Getting to know one another
What are you apprehensive about concerning being an LA?
What are you confident about concerning being an LA?
What skills do you have that will contribute to you being a good LA?
Attendance
Readings
Field Notes
Get to Know Your Students
Collection options
Mid-semester Feedback Survey
Reflective Presentation
Create a lesson/workshop/review
Before Meeting
Reading: How to Ask the Right Questions (Blosser)
Types of questions
Managerial - keep the classroom operations moving
Rhetorical - to emphasize a point, to reinforce an idea or statement
Closed - to check the retention of information; "right answers"
Open - to promote discussion or interaction; to stimulate thinking
Pausing after asking a question and getting a response
Word questions to avoid "yes/no" answers
Encourage students to ask questions
During Meeting
What were the main themes discussed in the online discussion?
Your mindset as a student
Mindset Quiz
Small group discussion: your own mindset
Your mindset as an LA
How might your mindset as an LA affect your students?
The mindset of students and your role as an LA
Where do you see yourself, as an LA, on the scale of Coach <--------> Answer Fairy?
Where do you think that your students will see your role as an LA on this scale?
Why would it be important to be aware of the mindset a student seems to be using? What clues might you get about this mindset?
What are some ways in which you can influence mindset?
Small group discussion: How are you getting to know your students?
Get to Know Your Students assignment
LA scenarios
Questions for both videos
What type of mindset did the student initially display?
Based on the language used, was the LA encouraging a growth or fixed mindset?
Did you notice the student’s mindset change?
Action steps / plan for fostering growth mindset as an LA
Sousa - How the Brain Learns, Chapter 3: Memory, Retention, and Learning
How Memory Forms
Formation
Storage
Recall
Stages and Types of Memory
Learning and Retention
Implications for Teaching
Teach New Material First
Shorter is Better
Rest Between Block Lesson Segments
Teaching Methods (lecture is the worst)
Learning Motor Skills
Daily Biological Rhythms Affect Teaching and Learning
Importance of sleep
Intelligence and Retrieval
Chunking
Other techniques below
Activities
Metacognition: Why are you learning?
Brain Games Double Dutch (2:55)
Names and faces
Groups Google Doc
“Memory, Retention, and Learning” - How Learning Works review
Demonstration regarding Thought Processing
Deep processing PowerPoint
Action Steps
Learn names and faces of students
Share techniques to learn and incorporate concepts into lesson you are creating
Look for patterns or other ways to break material into groups of three to four familiar elements
Organizing
Chunking
Brain Games clip - Chunking
Make rhymes to remember things easier
Tricks (Mnemonics)
Story / Visualization
Brain Games clip - list of 5 words
The Method of Loci / Memory Palace
Quiz yourself:
Anki (desktop)
AnkiDroid (Android)
AnkiMobile (iOS)
Additional Resources
“Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman is a great resource for learning more about the brain. Here is a summary: https://medium.com/@pashaps/highlights-from-thinking-fast-and-slow-parts-i-and-ii-d388b7ccded
How Our Brains Make Memories from Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-our-brains-make-memories-14466850/
How Understanding Your Brain Can Help You Learn: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_understanding_your_brain_can_help_you_learn
Debrief
Implementation of Formative Assessment and Effective Feedback action steps
Any metacognitive questions since last class? How have you been thinking about your own thinking / learning / studying?
Motivation
What motivates you / college students to be successful in a class? Activity
Call to Action
Review model
Powerful motivators for achieving academic goals
sense of belonging
self-efficacy
perceived disciplinary relevance
In discipline groups
to an instructor, your program, the LA program, or your Undergraduate Student Advisory Board
create a letter, advertisement, infographic, conversation outline, or something similar with information to help motivate students who are lagging behind or not interested in working hard
consider the structures that are already in place to support student motivation and imagine structures that could be implemented to better support student motivation
What do LAs do? What can LAs do?
What can / do instructional teams do?
What can / does your department do?
What can / does the university do?
Cooperative Learning
Reading
practical skills for students entering a workforce
building relationships and productivity go hand-in-hand
students not only “doing” things, but analyzing what they are doing
Elements of Cooperative Learning
1) positive interdependence where team members are reliant on one another to achieve a common goal, and the entire group suffers the consequences if one member fails to do his or her work;
2) individual accountability where each member of the group is held accountable for doing his or her share of the work;
3) face-to-face promotive interaction where, although some of the group work may be done on an individual basis, most of the tasks are performed through an interactive process in which each group member provides feedback, challenges one another, and teaches and encourages his or her group mates;
4) appropriate use of collaborative skills where students are provided with the opportunity to develop and implement trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills;
5) group processing in which team members establish group goals, the assessment of their performance as a team occurs periodically, and they often identify changes that need to be made in order for the group to function more effectively.
