Past issues of Tapestry can be found here
This issue is a joint effort of the UBC LEAD (Lasting Education, Achieved and Demonstrated) Initiative <www.lead.ubc.ca> and the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth <www.tag.ubc.ca>. The 23 contributors are faculty members from both UBC campuses, offering to their colleagues some of their ideas and insights about teaching.
This issue is new and special because:
You will notice that the articles don’t all follow the same format (what do you expect from academics!), but they are all written in the spirit of faculty sharing. We hope you’ll visit this special online issue to see, hear, and learn from your colleagues. You really have to try it to see what it’s like. We sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to this issue!
Alice Cassidy
Associate Director
Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG)
alice.cassidy@ubc.ca
604.822.0828
Lorne Whitehead
Leader of Education Innovation
UBC LEAD Initiative
lorne.whitehead@ubc.ca
604.827.4299
A Tool to Help Successfully Integrate Teaching by Invited Experts and Students Into Your Course
Learning and Life
Heartfelt Images in Learning
Getting Your Hands Dirty – Test Driving Market Research
Transformative Education
The Learning Experience UBC Students Deserve
If You Love It, Set It Free
Learning Theories in Education
Active Student Engagement in Problem Based Learning Through Peer Facilitation
Jaymie Matthews: A Stellar Human Being
Duelling Bonding Theories – An Interactive Student Exercise in the Chemistry Classroom
“Made You Think”: Engaging Students in Their Learning
Not Everybody is a Potential Doctorate and that is OK
What Have Our Second Year Engineering Students Learned So Far? Try Building a Hovercraft
Greengenes: Improving Conceptual Understanding
Small Groups and Inquiry Changed My Approach to Teaching and Learning
Media Education: Collaborative Videos and Press Conferences for Real-Life Learning
The Courage to Experiment with Teaching and Learning: It is Worth it to Our Students
A Forgotten Source of Knowledge?
Self-learning and Academic Self-confi dence
Crystals: Shared Teaching and Learning Tips
The Importance of Creativity and Innovation in Developing Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Methodologies
Honouring Chalk, Talk and Walk with Untethered Computing
The third and fourth year medical students spend most of their time in clinical learning. However, for the equivalent of a month in fourth year, they convene for intense, faceto- face, non-clinical teaching. The content of the course, Preparation for Medical Practice (PMP), is diverse and includes concepts in radiology, pharmacology, communications, ethics and the law, and physician health.
There are about a dozen teachers who are intimately involved in course organization and who participate in various sessions over time to provide continuity. Yet much of the teaching is by the about 40 invited guest lecturers and the 250 students themselves.
The high number of contributors is what makes the course rich. However, the expert clinicians students want to hear from often have little experience providing formal teaching, and are not intimately involved in the medical school curriculum. In the first iteration of the course two years ago, a number of the invited speakers struggled to specifically address their requested topic; for example, speaking at a level too basic for fourth year or focusing on more detail than the students are ready to absorb. As the speakers deviated from their invited topics, sessions tended to overlap others within the course or in previous years.
Presentations by peers can be the most engaging and relevant for learners. Yet many students at the fourth year level still require mentoring to achieve a presentation that addresses all key objectives and points. We quickly recognized a need to facilitate an effi cient course planning communication between our course committee, recruited guest teachers, and students. We created a tool that has helped us manage development and direction of the course.
Prior to the session, all teachers and students are now required to complete a template form with objectives, learning outcomes, and an abstract of the material to be taught. This forces presenters to specifically plan and defi ne their teaching early and explicitly.
The course committee and student representatives review the abstracts completed by invited lecturers. Interpretations or plans that appear redundant can be readily identified, and course directors can help guide the invited experts such that their sessions are more in line with the students’ learning objectives and interests. Students’ abstracts are reviewed by a mentor from the course program. They help to guide each student in his/her thinking, resource collection, and presentation plans, resulting in an enriched course.
This use of lesson plan templates disciplines teachers to outline their intentions such that other stakeholders can provide formative feedback prior to the delivery of teaching, thus improving the upcoming program. When we put this process in place for the development of our second year of course delivery, we found student feedback to be much improved from the first year. We hope you might consider using or adapting such a tool in your own teaching practice.
Many years ago, I heard Ivan Illich speak at a conference in San Francisco. He said that the problem with formal education was that we separate learning from life. We regard teaching as the acquisition of knowledge in the context of scarcity. Specifically, there is a scarcity of knowledge among students, which we, as teachers, must fill. This model deflects us from learning from living, from recognizing the role of personal as well as theoretical knowledge, which is especially essential for engaging undergraduates.
A couple of years ago, I had the great honour of teaching a group of UBC students in a term abroad in Chiapas, Mexico. On the first day of the seminar, I invited the class to walk to the central square in the beautiful colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas and to simply spend half an hour observing the life around us. We returned to class and shared our observations. It was a very moving experience because it shattered the detachment between our group and our environment at the same time that it encouraged us to live every moment with a sociologically observant attitude.
One of the students described her observations of children playing in the square. It was an acutely perceptive and quite moving description. There was a silence when she finished reading her paragraph. Many other students had been powerfully affected by
observing children, but had not thought of that as a topic for a seminar discussion. The conversation that ensued was both difficult and yet inspiring. We began to grapple with our place in this new context and with our relationship to the subjects of our studies. The students began to recognize the enormous opportunities for learning that this setting created.
With note pad and pencils in hand, the students went off and began to explore the environment around them. Some took an interest in street children and found non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that help them to survive. Others
traveled into the countryside with NGOs working with young rural mothers. There are many cooperatives in Chiapas, popular markets, a museum of indigenous medicine, and an experimental farm. There are groups working with the Catholic Church on human rights issues and offices of the Mexican human rights agency. All of these institutions and organizations provided opportunities for the students to meet people and learn about life in Chiapas. The papers I received from that class were extraordinary. I decided that this is the sort of teaching I want to do.
It is hard to replicate anything as rich as a term abroad, but there are ways of getting out of the classroom or bringing the community into the classroom on campus. I have taken students to meet with the mayor of Vancouver and to sit in on council meetings. I invited an Archdeacon of the Anglican Church into a seminar to talk about welcoming gay and lesbian people into the congregation. Even showing video clips or movies can help to make learning more personal, something lived. For me, teaching that breaks down barriers between learning and life is where it’s at.
What if you gave medical and dental students studying cardiology the opportunity to use imagery (photography, painting, music) in order to demonstrate often difficult, complex scientific/medical concepts? Medicine/dentistry has been doing just that. What started as a small photography contest in 2001 is now an exciting annual event in the first year medical dental curriculum. Since its inception, approximately 1,000 students have participated in the “Heartfelt Images” photography contest. Each year, students have four weeks in which to submit images (still or video) that capture the essence (either artistic or conceptual) of what they are learning about the heart and blood vessels. What follows are four photographic examples of how the students have dazzled us with their creativity and innovative talents. Permission was granted by the students for use of these
images. To see more, you can visit <www.med.ubc.ca/heartfelt/>.
1) Demonstrating a clear under-standing of a complex concept
This photo collage (Figure 1) was entitled “Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome” (WPW) and was submitted by Paul Campsall et al. This syndrome is an electrical disorder which produces a very characteristic pattern on the electrocardiogram (ECG). It exists when the electrical signal bypasses the normal route in the heart (the bypass is called the Bundle of Kent). The ECG has some characteristic waveforms: “P wave”, “Delta wave”, “widened QRS wave”, and “T wave”.
Paul and his colleagues transformed this static image into Figure 1 (below). L-R you see the “bypass route” with the “bundle of Kent”, the next panel shows a “Pea wave”, then you see the “Delta wave” beside the “widened QRS” (with the help of a pillow!), and finally a “Tea wave”. I routinely use this image when I teach about WPW syndrome and students have told me they can still remember the characteristics of this ECG years later. Here, the students have used imagery to break a complex topic down into visual “bites” that enhance retention and subsequent retrieval.
2) Using beautiful imagery to capture a physical quality of the heart
Lindsay McLean captured the image (Figure 2) of a feldspar (blue) rock found in Northern Ontario, which highlighted the dying light of the day in reflected water in tiny cracks. For her, this represented the microscopic electrical fibers (called Purkinje) that penetrate into the cardiac muscle and determine the heart beat.
