Fall+2010+Meeting+Summaries

Fall 2010 Meeting Summaries
Following each gathering of the Teaching First Year Students (TFYS) Community of Practice (CoP), Educational Development will summarize highlights of our discussion. These will be captured below under each meeting date. If you have additions or amendments to the summary of each meeting, feel free to edit.

The last meeting of the term, our conversation today focused on the following topics:
 * Wednesday, December 1, 2010**
 * Michael Imort shared some insights from his read of a book being considered for our CoP in Winter term called //My Freshman Year//. The book was written by an anthropology professor who for her sabbatical went back to school as a first year student and lived in residence for a year. As an ethnogrphy of first year students, the author (Rebekah Nathan) shared how her view (her lens) on students changed and how she has a much better understanding of them as a result of her experience. The author doesn't get into how the book may have altered her teaching (a future book perhaps), but is a recommended read nonetheless that is very accessible. See last meeting's minutes for other highlights from the book shared by Jeanette McDonald.


 * His insights sparked discussion, for example, of student collaboration and whether it should be considered cheating in all cases. If the process leads to the student achieving the desired product, and if it helps the student learn, is it the same as when a student colludes with others for the purposes of completing a task/outcome, but doesn't learning anything? Is it the same thing? Somewhat philosophical but also instructive for us to think about in how we design assignments and what instructions we give (or don't give) students. Even the conversation we have with them about cheating and assignments. Certainly, as Michael Lissetto-Smith indicated in his converations with students who come to see him for support, if the instructor hasn't given any instructions or guidelines to say otherwise, they see collaboration as a viable and appropriate avenue to outcomes attainment and delivery. The importance of authorship, copyright, and integrity as how we view it is not necessarily within their perview.


 * Michael Lissetto-Smith and Anne Marie Wetter shared information about a new program that is just getting up and running called Early Alert. This program is designed to connect students with supports at the earliest stage possible, whether academic, personal or otherwise. At the click of a button, Laurier staff and faculty can fill out a short form and submit it to the program coordinator to identify students whom they believe are at risk (e.g., drastic changes in behaviour, performance, appearance, etc.). The coordinator then responds by following-up with the student directly to intervene and offer/direct them to supports available on campus. For more information, go to [|www.wlu.ca/earlyalert]. A Novell login and password is needed to access and submit the form.
 * In response to interests expressed at the last meeting of the group, Jeanette McDonald shared some highlights from a chapter on "helping students retain and use what they've learned in other settings" by Marilla Svinicki in her book //Learning and Motivation in the Postsecondary Classroom.// The chapter builds on earlier chapters and draws from cognitive psychology to aid the reader in understanding what and how students retain and transfer learning and what instructors can do to support the process (or take away from it). Other more general suggestions for helping students retain knowledge from coruse to course include the following:
 * demonstrate application/relevance to the student's world view via local examples, current events, service learning opportunities, etc.
 * position/contextualize what students are learning in terms of the program as a whole, the next course they take for which yours is the requirement, the discipline, the profession
 * situate their learning through authentic assessments opportunities

Our conversation today focused on the following common challenges in first year teaching:
 * Tuesday, November 16th, 2010**


 * Tristan Long brought up the perennial debate of how to balance content breadth vs. depth in a first year survey course, especially when the course is a prerequisite for upper level courses. Several participants cited a "less is more" movement in both literature and practice where the goal is to teach less material in greater depth. One of the premises of this approach is that by devoting less time to content, more time is allotted to "learning to learn" strategies that will benefit students' content aquisition abilities. It was acknowledged that this balance may be harder to strike in some disciplines than others, but that talking to instructors of upper level courses and consulting department level objectives may be starting points for deciding what topics to focus on. Jeanette McDonald shared some data from various studies summarized by Meyers & Jones (1993): (1) during a lecture students ignore what we're saying 40% of the time, (2) students retain 70% of what's said from the first 10 minutes of class and 20% from last the last 10 minutes, and (3) four months after an intro Psych course, those who took the course knew only 8% more of than a control group.


 * This sparked a short related discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of using companion materials (e.g. study guides, online quizzes) that come packaged with course textbooks. Many particpants had found that the testing bank of questions can be rife with errors and not equal in quality to questions that an instructor may come up with him/herself. Nevertheless, some participants mentioned success in using these tools to help students gauge their understanding of course material and as a starting point for developing their own exam questions (e.g., objective type questions).


