How to respond to a question when you don't know the answer.

What if I don't know the answer to a student’s question?

It’s curious that what students most fear is what teachers fear as well—not knowing. Our students hesitate when we turn from the board and say, “Any questions?” They don’t want to appear stupid, to let others know they still don’t understand.
Many graduate teaching fellows’ biggest fear in teaching for the first time is facing a question from a student that they are unable to answer. Some full professors have the same fear.

And yet not knowing is what learning is all about.
You might consider addressing this issue from the get go. Talk about a process your community of learners will use when a question arises that no one can answer. Talk about how exciting it is to discover a new area of learning. Talk about how a good learner approaches questions. Teach your students the skills of how to begin investigating what they don’t know, don’t understand, or cannot yet do. Where would you look? What resources are available to you? From what you do know, can you make an educated guess? Can you phone a friend?

Not knowing the answer to a student question once in a while is very different from not preparing well. You risk your credibility when you are poorly prepared and unable to facilitate the class well.

When you have prepared well and students are having a productive learning experience with you, they will accept that you don’t have answers for everything. They will appreciate your efforts to improve their skills in finding answers for themselves.

- University of Oregon Teaching Effectiveness Program

12 Essentials for Success: Competencies employers seek in college graduates

12 Essentials for Success: Competencies employers seek in college graduates
http://careernetwork.msu.edu/pdf/Competencies.pdf
From the Career Services Network at Michigan State University.

Students often want and need ways that they will be able to “use” what they have learned in courses. The competencies outlined in this publication are not new but are the kinds of skills just about any course can enhance. (Note: the actual PDF is beautifully done and makes a fine resource.)

Working in a Diverse Environment
Learning from people who are different from you—and recognizing your commonalities—is an important part of your education and essential preparation for the world you will join.

Managing Time and Priorities
Managing how you spend your time, and on what, is essential in today’s world. Learn how to sort priorities so you stay in control of your life.

Acquiring Knowledge
Learning how to learn is just as important as the knowledge itself. No matter what your future holds, you’ll continue to learn every day of your life.

Thinking Critically
Developing solid critical thinking skills means you’ll be confident to handle autonomy, make sound decisions, and find the connection between opportunities you have to learn and how those opportunities will affect your future.

Communicating Effectively
Developing listening, interpreting, and speaking skills is just as important as reading and writing.

Solving Problems
You may only have thought about problem- solving when you’re faced with a crisis. Understand the process and mind-set of successful problem-solving and you’ll more easily handle the bigger challenges that come your way.

Contributing to a Team
In the workplace each person’s contribution is essential to success. Having the ability to work collaboratively with others is vital. This includes identifying individual strengths (yours and others) and harnessing them for the group, building consensus, knowing when to lead and when to follow, and appreciating group dynamics.

Navigating Across Boundaries
Life is filled with boundaries—good and bad. Discover how to avoid the boundaries that become barriers so you don’t hamper the ability to collaborate with other people.

Performing with Integrity
It only takes one bad instance to destroy years of good faith and good relationships. It’s important to develop a code of ethics and principles to guide your life.

Developing Professional Competencies
The end of college is the beginning of a new education. Build on what you already know and keep learning new skills—your job will challenge you to grow and develop in ways you haven’t imagined yet.

Balancing Work and Life
You’ve got a lot to accomplish in limited time. How do you get it all done and still stay sane? The key is maintaining balance among the different parts of your life.

Embracing Change
Just about every aspect of life is in a constant state of change. Sometimes it may seem that no sooner do you get caught up than you have to start all over again. No matter how you feel about change, you have to learn to deal with it.

Preparing a Course: First Day of Class

Preparing a Course: First Day of Class

From the Center for Teaching Excellence, Kansas University

We all have experienced some anxiety about the first meeting of class. Some faculty avoid “first day anxiety” by handing out a syllabus, giving an assignment, and dismissing the class. This only postpones the inevitable. It also gives students the sense that class time is not too important. Most of all, it fails to take advantage of the opportunity to use the heightened excitement and anticipation that students bring to the first day, the chance to direct that excitement toward enthusiasm for the class.