3) Being fanciful, seeing with fresh eyes
If you watch any medical shows on TV, undoubtedly, you have heard the term “ventricular fibrillation”. This is when the normally orderly electrical system in the heart is in chaos. In this state, the heart is a quivering mass which is ubiquitously described as “a bag of worms”. Dental student Maureen Perzan took this concept and created her own heart shaped bag of sugared candy worms and called it “Sweet Fibrillations” in Figure 3.
4) Thinking outside the box
When you look at the electrocardiogram (ECG) from a patient with a condition called “polymorphic ventricular tachycardia”, which is a very fast heart rhythm, you see the spikes on the ECG (shown below) are very close together and all have different shapes and sizes.
Brad Ashman imagined that concept when he looked at a marina and observed the multiple heights and shapes of the side by side sailboat masts! This image shows that understanding can occur when connections are made between related phenomena.
The medical and dental students have acknowledged in their feedback that they have appreciated being encouraged to explore other approaches to learning and developing and expressing their creative and aesthetic selves. Bleakley et al. (2006) have described medical education as being primarily an aesthetic enterprise that should be taught and learned imaginatively. So go ahead, unleash the creativity in your students. You will never regret it, and they will never forget it.
Bleakley, A., Marshall, R. & Brámer, R. (2006). Toward an aesthetic medicine: Developing medical humanities undergraduate curriculum. Journal of Medical Humanities, 27, 197–213.
This piece was paraphrased from: Courneya, C.A. Heartfelt Images. University of Alberta’s Health Sciences Journal 5(1): 13-17, 2009.
Figure 2: Purkinje Fibers by Lindsay McLean
Figure 3: Sweet Fibrillations by Maureen Perzan
Figure 4: Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia by Brad Ashman
Students test-drive market research – as researchers,
Engaged learners - but where is the instructor?In introductory marketing classes in the MBA Core program, Paul Cubbon had tried a number of ways to teach students about market research methods. However, with only one class available for the topic, using a more conventional lecture method, it was found that students often did poorly on assignments and showed poor comprehension of concepts in exams. This led Paul to design a student activity called: Getting your hands dirty – test driving market research. I talked to Paul about this activity.
1) What goes on in this activity and what do you mean by ‘getting your hands dirty’?
Students conduct qualitative, quantitative, primary, and secondary research related to a food or beverage, including inclass testing. The assignment is run in teams, requiring students to discuss the issues and learn from each other. A significant proportion of incoming MBAs have engineering or other scientific backgrounds, and this provides a good platform that I can leverage in asking them to frame a research problem to test, based on a simple food or drink taste issue. The whole learning experience is designed around
exposing students to the fact that research is messy, incomplete, and a trade-off between time, money, and effort on one side versus quality of decision making on the other. I want to quickly expose students to a range of research tools so that they can self-discover the challenges and limitations of each.
2) Tell me more about the research the students undertake.
I bring in colleagues from the David Lam Library to take students through exercises in secondary research that quickly build their skills in using databases. Often, students have to interpret from a different category, country, or test group to inform the decision that they face.
In the primary research, students have to design and conduct an online survey and set up an in-class taste or ‘pack test’ where they deal with a smaller number of respondents, but have the opportunity to probe in-depth to gain insights. Four teams host research tables simultaneously, with other students acting as respondents and observers. After 15 minutes, roles change and another round proceeds. From this rather chaotic and noisy environment, learning happens!
3) Let’s talk more about the learning and how it happens.
Overall, students make lots of mistakes in a safe experimental environment: it is safe because I do not grade the research findings, which they quickly realize are often flawed. Rather, I grade their reflective learning journal. This is rich and powerful. If I simply tell students about questionnaire design issues then it is easy for them to assume that these are obvious and easy elements to work with. However, even in a simplified assignment, actually having to design and conduct the research makes the challenges come alive. In this way, students internalize the learning.
4) How do your students feel about the activity?
Many students find it to be fun and engaging, and to be a good change of pace from traditional classes. Interestingly, some students do comment that the exercise seems simplistic and trivial. However, most students find that they appreciate the ‘test drive’ experience when, later in the course, they need to prepare substantial research pieces as part of a business plan. We have found their
research quality to be much better than in previous years when they did not have this first assignment.
After students finish the in-class activity, they go back into their groups to reflect on what went well, what they would do differently next time, and what they observed from others. I then facilitate a full class debrief of this, and encourage everyone to make selective notes for their personal learning take-away. This session provides real richness and energetic activity among students. It makes me feel that a lot of processing and learning is taking place.
Thanks Paul. What a great opportunity for students to learn first-hand, or as you say, ‘test-drive’ the kinds of research and related work of the profession.
Paul and I would be interested to hear from other colleagues who have improvement suggestions, who would like to exchange ideas on developing experiential learning, or who simply want to ask questions about this experience.
The question of how to better prepare future healthcare practitioners to respond effectively to the non-medical determinants of health and related disparities in health and healthcare is one of the most pressing and challenging issues facing medical educators today. Teaching non-clinical courses in the health sciences is an unenviable task. The nonmedical determinants of health are often seen as irrelevant by health and human service students who are focused on clinical skills and their application. Instructors are constantly challenged by lack of attention or lack of interest on the part of the students. Student evaluation in these areas is also diffi cult. Yet, there is growing concern that health professions education needs to better prepare students to be socially responsive to the needs of the communities they will serve, particularly those who are vulnerable and marginalized.
Education in the health professions has done well to equip the next generation with superior science and technological ‘know-how’. It has faltered, however, in preparing them with the moral capacity to make judgments that are not only technically competent, but also ethically and socially sustainable. In a world dominated by economic imperatives, social responsibility often succumbs to self-interest and the bottom line. The knowledge and fortitude to act ethically and to be socially responsible in our world of increasing global interdependence is ever more a precondition for a humane society. Universal human values of respect, forbearance, and integrity are binding principles that transcend cultural difference and connect societies. But how can all of this be effectively taught and learned, and with the same level of rigourand accountability expected in clinical and technical learning? What should it look like in curricula, pedagogy, student evaluation, and faculty development? How would we know that we have been successful? I continue to struggle with these questions.
Informed by the foundational work of the renowned educational scholar, Jack Mezirow (1991), and more recently, the critical scholarship of Michael Apple (2004), I believe that for education to be effective, it must be a transformative endeavour, creating a state where students can never go back to seeing the world in the same way, but more significantly, they can never go back to being in the world in the same way. The learning environment moves from one that is hierarchical and topdown, to one that is collaborative, dynamic, reciprocal, and relationship-based. Students become key partners in their education, negotiating what should be learned and why, how it can be best taught, and how learning should be assessed. This is essential for enabling transformative learning. Students who participate actively in co-developing learning outcomes, activities, expectations, and assessments are more likely to build an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the world, how it works, and how it can work differently. Here at UBC, the Directed Studies Option and the Student Directed Seminar are among other opportunities for students to actualize transformative learning. How does your teaching engage students toward transformative learning?
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Apple, Michael W. (2004). Creating Difference: Neo-Liberalism, Neo- Conservatism, and the Politics of Educational Reform, Educational Policy 18, # 1: 12-44.
My first teaching assignment as an assistant professor in chemistry at the University of Toronto back in 1981 was to teach the first 12 chapters of the designated textbook over 39 lectures. I walked in front of the class in jeans and a T-shirt, hair down to my shoulders, and realized how difficult it was to command the attention of 275 firstyear students, let alone engage them in scholarly discussions.
At 29 years old, the only thing I had in my teaching toolbox was what I had observed as a student – delivering the content as a one-way lecture. Leaving the class feeling unhappy and dissatisfied, I sat down in a first-year chemistry class scheduled right after mine. It was taught by a senior faculty member who had devoted his career to teaching undergraduate courses and was consistently rated by students as the top teacher in chemistry.
I soon realized what an inspiring class felt like – and how much of it didn’t have anything to do with chemistry. I noticed the way he interacted with students, the questions he posed and the way he asked them. I went home and rewrote my lecture and gave it again at the next class. I then sat in on
his second class and rewrote my second lecture. I audited his class for the entire term and learned an incredible amount about what made a lecture effective. I also learned that the content delivered in any given lecture is insignificant compared to the skills and long-term knowledge students take away with them when they are challenged to engage, deliberate, and immerse in the subject matter.
That experience became a guiding principle in my career, and I firmly believe that large universities such as UBC must strike a balance between research and teaching. It’s our responsibility to deliver an outstanding educational experience, and it gives us the opportunity to inform the next generation of scholars and citizens.