 * Following from this we also discussed how first year students have more going on in their lives than academics alone and that their reasons for attending university (and their lack of commitment to learning) may not and often are not learning focussed (e.g., pressure from parents, ticket to a job, independence and automony). We briefly identified that the emotional intelligence (EI) of our students is as much an area that needs developing as their academic ability, focus and motivation. Roger Pearman (2002) defines EI as "a term used to describe a complex ability to regulate your impulses, empathize with others, and persong and be resilient in the face of obstacles." By developing our students' EI we can aid them in managing themselves both inside and outside of the classroom for academic and civic/social purposes. In 2007 we hosted a conference on EI. The PPT slides from the two keynotes are linked here: [|"How can EI strategies be infused into curriculum and programming to affect student outcomes?"]and [|What is emotional intelligence and how is it related to personal and academic success?].


 * We talked briefly about the benefits of sharing methodology with students, whether that be the rationale for selected course readings, testing formats, or assignments. Michael Imort suggested that first year students, in particular, don't understand why they are learning what they are asked to, and that discussions about purpose and methodology can be motivating until they reach the point of understanding the relevancy of what they are learning. From this discussion, Jeanette McDonald shared some insights from author/anthropologist Rebekah Nathan, author of //[|My Freshman Year]// (2005) in which she reports on her findings/observations of going back to school and living in residence for a year. In reference to the readings, she shared the following as to why students don't do the readings. Here's what she observed. If students can say "no" to the following questions in regards to being asked to do the readings (or any other task for that matter), they will not do them. Here are the questions. This makes the case for us to be intentional and strategic in how we integrate the readings into the course, position them in the classroom/seminar/lab, and align the readings with other aspects of the course (e.g., assignments).
 * 1) Will there be a test or quiz on the material?
 * 2) Is the reading something I will need in order to do the homework?
 * 3) Will we directly discuss this in class in such a way that I am likely to have to personally and publically respond or otherwise 'perform' in relation to this reading?


 * Shane Bauman brought up the topic of plummeting post-midterm attendance rates in his first year Mathematics courses. He had noticed that recent attendance was hovering around the 50% mark, which Michael Imort confirmed is typical across all disciplines and instructors. Integrating a performance element where students are accountable to their peers (e.g., peer review of written assignments) was one suggestion put forward. Using clickers to motivate student attendance was also suggested, although this can raise issues of academic integrity as students have been known to pass their clickers off to friends when they do not want to attend class. The question of whether or not we actually want to motivate these "bad" students also arose, as well as the always useful reminder for instructors not to take class attendance too personally. Careful course planning can also be used to motivate and reinforce student attendance (e.g., link class activities with assignments).


 * A meaty discussion ensued on the topic of whether or not instructors should encourage students that they have identified as struggling to drop courses. Poor performing students can bring a class average down, or result in an instructor having to artificially increase grades. On the other side of this argument is the departmental pressure to pass as many students in a course as possible, especially from first to second year. Keeping struggling students in a course may do more harm to the student than good when it comes to their overall GPA, and many students (but especially first year ones) are blissfully unaware of progression requirements and the effect of even just one failing grade on their overall GPA. Michael Lisetto Smith mentioned the [|GPA Calculator tool], which he uses in workshops to help students realize the effect of poor grades on their GPA and how difficult it can be to recover from a poor performance in one or more courses. He also shared details of a pilot program - the[| Early Alert System] - currently underway that allows instructors to identify students in danger of failing so that they can be referred to the appropriate support services. Michael Imort reminded us that often when students are struggling in our courses, it isn' always (or often) their academic life that they are struggling with, but the larger life transition between high school and university. Our roles as first year instructors now involves helping students to make this transition more successfully.

In our final meeting of the term scheduled for December 1st at 12:00 p.m., staff from Learning Services agreed to profile some of the services that they can provide to faculty teaching first year students. We will also talk about strategies to help students retain prerequisite course content for upper level courses.

Some of the discussion themes of the October 27th meeting of the Teaching First Years Students CoP included:
 * Wednesday, October 27th, 2010**


 * The challenges of dealing with multi-section courses in which the course Coordinator insists upon a dictatorial role. It was suggested that when a course coordinator oversees multiple sections, it is imperative that there is dialgoue among the various instructors. Trying to ensure consistency in the learning experience for hundreds (or thousands) of students was acknowledged as the goal in the departments or faculties that employ this model.


