Small Teaching by J.M. Lang presents methods for making small changes in your teaching practices (hence the name) that can significantly improve your students’ learning. Each chapter provides the research-based evidence behind the practices Lang proposes so you can have confidence that Lang’s ideas work. The Coulter Faculty Commons will be boiling the Small Teaching chapters down into blog posts to provide instructors with concepts they can apply to a lesson, a class, or a course.
Let’s get started.
Chapter 1: Retrieving Every subject requires students to know some foundational knowledge to successfully engage in higher levels of learning. For example, they need to know what a line is before they can understand more complex geometric shapes or the history of the earliest immigrants to the North American continent before they can discuss the nuances of current immigration policy. For your students to be successful, they need to be able to retrieve knowledge so that they can apply what they know.
Students need to retrieve knowledge from memory, but as Lang points out, “if you want to retrieve knowledge from your memory, you have to practice retrieving knowledge from your memory” (Lang, 2016, p. 20). How do you get students to practice retrieving knowledge? To illustrate a simple practice Lang cites studies where students were divided into three groups: one was given additional study time before a test, one given a practice quiz before the test, and one group where no intervention was taken. In one of the studies students that were quizzed prior to the test scored two letter grades higher than those that weren’t. Perhaps equally significant, students that were given additional study time scored no better than those that received no intervention. Re-reading did not improve knowledge retrieval.
Rather than just think of quizzes as assessment activities, consider them a means for your students to practice knowledge retrieval. But quizzing can take many forms. Here are the Quick Tips Lang suggests in Chapter 1:
Give frequent, low-stakes quizzes (at least weekly) to help your students seal up foundational course content; favor short answers or problem-solving whenever possible so that students must process or use what they are retrieving.
Open class periods or online sessions by asking students to remind you of content covered in previous class sessions; allow students time to reflect for a few moments if you do so orally.
Close class by asking students to write down the most important concept from that day and one question or confusion that still remains in their minds (i.e., the minute paper).
Close class by having students take a short quiz or answer written questions about the day’s material or solve a problem connected to the day’s material.
Use your syllabus to redirect students to previous course content through quizzes or oral questions and discussion (Lang, 2016, p. 39).
Summer Beach Read
Small Teaching is one of SITL’s Beach Reads. Are you registered yet?
Would you like to require students to participate in a discussion, view a file, or some other prerequisite before moving forward in your Canvas course? Faculty who enjoyed Blackboard’s adaptive release tool will be pleased with what Canvas offers, as it’s easier to use, and more flexible.
You have multiple ways to release content conditionally:
By date and time
By requiring completion of another module, in its entirety
By requiring students view a file, or mark it as done
By requiring students participate in a discussion
By requiring students to submit an assignment
By requiring a performance threshold on a submitted assignment
It’s recommended that you build a module or two before configuring the conditional release settings. However, we encourage you to experiment with the tool at any time, as it opens up ideas for how you can design and facilitate your course.
To Get Started:
Go into a Canvas course, navigate to your Modules page, and click the three dots, as shown below, to edit the module. The settings will appear on the page.
Module Conditional Release Settings:
An Instructure-developed video provides a walk-through on setting up the settings. You’ll need to navigate to the two-minute mark for the demonstration on module settings.
When you set up prerequisite modules, students must complete a module before moving to the next module.
For each module, you can only set prerequisite modules that come before a specific module. You may need to reorder modules to create correct prerequisite availability.
Please note that you cannot prevent a student from accessing an upcoming module unless requirements have also been set for the prior modules. Requirements indicate the order that students are required to complete module items.
Note: You can only add prerequisites if you have added at least one module.
Contact the 24/7 Canvas Help if you need help with issues as you are working in Canvas. (NOTE: 24/7 Canvas Help goes away on June 30 and Help will be taken over by the WCU Helpdesk which is not manned 24/7).
Register for one of the Zoom sessions which will be held on Thursdays and Fridays at 11:00 A.M. after reviewing the Priming the Canvas Course.This week’s sessions will cover Discussions in Canvas as well as How to release content conditionally in Canvas.
Our next article will highlight Gradebook & Speedgrader; visitCanvas Blog to see all our Canvas articles.
The syllabus tool in Canvas is powerfully integrated with a course’s Assignments, Grades, and Calendar tools. When you select the Syllabus in the left menu of your Canvas course, the Syllabus tool will display.
