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Hello and welcome to World canvass from international programs of University of Iowa
i'm Joan kjaer. We hear the Old capitol Senate chamber tonight to talk about
Teaching Innovation.
Education is always been important to Iowans and is
at or near the top of virtually every list of national concerns.
Effective teaching plays a crucial role in the learning successive students
my guests here tonight are going to share some of the creative and high-impact ways
in which teachers here at University of Iowa are engaging miles of UI students
contributing to both student success and faculty professional development.
This program is the first in a four-part series on teaching innovation and our
topic tonight comes this question
with new approaches do we get better results. Joining me for the discussion is
Jean Florman just my left ear
Our Director of the Center for Teaching Meghan jesse is in the middle. hi maggy
she's a senior IT director at ITS instructional services
and Wayne Jacobsen is UI assessment director thanks for being here.
so.. Jeane you were with a nice piece of a paper the other day that began with a
statement that education has always been
involving overtime in this country. what's new
about what people are thinking about education today
well actually hmm when I started that writing at a piece I was thinking of just starting
it off by saying everything
new is old.hmm I think that
a lot of what we do and call innovative has actually
been done especially in this country for at least a hundred and fifty years
I also think that when you.. when we talk about things like
increase guided learning which is asking students a series of questions to
sort of
dig into things you know since Plato talked about Socrates thats
a way of teaching. when i think of innovative especially on this campus
though
is the increased capacity to support faculty members
to take the risks to do new things in their own classes
and also to talk about how we can innovate across campus
and as an institution to improve
active learning for students. Right it's a huge direct for the Center for
Teaching.
so this is your mission right? to help the
faculty. hmm perhaps put something in a place that they
they had not done before and give them some support bring colleagues from across
campus together to our
place.yes at the Center for Teaching is part of the Provost's Office
and it was a on this campus the center started about sixteen years ago
and the mission if the center is to work
with others in terms of developing policy around excellence in
in teaching and learning and also the support- to present
support services for faculty members teaching assistants anybody who's
teaching
yeah yea yeah. well wouldn't term that has been used a lot in recent years and
I think we'll be talking about probably throughout the program is
the Tile experience, the Tile approach would you be able to explain
what that is. yes and actually the student union.
TILE stands for Transform Interact
Learn and Engage. it started about like three years ago
in..2009. four years ago
Its kind of an institution wide
effort to support transformative engaged learning
on campus. so it's it's it's involved
at designing some spaces learning spaces that well
well actively allow faculty members and students to do some new kinds of
teaching and learning
but its it's broader than just the spaces themselves in the technology
so and certainly maggy is sharp and has been very involved in that and
Wayne has been involved in assessing what's going on. Nice
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well so you direct ITS. mm.
this particular area of ITS. mm and
tell us what you doing. I mean ITS- information technology services thats
everything from
computers to these Tile classrooms to
to what else ? too many things.mm we've been involved
like with Jean since 2009 on the tile classrooms.
and what are they for in the Tile classrooms is a quite a bit of
Technology
to help support someone the pedagogies that happen in the spaces
general point out we don't always need the technology for those pedagogies but
there are things that faculty can do
in a more automated fashion and in easier fashion because they have that
technology in place
so we've been very active in the Tile classrooms our group is also responsible
for
pedagogically sound use of any technology
that's in a classroom or in a teaching space on campus
so we're responsible for things like Icon which is for people outside the university
of Iowa .that's our course management system
and it's one single course management system for all of the
students and faculty
I campus and newspaper actually I love them and in
any tool that fits into Icon like wikis or
collaboration tools all those things are things that my staff support
we also support all the general Senate same classrooms on campus
in the technology within them so that's about 250 spaces
that are centrally supported for faculty across campus
and in some others you know are our classrooms. I think we have seven
as have thus far the newest has opened
in the new Learning Commons and my staff was intimately involved in that project
as well if you're not familiar with that that's the new 37,000 square foot
Learning Commons that we partnered with UI libraries and the Pomeratz Office
its complete and is pretty fabulous it's right there in Main Library.
its northwards. mm so if I'm a student thinking about coming to
university of Iowa when I hear something about these
interesting classrooms that have Tile classrooms.
what are some of the things that would be inside that classroom. mm
all the Tile classrooms that we have at the moment, mm have
roundtables that hold nine students.