 * A great deal of our discussion focused on the need to provide first year studens with a level of structure and direction that we may not always realize is necessary and valuable to them. Michael Lisetto-Smith shared that students often come to Learning Services with the concern that they are unable to decipher what they should take notes on when instructors rely solely on lecturing to transmit information. For this reason, students often prefer PowerPoint as some of this guess work has been removed for them. Various ideas to engage students in the listening and note-taking process, such as posting only partially completed slides, were circulated. Related to this topic were several threads of conversation that revolved around the necessity and value of helping students to understand why they are being ask to learn or do something (e.g. group work activities).


 * A related topic discussed was the idea that students entering university are no longer as prepared as they were when Ontario employed the Ontario Academic Credit system wherein the fifth year of highschool (OAC year) was designed to prepare students for post-secondary education. Now, students work though a four year curriculum, and even those that choose to pursue a fifth year are not necessarily any better academically prepared for university level learning. Gail Forsyth shared this reminder with us, also indicating the the first term of the first year was the most difficult transition time for students as they are learning to negotiate both new academic demands as well as personal and social transitions.


 * The last major thread of our discussion revolved around how to help first year students to develop appropriate general academic and discipline-specific learning skills. Cindy McMann brought forward the example of trying to provide her students with sufficient guidance and context to negotiate larger works of fiction. Suggested activities to help with this included providing students with some questions to consider when doing their reading and ensuring that one contextualizes or "sets the scene" appropriately to give students a starting point for their reading.

A common theme of many of our discussion points was the acknowledgement that first year students often come to university without the academic skills that we expect of them. How can we help our students in making this transition more successfully? Recurrent ideas suggested included providing students with adequate structure for their learning, staging or stepping assignments to help students develop new skills, and making knowledge personal, meaningful, and relevant for students. We had a very productive meeting!

On a related note, this month's issue of //The National Teaching & Learning Forum// has several valuable articles on topics related to some of the challenges of teaching first year students, such as keeping students awake and engaged, helping students to be better prepared for class, and whether not to post lecture notes / slides.

The next Teaching First Year Students Community of Practice will take place on Tuesday, November 16th at 12:00 p.m.


 * Tuesday, October 5th, 2010**

In our inaugural meeting of the Teaching First Year Students Community of Practice, we debated and discussed the following topics:
 * How to manage/survive email in large first year classes? How do we prevent irrelevant or unnecessary emails from students (e.g. when is the midterm)? A syllabus quiz was suggested by Terry Sturtevant as a potential solution to questions that could be answered in the course outline. Bob Jefferson mentioned that reviewing expectations during the first week of classes can also be very effective in this regard. So too can revisiting course expectations and support services throughout the year. See his PPT slides used during the first day of class here.


 * How do we give those students who need extra attention the support that they need without losing focus on the rest of the class? The point was made that despite our best efforts, there will always be some students who insist upon exercising “their right to fail.” That being said, what can we do to better support first year students? How do we help students to establish good study habits? Do their reading? Peer-to-peer teaching was suggested as one activity to help us work with groups of students with diverse knowledge levels.


 * Anne Marie Wetter (Learning Services) shared that most of the students that come to see her are interested in time management strategies, critical reading skills, and how to prepare for multiple choice tests and exams. She further noted that she is available to provide in-classroom workshops on various study skills topics.


 * Michael Imort shared some interesting data on the entrance averages of incoming Laurier students, which are slipping at a rate of approximately 1% per year, and how this comes with it the need for even greater support for students making the transition from high school to university.


 * Jeanette shared some registrarial data on students from Fall 2009. Click [|here]for a summary of data, including information on millennials.


 * Terry shared a grading approach in his lab that potentially allows students to earn more than 100%. Attached is a brief summary of his approach.


 * We talked briefly about strategies to help students complete and understand the readings in preparation for lectures and/or tutorials. Michael shared that he previews upcoming readings in the last five minutes of class in order to help students navigate the readings successfully. Another idea circulated was requiring students to submit a response (e.g., one page or paragraph) prior to coming to class as a “ticket” that could count for participation grades. In smaller classes, breaking the class up into sections and having groups present on portions of the readings could also be a useful strategy for helping students to learn from each other and engage with the readings, even those who haven't done the reading. Another option promoted by Learning Services is the [|PQ4R] approach (preview, question, read, reflect, recite, and review). See their [|website on reading and note taking].

It was suggested that in **our next meeting on October 27th** that we focus on "the balancing act" that comes with teaching first year classes with regards to reviewing what should be (but isn’t always) existing / prior knowledge for students with the introduction of new information, how to handle multi-section courses, how to become more familiar with today’s generation of first year students, and how to handle the challenges posed by international students in the Laurier community.