Teaching Naked Workshop A
Developing Learning Outcomes and Rubrics
Forget about technology. The easiest way to improve student learning is to bring clarity to what you want students to learn. Articulating what students will learn improves their performance and your course design. Rubrics can make grading faster, but they also increase learning by defining your criteria and standards. Rubrics are especially useful for promoting higher order thinking (evaluation, synthesis or creating). Rubrics can help clarify what seem like vague goals for students. In this workshop
• faculty will compare the different taxonomies of learning
• faculty will write learning outcomes
• faculty will discover the impact of rubrics on learning and grading
• faculty will design a rubric
• faculty will evaluate what elements of their courses most support their learning outcomes
Teaching Naked Workshop B
E-Communication and Social Media for Student Engagement
Technology provides many new opportunities to connect with students digitally and advance student learning. Create more class time. Use email as a teaching technique to introduce readings and stimulate reflection. Turn your office hours into learning hours (and do it at home). Provide more feedback. Improve motivation and the diversity of discussion with virtual learning communities. This workshop is focused on student engagement to prepare for class. In this workshop
• faculty will investigate why, when and how to use e-Communication
• faculty will develop an e-Communication policy
• faculty will compare the solutions and problems created by Facebook
• faculty will explore new ways to extend the classroom with Skype
• faculty will discover how to create virtual learning communities.
Teaching Naked Workshop C
Easy Technologies for Better Student Preparation, Reading, and Writing
Death to Powerpoint! Now what? Technology creates new ways for students to receive first contact with material, but it also offers technological solutions for improving reading and writing. We will practice creating active learning assignments that use free internet content, laptops, tablets or phones in or out of the classroom. Start with podcasts and online exams. Lower the stakes and raise standards with micro tests. Give students more opportunities to write. Study source documents: now that the human genome, congressional record or the Beethoven manuscripts are available online, what might students do in class to learn for themselves? In this workshop:
• faculty will search for discipline-specific online content
• faculty will examine the benefits of podcasts and videos for first exposure
• faculty will analyze the ease and benefits of online exams before every class
• faculty will experiment with new multiple-choice formats using Bloom levels and apply them in your LMS
• faculty will identify ways to improve reading and writing with new technology
Teaching Naked Workshop D
Reassembling the Pieces: New Activities and New Course Designs
Change is the root of learning. Technology offers a new way to present content, but that rarely sparks the sort of critical thinking or change of mental models we seek. If technology can give us more classroom time, how can we design experiences that will maximize change in our students? Dee Fink provides an excellent model for designing courses, but technology creates many more opportunities to rethink the sequence of activities. Bring a syllabus and we will examine how first contact, learning activities and assessment can all be reworked using new technologies. This workshops provides a framework and practice to redesign class sessions and assignments. In this workshop:
• faculty will construct a new type of assignment using technology
• faculty will develop new activities for class time
• faculty will analyze new options to traditional assessment in light of gaming research
• faculty will reassemble a course using the time shifting of new technologies
Teaching Naked Complete Course Re-Design Workshop (6 hours)
This day-long session consists of an hour of preparation and the four workshops in sequence. There is a video introduction (15-20m) and some reading as preparation. Participants will be asked to bring in a syllabus or a course idea plus a laptop (with internet access). Together the four workshops will allow for the design of one learning module and the provide the framework to redesign an entire course. If your learning center has course designers, I would include them and tailor this course to specific institutional needs (like a new general curriculum, for example.)
Teaching Naked Workshop for Administrators
Motivating and Supporting Change in Faculty
“Teaching Naked” is not an anti-technology approach, but technology is a tool that is only as good as the larger content into which it is fitted. The real challenge is motivating faculty to redesign courses with clear learning outcomes, assessment, and serious thinking about motivation and environment; students learn best when we combine high standards with a very supportive environment where failure can lead to change. The same applies to faculty.
Few of us would assume that simply watching other people cut hair, do surgery, or write a book would qualify us to do the same, but that is our assumption about college teaching. Despite the data, most of us base our teaching methods on the discipline-specific models we observed as students. The idea that faculty can design courses or curriculum by focusing on content and without recourse to the pedagogical literature is a long held, but utterly false, assumption that has prevented change in the academy. We need new structures to help faculty re-evaluate the importance of course design.
Preparation/Follow-Up
Chapter 10 from “Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology out of your College Classroom will Improve Student Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2012)
Combinations
Workshop B-C (2 hours)
Teaching Naked Workshop: Technology and E-Communication for Student Engagement
Face-to-face (naked) interaction between faculty and students remains our most precious and expensive teaching technique, so the most important benefits to using technology occur outside of the classroom. Technology provides new ways for students to receive first contact with material and instead use class time for interactions that can spark more critical thinking. But e-communication technology also offers many new opportunities to connect with students digitally and advance student learning. Give students more opportunities to write. Provide more feedback and more chances for students to connect with material. Lower the stakes and raise standards with micro tests. This workshop is focused on student engagement to prepare for class.
In this workshop
• faculty will develop an e-Communication policy
• faculty will investigate why, when and how to use e-Communication
• faculty will examine how podcasts and online content can transform student preparation
• faculty will search for discipline-specific online content
• faculty will analyze the ease and benefits of online exams before every class
• faculty will experiment with new multiple-choice formats using Bloom levels and apply them in your LMS
• faculty will identify ways to improve reading and writing with new technology
Workshop C-D (2 hours)
Teaching Naked Workshop: Designing New Interactions, Activities and Assignments
A best use of technology is to prepare students for more substantive interactions with material in class. We will begin by searching for new sources of online content, and then practice creating active learning assignments that use free internet content, laptops, tablets or phones in or out of the classroom. Technology can also be used to lower the stakes and raise standards with micro tests, improve reading and writing, and even create opportunities to study source documents: now that the human genome, congressional record or the Beethoven manuscripts are available online, what might students do in class to learn for themselves? All of these offer opportunities to sparks the sort of critical thinking or change of mental models we seek. If technology can give us more classroom time, how can we design experiences that will maximize change in our students? Dee Fink provides an excellent model for designing courses, but technology creates many more opportunities to rethink the sequence of activities. Bring a syllabus and we will examine how first contact, learning activities and assessment can all be reworked using new technologies. This workshops provides a framework and practice to redesign class sessions and assignments. In this workshop:
In this workshop:
• faculty will search for discipline-specific online content
• faculty will analyze the ease and benefits of online exams before every class
• faculty will identify ways to improve reading and writing with new technology
• faculty will develop new activities for class time
• faculty will analyze new options to traditional assessment in light of gaming research
• faculty will reassemble a course using the time shifting of new technologies