any idea of that is to have 3 sets of
three teams around the table the tables also include one laptop for every group
of three students
as well as a large a. a
screen a TV screen for them to project their work
up on the screen to the instructor in the room to the
their partners at the table and the two other students in the classroom and then
ample white board space for them to get up and grab a marker and really start
engage with
with each other at the pipeline. so in the larger spaces there's also a
microphone so that
in a discussion in the classroom they can hear each other across the space
but it's really meant to be that engagement at the table with their teams
and
very close contact with the faculty is the faculty member lose around
the room .well you used a phrase as pedagogically sound.
tell us what that means? mm we don't come
and my staff are very committed to not coming into a
a consult or engage with a faculty member to say with a new piece of
technology you should try it
our approach is what is the problem that you trying to solve in your classroom or
what is the objective you're trying to meet
was to listening carefully to the problems they're trying to solve with their
students
and identifying appropriate technologies that might
help them do that in a better easier more engaging way
and fitting the pedagogy that they're trying to use in that space or in that
time
or in that way and so mm for us it's never about we have a new gadget
and you should try it. it's always about what are you trying to do
and how can technology help you help you do tha.t hmm Wayne with
assessment have that obviously very and very very big needed university level
you need to figure out what's working and
and has there been an improvement in the mm
and learning ability of students and so on what do you
what do you look at when you try to figure out whether or not something
that maybe new may not be new whether its really working as well as good
I think we're we're very careful to answer try to ask the question what is
working for and I think we are we r on
..Excuse me, for example,we are very good at assessing
the final product. what was the assignment someone did what was the
answer they gave
when we start to move into somebody's new new innovative approaches. we start to
look at how did they get there
what were the.. what were the problem solving process. What with the
communication process with the group
or is it in a.. in a more traditional approach that's
been going on instructors have been engaging students
all kinds of ways there were interactive and inquiry guided
but but we have always wanted that part of the process we've looked at what they
had at the end
and and so we try to find creative ways to assess
um how was the group working together to solve problems with more insight
or more depth or become more independent at it
which is what we know and what students want to leave as problem solvers in
critical thinkers
I mean employers want to hire students who have those skills, faculty want the
students to have them um in these approaches we can start
to look at more of what's going on in in the middle of the process as well as a
what's loosely with them at the end. yeah yeah
we talked a little bit about what's new that maybe we should be
what whether a standard classroom might have looked I know they may not be such
thing as standard classroom but if you look at a
a large lecture for an incoming freshman a few years ago
I'm or even in some passes perhaps currently
I'm it does it
tend to be the case that there's a professor delivering information to
students
the students expected to absorb that information and then be prepared to
respond when
there you know they're as questions by Professor or when they have to write a
term paper whatever
kinda an outward delivery rather than that kind of
strong engagement that you trying to get here with some these new classrooms
well I would say that although the the room
the space design the size of the room am at the technologies in the room all
those things Chris
play a part in hell effectively and and in terms of
at the kind in teaching somebody's doing but I
when I don't want to say and in even
a hint at is that on all standard lecture
can't be very I'm effective
a very effective learning moment for students from
I think I think sitting and listening to us to its fine lectures
is fantastic um what these new spaces
in the new approaches that we're trying to encourage broaden that beyond
content delivery so that
we r and trying to encourage things like team-based learning
in class not project teams outside a class so much but
working together with the faculty member and your peers
to struggle with the material in class rather than having to do it solo outside
class in addition to to I am
encourage a instructors not just
faculty members but teaching assistants and and other instructors to
to drill down with students so that they get beyond the fundamental knowledge
base and start thinking more like
I'm graduate students are more the way they will have to do when they get out
of the world which is
why am i answering at this we had a guy come to that conclusion or that
that final number and what's my thought process what is this theory happen I
impact this theory in
and explain it to someone else um there's one
clad course that I think you'll hear more about in the next segment or 10
next segment
where one of the assignments that they did this week our last week was too
asked the students it's a its course called the origins of life in the
universe
they asked the students to go home over Thanksgiving and explain some
difficult scientific concept to their family
and then come back and write about how they did that and so
its it's trying to a support complicating
in risk-taking for both the faculty members and the students
months I'll yeah or and and I my I think to it but I think the country's double
but we think it was a traditional lecture with these more innovative
pieces
is that its it's not so much the space or the room or the
