Situating Instruction in the Real World through Technology
Technology provides students with unique opportunities to apply classroom material to real-world or simulated real-world situations. This requires a systematic, structured, and thoughtful approach to designing "significant learning experiences" (Fink 2003).
Seminar
May 3, 2007
12:00-1:30 p.m.
402 Walter Library
East Bank, Twin Cities campusSee a UMConnect Meeting recording.
Subscribe to the podcast and vodcast.
The 2006–07 DMC faculty fellows will discuss five projects that illustrate some of the varied ways in which this can be achieved.
Moderators:
Lauren Marsh and Kim Wilcox
DMC, OIT, Twin Cities campus
Panelists:
Leonard Ferrington
Entomology, CFANS, Twin Cities campus
Frances Matos-Schultz
Spanish & Portuguese Studies, CLA, Twin Cities campus
Rebecca McComas
Veterinary Clinical Sciences, CVM, Twin Cities campus
Ben Munson
Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, CLA, Twin Cities campus
Patricia Schaber
Occupational Therapy, CAHP, Twin Cities campus
Readings
Bass, Randy. "The Scholarship of Teaching: What's the Problem?" Inventio 1, no. 1 (February 1999). http://www.doit.gmu.edu/archives/feb98/rbass.htm.
Bass points out that, in academia, identifying a problem is central to the investigative process, but we've not traditionally framed problems in teaching within the investigative paradigm. Redefining teaching as an object of inquiry, he argues, is the first step toward producing a scholarship of teaching.
Bransford, J.D., A. L. Brown, and R. R. Cocking. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000. http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?chapselect
=yo&page=1&record_id=9853&Jump+to+Specified+Page.
x=6&Jump+to+Specified+Page.y=5.
This book compiles research about teaching and learning into a highly engaging and readable text that is a valuable resource for instructors at any level of experience. Because this was a government funded project, you can access the entire book online.
Cox, Ana Marie. "A Professor at Notre Dame Sparks a Quiet Revolution in How Chemistry is Taught." The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 25, 2001): A12. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i37/37a01201.htm.
A professor questions the assumption that a large introductory chemistry class is supposed to act as gatekeeper to the discipline. Restructuring the course around peer learning and support aimed at those most likely to fail, he increases retention by 55 percent within a year.
Fink, L. Dee. Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. San Fransico, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003.
Fink begins with the assumption that "all teaching should strive to create significant learning experiences." The book engages instructors and those responsible for instructor support in reflecting on significant learning goals and designing activities to promote them. He introduces a taxonomy of significant learning that advances the work initiated by Bloom in 1956. With this as a starting point, the book offers a systematic approach to developing individual learning activities as well as effective and integrated course design.
Fink, L. Dee. "Publications." http://www.finkconsulting.info/publications.html.
This page on Dr. Fink's professional consulting Web site includes links to some of his major publications, including the "Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning," a 37-page workbook that introduces key ideas from his Creating Significant Learning Experiences book cited above.
Pace, David, and Joan Middendorf, eds. "Decoding the Disciplines: Helping Students Learn Disciplinary Ways of Thinking." Special issue, New Directions for Teaching and Learning 98 (2004). http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jissue/109792560.
Decoding the Disciplines encourages instructors to consider that our disciplinary expertise can be an obstacle to communicating with and teaching our students. The book presents a format for exploring how we as experts do what we do and considering how our knowledge and skills can be modeled for novices. The book was generated by faculty members participating in a faculty learning community; each subsequent chapter presents an example of a faculty member applying the process laid out in the introductory chapter.
University of Oklahoma Program for Instructional Innovation. "Tips on Teaching." http://www.ou.edu/pii/tips/index.htm.
This site provides access to course design guides based on L. Dee Fink's book cited above.