The text in the top section [1] can be edited by clicking Edit, then working with the text in the Rich Content Editor (RCE). Below the text area [1] is an auto-generated list [2] of assignment due dates based on due dates set for your assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc. Events will be displayed in a calendar view on the right [3].
Instructors can disable the Summary of assignments and due dates displayed if they choose “Edit” and uncheck the box for “Show Course Summary.”
Note: If you are using a course template rather than building your course from scratch, you will see pre-populated information in the content area of the Syllabus. Some of the information on the page is linked to a Course Information Module that already contains academic resources and institutional policies referenced in the WCU Syllabus template document and in what was formally known as the “Academic Toolbox” in Blackboard. There is also supportive guidance in the content area of the syllabus tool that explains best practice for using the Syllabus tool and chunking out the information to the student from the Syllabus to a module, creating an improved user experience that is easy for students to navigate.
Contact the 24/7 Canvas Help if you need help with issues as you are working in Canvas. (NOTE: 24/7 Canvas Help goes away on June 30 and Help will be taken over by the WCU Helpdesk which is not manned 24/7).
Register for one of the Zoom sessions which will be held on Thursdays and Fridays at 11:00 A.M. after reviewing the Priming the Canvas Course.This week’s sessions will cover Canvas Course Storage as well as using Quizzes and Assignments in Canvas.
Our next article will highlight the Groups in Canvas; visitCanvas Blog to see all our Canvas articles.
In order to practice social distancing and safety precautions, the CFC will be operating by appointment only. No walk-in hours will be available until further notice.
We are here to partner with you, help answer your questions and find solutions that will work in this rapidly changing environment.
Authenticated WCU Zoom account will be required to join the session.
Visit zoom.wcu.edu to log in with WCU credentials, click “Join” and enter Meeting ID: 910 6773 8483
Interested in how to apply online teaching concepts or how to use the LMS or Panopto?
Each session provides a space for attendees to ask specific questions about their courses and interact with members of the CFC. Find out about Assessment, Discussion boards, using Zoom or other synchronus tools to interact with your students, as well as how to approach teaching online and flexible face-to-face changes. Review the video Playlist before attending a session.
Please contact the HelpDesk at 828.227.7487 or submit an IT Help Ticket for immediate course related requests.
Student needs are changing during this move to offering alternative modes of instruction. Faculty who want to find out what challenges students are facing can utilize a new web form created in Office365.
The form can be modified by faculty prior to sending out. The survey should take students 5 minutes to complete, and asks for the following types of information:
whether students expect to have reliable Internet access
times of day students expect to do online work
preferences for asynchronous or synchronous activity
accessibility requests (content in different formats, for example)
basic psychological and physiological needs
The survey form is available below. Note the options for modifying the survey questions, collecting data, and sending out the link (the Settings icon can be found top-right of your screen, to the right of the Share button).
Whether you’re teaching an Honors Section of a course, working with an Honors Student one-on-one through an Honors Contract, or just thinking about how to keep your Honors Students motivated in a regular class, studio, or lab, there are a variety of resources available with ideas for faculty on boosting learning outcomes for Honors Students.
This short article from the University Honors Program at Kansas University describes moving learning outcomes up to the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy in which learning goals are aimed at synthesis, evaluation, integration, and creation. These higher levels of critical thinking are key to inspiring Honors Students in their studies. They create modes of learning that challenge motivated students in creative ways that go beyond just doing more.
This paper (access provided through Hunter Library), written by faculty in The Netherlands, looks at instructional factors and how those strategies challenged their high-ability students. In their conclusions, they affirm that the combination of student autonomy, complexity, and teacher expectations come together to be effective in keeping these students motivated and challenged and ultimately improving outcomes. These factors further underscore the value of establishing learning outcomes for Honors Students that are at the highest levels of critical thinking in terms of course learning goals.
The Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt has a useful summary of Bloom’s Taxonomy on their website. This is a quick resource that summarizes the action verbs that are aligned with the different processes of learning, e.g. planning, producing, generating, checking, critiquing, attributing, organizing, and differentiating, corresponding to critical thinking at the highest levels of Analysis, Evaluation, and Creation.
Scager, K., Akkerman, S. F., Pilot, A., & Wubbels, T. (2013). How to persuade honors students to go the extra mile: creating a challenging learning environment. High Ability Studies, 24(2), 115–134. https://doi-org.proxy195.nclive.org/10.1080/13598139.2013.841092
Guest Blogger ~ Dr. April Talent
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