or reinforce confusing material. Here are some examples of recap-style questions you might use:<br /><br />How did Sherman's march impact the outcome of the Civil War?<br /><br />What is the relationship between substance abuse and evolution, according to E.O. Smith?<br /><br />Why did the Vikings have more than one fertility god?Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18134287322082293341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-7102557471425355912008-06-26T13:50:00.000-07:002008-06-26T13:56:01.214-07:00AITC's Teaching Tip of the WeekMelissa here -- I'm the TRC's Associate In Teaching Consultant for Summer Sessions 2008. I will be posting a teaching tip for AIs throughout Summer Sessions I and II on a (hopefully) weekly basis.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">This week's tip: </span><br />To generate student discussion, ask open-ended (how, why, to what extent, in what way) questions rather than closed (who, what, when, where) questions. Most open-ended questions can be answered in several ways, inviting a variety of responses. In contrast, there frequently is only one way to answer a closed question; moreover, it's easy to respond to this type of question with a one-word answer (resulting in sudden discussion death).<br /><br />Here are some examples:<br /><br />Open-ended question: To what extent did Shaker cooking influence American cuisine?<br /><br />Closed question: When did the Shaker lemon pie become popular?<br /><br />Hungry for more teaching tips? See you here next week!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18134287322082293341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-52836398579086255422008-02-29T22:36:00.000-08:002008-03-31T10:23:28.916-07:00Share your teaching anxieties--help plan the next More Thoughtful Teaching SymposiumI need your help in planning the next More Thoughtful Teaching Symposium, "Fear and Anxiety (Yours <i>and</i> Theirs) in Teaching and Learning."<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jKscYJ_6pZ4&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jKscYJ_6pZ4&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Please leave your comments about fear and anxiety in teaching and learning, as well as your suggestions for related topics to discuss at the May 22 More Thoughtful Teaching Symposium, below. Feel free to comment anonymously, or to e-mail me privately and ljmadsen -at- ucdavis -dot- edu.<br /><br />Many thanks,<br /><br />Leslie<br /><br /><br />P.S. Want to learn more? Here are some resources on fear and anxiety in teaching and learning:<br /><ul><li>Tomorrow's Professor offers <a href="http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/archives/2006/02/696_preparing_f.html#more">an excellent excerpt</a> from the book <i>To Improve the Academy</i>. It's from the chapter "<span style="font-weight: normal;">Preparing Faculty for Pedagogical Change: Helping Faculty Deal with Fear" by Linda C. Hodges of Princeton University.</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: normal;">One of my favorite fearless profs is Parker Palmer, author of <i>The Courage to Teach</i>. His essay <a href="http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9708/palmer2.htm">"Teaching in the Face of Fear"</a> is a must-read.</span></li><li>I recently presented with colleagues from four other institutions at the EDUCASE Learning Initiative conference. Here's a link to some resources from that presentation: <a href="http://teachinglearningresources.com/fear.html">Fear 2.0 presentation</a>.</li></ul>Leslie Madsen-Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280429613302243248noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-50675415349305576972007-09-07T15:45:00.000-07:002007-09-07T16:14:56.037-07:00Teaching and Technology News from Around the WebThis week <a href="http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/09/digital_media_and_learning_com.html">Henry Jenkins</a> of MIT Media Labs blogged about the <a href="http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/09/digital_media_and_learning_com.html">new competition</a> created by the McArthur Foundation to promote innovation in the area of new media and digital learning. Meanwhile, <a href="http://spotlight.macfound.org/main/entry/cj_pascoe_another_world_create_teens_online_hangouts/#When:12:00:00Z">C.J. Pascoe</a> is already thinking of how teens are replacing public spaces like malls, with virtual hangouts. In a similar vein, Heather Horst writes about <a href="http://spotlight.macfound.org/main/entry/heather_horst_coming_age_networked_public_culture/#When:18:00:00Z">Coming of Age in Networked Public Culture</a>, describing how teens are increasingly introduced to the world outside their family and school through social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. <br /><br />In a <a href="http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/08/28/social-networking-and-college-roommates/">related story</a>, parents are now screening their children's potential roommates through Facebook. Librarians are also getting involved with Facebook, through the creation of their own <a href="http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2348/librarians-find-new-uses-for-facebook">library related Facebook plugins</a>. I guess they figure they mights as well bring the library to the students, since the students aren't going to the library.<br /><br /><br />As school gets started this Fall, lots of educational bloggers have been providing roundups of Web 2.0 tools for students and academics. <a href="http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/?p=193">Academhack</a> provides us with another list of useful mashups, Firefox plug-ins, and other online tools. He also writes about tools for <a href="http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/?p=194">working with PDF's.