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Highlights from
"Small Teaching Changes; Big Learning Gains"
A Teleconference Downlinked from STARLINK on Nov. 5, 1998,
Sponsored by MRCTE and the VCCS
Click here to download and
open a Word 7 version of this web page.
 | Prior knowledge varies tremendously from student to student in our
classes, but it is a prime factor in student success in our courses. So find out
students’ prior knowledge before several lessons during your course, such as early in
your course, before your first test, before a major project (e.g. a quiz on the project
directions?), before your final exam? |
How about a BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE PROBE?
List 5 - 6 terms that may be on your first test and ask students to circle the answer that
applies from these choices:
- never heard of this
- heard of it but not sure what it means
- some idea of the meaning but not clear
- know this clearly enough to explain it.
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| Learning means building on prior knowledge, which is easier when connections are made
between closely related ideas. |
| "Private Universes": To demonstrate that "the most difficult task
isn't usually learning new information, but rather unlearning things that you know that
are wrong or incomplete," Thomas Angelo asked Harvard graduates and faculty what
caused the seasons and the phases of the moon. Despite the near certainty that these
people got the relevant questions right on tests during their education, most respondents
gave "common sense" answers that were wrong (e.g. summer is hotter because the
earth is closer to the sun).
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| What "private universe" notions
do students have in your courses? What might you do in a handout or on a web page to
counter some of these notions? |
| Students think a book means what the author said; teachers think that a
disciplinary view determines meaning.
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| So give students discipline-based study
questions to guide their reading. |
| Craig Nelson noted a "research paradox"--Students who work hard and have the
prior knowledge to succeed can still flunk because they need to learn to work and think
differently in each discipline, to question at all levels of Bloom's taxonomy of
questioning, and advance their "cognitive level." |
| Nelson clarified the above by positing four levels of thinking that characterize student
strategies. |
- "Sgt. Fridays" want "just the facts" to memorize and need to be
shown that things are often uncertain and complex.
- "Baskin Robbins" thinking responds to uncertainty by being overwhelmed by
variety, defaulting to "naked opinions," and claiming that "all opinions
are equal." Teachers need to assist students in making comparisons and to state
criteria commonly used in the discipline to assess the value of conflicting theories and
opinions.
- Some students try to play the "teacher's games" by giving the teacher what the
teacher seems to want as an answer. Teachers need to show approximations at
discipline-related tasks and consider their accuracy or adequacy.
- Students have claimed their own education when they play "owned games" by
making contextualized decisions--assessing accurately and adequately the merits of a claim
in the context of the discipline.
| So post sample questions from your
discipline, not just recall, but also application, analysis, and synthesis questions with
sample successful answers—or A vs. C quality answers. |
| Simple delivery of content alone does not promote comprehension, but
getting students to manipulate content does, such as through learning to ask good
questions and to elaborate content, perhaps by making analogies or translating new
knowledge with the help of prior knowledge. |
| Is testing rigged? When students think so, they get unmotivated fast.
Teachers should show that testing is fair and that content matters by testing and grading
on the important stuff.
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| Show successful answers and strong essays
before [first] tests and [first] essay due dates. Explain grading rationale of A, B, and C
quality answers. |
| A Testing Myth: Giving a test only once, suggests Craig Nelson,
assumes that students already know how to master content in our discipline and how long
such mastery takes, as if they had a good AP course in high school, and that students
don't have a real life so that they can always be at the test during that one test
session. One solution to the lack of mastery or the inability to show up on demand is to
write 2 test versions. Students take the second test if they don't like (or have) their
grade on the first test. To accomplish this 2-test feat, try giving shorter tests, since
the 2nd test option actually increases students' time on task and will increase the
percentage of students who master content at the A level.
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| To help students avoid "first test
shock," post practice questions with feedback via a handout or web page. Use
questions from old tests to insure that they are as challenging as the current questions
but different. |
| Which matters more--how much a class or a test covers or how much
students learn during a class or master at the A level? Although teachers must document
real achievement by their students in order to avoid charges of grade inflation, the
purpose of education is not to sort students into a bell curve or a bimodal curve.
Industry trains for mastery, so why doesn't higher education, asks Craig Nelson? |
| Identify challenged learners and make a MARSHALL PLAN to salvage them.
(James Anderson) |
| At the end of a class, ask not how much did you "cover" but how
much did students "uncover." (Thomas Angelo) |
These articles are available from the telecourse packet--just
ask Eric for a copy. (ehibbison@jsr.cc.va.us)
| Angelo, Thomas A. "The Campus as Learning Community: Seven Promising Shifts and
Seven Powerful Levers." AAHE Bulletin. 49.9 (May 1997): 3-6. |
| Angelo, Thomas A. "A 'Teacher's Dozen': Fourteen General, Research-Based Principles
for Improving Higher Learning in Our Classrooms." AAHE Bulletin April 1993: 3. |
| Nelson, Craig. "Tools for Tampering with Teaching's Taboos." In New
Paradigms for College Teaching. William E. Campbell and Karl A. Smith, Eds.
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1999