2. What are some
practical strategies for responding to an increasingly diverse student
population?
 | modeling the thinking typical in the field
 | For instance, students have difficulty accepting the amount of
trial and error in skills courses like those in mathematics,
English, and even AST, IST, or labs in lab courses. Show
students your first encounter with a task in your field--e.g. a
math problem that you haven't tried before, a composition
assignment, a first reading of a poem that is new to you, a first
draft of a program and how you proofread the code to debug as
needed. Talk out loud as you work so that students can hear
your guesses, estimates, false starts, what you're sure of and
what you're not, where you are applying similar experiences and
where you might not have applicable prior knowledge.* |
|
| Start with a no-fail activity. |
| Pose a problem, such as one in the local news or one that a
celebrity has [or a familiar business or a question that a scientist
faced, e.g. the doctor's problem monthly in Discover magazine]
and elicit students' ideas about solutions. The point is to
connect course content and concepts to the real world--current or
historical. |
| Bring in real people--such as a (former?) patient for a nursing
course, a war survivor for a history or sociology or psychology
course, a small business owner or loan officer for a business
course--so students can connect text and class work with the real
experiences of the guests. |
| time + ability + effort + confidence = result |
| Widen the audience for student writing beyond just you, perhaps by
collecting or posting group projects or individual student projects. |
|
|
Above
Early in the workshop, participants were counted off to
brainstorm about one of four topics for "practical
strategies." Later they joined in groups to compile highlights,
and groups reported to the whole during the rest of the day. |
|
Above
As groups worked to compile practical strategies, Dr. Eison (at left in
blue coat) visited groups to listen in and facilitate their work.
Here he listens to Fay Kelle (speaking at right), Karen Dorgan (in
lavender at right), both from Mary Baldwin College's Richmond staff, and
Bill Ziegler (JSRCC, PRC, English). |
* P.S.
from Eric Hibbison: This "think-aloud" method is also an excellent one-on-one method to
see the thinking of your students, though you may need to ask
leading questions in such a "think-aloud protocol." I
used this method in my dissertation research to see how 5
students wrestled with one particularly challenging
multiple-choice question.
| This
website at the University of Washington contains a page of
do and don't procedures for applying think-aloud to get a user
or student to analyze your (or any) website or online
exercise. (Click "Home" to see the three
instructors' 3-day information-design plan for building and
evaluating a website.) |
 
|
1999