On the first day, make sure that you arrive at the classroom early, to ensure that the equipment is working properly and to engage in small talk with students. Greet students at the door as they enter the class. When students enter your classroom, they have any number of things on their mind. To help them focus, many teachers use a hook, or a three- to five-minute activity to engage students at the beginning of class. (Some instructors use hooks at the start of every class throughout the semester.) Ideas for hooks include playing music and asking students to think about how the lyrics relate to a class topic, presenting a question to the class to begin discussion, giving a brief demonstration of a principle you will be discussing that day, or projecting a photograph, cartoon, drawing, or chart related to the day’s topic.

Some other recommendations for the first meetings of a course include making sure you start class on time and take attendance. Make note of any absences, and follow up with these students after class by contacting them through phone or e-mail.

In addition, start to learn students’ names. To this end, there are several methods you can use to help learn the names of your students quickly:

*Have students give their name before they speak in class.

*Try to memorize a row of students every class period.

*Have students make name plates with 5” x 8” index cards. Ask students to fold the cards in half and write their names on them in large print. You can collect these name plates and hand them out at the start of every class, which will also serve as a means of taking attendance without using extra class time.

*Use students’ names as often as possible.

*If you’re teaching a large class, divide the entire group into smaller working groups. Give each group a short project, and learn the names of everyone in a particular group. Do this several times throughout the semester to learn each student’s name.

*Ask the students to provide index cards with their name, a photo, and an interesting fact about themselves. You can use these to study their names in between class meetings.

*Be honest with the students and patient with yourself. Your students have to remember the names of only four or five teachers every semester, while you have many more names of students to learn. Even if you call a student by the wrong name, the class will appreciate your efforts to acknowledge them on a personal level.

Other ideas for the early meeting of a course include asking students to write out their expectations for the course, as well as what they hope to learn this semester. Assess the students’ previous knowledge by distributing a pre-test over the material you plan on covering that semester, and provide feedback on their responses as soon as possible. Each day, provide the structure for the day’s material using an outline on the chalkboard, overhead, or PowerPoint slide. This will help students see where the lecture is going, as well as aid the organization of their notes. Use multiple types of media for the presentation of the material, including overheads, films, audiotape, and models or demonstrations.

To aid student participation early in the semester, have students write questions on index cards to be collected and answered during the next class period. Finally, gather student feedback regarding the beginning of the course. Ask the students to provide suggestions regarding ways to improve your teaching and their learning.

Preparing a Course: Building a Syllabus

Preparing a Course: Building a Syllabus

From the Center for Teaching Excellence, Kansas University

Start with the basic information of the course, including the year and semester of the course, the course title and number, number of credits, and the meeting time/place. Provide your name, office address (and a map if it’s hard to find), and your contact information. Indicate whether students need to make appointments or may just stop in. If you list a home number, be specific about any restrictions for its use. Next, clarify what prerequisites, knowledge, skills, or experience you expect students to have or courses they should have completed. Suggest ways they might refresh skills if they’re uncertain about their readiness.

When discussing the course, outline the course purpose(s); what is the course about and why would students want to learn the material? Outline the three to five general goals or objectives for the course (see Course design for more information), and explain why you’ve arranged topics in a given order and the logic of themes or concepts you’ve selected. When discussing the course format and activities, tell students whether the class involves fieldwork, research projects, lectures, and/or discussion, and indicate which activities are optional, if any.

In regard to the textbooks & readings, include information about why the readings were selected. Show the relationship between the readings and the course objectives. Let students know whether they are required to read before class meetings. Also detail any additional materials or equipment that will be needed.

Specify the nature and format of the assignments, and their deadlines. Give the exam dates and indicate the nature of the tests (essay, short–answer, take–home, other). Explain how the assignments relate to the course objectives. Describe the grading procedures, including the components of the final grade and weights for each component. Explain whether you will grade on a curve or use an absolute scale, if you accept extra credit work, and if any of the grades can be dropped. Also explain any other course requirements, such as study groups or office hour attendance. Clearly state your policies regarding class attendance, late work, missing homework, tests or exams, makeups, extra credit, requesting extensions, reporting illnesses, cheating and plagiarism. You might also list acceptable and unacceptable classroom behavior. Let students know that if they need an accommodation for any type of disability, they should meet with you to discuss what modifications are necessary.