arm what it appears when you walk in its I'm
when a faculty member knows that they're doing more than just giving information
screens can get information in lots of places
and what with the faculty expertise brings us how do you think about the
problem
I would you use this how do you talk connections to this and other issues
and so that can happen in a in a what looks like a bird in a lecture very
profoundly
um and and being group project doesn't guarantee will happen
and it takes much more than I harding hours how to faculty bring their
expertise and thinking about the problems we framing issues trying
connections that
that to the beginner the student wouldn't be obvious just by reading at
in a text book I read mine and that's always going to be about an important
role for faculty member
always but in the world that we live in right now the exponential growth
have no knowledge that we have right now it's very hard
anymore for one individual to have all knowledge put into their head
but we have to think strive harder to do as help them understand how old to be
critical thinkers how to
determine whether information is correct or not and and and that's a
a different maybe kind of way than what's on the bus
learned growing up from I'm but there's no way that we can grasp on the now it's
it's available now in its everywhere and it isn't are correct
perhaps the faculty members are there for it for helping with that critical
aspect looking and information
I was working with a a faculty member wants assessing robotics course
and and he was actually kind of trouble because he had been
he had been teaching a course and up one point a person's Robert talk dial
and he was just embarrassed he thought students would think he was not
competent because his robot was close to work
and what is sure to me later was an assessment this the assessment you to
the courses
the students would say the best and the course is that the %uh the robot broke
because when he did is he started thinking a lot a while
why wouldn't it work this is pasta happen when i press this button on this
because and he started just thinking aloud to his process and after about 20
minutes a couple about to work
and other students expressed was are about never work
and soul we don't need to see a model above finished robot that always works
right we need to see how an expert makes a broken robot
work yeah because that's the problem we help the students and was very
a great insight for him and thinking how he'd approach to keep up on need to give
them my knowledge
if the finished product and when he realizes they needed to see the problem
solving and troubleshooting data analysis that brought him to his work
all the time
on and process in his lab at just the finished results
and actually that they're amazing there's a teaching assistant in physics
that Kiki and another TA a thinker teaching
actually teaching a course and he notify me a few
months ago he said we're were actually designing assignments and exercises
that we know will fail were not designing things necessarily that always
work in
instance so because they know and the instructor knows where it's going to
fail
and they can help the student get through that and it also
shows a student that there's a lot more life that isn't going to work
and scientific theory or at social
science theory our team humanities all those areas
have to cycle you have to come back you work through things they don't work so
you'd
go back to the beginning and say what did I didn't what can I do differently
so that students don't think there's always an answer and there's only one
way to get to the dancing
well
way
power
them
them
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well
%uh
does this change the
act clearly change
instead role of the professor in the sense that I would imagine things
and as he said his much more direct interactions and working with teens in a
very
3 at close basis and so on but I'm
it does it does it improved dissidents social interaction and the sense that
I am cafe that I have been unstinting based projects in my life
going back to school and other times sometimes it feels like to keep their 23
people on a team
who really do the work and you know the project more or less gets finished
because there were a couple hard workers there then there are others who perhaps
didn't get involved in it up how does the faculty person
judge their work if any of these individual students when you're working
in a team
their lot of ways and doing that I will say that the
the benefit have doing active engaged learning
in the class whether it's a tile Class A in the class
is that the faculty member is there when the struggles going on
and that's truth whether it's in team sir the size of the T
so that if there are problems if their problems within the team
and that can be in identified we hope right then in may be addressed later
but if they're intellectual if there's the intellectual struggle that's going
on to
that can also happened right there with the faculty member in with peers
so that you learned from your peers to a their lot of ways I've
assessing how well a team is working but it's a lot harder I think to do when
you say go forth and here out who your teammates are earning
and do a project outside class site
I think but it suggest who is ill we think I've make it less boring Creek I
deter director Paul stopping
Patrol is also learnt things as well and students who have not been on a team
before a great night
done after problem-solving will need some mentoring and
some and so when I think people have that experience as public and more
because his jeans at former group
to you can figure out from and realize that's part of what we are teaching
stint as how do you
function together intellectually creatively collaboratively
and tell that it but that's a scholarly thing to do not simply an efficiency
to put a bunch of people the same tables but that means some entering in some
um assessed along the way in giving feedback to students that they're not