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/08/the_getting_of_wisdom_or_orien.html">Jenkins</a> also provides a long description of the welcome and orientation activities taking place this Fall at MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program. We might notice some similarities to our own activities and find some inspirational ideas in their program.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.edtechpost.ca/wordpress/2007/05/16/creative-commons-unawareness/">Scott Leslie of EdTechPost</a> points out that most faculty he talks to still don't know what the creative commons is. We might think about doing something about that.Innisfreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02611194469458646133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-78463245000255369642007-08-30T13:37:00.000-07:002007-08-30T15:06:43.250-07:00In the News: What's Happening in Teaching and Technology this WeekAlthough there are still a few weeks until the quarter is underway, for most everyone else in the nation, this week or next is back to school. Media outlets are in a frenzy to produce interesting back to school articles. From NPR we get a reminder of the culture shock that some new college students experience: <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14023663&ft=1&f=1013">Away to College, and a New Culture.</a> The Chronicle of Higher Ed and many other educational sites notes that Firefox is releasing a special edition: <a rel="bookmark" href="http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2338/firefox-releases-new-campus-edition-web-browser" title="Permanent link to this article">Firefox Releases New 'Campus Edition' Web Browser.</a><br /><br />If you haven't checked out <a href="http://www.zotero.org/">Zotero</a> (which is a plug-in included in the Campus Edition of Firefox) you should. It is produced by <a href="http://chnm.gmu.edu/">The Center for History and New Media</a> and <a href="http://www.gmu.edu/">George Mason University</a>. Zotero is similar in function to <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fnotebook%2F&ei=VD7XRqKyGp-GgQOava2CCw&usg=AFQjCNEJ3nWFvGJkA_FiONUfLW8VMBzyDA&sig2=Mn0f-g7We6-eFtU8Ksby4Q">Google Notebook</a>, but in my mind, easier to use for serious research. Read/Write Web's recent post, <a class="permalink" href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_backpack_web_apps_for_students.php" rel="bookmark" title="Link to: Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students">Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students</a> provides a round up of web based tools for students. My personal favorites are <a href="http://ottobib.com/">yBib</a> and <a href="http://www.easybib.com/">EasyBib</a>, which assist students in properly formating their citations. (If you give your students proper instructions, there really is no excuse for them to turn in sloppy bibliographies.)<br /><br />For Fun: Here's a new website that combines wikis and mindmapping, creating a new way for visual thinkers to navigate the web: <a href="http://wikimindmap.org/">WikiMindMap</a>.Innisfreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02611194469458646133noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-45943508246197528402007-08-13T09:34:00.000-07:002007-08-13T10:34:23.028-07:00Learning management systems under fireIn my <a href="http://teachingresourcescenter.blogspot.com/2007/08/smartsite-learning-management-system-or.html">previous post</a>, I explained the difference between a learning management system (LMS) and collaborative learning environment (CLE).<br /><br />LMSs have of late come under fire from faculty and educational technologists alike. <br /><br /><a href="http://mikecaulfield.com/2007/06/17/enterprise-learning-systems-considered-harmful-to-learning/">Mike Caulfield asks whether LMSs stifle learning instead of encourage it</a>: <blockquote> Enterprise e-learning is about classroom management and enterprise reporting. It is about the so-called measurement of learning. We force students to use enterprise systems, because like the email system we “give” them, it makes our lives easier and accomplishes goals that have nothing to do with the student.<br /><br />What would e-learning look like if we started from the needs of the student, instead of the institution? What would it look like if the overriding question was “How can we use technology in a way that benefits the student?”<br /><br />My guess is it’d look a lot like life. It would be a wonderful mess of different students and professors choosing different tools on an ad hoc basis. Their choices would evolve over time. And because the students worked with real tools (and possibly even on real problems) they’d graduate with bankable skills rather than detailed knowledge of how to use an LMS that has no analogue in the outside world.<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />But, if we started with the student, there would be no e-learning “system” in the sense of a single integrated application provided by a vendor. Instead of focussing on buying e-learning systems, we’d focus on building an e-learning culture.</blockquote><br />Mike offers a small round-up of others' feelings about LMSs <a href="http://mikecaulfield.com/2007/07/25/in-which-we-meet-our-allies/">here</a>. He notes that much of the anti-LMS sentiment comes from outside the U.S. As an erstwhile scholar of American culture, I find this fascinating--I sense another blog post brewing!