Where do you feel the group process may be working well or breaking down in your classes, based on the Elements of Cooperative Learning?
Action Steps
Do something to motivate the students in your class.
Previous week review
One good thing
Learning Objectives
Compare and contrast formative and summative assessment
Describe aspects of descriptive feedback
Differentiate between formal and informal formative assessments
Resources
The Lay of the Land reading Moss Brookhart
Formative assessment is to improve learning, not merely to grade or audit it. It is assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning.
Discussion Questions
How do you feel about formative assessment as a student?
How is formative assessment used in your classes (as a student and LA)?
How do you get assessment feedback as a student?
What do you appreciate the most and what do you find the most effective?
How do you provide assessment feedback as an LA?
How can you get feedback about your performance as an LA?
Topics
Mid-Semester Survey review
Soliciting feedback
Using feedback
Action Steps
Plan to use a CAT
Make a Kahoot
Make a poll for a live lesson
Debrief
Review of learning theory and study strategies
Lesson
Social Support
What makes up support- peers, family, work, etc.
Support at the University
Finding balance/stress relief
Learning Outcomes
Mentoring
Recognize benefits of mentoring.
Why first-generation students need mentors who get them
See yourself as a mentor, although LAs aren't formal mentors.
How to be a good mentor.
Differentiate between being a mentor and a coach.
Differentiate between Peer mentors vs. Professional mentors.
Find a formal mentor. (optional)
Eagle Mentor Program - alumni to student
Know how to maintain a mentoring relationship.
Know mentoring opportunities available to FGCU students.
Student Life Mentoring Programs
Accelerated Collegiate Experience (ACE) Mentoring
Honors
FGCUScholars Ambassador Program
Students in Health & Medicine (SiHM)
EnvironMentors Program
PAGES Program
WiSTEM
Orientation / SPARK
International Services- Eagle Ambassadors
Prevention and Wellness
Wellness Coaches
Peer Educator
CAA
Academic Skills Mentors
Peer Academic Leaders
MLD (Multicultural and Leadership Development) Multiple opportunities
LEAD Team
Emerging Eagles Mentor
Social Support
Recognize importance of social support.
Know social supports available to FGCU students.
Be Well Do Well flyer
Peers CARE
Prevention and Wellness
Occupational
Career Development Services
Physical
Campus Rec classes
Student Health Services
Food Pantry
Intellectual
CAA (Includes the Writing Lab)
Emotional
CAPS
Social
Clubs and Organizations – EagleLink
Environmental
Food Forest
ECO FGCU
FGCU Wildlife Club
Spiritual
Campus Ministries
Resources
FGCU Mentoring
Review of previous topics in the context of this point in semester
Growth mindset - helping students around time of first exam
Microagressions
What is something you have learned?
How did you learn it?
Ch. 1 How Does Students’ Prior Knowledge Affect Their Learning?
What are ways people learn?
Discussion question:
Bobby and Andy are two first year LAs discussing their teaching experiences for the week and what they have learned about mental models. Which LA do you agree with more and why?
Bobby: "My students have mental models which are always helpful when we're learning. I can help students build on their mental models about a topic we're discussing."
Andy: "My students have mental models that are sometimes helpful. Sometimes their mental models are really close to the scientific ideas I want them to learn and so I can build on those mental models. Sometimes students' mental models are so far off from what I want them to learn that I have to work with them to get rid of these mental models and then replace them with the correct mental model."
Current models students have aren’t worthless just because they’re not perfectly accurate. In fact, sometimes working with what they have and getting them to modify it is probably the fastest way to help the students learn something new.
Kid Logic This American Life
0:00 - 1:21
2:45 - 3:40
What is the best teaching you have experienced?
Everyone can learn in all ways but some people do have preferences and it is still useful to teach different ways
Presenting information in different modalities (visual, auditory, kinestetic, etc.)
https://www.literacynet.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html
Why do teachers teach the way they do?
How should teachers teach?
The Myth of ‘Learning Styles’ The Atlantic
LA's
“What the Best LA’s Do”
What do the best LAs know and understand?
How do they prepare to teach?
What do they expect of their students?
What do they do when they teach?
How do they treat students?
How do they check their progress and evaluate their efforts?
Teachers
Students
“What the Best College Students Do” (by the same author)
Presentation review
Semester review
What do you remember?
How did you use it?
Ranking the topics
Additional topic suggestions