UBC is currently undergoing a strategic planning process that will map the course towards our vision of a globally influential university. As Provost and Vice-President Academic, my experiences as a teacher cannot help but shape my vision of the type of learning experience UBC students deserve. It is my hope that our new strategic plan will capture the essence of what it means to extend to our students the most positive
learning experience they could ever wish for. That is a promise we should make, and a promise I know we can deliver.
“If you love it, set it free.” “It is better to give than to receive.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Insert axiom of your choice here…
You must have an excellent videotaped talk, or e-based course, or case study, or lab guide – some learning object that you have created that you believe can benefit the world outside UBC.
Would you be willing to share it?
In December, we officially launched Health Sciences Online (HSO) <www.hso.info> from UBC, the first website to deliver authoritative, comprehensive, free, and ad-free health sciences knowledge. Our founding collaborators and funders include the American College of Preventive Medicine, Centre for Disease Control (CDC), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Medical Association.
Health scientists in training or practice (and indeed, anyone) can search for any health sciences topic from over 50,000 courses, references, guidelines, and other learning resources. Materials are selected from accredited educational sources including universities, governments, and professional societies by HSO staff.
We’ve gotten great reviews. Jeff Koplan, former CDC director, calls HSO “a visionary undertaking”. Other formal reviews have called it “the Internet at its finest… a bonanza… a boon… an incredibly worthwhile enterprise… a model of what Health 2.0 and Science 2.0 can be… one of the most altruistic and honourable health service resources on the planet.”
Significantly, one of our reviews specifically stated: “And yet again, the University of British Columbia and Canada in general have
shown the world what can be accomplished in improving global health by a combination of Web know-how, a commitment to service to medicine and outreach to those in resource-poor settings, and dedication to the ideal of the widest possible dissemination of solid information on important topics. Congratulations to everyone in this project and thank you.”
But, we have relatively few materials from UBC – and we’d like to fix that. Also, we’re
starting to develop training programs in collaboration with other universities and ministries around the world, and we are looking for UBC partners in this, too.
So encourage your students to use HSO, and let us know how you and they might like to help us democratize health sciences knowledge for the whole wired world.
About a year ago, I was asked to review a journal article on Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) application in clinical dental education. For me, this was an epiphany that opened up a whole new exciting area of education and scholarship. Certainly, student versus teacher-centered learning and active versus passive learning were central to my approach but the concept of applying educational psychology theories to teaching and learning and then studying them just never came up. I was finally spurred into action when a faculty member sent an email to the entire faculty quoting Sweller (founder of CLT) saying that PowerPoint was ineffective as a teaching tool due to cognitive overload. I felt my PowerPoint presentations were conducive to learning and now I had to prove it.
Initially, I reviewed Sweller’s CLT, but I felt that when combining CLT with PowerPoint this was more of a multimedia approach which led me to Mayer’s Multimedia Learning Theory (MMLT). Luckily I have a minor in Psychology and thus able to get around the journal articles in this domain. MMLT drew heavily on CLT and I found that when I applied the principles from these two theories to PowerPoint, my approach to PowerPoint seemed to make sense. Upon further contemplation, I felt that PowerPoint needed to accommodate the learning preference of our dental students as well. This was easy because dental students are, for the most part, visual learners (our admissions aptitude test selects for this).
From there came the scholarship. The students all know I have an M.Ed. and that I design my research to help them with their learning thus they are very supportive of this research. One such example is a survey, which consisted of 15 questions testing students’ preference for PowerPoint presentations
based on the three theories – Cognitive Load Theory, Multi-media Learning Theory, and Visual Learning Theory (VLT) – that was administered to second year students at the end of term.
The results indicated that our students prefer and enjoy PowerPoint presentations that follow the tenets of the three theories. At the request of my statistician, we are seeking participation from the University of the Pacific and the University of California, San Francisco Faculties of Dentistry to involve their students as well. Not only will this aid in collaborative scholarship, but it will increase our sample size allowing for more sophisticated statistics to be performed.
The implications of this scholarship include students feeling a part of the research, students knowing people are working to improve their education, and teaching will have underlying principles that are universal (CLT and MMLT), but there will be discipline specific areas(VLT) as well. Educators can
research to determine what learning theories are applicable to their areas and tailor others to conform to their specific needs.
As I said, this was an epiphany for me. When I asked my 23 year old niece, who has a B.A. in history to read my journal submission on this scholarship, she replied, “as a history student, I have an immediate prejudice against PowerPoint because there’s really no need for illustrations in seminars, unless we’re seeing slides, in which case all it is really good for is showing pictures. But, I can see how it would really help people who thrive on visual instruction”. And I thank her for allowing this quote to be included here.
I hope this is an example of cross discipline research that may help you in your own scholarship as an educator.
Hi Richard:
I prepared a podcast that goes through the learning theories and the study results, you can access this at www.dentportfolio.com I think this will get you going. Cognitive Load Theory can be easily reached through a Google Search and Richard Meyer published a book on his Multimedia Learning Theory which I show on the podcast and can be purchased through Amazon. I was recently in Cambridge England and picked up the Cambridge Handbook on Multimedia Learning but I think reading that will be a summer project. Also, I wrote a paper on this study but getting it published due to low numbers has been a challenge. We just ran the study with 130 dental students from the University of the Pacific and will re-write the paper with an n of 180. As always the biggest obstacle is proving learning outcomes and we will continue to work on this.
Thank you for your feedback Richard. Please contact me with your questions at anytime as I love this area.
Cheers
Karen
Karen
Thanks for this Karen - can you point us to further information about the theories you mention and how Powerpoint can be adapted to better fit such learning? And perhaps provide a reference for that study on the limitations of Powerpoint? I'm acutely sensitive to not just using it to reproduce a passing visual experience like watching a video-game, but would no doubt benefit from familiarizing myself with the results of research on its uses and shortcomings. Thanks!
Here at UBC, the first two years of the medical curriculum are based on a hybrid model where traditional lectures and laboratories are complemented by Problem Based Learning (PBL) tutorials facilitated by trained faculty tutors. The PBL approach emphasizes student-centered active learning in a small group environment. The task of the PBL tutor is to support the learning and monitor group dynamics, without engaging in direct transmission of knowledge. As most students have limited prior content knowledge and are unfamiliar with PBL tutorial format, they depend heavily on the tutor’s facilitation and time management skills and his/her familiarity with the case.
However, it has been suggested that as students become more familiar with PBL, a tutor-imposed regulation of the process should be gradually replaced with tutorial formats that ultimately allow students much greater control over their learning. Based on my personal experience and anecdotal information provided by students and tutors, at least some PBL groups in the second year of the medical curriculum are capable of adhering to PBL principles, generating relevant learning issues and achieving required learning outcomes with little or no facilitation assistance from the tutors. Could such groups benefit from peerfacilitation in a tutorless environment? Would the involvement in peer facilitation increase the ownership of learning and renew the participants’ sense of excitement and interest in small group learning?
A multi-stage project funded by the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) has been designed to address these questions and explore the feasibility of providing peer facilitation as an option to second year medical students. All stages of the project conducted so far involved extensive feedback, direct engagement, and multiple forms of support from the second and third year students.
Stage 1)
In June 2007, three students who just finished their second year engaged in a comprehensive analysis of their PBL
experience and provided recommendations for the format and general principles of peer facilitation. Based on thisfeedback, several documents, including ‘peer facilitator guides’, were developed for use in the pilot project.
Stage 2)
Following approval from the Behavioural Research Ethics Board (BREB), a written consent was obtained from a group of eight students who volunteered to participate in the pilot project during the four week Reproduction block in March 2008. The first two tutorials of each week were conducted without a tutor. Instead, each tutorial was peer-facilitated by a different group member who was responsible for overseeing the general tutorial process and monitoring group dynamics. A confidential ‘peer facilitator guide’ and handouts (the same as those provided to faculty tutors) were distributed to the peer tutor two days prior to the relevant tutorial. Each guide included limited background information emphasizing key concepts of the case and a list of learning issues to be developed by the group at the end of the tutorial. Importantly, although each peer facilitator was required to prepare for the task by reading the content of the relevant
All peer facilitated tutorials were observed by me on a closed-circuit TV screen located in a room adjacent to the tutorial room. This allowed me to monitor the group’s progress, but also provided the participants with a possibility to request, via two-way microphones, immediate facilitatory assistance, if required. Following each session, all students completed the anonymous ‘Peer Facilitated Tutorial Wrap-up Form’ in which they offered written comments and ranked from ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’ the group dynamics, individual contributions, professionalism, effectiveness of peer facilitator, and the overall effectiveness of the tutorial. In addition, all participants completed the ‘End-of-the-Block Feedback Form’ to provide a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of peer facilitation, to comment on its main advantages and challenges, and to offer suggestions for improvement.