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/archives/002285.html">George Siemens ferrets out the root problem of LMSs</a>: <blockquote> I have criticized LMS' in the past (Learning Management Systems: The wrong place to start elearning). I think they can be atrocious tools for learning - the control rests in the hands of administrators and software designers - not learners and teachers. I believe that learning happens in a networked manner (both in our brains and in the creation of external networks of people, content, and technologies). I don't think that LMS', in their current incarnation, are sustainable. However, I do believe they will continue to be a part of our future. I have yet to encounter an elearning initiative that was not heavily peppered with LMS talk. The decision makers like LMS'. The future, I hope, will provide a more balanced view of learning that includes teachers and learners.</blockquote><br />In a post on his blog, <a href="liberated information and knowledge">Leigh Blackall posits that LMSs are roadblocks to "liberated information and knowledge."</a> She asks about the personalized learning environment (PLE) and virtual learning environment ( VLE)--terms which are sometimes used synonmymously with LMS, and sometimes to indicate an analogous form: <blockquote> Why do we need a PLE when we already have the Internet? The Internet is my PLE, ePortfolio, VLE what ever. Thanks to blogger, bloglines, flickr, delicious, wikispaces, ourmedia, creative commons, and what ever comes next in this new Internet age, I have a strong online ID and very extensive and personalised learning environment.</blockquote><br />These are excellent questions. I don't organize my work or personal life in SmartSite, so why should I ask students to organize their intellectual lives in an LMS? I have used <a href="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com">YouTube</a>, and <a href="http://wikispaces.com">Wikispaces</a> in American studies courses, and I find them superior to the tools offered by the current version of SmartSite. I know I could cobble together a course out of several different online tools, most notably Blogger, Wikispaces, <a href="http://www.bloglines.com">the Bloglines feed reader</a>, <a href="http://del.icio.us">the del.icio.us social bookmarking tool</a>, YouTube, and <a href="http://www.flickr.com">Flickr's photosharing service</a>.<br /><br />Such tools, however, reflect <i>my</i> teaching philosophy and may not reflect yours. If you're looking for a way to manage your course, then SmartSite may be a simple solution for you.<br /><br />In the face of such (apparently sound) criticism, why do so many people still find LMSs attractive? Because LMSs <i>do</i> have a place in course management--which is why I'm happier when I see them called <i>course</i> management systems. (I'm fine with managing a course, but I'm uncomfortable if I'm <i>managing</i> learning.) Because SmartSite also offers a wiki and forums, you can also use SmartSite less to "manage" learning and more to promote collaboration among students--to encourage students to ask questions and take more initiative in their education. If you want such tools all under one technological roof--without having to send students hither and yon to different sites for wikis, blogging, forums, photosharing, and more--then SmartSite is your solution.<br /><br />Some resources advocating for at least some use of LMSs:<br /><br /><a href="http://davecormier.com/edblog/?p=31">Dave Cormier offers a rebuttal to Leigh Blackall's post</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://terrya.edublogs.org/2006/01/09/ples-versus-lms-are-ples-ready-for-prime-time/">Terry Anderson delineates the distinction between PLEs and LMSs</a> and lists the advantages of each approach to e-learning. He sees PLEs as individualized, lifelong collections of learning resources, while LMSs are course-specific and address concerns (students', faculty's, and institutions') about intellectual property, privacy, and security. <br /><br />There's <a href="http://del.icio.us/rsims/PLE">del.icio.us site</a> packed with 20 pages of links to information about PLEs.<br /><br />What are your thoughts about LMSs and PLEs?Leslie Madsen-Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280429613302243248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5180197387637743721.post-67206803586678000922007-08-13T09:02:00.000-07:002007-08-13T09:33:08.597-07:00SmartSite: Learning Management System or Collaborative Learning Environment?You may have heard that UC Davis is replacing the course management functions of MyUCDavis with a new course management system, <a href="http://smartsite.ucdavis.edu">SmartSite</a>. While SmartSite offers many improvements over MyUCDavis, instructors still need to think through their use of SmartSite before plunging into the new system.<br /><br />SmartSite raises a number of pedagogical questions. Depending on how you use SmartSite, it can serve as either a learning management system (LMS) or a collaborative learning environment (CLE). Although occasionally these terms are used interchangably, an LMS differs significantly from a CLE, and the difference is more than a philosophical one.<br /><br /><b>An LMS is all about <i>management</i>.</b> In SmartSite, tools that best represent this approach include the schedule, syllabus, announcements, tests & quizzes, modules, and gradebook. These offer ways to manage the dissemination of course content and assess student learning.<br /><br /><b>A CLE promotes <i>collaboration</i>.</b> In SmartSite, tools promoting collaboration are the wiki, forum, chat, messages, and to a lesser extent e-mail archive. These tools make learning a bit more transparent and allow students to help each other study. They also--the wiki especially--are good locations for group projects.<br /><br />In which way do you use SmartSite? Do you feel you have successfully combined the LMS approach with the CLE without students feeling overwhelmed? If so, please share in the comments!Leslie Madsen-Brookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02280429613302243248noreply@blogger.com1