Ideas Generated from the Fall 2016 Cohort

Context

How will you create a climate of trust and situate your course into the world of the learner?

Setting a safe space: Be advocate for the side that isn't being heard. Keep learning the bigger context so you can encourage students to do the same. Make sure students feel safe in expressing their opinions, even when they are in the minority.
Acknowledge value of student to the course: Acknowledge that the course is designed to meet a certain set of objectives, yet the learner's experience may also emerge during the course
Agreement: I like the idea of a agreement made for the course
Allow for some type of introduction and then where the course fits in the larger program- or course of study
Acknowledge value of student to the course: Acknowledge that the course is designed to meet a certain set of objectives, yet the learner's experience may also emerge during the course
Perspective: Share in discussion the value of each persons perspective on the topic
Attention getting: Current events, Personal quiz
Facilitation: Click through agreement
Learner Needs: Tell students what you can and cannot do.

Experience

How will you inspire your students to fully experience course concepts, to internalize the material so learning goes beyond an intellectual exercise.

Designing assignments: Develop assignments so that they have an application to the students' context, e.g., in a course design course students create a course for their organization
Learning Repository Portfolio: In the course on Information Systems, use several information systems to develop a Learning Repository Portfolio where they capture and organize what they learn in the course. This portfolio can be used and expanded in this class, other classes, on the job and throughout their lifelong learning journey. This can also be attached to their LINKEDIN account and shared during job interviews.
Markets and Institutions: Working in a team to simulate a "What-if" analysis for Fed monetary policy.
So if Fed Chair raises interest rates, it would be great if the students be able to articulate the consequences of an interest rate rise (on businesses, banks and the economy).
Practice dialogue skills: Students in small groups have the task of generating the "strongest possible" points of analysis applying theory to a case. They work with an excerpt from the case they will actually be working on for an upcoming graded assignment. They have suggested language to use in asking each other to clearly explain their points in order to arrive at the "strongest possible" statements.
Discuss Threads: Each student adds their input to a discussion thread that addresses the Question of the Week after reading the inputs and thoughts of the other students.
Study Guide: Working in team develop a cloud-based repository of course content and materials collected during the term.
Patrick: With political science students, you don't have to try that hard to get them to engage with the subject. When teaching about campaigns, or elections, or Congress and the legislative process, the important thing to do is tie the theory to current events. However, I very much like to encourage engagement assignments where the student needs to go somewhat outside their comfort zone and talk to people who may see the world in a different way.
Classroom Discourse: Manage a classroom of learners to foster higher order thinking.
Test success: A discussion exercise/question that allows students to apply course concepts to causes and consequences of financial crises.
Test Success 1: Gather some data about current study habits so that it can be analyzed during the class by submitting a sample week of study pattern
Test Success 2: Take practice exam and Identify target goal for passing practice test. Aim for >80%. If 80% is not reached look at the content of the topic and identify what the strength and weakness were related to the content.
Test Success 3: In small group do a mind map for one section of content and share that with your group.
Test Success 4: Make up your own quiz for a specific topic. That quiz can be multiple choice questions. At least 10 questions. Share with team in the discussion section for your group
Test Success 5: Use the campus or online resources to support class topic. Bring your questions to class, at least three before class begins.
Service learning: Take concepts learned in class and hold financial literacy workshops.
Create a study community by doing a weekly check in with goals for your study plan and post goals and how well you are doing with meeting your goals or challenges at the end of each week
Lee Holmer: Challenging assumptions with a Jobs and Incomes quiz. The Jobs and Income Quiz.pdf Download The Jobs and Income Quiz.pdf

Reflection

What techniques will you use to help students create meaning from their experiences?

Have a pre-reflection in the course to assay the students ideas at the beginning of the the topic. Then as the class ends have the students revisit this initial reflection and see what has changed. It would also be prudent to do this all classes so that when they are a senior they have a legacy of reflection to see their own development.
Sharon Callahan: I developed a process for reading and analyzing research related to a person's research question. And created a rubric that helps them reflect in a particular manner.