Include a course calendar with the sequence of course topics, readings, and assignments. Exam dates should be firmly fixed, while dates for topics and activities may be tentative. Also list on the course calendar the last day students can withdraw without penalty. Give students a sense of how much preparation and work the course will take.

Finally, a syllabus is a written contract between you and your students. End with a caveat to protect yourself if changes must be made once the course begins; e.g., “The schedule and procedures in this course are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances.” For more information, please see Ombud’s Website.

Resources:

Appleby, Drew C. “How to improve your teaching with the course syllabus.” APS Observer, May/June 1994.

Davis, Barbara Gross. Tools for teaching. San Francisco: Jossey–Bass, 1993.

“Syllabus Checklist.” (2002). Teaching Matters, 6 (1), 8.

This material is drawn from Eddy, Judy. (2001). Creating a Syllabus. Handout.

Preparing a Course: Course Design

Preparing a Course: Course Design
From the Center for Teaching Excellence, Kansas University

Course design involves the planning of curriculum, assessments, and opportunities for learning which attempt to meet to goals of the course and evaluate whether those goals are indeed being met. The designing of a course can be adeptly performed through the use of backwards design, which is based on the principle of working first from the material and concepts you want students to master, in order to plan how you will assess whether this learning has occurred, and this information thus guides which resources and methods of teaching are employed in order to enact learning of this material.

Four questions from Wiggins & McTighe (1998) are suggested as a guide for condensing the course’s material into a few key topics:

1. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process represent a “big idea” having enduring value beyond the classroom?

2. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process reside at the heart of the discipline?

3. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process require uncoverage?

4. To what extent does the idea, topic, or process offer potential for engaging students?

Also consider the goals and characteristics of your future students. Some reasons that students may be taking your course include: to develop a philosophy of life, to learn to interpret numerical data, to understand scientific principles or concepts, to learn to effectively communicate, to learn to organize ideas, or to understand how researchers gain knowledge. As the instructor, you can use this information, along with your own goals for the course, to guide your course structure and teaching pace.

After having determined which material will guide the course design, the next step in backwards design is to establish the criteria you will employ to evidence student learning. Instead of using a lone cumulative exam to assess learning, however, backwards design is guided by the concept that understanding increases across time, as students process, reassess, and connect information. Therefore, assessments to measure this increasing level of understanding should be conducted throughout the semester, using a variety of methodologies such as discussions, tests and quizzes, projects, and assessments in which students analyze their own level of understanding. Once key concepts and assessment criteria have been decided upon, you can then focus on which teaching methodologies and activities you will use to help students reach these course goals. In this manner, teaching is driven by the concepts that are crucial to the course, rather than the course being driving by the teaching methodology itself.

Resources:

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Merrill Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Teaching for Transformation: From Learning Theory to Teaching Strategies (Part 1)

Teaching for Transformation: From Learning Theory to Teaching Strategies (Part 1)

by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. and is from the newsletter, Speaking of Teaching, produced by the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), Stanford University

No matter what you teach, you face the challenge of bringing students from point A- what they currently know-to point B-the learning goals of a course. In many courses, the distance between points A and B is huge, and the path is not obvious. Students must not only acquire new skills and information, but also radically transform their approach to thinking and learning. This newsletter explores theories and teaching strategies that address this universal teaching challenge.

The Challenge

Even though students may have no experience in your class or your field, they enter your classroom with a long history of academic training and life experience. For this reason, presenting new information is not enough to guarantee optimal learning. Students must recognize the limitations of their current knowledge and perspectives. This means that you cannot simply unload your knowledge on students. What is required is a true transformation of students' existing knowledge.

Instructors from all fields face this challenge. In the sciences and mathematics, it is common for students to have learned an oversimplified definition or approach in high school. Students making the shift from classical to modern physics, for example, cannot simply layer new information onto old understanding. In the humanities, students may, for the first time, be asked to develop original interpretations of texts or to consider conflicting interpretations of texts instead of seeking the one, instructor-approved, "correct" interpretation. This new approach must replace the approach that students have learned, practiced, and been rewarded for. In the social sciences, instructors often have the difficult job of helping students unlearn common sense beliefs that may be common but unjustified. In all these cases, students' previous knowledge must be completely revised, not merely augmented.