Feedback analysis revealed an enthusiastic support for peer facilitation among all participants. Specific comments indicated that it enhanced students’ active involvement in learning and interactions among members of the group, provided opportunity to practice communication skills through facilitation of learning and group dynamics, and contributed to the development of the concept of professional responsibility.
Stages 3 and 4)
In June 2008, two of the participants in the pilot project were hired to identify outstanding issues before the implementation of a final larger scale phase of the project during the Reproduction block in March 2009. As a result, the efficiency and confidentiality of the peer facilitator guides, means for providing various forms of feedback and assessment, and the concept of a ‘professional contract’ to be signed by
future participants have been addressed, and the existing and new documents edited and developed.
By the time you read this, several additional groups will have engaged in the project. Although the final outcomes are yet to be assessed, I can conclude that this has been a rewarding journey for all participants. Active engagement of students in all stages of planning, implementation, and assessment has allowed to shape this project in ways responsive to their learning expectations. It has also allowed me to gain a new perspective on students’ expectations from the PBL tutorial process, which I hope will contribute to me becoming a more effective PBL tutor.
Acknowledgement: I thank Dr. Kerry Jang and Nora Houlahan for numerous stimulating conversations, valuable advice, and logistic support in carrying out this project.
Jaymie Matthews, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy and Mission Scientist, MOST Space Telescope Project <www.astro.ubc.ca/MOST>, was recently inducted as an officer of the Order of Canada by Governor-General Michaëlle Jean.
The official news release notes that Jaymie’s innovative contributions to space research and discovery have raised Canada’s standing in the field of astrophysics. He is recognized internationally for his studies in stellar seismology and the use of star pulsations to probe their composition and history.
But if you ask Jaymie’s students, they would say that he makes learning a ton of fun, and has an extraordinary ability to make complex ideas accessible. In the past, he has been
awarded the UBC Killam Teaching Prize and the Canadian Association of Physicists Medal for Excellence in Teaching.
And if you ask Jaymie’s colleagues who have co-taught with him, they would say that his energy, creativity, care and attention to students and learning is infectious.
I had the pleasure of team-teaching with Jaymie in 1999, on a field course to Baja California, along with Kurt Grimm of Earth and Ocean Sciences. It was not all hard work though, as we had a few moments here and there of socializing, swimming, dancing, chatting to the locals, and testing the local food and beverages. I could go on, but... needless to say, Jaymie is as convivial as he is smart and talented. And if you ask pretty
much anyone who has met, or even just crossed paths with, Jaymie Matthews, they would tell you that he would do anything to help you, and that just being around him gives you an overall feeling of wellbeing. What a most appropriate recipient, then, of the Order of Canada.
This article was originally published in Tapestry, the Newsletter of the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG), Issue Number 53. 2008.
<www.tag.ubc.ca/resources/tapestry>.
Traditional science lectures often present theories in isolation of the experimental results they are meant to explain, leaving students with a poor understanding of the proper use of scientific models and an inability to apply them in new contexts. In chemistry, bonding theories are powerful tools, providing the conceptual framework necessary to understand the physical properties and chemical behaviour of matter. However, students can develop a mistaken impression that scientific theories are arbitrary, mutually disconnected, and of little practical utility because they are often asked to use theories to make predictions without any reference to actual experimental facts. Their understanding of a given theoretical model often extends no further than memorization of a procedural algorithm to produce the “right” answer – an answer that seemingly has nothing to do with what actually happens in the real world, but reflects only what the theory says should occur.
In my Atomic Structure and Molecular Bonding course, I use an interactive exercise
called “Duelling Bonding Theories”, in which different teams of students are asked to explain various chemical and physical properties of molecules in terms of specific assigned theories of molecular bonding. The exercise takes the form of a quiz show, with me assuming the role of host, asking questions and awarding points for correct answers, thereby pitting the explanatory prowess of one theory (and its team of students) against another (e.g., Lewis Theory vs. Valence Bond Theory). The questions force students not just to follow a memorized procedure, but to assess how a given experimental observation can best be rationalized within the framework of their assigned model. For example, rather than traditional questions like “draw the Lewis structures of [NO2 ]– and HONO” or “describe the orbitals that overlap to form the C-C bond in cyanogen”, students are asked “explain why [NO2 ]– has two equal N-O bond lengths, but HONO does not” or “explain why the C-C bond in cyanogen is exceptionally strong”.
To win points for each question, the students present explanations, argue different ideas, improve upon each others’ answers, and decide which model gives the best answer (usually challenging their preconceptions as to what constitutes “best” in this context). It is the students themselves who develop the explanations, with minimal guidance from me. As the game progresses, students are eventually faced with observations beyond those that their assigned theory is able to explain, and they come to realize that “I don’t know” can not only be an acceptable answer but is sometimes the only correct one (a perspective we don’t usually offer our students). The questions are designed to illustrate the comparative advantages and disadvantages of various theories, so that students gain expertise in their application and limitations, and come to properly view seemingly disparate conceptual models as complementary tools. The exercise is repeated over the semester as new bonding models are discussed (the final round being Molecular Orbital Theory vs. Everybody Else), leaving students with a much improved appreciation for the proper role and interrelationship of scientific theories generally and bonding models within chemistry specifically.
This is a story connecting events that took place in 1609 and in 2009 and connecting typical activities faculty members do. In this case, attending a conference and reading a journal article and connecting what more and more of us are doing: devising innovative, yet simple, ways to engage our student for enhanced learning. I asked Peter to explain.
As I walked through the Irving K. Barber lobby the week of January 19, 2009, I saw a sign “Astronomy class underway”. What course was it and who takes it?
It was the tutorial component of Astronomy 310, a course for non-science majors. There are 280 students in total, with about two thirds of them from the Arts, a quarter from Commerce, and the remainder from a variety of other disciplines. We have four teaching assistants and three weekly 50-minute lectures. Every two weeks, groups of 40 students attend a 50-minute tutorial.
There were bright colours on the floor in concentric circles, and lots and lots of people gathered around. It looked pretty lively. What were they doing?
Students were building a human orrery. An orrery is a mechanical model where the planets orbit the sun when you turn a crank. In our version, students walking around the sun play the role of the planets in the solar system. Or, more accurately, the solar system as Galileo knew it. In commemoration of Galileo’s first use of a telescope to explore the sky in 1609, the project is part of worldwide celebrations of 2009 as the United Nation-designated International Year of Astronomy.
We wanted to replicate what he saw, so our orrery includes only the planets visible to the naked eye, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Has this course always included such activities?
No. For the fairly long time it has been offered, the tutorials involved worksheets and computer work. Students followed along on their own, filled out the worksheet, and left it to be marked. Recently, in my work as a Science Teaching and Learning Fellow (STLF), we started to think of more interesting tutorials that were also based on clearly defined learning goals. There is a grade associated with the tutorial and we want them to be as active and engaging as possible.
This course and Peter’s position is supported by the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI; www.cwsei.ubc.ca), a $12 million initiative headed by Nobel
Laureate Carl Wieman aimed at systematically improving and scientifically measuring the effectiveness of undergraduate science education. Peter, who has been a STLF since April 2008, is no stranger to the course, having taught it at UBC as a lecturer in the past.
How did you first conceive of this activity?
The Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland designed an orrery as an outdoor exhibit on the observatory grounds. I have never been there, but I read about it in Astronomy Education Review <aer.noao.edu/cgi-bin/new.pl>. Operated by the American Astronomical Society and fairly new (the first issues were published in 2002), this is one of the only journals dedicated to astronomy education research. And I figured there must be a way to use it in our course, so students could act out the roles of the planets.
What exactly were the students doing in the 50-minute tutorial?
First they built the orrery. The TAs, Ronald Gagne, Melanie Gendre, Martha Milkeraitis, and Thomas Pfrommer, gave a three-minute introduction on how to do it, then turned it over to the students. Once it was built, we asked for volunteers. So, one student might be a planet and hold up a stick with a picture of Saturn. The coloured markers on the floor are numbered to show how far each planet moves – every 16 days for the inner planets and 10 times slower, every 160 days for the outer planets. When the student stepped from marker to marker, they were acting out both speed and distance.