Also, try to create reflective conversations that require people to demonstrate they understand each other in writing, add to the discussion, and move the dialogue forward. There is a rubric for this as well and people get feedback as needed.
Patrick: After engaging in some activity, I feel that creating space to debrief is important. It helps the students to synthesize the data. It is also important to give them the opportunity to think on how their biases might impact their observations, which is particularly important when evaluating political phenomena.
Stacey Robbins: Posing questions for reflection and students responding using written or audio responses
How to do this organically? Meaningfully? How to model?
Roxy Hornbeck: Adaptation of the Connected Knower - From Patricia Hill Collins Download Connected Knower - From Patricia Hill Collins

Students collect claims (quotes, summaries, ideas) from academic and classmate sources for that week's module. They are then asked to reflect on how their chosen claims connect to the course as well as how they connect to their personal experiences. They then create a visual representation of their learning and post it to the class discussion board as an "icon" of their learning. At the end of the class, they connect all of the images together to tell their story of learning.
Tyson Marsh:
Photojournals - Assist students in "seeing" theory in action in their everyday lives - but how can I make it better, less individually isolating, and more engaging for group reflection? Perhaps consider excluding the narrative from the photo's and getting students to discuss what they see in the photo's of other students.

Autoethnography

Adaptation of the "Connected Knower" activity. (Hornbeck, 2016)

How, when and at what frequency do I engage students? How do I model engagement and reflection, myself?

Action

What will you have your students do with their new understanding? How will you encourage your students to engage in transformative action?

Roxy Hornbeck: As the culminating assignment in my Business of Art class, students are asked to actually create a working business plan and then begin implementing that plan - designing a website, creating a piece of marketing for an event they are putting on, applying for a grant, writing a lesson plan, or putting together their actor reel. The key is that it has to be usable outside of the class.

Other action items include visits to organizations, internships, and one-on-one interviews with working artists.
I design my course to try to put them in a situation where they will need to get involved with people outside the classroom, whether it be attend a religious service outside their tradition or conduct a poll of their friends to assess their level of political knowledge.
Register students to vote, encourage students to seek out different houses of religion; then have students compare based on findings.

Bring in outsiders and then ask students how to apply theory to practice.
Sharon: Provide multiple ways to understand and compare and then apply to to own life. Action has to be kinesthetic.
Sharon: Write three paragraphs about the burning question, the context by which they'll explore, and the resources they are bringing to their research.
Spiritual Discernment: Reflect on previous decisions and then look at their own lives to see which areas are problematic and then apply new learning and insights to see those problems differently.
Mary: Ask students to create a grid to record what they use and how they would use what they've learned in their practice and lives.

Has students practice at home, with family, and then write a reflection.

Evaluation

How will you guide students to evaluate their own learning and formulate a plan for further growth?

1. Students create rubrics for assignments - based on the learning outcomes for the specific course and guided by the mission the school.

2. Notice, Value, Question Model for Review

What did you notice about the assignment?
What did you value about the assignment?
What questions are you left with after completing the assignment?

3. Guided peer evaluation, with multiple opportunities for re-submission
How do I align program, state, federal and individual course requirements for evaluation? I struggle with this and I need to really focus on evaluation, as I myself have never been properly evaluated. This is where I need to focus my time and energy, as much as I myself resist this notion
There are small assignments that build upon each other, the students will get feedback, and revise and build.
Small group members name one or two positive qualities that each participant drew on in each stage of the project: conceptualization, construction and implementation. Each person is given this list of the positive qualiites that others saw in them. Knowing they will need to do this changes the group dynamic, helping them watch for and appreciate the best in each other.
I ask my students to formulate research queries individually, then write them on the white board in the classroom. We then evaluate them as a group, identifying what works, what doesn't, where we see commonalities and differences. It makes students more comfortable with their own skills when they realize that no one does it horribly wrongly AND no one does it perfectly.
Peer evaluation of each other's work, where everyoe is working on a similar project and with a smilar rubric or set of criteria for evaluation. They review and advise each other on the paper writing process, which both gves them the opportunity to revise n a variety of points of view as well as push the students to critically evaluate the process from the point of view I will be adopting to evaluate their work.
Lee Holmer: Students give feedback to each other on a presentation: Organizational Analysis Preview Presentation.pdf Download Organizational Analysis Preview Presentation.pdf