perhaps
doing what they need to be in the group I'm so they start to learn
that bill from the feedback they get back and change I can do this better
and get more from the learning experience one thing I've appreciated
with innovations that we're working at the moment
across campus other faculty who have agreed to step up and take some risks
with us
in part to those risks have been to partner with staff
to build out their learning objectives and their content modules and their
their practices within the class but also to agree to assess what they may
have done previously
in comparison to what they will do after they've made a transformation to a
course
and for me I've been on this campus on my time in been involved in this for
several years
this is the first time I think that I'm really felt like we've been digging
deeply into
what what is happening with these changes is it the right thing to do
tweaking things as we go along these faculty urban really open
to working with staff members you know some of them highly educated PHD's
Masters students from
instructional design and the library sciences that's a really exciting place
press to be
to help faculty be successful doing this so I really appreciate personally
their willingness to do that and some other folks you have another segments
are exactly those people that are doing that with us
yet it was hard to narrow down
and there are a lot of faculty members doing a lot of amazing things on this
campus
and you know teaching learning is fundamentally a personal
relationship and in night I think
we have a lot of faculty members on this campus who
to recognize that and who really build their the teaching part of their career
around that that's kind of the core that they have a personal relationship
and they're dedicated to see their students learn and learn well
and learn how to learn not just link on 10 song
well part of the day come idea behind
the name it is that particular series teaching innovation is of course
innovations in teaching but you are also trying to encourage students to
become innovative in their own their own thinking
to to not just count on I'm here prior 12 years experience in how
how questions were hell grades are made and all those kinds of things but
to really become more innovative himself
i think is ideal asking the students to explain something
you know when imagine something big *** theory to their family a rethink giving
its
in secret and really great here so what do you think the future is here I know
then
the UI according to some conversations we've had
you guys really I'm doing some important work in terms and innovative
hi teaching processes ideas and so on but what do you see coming ahead
you know one of the things that I think is happening here
there's been there has been support for am faculty development around teaching
in one of the things that i think is starting is more the conversation
with faculty members about where do you see
teaching and learning in higher ed in five years where do you see
your role in how's that going to change because
is going to change I think ten years from now
a college education and faculty and
roles going to be quite different so beginning shackle t involved in that
conversation and then building policy
and support for for those changes I think it's really important
and and I think we do see and increasing value on saying we try to make something
better let us
let's get some evidence let us build as magazine bring some people into a look
at what it was before and see what's changed I think that's that's different
than I read
as I want to express as a student all we're really saying week we can
in our teaching the scholarly we can be
evidence-based we can challenge ourselves and when we don't like we see
we can make it better
and that's that seems to be across the campus sense that we have here
which is one final question to Maggie I'm students these days
come into University with wealth of experience
maybe knowledge gathered from the internet from social media all kinds of
ways information is shared and as you mentioned sometimes
is not accurate I'm I is that help to today's students and is that
obviously can't we can change it this is just the way it is but do you think that
that helps
a I students adapt to
new approaches in a way that that
you know it's is possible I find them personally pretty adaptable
yeah I also think that we overestimate how much they really understand how to
view
use technology a they know how to do the things that they've done with
with Twitter or texting database but very very well
but to think about going and doing online searches and critically looking
at those searches in understanding what they're saying they're not so
they're they're not so adept at that I do think they are extremely comfortable
in that world and the more comfortable we can become in that world to help
guide them in the right way
the better off we'll be they're not only comfortable but they expected
they come here expecting that kind technology and things like the Learning
Commons in
and are excited to see the tower classrooms but it's also an adjustment
for them
so we can't assume that they're just going to jump in and understand how this
works
from so I'm we're all sort of growing up in this together
yeah yeah well thank you when Jacobson and thank you Jesse
hand hygiene farm in thank you very much for being with us in this essay min
this is the first part of a four-part series on teaching innovation and with
Candace
and and we have us my guest coming up in just a moment
hope you can stay with us I'm please join us next week
at the same time for conversation teaching innovation focusing on big
ideas questions to be a lot of money think
where campers programming is available on you I TV YouTube
iTunes the International Programs website and care you I
John care for you I International Programs thank you very much for joining
see you next time welcome
%uh
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