And how else were they actively engaged?
We designed it so that during construction everyone had a specific job. Once acting out the roles of planets, some participated and the rest watched, laughing at poor Mercury flying around the sun and at Saturn and Jupiter who barely moved at all. Later, when we explored the solar system beyond Saturn, everyone walked past Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto and right out of the building past the clock tower to reach the spacecraft, Voyager. Many students were amazed how far they’d walked.
Also, assessment was a critical component of their involvement. After they explored the solar system as a group, each student filled in a worksheet. The questions were designed such that they had to go back and interact with the orrery model to answer the questions. And though they filled it in individually, they could work together. And they know they get marks for their work.
There seemed to be a lot more than the 40 students in the general area. What do you make of that?
Over the course of the week we ran it, we had the students and TAs from our course, plus about 100 spectators who were walking through, going up or down the stairs, and stopping to watch. They were accidentally engaged! As I said to myself, and would have liked to have said to them, “Aha, made you think”!
At our recent annual Learning Conference on the 4th floor of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, another open space, I noticed the same sort of effect. People were coming to the top of the stairs on their way somewhere else, but stopping for a bit to see what was happening on the stage.
In fact, it was my attendance at that conference and associated Celebrate Learning Week that planted the seed of the idea to run the orrery tutorial in a public space. When Gary Poole, Director of TAG, introduced special guest speaker Lee Shulman, he commented on the crowd forming at the edges.
Can you say a bit about how your work as an STLF connects research, teaching, and learning?
Science educators, in astronomy and elsewhere, are continually reminding us that it’s not what the instructor does that matters – it’s what the students do for themselves. With that in mind, I designed the orrery activity and the other tutorial activities so that the TAs guide and prompt, but the students do all the exploration and discovery
for themselves. In addition to working with the course instructor, Harvey Richer, to create learning goals for the course and these tutorial activities, I am involved in a research project that is part of the CWSEI work. To see if the students learn anything from these activities, we ask them to answer questions about astronomy both before and after they do these new tutorial activities. Early findings are very positive, with up to a 50% increase in correct answers about the size of the solar system and motion of the planets after students have done the human orrery tutorial.
Thanks Peter. And I am certain your 280 students thank you too.
Peter has posted a video of his class building a human orrery on YouTube. It can be viewed at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju4cfEp2BgU>.
This article was originally published at <www.lead.ubc.ca/newbury> as an example for contributors to help guide their written and video contributions to this special edition of Tapestry.
Find out more:
The Human Orrery: A New Educational Tool for Astronomy by D. J. Asher, Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, M. E. Bailey, Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, A. A. Christou, Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, and M. D. Popescu, Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland. Volume 5, Issue 2. Innovation. Posted March 15, 2007 .
<aer.noao.edu/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=224>.
When Learning is Truly Celebrated. October 3, 2008. Keynote address by Lee Shulman. Celebrate Learning Week, UBC.
<celebratelearning.ubc.ca/?p=22>.
Thanks to Brian Lin from UBC Public Affairs for permission to use excerpts of a press release he wrote.
With some 20 plus years of teaching ranges of courses, subjects, and levels, I have begun to understand just how complex and rewarding the classroom experience can be. As I’ve moved into administration and teaching has diminished, I can honestly say that one of the biggest losses is that interaction with students (one of the nonregrets, I must admit, is being faced with 80 or so term papers to grade).
There are many things that I now realize have an effect on the students in the classroom and the success of the class. Passion for the subject is a key ingredient. Students pick up the enthusiasm, whether it is for stats, chemistry, or history. Interaction is also vital. Even in lecture courses encouraging people to ask questions changes the whole dynamic, even if only a small percentage ever stick up their hands. If this is going to happen, though, it has to happen early and that might require some strategy on the part of the professor.
For if students settle into the passive mode, you might as well be a video broadcast. They just won’t get involved.
In this short piece, I want to emphasize two things. First, not everybody in your class wants to do a Ph.D. in your subject. Second, that is just fine and you should teach accordingly. This seems obvious, but one of the biggest traps for new faculty members is the desire to impart the complex detail and lofty theory that he or she acquired as a recent doctoral or post-doctoral student. Behind that attitude is an unconscious assumption that your ‘audience’ all have the same love of the discipline that led you into graduate work. Luckily, the passion can overcome the excess detail and occasional obscurity that goes with this attitude. Certainly when I look back at my first year’s teaching, I am relieved I wasn’t pilloried for the enthusiasm with which I inserted large chunks of my doctoral research into general survey courses!
However, gradually the reality sets in that many students are in your class because it sounded vaguely interesting or because they had to fill a requirement or, worse yet, it fit their desire to sleep in. Teaching to these students requires a different approach, but in reaching them, one also can learn a great deal about pedagogy for all students. To make your course relevant for this broad group, the most important thing is to make it very, very clear what skills they will learn aside from the actual content. Will they learn certain basic mathematical or writing skills, critical thinking, the use of evidence, deductive (or inductive) reasoning? Moreover, this has to be explicit and it has to be restated at key points to have an impact. Once the message gets through, though, many of the assignments and much of what you are saying takes on a new significance to that majority that have no intention of graduate study in your area. Who knows, some of them may get so enthused they even become great graduate prospects!
At the School of Engineering at UBCO, we offer three engineering programs: Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineering. Students choose their discipline at the end of their second year. Before reaching that point, students share a common first and second year, covering a broad range of topics of general interest to the engineering community. This modern approach to the curriculum is one of the strengths and unique features of the School of Engineering. There are a number of reasons for this approach. Teaching a new crop of engineers is very challenging because the boundaries between various disciplines are rapidly disintegrating. Thus, today’s engineers need a good understanding of the basics of various engineering disciplines. Our shared curriculum seeks to address this need. It is equally necessary to provide the students with sufficient information on the role, place, and value of engineering in a modern society.
Finally, an engineering approach to solving problems may differ from the approach previously learned by our students in high school. Consequently, it is important to bridge the gap between their previous instruction and future career needs by stimulating their creativity so they are ready to work on open-
ended problems. We believe that this approach – shared curriculum and problem-based learning – all lead to a broader knowledge base for our students, and enables them to make a more informed decision on which engineering discipline to follow as a career path.
Traditionally, students struggle to understand how the vast amount of engineering material
taught in many different engineering courses is linked. The hovercraft design project offers them an opportunity to see firsthand how multiple disciplines interact. The project is mandatory for all second year students and credits are received through APSC 258, Applications of Engineering Design.
A hovercraft is an air-cushion vehicle that can travel on almost any surface without significant impact on it. This is done by forcing pressurized air under the hull of the craft. The hull has to be sturdy enough to withstand the lift created by the pressurized air while at the same time carrying a certain prescribed load, control devices, and power supply.
The goal of the project is to construct a moving platform (hovercraft) that satisfies requirements in three major areas: structural, fluid mechanics, and electrical control system. To reach this goal, students form project teams of about five members each. At the beginning of the project, they are given the materials needed to construct the remote-controlled hovercraft: paper and balsa wood for the structural components, fans, a power supply, material for the navigation system,
and a programmable electronic board for monitoring and control. Based on these materials and other project requirements, which differ slightly each year, students engage in the design process.
An example of a flexible requirement is the ability of the hovercraft to carry a heavy load or the ability of the hovercraft to perform on an obstacle course while efficiently managing power. Students must work through the process of developing and evaluating alternative designs, testing, designing computer simulations, building prototypes, construction, and, finally, presenting their chosen design.
Through a number of engineering tasks, experiments, and calculations, the design teams ensure that sufficient thrust is obtained by a propeller and also sufficient pressure is generated using a chosen configuration of fans to hover while maintaining the stability of the craft. At the same time, they work on the design of the hull, with particular attention to power to weight ratio and the structural strength. A good design should also
include an aesthetic component as well as a safety component with emphasis on protecting sensitive electronic components.
The ‘grand finale’ of the design process is the competition. The hovercrafts have to satisfy the operational objectives with respect to motion and control.
The competition is typically performed on an obstacle course. Each design requirement is carefully evaluated by a panel of judges from the university and industry. In addition, each team provides a display of their craft, a poster, and an oral presentation using visual aids.
The presentations are judged on the technical content, presentation style, and handling of questions. The final grade also includes the evaluation of technical reports and other deliverables related to the project.