Transformative Learning Theory

Transformative learning theory (see Mezirow, 1997) addresses this common teaching challenge. The theory describes the conditions and processes necessary for students to make the most significant kind of knowledge transformation: paradigm shift, also known as perspective transformation. Mezirow (1991, p. 167) describes perspective transformation as: ...the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our assumptions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand, and feel about our world; changing these structures of habitual expectation to make possible a more inclusive, discriminating, and integrating perspective; and finally, making choices or otherwise acting upon these new understandings.

Transformative learning is in clear contrast to the more common process of assimilative learning, the type of learning that takes place when students simply acquire new information that can easily fit into their preexisting knowledge structures. Whereas some college-level courses are aimed at assimilative learning, most courses require at least some level of transformative learning.

According to transformative learning theory, paradigm shift/perspective transformation is the result of several conditions and processes:

1. an activating event that exposes the limitations of a student's current knowledge/approach;

2. opportunities for the student to identify and articulate the underlying assumptions in the student's current knowledge/approach;

3. critical self-reflection as the student considers where these underlying assumptions came from, how these assumptions influenced or limited understanding;

4. critical discourse with other students and the instructor as the group examines alternative ideas and approaches;

5. opportunities to test and apply new perspectives.

When these processes occur, students are more likely to revise their underlying assumptions, adopt a new paradigm, and apply this new paradigm (Cranton, 2002).

Transformative learning theory also recognizes that changing one's perspective is not simply a rational process. Being forced to consider, evaluate, and revise underlying assumptions can be an emotionally charged experience. Students have successfully used their current paradigms to excel in school and understand the world. They may reasonably be reluctant to abandon what they believe is the right way to think, create, and solve problems. Resistance to perspective transformation is common, even among students who are motivated to learn (Illeris, 2003). For this reason, instructors who wish to facilitate transformative learning must create an environment that encourages and rewards intellectual openness (Taylor, 1998).

Teaching Strategies

The content of your teaching will necessarily make some strategies more suitable than others, but instructors of any field can make intentional use of transformative learning theory. Below, we consider strategies for each process involved in transformative learning and offer examples of what Stanford faculty members are doing to bring these strategies into their classrooms.

The Activating Event

The activating event can be anything that triggers students to examine their thinking and the possible limitations of their understanding:

* Understand your students' backgrounds. To create an effective critical event, you must anticipate what students believe and know. Invest some time at the beginning of each quarter to learn about students' backgrounds. In addition to basic classroom interactions, anonymous pre-tests, surveys, and early graded or non- graded assignments can all be effective tools.

* Provide conflicting viewpoints. Conflicting perspectives can motivate students to examine their own perspectives. You can provide these viewpoints in readings or in the classroom.

* Create a disorienting dilemma. Specifically, challenge what students believe. You can do this with a case study, quote, experiment, picture, demonstration, or story that does not fit their expectations. The goal is to confuse and intrigue students and thus increase their motivation to learn whatever you will be presenting in class.

* Set students up for failure. Failure-driven approaches to teaching recognize that students are most motivated to learn when their current knowledge is insufficient to solve an interesting problem. When students reach a problem- solving impasse, they should recognize that new information or a new approach is needed. It is not enough to hand students an unsolvable problem; you must convince them that the impasse can be resolved and create conditions that encourage their success. Instructors can present the missing piece in many ways; from a simple explanation to helping students derive an idea or approach themselves.

Identifying Current Assumptions

The best strategies for helping students identify their current assumptions all require that students explain their thinking:

* Use a critical questioning technique. Ask students to explain their reasoning and the reasons behind their reasoning. Help students identify their assumptions by offering counterexamples, alternative scenarios, or differing perspectives.

* Ask students to make a prediction about an experiment, event, or procedure. Have students explain their predictions, in discussion or as a quickly written exercise. This can be particularly effective when the actual outcome will provide a disorienting dilemma.

* Have students talk through their thinking or problem-solving strategy. This is particularly helpful if you use a failure-driven approach as the critical event. Give students a challenging question or problem and have them talk through the thought process. This can be done with partners, small groups, or through direct interaction between student and instructor.

* Ask students to evaluate a specific position, solution, or reading and justify their critique. This can be done as a small group discussion or as a written assignment. If you provide conflicting readings or alternative solutions, ask students to defend one and provide in-depth reasoning. Follow-up with a class discussion.