We believe that this project accomplishes four tasks. Firstly, the students are aided in their choice of engineering field. Secondly, the students experience the joy of successfully designing a product and are motivated to
continue with their engineering studies. Thirdly, they learn to integrate knowledge from different fields of engineering. And finally, they are introduced to a real design process with realistic project management issues.
We report on the effectiveness of a computer simulation, based on a constructivist learning environment, to help students learn Mendelian genetics in a fourth year plant breeding course. The motivation behind this project was the inherent problem of helping students connect the abstraction of genetics to a real-world framework. The natural way to do this in a plant breeding class is to have the students actually grow out plants. However, even using ‘fast plants’, the semester timeline precludes the normal breeding cycle of phenotyping plants, selecting parents, crossing, seed production, and growing progeny. In addition, for an inheritance study, multiple generations are required, again adding to the time constraint. Therefore, this simulation allows students to move through this cycle as quickly as three mouse clicks per generation.
The learning environment was composed of the web-based plant breeding simulation, Greengenes, embedded within a case-based learning activity. Together, these components were designed to promote student conceptualization and understanding of key scientific phenomena and inquiry processes related to genetics. Using three word problems of increasing difficulty, assessments were conducted before and after completing the learning activity and included examining students’ conceptual understanding of, and ability to apply, three key genetic concepts: (1) genetic model identification; (2) genetic model application; and (3) genetic model testing. We also investigated the effects of this environment on students’ attitudes toward the use of a computer simulation in the course.
Following completion of the Greengenes learning activity, students displayed a significant improvement in their conceptual understanding of, and ability to apply, Mendelian theory. Specifically, the students showed the greatest advancement of understanding for the more advanced skills of model application and model testing. In follow-up interviews, a majority of the students noted that Greengenes enhanced their ability to understand conceptual models constructed from Mendelian theory, to apply the two laws of Mendelian genetics to real-world situations, and to apply appropriate statistics to a novel data set. One-on-one interviews with a sample of participants conducted after completing the Greengenes activity confirmed that students benefited greatly from this constructivist learning environment.
My experience as a new faculty member was similar to many others. Start-up funds were provided to get my laboratory up and running, which was a task that I felt well prepared to complete. Then my department head said, “by the way you will be the director for our first year student course,” which led to a level of anxiety since I had never had that type of responsibility and did not feel prepared for the course director role.
So what does a new faculty member do to start teaching an entire course at a new university while also balancing the requirements of building a program of research? You look at the curriculum and, most importantly, the syllabi used in the course previously and then try to duplicate what was done by previous instructors. This approach leads to a certain economy in the preparation of the course since all you are doing is replicating the structure. In a traditionally structured curriculum that means develop and give a series of lectures to the eager young minds taking the course and organize examinations to see if they mastered the material.
Developing the lecture content and level of coverage leads to a common misconception of all new course directors, that lectures need to be highly detailed and filled with content material. That was my goal in the course, and as I gave the lectures, I could watch the students in the class drift off and disengage from the learning. The students did acceptably on the examinations so I felt they had “learned” the material. However, when I later saw the same students in a different learning environment, it became clear that there was almost no retention of the content from my course. For several years, I tried many different approaches to the large group lecture style of teaching and remained consistently dissatisfied with the student outcomes. This led to a rather typical
assumption, that the students just didn’t know how important the material was to their life and didn’t appreciate my outstanding course. It also led me to increasingly focus on what I could control and receive positive outcomes from my research program, which consequently decreased my teaching activities.
Although I enjoyed my research and established a well recognized expertise in the discipline, I always wondered whether there might be a more rewarding approach to teaching. After 12 years as a faculty member, I had the opportunity to become engaged in a curricular change based on a small-group, inquiry-based pedagogy. This pedagogy required the participating faculty members to believe the students could learn without a series of lectures, which was accompanied by disbelief by many colleagues. Since I knew that the long term retention of material that I taught in lectures was poor, I was anxious to try a new approach to student learning. What became clear from the onset was that the students were eager to learn and when they were given the responsibility, they accepted it
willingly. Watching a small group evaluate information, apply information, and come to a new level of understanding was revealing and exciting. I could watch the students learn, and, over time, appreciate how the new information had been added to their knowledge base. Facilitating student learning in the small group engaged me in the learning process, leading to clear recognition that my contributions were helping the students learn the curricular content. This was a major change from my initial experiences as a course director. It became clear to me that ‘Teaching’ and ‘Learning’ are not always directly linked, and that the really important outcome in any educational model is student learning.
A small-group, inquiry-based pedagogy proved to me that I could make a much greater impact on student learning by assuming the role of a facilitator of active learning rather than a lecturer in a passive environment.
Before becoming an academic, I worked for a number of years as a communications director and advisor. From these experiences, I became interested in how media influences education policy and why there was so little written in this area when I started my doctoral studies.
From working in communications, it became clear some groups and people were seen as legitimate sources on education policy and others were not. Youth were generally represented as troubled or troublesome in media.
I looked at theories and practices around democratic education and media education to develop a research project that would involve youth-adult collaborative video production. My goal was to better understand how educators and students could challenge media stories and create their own stories.
I applied for and was awarded a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) that allowed me to design a class which involved graduate students in education and high school students creating short videos together. Part of the class time was just with the graduate students. We talked about theories of media education and youth participation, and had time to reflect on the process of working collaboratively with youth. On four full Saturdays, youth and graduate students worked together in small groups to create short videos about subjects such as advertising, a critical take on approaches to bullying, and masculinity. I was very lucky to have a team of incredible research assistants throughout the project.
This was a novel learning relationship for everyone involved. Some of the youth, who worked with a school’s principal, talked in interviews about how they had never worked collaboratively with a teacher. “Was she really the principal?”, they asked me. Some teachers talked about how surprised they were to find the youth actively interested in social issues
such as the environment and representations of masculinity.
The media education class seemed to be a success, but what students needed more time to explore was how different stakeholders interact in the educational policy making process and how media contribute to the ways that people in various roles within schools understand each other and, often, themselves. To look at these issues, I turned to a Hampton-funded project for which I was interviewing former premiers, ministers of education and journalists; this also allowed me to connect my research with my teaching. Luckily, my department let me create a second course on media and policy – I designed it to give students theoretical knowledge about political communication and its role in understanding education policy and to provide them with practical skills in engaging with media themselves so that they, in turn, can help their students to do the same.
A popular assignment was a mock press conference divided into a preparation phase followed by the mock conference. In the first class, the room was abuzz with energy when
Mary Lynn Young, a professor in our Journalism School came to talk about what makes a story. The class broke into small groups to prepare to do a press conference on various hot topics in education. Their preparation and expectations were put to the test a couple of weeks later when David Beers, a journalist and instructor in the Journalism School walked into the room. There was a sense of anticipation and some anxiety. Before his arrival, they had conducted their research, decided on who their spokesperson would be, written a press release, and in some cases even constructed a backdrop. Dave did not go easy on the students, who came away surprised at how hard it is to answer questions on the spot. They spoke about feeling less critical of the media and what can happen when a “story gets legs” that are different from the ones you were hoping for. They used this experience to connect more deeply with research on the role of media in the policy process and how they might themselves engage with media and assist their students with this topic.
When I served as dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill University, I worked with colleagues to transform how undergraduate legal education was carried out at the university. We took a close, hard look at our goals – what we’d like our graduates to be equipped with when we send them into our society to shape the world in which we live – and worked together to ensure our curriculum and instructions support those goals. We first established year-byyear skills and knowledge goals and we went on to re-design every single first- and second-year law course. In some cases, we compressed what had been 12 credits of work into six.
It wasn’t easy. It took major commitments on the part of the faculty to examine what we were accustomed to doing in the classroom. It took courage to experiment with new ways to convey our knowledge and expertise. But it was worth it: students approached me and told me how these changes positively affected their studies.
They felt engaged and became more passionate about their chosen career. My
colleagues and I became more enthusiastic about our teaching responsibilities and felt immensely rewarded when our students became more involved inside and outside the classroom.
Since I joined UBC, my administrative duties have kept me from teaching, except as a guest lecturer from time to time. I miss regular classroom contact with students and the joy of challenging them and generating new ideas. As a fellow teacher, I know many of us are deeply committed to our students’ learning. I also know from my own experience that when teaching and learning reach its highest potential, the rewards are enormous for both the teacher and the learner.
Fortunately, I am in a position as President and Vice-Chancellor to help ensure that as many faculty members as possible have access to the resources and support required to make teaching a source of positive experiences. Through the LEAD Initiative, we are actively seeking external funding to support departments and faculty members in their efforts to enhance teaching and learning. We are also looking for ways to facilitate faculty from all parts of campus to exchange their thoughts, tips, and ideas on teaching
and learning so that we may share in each others’ successes and find solutions to our daily challenges.
There is an abundance of great, dedicated educators here at UBC who strive to excel in both research and teaching. But just as we know our research is made better by challenge, and by opening up to new ideas, so too can our teaching improve through analogous processes – if we are confident enough to let that happen.
My sense is that many academic faculty are exceedingly busy and have less and less time. One outcome of this is an increasing measure of isolation: “The heart of the crisis in American education is the lonely work of teachers who often feel disconnected from administrators, colleagues, and many of their students” (emphasis in italics are mine; P. Baker, “Creating Learning Communities: The Unfinished Agenda,” 1999). The Canadian context can be but little different. What I am specifically referring to is the university teacher disconnected from her/his colleagues. We can access information with increasing ease and speed. What we seem to be losing in the process is accessing one another. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience that is locked away in individual faculty members, and this can be drawn upon by people connecting, in person. I would argue that there is not another suitable means either.
Let me illustrate. In 2002, Indira Samarasekera (now president of the University of Alberta) was awarded the Order of Canada. At the time, she was a professor in the Department of Materials Engineering here at UBC.
At a reception held in her honour by our department, she talked about her career and what had influenced it. She said that where she had learned the most was at coffee time or while playing a card game such as bridge with colleagues. This highly regarded and accomplished professor had derived great benefit from simply being with colleagues. It had been highly formative for her in her career. Regularly, she and others would take a break from busy schedules and heavy demands on their time to get together and talk about things that mattered to them in their work. It was a social, collegial setting, and it was informal. Undoubtedly the conversation had a life of its own, and it likely was quite unpredictable. It tapped into individuals’ experiences and knowledge, and provided a forum for sharing it. This type of knowledge is not written in books or journals, and it can’t be downloaded from the web.
My point, then, is that there is a wealth of knowledge and experience about teaching that is accumulated in the minds and hearts of faculty members at UBC. New faculty, especially, and experienced faculty as well can benefit from this. A very good way to get
that happening is for people to simply get together and talk about it; bring up problems, discuss things that worked well, and that didn’t, debate teaching and learning issues, make suggestions, encourage, and help. I suspect that if such gatherings happen regularly they need not take very much time; probably on the scale of a coffee break.
In many respects, this looks like a faculty learning community. I doubt that it would need to be formalized as such to be effective. Regardless, a few key things are needed or would be helpful. One is collegiality. The example I referred to above was an informal community of people who worked together. Common interests can’t hurt. Another factor is time. For the group I referred to, taking time out for a coffee most days was quite natural. It appears that time is harder to come by these days. Perhaps the “business case” to be made is that the gains may be very much worth the time invested. And while our concern here is teaching, such communities will naturally engage the whole of academic life.
Special thanks to Indira Samarasekera, President, and Charlotte Padilla, Records Coordinator and Receptionist, Office of the President, University of Alberta.
Shortly after joining the faculty at McGill University, I had the privilege of talking with a distinguished alum who had been taught by Stephen Leacock. His reminiscence of Leacock’s teaching provide a most useful measure for thinking about the extent to which lecturers extend responsibility to students, the level of confidence in their ability to participate in critical thinking, and independent understanding.
Apparently Leacock’s classes on economics and economic history were anchored about a clear sequence of themes and topics as well as a comprehensive and current reading list. These were “packed-out” because the lectures chiefly comprised Leacock’s interactive discussion of relevant current events or issues plus mapping of the readings that would most help comprehension of principle in the context of practice. Consequently, students were stimulated to read critically, and in terms of both their particular interests and context.
That paradigm has remained with me and, hopefully, resulted in students recognizing the primary importance of self-learning and academic self-confidence. The Leacock example has also inspired a series of seminars, mainly at the undergraduate level, organized here at UBC since I joined the Faculty of Arts in 1976. Among these have been seminars conceived around some form of exhibition or display. The most recent comprised readings in theories of spatial formation and practice linked to the mounting of an exhibition to celebrate the centennial of this university: “UBC by Design”.
The driving idea was the involvement of students, and our everyday compact of critical study of various types of data and thought, in reconsidering the historical evolution of the campus and of the institution more broadly enacting commemoration through the daily task of learning/teaching. The students not only put their examination of theory to
practical use, but also came up with remarkably interesting ways in which to exhibit significant changes in aesthetic, academic, political, and economic praxis. They used visual art as well as documentary approaches to bring out the important factors in decision-making, the forms of administrative governance, and the mindset of academic policy, not forgetting the physical and experiential fabric of the university. A notably astute invention was the projection of the Musqueam Declaration of Claim on top of one of the billboards for the Bastion development in the theological neighbourhood highlighting the complexities of place and of institutional memory.
A further extension of what might be termed co-operative inquiry has been the testing of a senior undergraduate seminar jointly devised with a doctoral candidate. Here the objectives are to provide undergraduates with a fully current set of readings that demonstrate the latest work in the field. The doctoral candidate is able to augment their own study and use of appropriate discourse, the critical review of their own related research analysis, and actual experience of course compilation and conduct. The selection of readings and topics is determined through collaborative discussion, but the final processes and oversight of student assessment remains with the faculty member. This year, the seminar examined cinematic and architectural representation and benefited by the currency of the research experience articulated to the students, the interactive method of teaching, and the clear indication of respect for students’ responsibility in learning.
“Valuable Advice for Yourself and Others”
This column shares ideas and strategies from colleagues across the disciplines. What and how do we encourage learning? How do we help each other be better at what we do? Thanks to Jeff Joyce (formerly of Electrical and Computer Engineering) for inspiring and naming this column: “As a teacher, I always look for the moment when I see an idea crystallize in a student’s mind, just like it did for me when something a teacher said or did caused a wash of fluid ideas to suddenly take shape into a ‘solid idea.’ I think of these experiences as a little bag of crystals that I carry with me now.”
A friend of a friend, apropos of nothing, recently asked me if I could help improve his teaching. I was flattered – what joy to be thought expert by a colleague! – but also frustrated. How could I help this person when all I knew about his context was that he wanted to improve it?
I thought I would have little to say, but interrogating myself for my most general ideas about teaching turned out to be unexpectedly fruitful. Give a shot at writing your own answers. You may find, as I did, that you have quite a bit of valuable advice for yourself, and you can rededicate yourself to taking it!
Here’s my answer...
1) Absolutely the number one most useful has been to write about my classes. When I’m being “good”, I spend 20 minutes after each class session writing a “post-mortem”, answering the questions: “What went well?”, “What went poorly?”, and “What surprised me?”. I write down any other anecdotes that come to mind and, if I’m studying a quantitative aspect of my class, record a data point such as the day’s attendance or a count of the number of student questions.
I e-mail the whole shebang to myself, since I can’t keep track of anything except my mail. If you’re not stuck in the dark ages like I am, you may want to use a blog.
These post-mortems have so many positive impacts: I’m more ready for my next class, I notice items that I must communicate with my students about (things they seemed glassy-eyed about, amazing things they did, mistakes I made...), I can “build karma” by summarizing a set of post-mortems into a great handoff to the next instructor, I can use them in publications, and I can share them with my TAs to keep everyone on track with the class.
Speaking of TAs, mine also share weekly postmortems, though I emphasize that theirs can be shorter. In my large classes (i.e., any class with more than one TA managing your labs or tutorials), the TAs’ postmortems are perhaps even more important than mine. Not only do they give me a sense for how my TAs are doing, but when delivered promptly, they can bring a train-wreck lab or tutorial under control for sessions later in the week.
2) Next up is to get feedback from students. I’ve read any number of articles that tell me how, as a good teacher, I can read my students’ mood, level of understanding, and social insurance numbers from the look on their faces. I think I’m a good teacher and, at least half the time, I have no earthly idea what my students are thinking. I’m so oblivious that I once noticed a student from another course sitting at the back of the class and using a laptop to surf the web during a timed quiz only moments before the quiz ended.
If you’re like me, you need to make explicit efforts to get inside those students’ heads. Regular questions, polls (whether by hand, coloured note card, or “clicker”), Classroom Assessment Techniques (see Point 4), open-ended “meta-questions” on assignments (that ask students’ views on the assignments themselves), and discussions with students in office hours and dropping by likely study locations all help a lot.
Examples of meta-questions I have asked: “What was the most interesting part of this assignment?”, “What could we have done to improve this assignment?”, “How long did you spend on this assignment?”, “What more would you like to have done on this assignment, if only you had the time?”.
Three pieces of advice related to the above items:
a) The biggest error instructors make when asking questions of students is to rush to fill the silence. If you’ve never consciously worked on this, I’d be willing to bet you wait less than five seconds after asking a
question of your class. Try counting the seconds off sometime and force yourself to “ride the bull” for at least eight seconds silently while waiting for an answer to each question. It will feel like a lifetime, but it will be worth it.
b) Not too far after that error is being intentionally or unintentionally insulting to students’ responses. I once audited a class at another university where the instructor’s typical response to students’ questions was “You’re very brave to ask that question.” Of course, he only needed to roll that line out a handful of times to shut down questions for the whole term. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so rude, but I do sometimes find myself unable to find the right positive comment to unexpected student responses, and an awkward silence or a “nice try, but no cigar” from an authority figure can be a strong negative stimulus.
This problem is easiest to fix by asking open-ended questions to which there really are many right answers or to which students really do lack key experiences or ideas to answer. If you care about such questions, you’ll find yourself genuinely engaged in the students’ answers and their reasoning, even when they disagree with you or with orthodoxy.
c) “Close the loop” with students. For any private feedback you get, come back to the students with a response. During the next class, summarize the feedback, explain what you’re going to do (or not) about it, and then honestly and openly tell students why.
Here’s a particularly tricky example: I sometimes take feedback on exams and get overwhelming numbers of suggestions to “scale the marks”. Sometimes I agree, often not. In the latter case, instead of ignoring the feedback, I come back to the class, tell them roughly what percentage of people asked for scaling and the type of reasons given, and then explain why I’m not scaling. Usually, I’ll also offer a compromise explicitly targeted at getting students to learn more, like allowing them to earn back a very small number of marks (like 3 in 100) in exchange for
additional work on exam questions on which they lost marks.
3) Talk to your colleagues about teaching. I have a weekly lunch meeting with my fellow teaching-oriented faculty, and I attend the Skylight Science Supper Series. Dropping by colleagues’ offices to chat helps, too. I also fold this into my committee duties when possible, snapping up opportunities to do teaching observations.
4) Read about teaching regularly. Tapestry (the TAG newsletter) in your mailbox is a good place to start. I also use the Tomorrow’s Professor mailing list. Of non-periodicals, I love the US National Academy Press’ How People Learn (free online) and Angelo and Cross’ Classroom Assessment Techniques. Effective Grading by Walvoord and Anderson gave me a whole new way to look at exams and other assessments: as the central expression of what matters to me in the course.
If you know a Computer Scientist well, you may wonder why I started at 1. Well, here we go… last and most important, if a bit out of order:
0) Care about your students’ learning.
Steve Wolfman is an instructor in Computer Science, a recent Killam Teaching Award winner, and a new father. He is the faculty director for his department in the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative. Steve suggests we have a shared blog for UBC faculty to upload post-mortems as a kind of teaching insights clearinghouse or support group. Would you join? Let Alice Cassidy (alice.cassidy@ubc.ca) know.
Meanwhile, you may find many of Steve’s recommended readings in the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth’s Resource Room.
This article was originally published in Tapestry, the Newsletter of the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG), Issue Number 53. 2008. <www.tag.ubc.ca/resources/tapestry/>.
In health care, quality refers to delivering the right care to the right patient, at the right place and time with the right resources. The public and many regulators and educators appreciate the importance of quality improvement or QI when it comes to providing medical care.
Sometimes doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals may find opportunities for QI in our health system, but the tasks may appear overwhelming, and they may not know how or where to start. This is why it is helpful to have our young doctors learn the principles of QI at an early stage of their training.
Although there are books and journals about theories on QI in Medicine, we feel it is most useful for our doctors to learn these skills through experiential learning as supported by the medical education literature. In the Department of Medicine Postgraduate Medical Education Program, we have developed an innovative quality improvement curriculum that combines lectures, interactive workshops, longitudinal tutorials, and experiential learning.
Our young doctors will learn the building blocks of QI, and then apply their skills in real life clinical projects in interprofessional teams over 11 months. We embrace freedom for our doctors to choose their own project topics and team members, and we provide tutorials to help teams achieve milestones. All teams will then present their project findings at the annual Department of Medicine Resident Day on Quality Improvement, whereby we recognize outstanding projects with an innovative QI award program. To further raise awareness, we invite an external keynote speaker to share their own trials and tribulations with QI work in the field. Our intention is to empower our postgraduate doctors with the tools to make changes to the health system so that they can assume a proactive role when they complete training. Through our innovative curriculum, our doctors learn a systematic approach to making changes in health care, to improve the
efficiency or effectiveness of service delivery, and to promote a culture of patient safety. Our experience indicates that many doctors who graduate from our curriculum continue to pursue QI activities upon completion of their medical training. Some of them have also assumed the role of peer mentors for their junior colleagues. Our QI curriculum and QI Day is the first of its kind in Canada and North America. It has received national and international recognition, and is slated
for integration into the curriculum of other university training programs. We feel it is important to adopt a scholarly approach in the study and dissemination of our experience through broad-based reporting and publications. We believe that our example illustrates the importance of creativity and innovation in developing curriculum and teaching and learning methodologies.
The incorporation of PowerPoint and laptops in the classroom has reduced many lectures to a version of ‘instructional karaoke’. The scene in your typical classroom has the instructor at a podium, connected like a patient to a number of cables – mouse cables, power cables, projector cables, clicker cables – you name it. The students sit, at a distance from the instructor, some attempting to be engaged, some drifting off and some hiding behind the comfort of their own podia – laptops, books, newspapers. The instructor struggles tied to his podium, fighting the distance, trying to keep students engaged and on task. The situation becomes increasingly uncomfortable for both instructor and student as engagement and immediacy begins to wane. The advent of the tablet PC was a hopeful sign for instructors who prefer the ‘Chalk and Talk’ method of teaching, but what can be done to prevent the instructor from becoming just another fixture in the room, tied down by a technology umbilicus?
In the fall of 2008, a series of brainstorming sessions between the three of us at the Centre for Instructional Support sought a solution for this problem. We imagined a system where the instructor was free to roam the classroom, projecting from his tablet, asking clicker questions on the fly, and really engaging the students. After much discussion, we finally proposed using a tablet PC and wireless technology to unhitch the ‘Chalk and Talk’ instructor from the front of the class. This would free the instructor to wander the room and present material from anywhere in class, even between the rows of the students.
Consider the possible effect in a large class – no longer is there the preferred position of the instructor at the front and with the students lost and disengaged at the back. No longer can the student hide behind a conversation, a newspaper, or a laptop screen and no longer can the instructor hide behind the podium.
In the early days, the instructor with a tablet PC finally had his mobile blackboard, but, unfortunately, was tied to the projector with a cable tied to the clicker antenna with a cable, which firmly fixed the instructor at the front of the room. Time for untethering! Using a wireless projector antenna frees us from the
projector cable and using a wireless USB adapter frees us from the clicker cable. The instructor is now mobile and can write, talk, and project from anywhere in the classroom.
Technology that honours the ‘Chalk and Talk’ paradigm of teaching frees the instructor to roam the classroom and engage the students where they sit – it’s not only possible, it’s here today! We’ve already tried this in EECE 364 this term and the classroom dynamics have completely changed. One student said, “I can’t get away from you.”
Photos by: Chris Balma, Thomas Billingsley, Rob Bos, Canadian Press, Paul Cubbon, Martin Dee, Ashifa Dharamsi, Glenn Drexhage, David Dunne, Rob Gailling, Chris Gorman, Paul Joseph, Nancy Lowe, Bruce McCaughey, Elizabeth Minish, Daniel Mosquin, Chris Petty, Rachel Pottinger, Mark Patrick Terrio-Cameron, UBC Alumni Association, UBC International Student Initiative, UBC Okanagan Alumni and University Relations, UBC Public Affairs, Lorne Whitehead, and Josephine Wong.
Video clips by: Brian Lin, Chris Gorman, Morgan Reid, and Weilai Li.
