Engaging in professional development workshops was indeed helpful in leveraging my goals as a teacher. It equipped me with the necessary skills and knowledge, which evolved me as a teacher and enabled me to help my students better. Discussing day-to-day experiences with others in the workshop, increased my scope as a teacher as I saw myself better prepared for multiple scenarios that I had not experienced before. Communicating with faculty from different backgrounds and experiences generated awareness of different pedagogical styles and offered large number of great options to choose for my own teaching.
Some take away points from each workshop and how I plan to implement them in future are as follows:
Workshop 1 (2nd Feb 2017): Why won’t they do the reading? Strategies to Engage Students in Academic Reading
- I have personally implemented the reading assignment strategies where students were assigned study questions from the reading. Students read and write the answers to these study questions before they come to class. At the beginning of the class, students are randomly called upon to answer. This is counted as their participation points for the class, along with their participation in group activities and discussions. I actually saw students did their reading and were able to contribute in a meaningful way in class.
Workshop 2 (20th Sept 2017): Getting Started with Active Learning - Strategies anyone can implement for engaging students and monitoring learning
- This workshop was designed using active learning and had set a perfect example of how active learning can foster student engagement and enhance learning. I implemented two active learning strategies that I learned from this workshop. One was the snowball fight, where students wrote about one roadblock they felt while writing their final literature review for research methods course. As it was anonymous, student were frank and we could discuss how they could mitigate their anxieties and turn in polished papers. The other active learning I use with great success was the carousel activity, where students designed four studies and helped them think differently for each scenario. I could see that the students were really engaged and were able to contribute in a meaningful way. This workshop indeed helped us think of different methods and formats could be used that align well with the learning outcome of the activity. It helped me immensely to plan my course in a well aligned manner.
Workshop 3 (11th Oct 2017): An introduction to Mastery Based learning
- Though personally I had never thought of something like this before, this workshop really helped me think about what was the most essential skill I wanted my students to develop because of my course and how could I plan my course in a way to facilitate that. Therefore this is what I plan to do in future - The three most important skills that students should acquire from Research Methods class is to critically evaluate a research, compile a literature review professionally (write professionally) and design valid and reliable studies. Therefore while designing the course each learning outcome should be crafted in such a way that these skills can be assessed. Also multiple opportunities should be given to students to demonstrate mastery in the so called learning outcome. These opportunities should be in diverse format. Scaffolding throughout the semester is critical in assessing mastery. Clear standards will be presented to students of what is expected to achieve a mastery level A grade on each of the outcomes. If they demonstrate achievement of those expectations they are graded accordingly. This will ensure that students scoring an A grade have truly mastered the skills we want them to master after that class.
- A mastery-to-attempt ratio can also be defined which signifies the number of attempts students took to achieve mastery. This should also be incorporated in the grading scheme to ensure students learn to mastery quickly and make the efforts from the start of the semester.
- My only concern with this is that doubles the work of grading. Giving multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery increases the workload of instructors grading. The only way to keep a check on this is to include mastery-to-attempt ratio in grading.
Workshop 4 (18th Jan 2018): Structuring the 3 hour course: Strategies to keep your students engaged
- In Health Sciences we generally have three hour class and having taught a three hour class, I have experienced myself how students disengage with time. Therefore this workshop highlighted some key elements of a three hour class, namely, clear objectives, defined schedule, activity/lecture, active learning and reflection time. I particularly find active learning to be useful in such circumstances. Incorporating activities where the student is compelled to physically move and pushed to use his mental abilities can help foster engagement even in the last hour of the class. Also presenting to students of what the class will look like in the coming three hours helps them to be prepared and focus attention.
Workshop 5 (9th Feb 2018): Group Work Sucks!...Preparing for and Managing Student Resistance to Active Learning
- In this workshop we discussed reasons for student resistance to group work and strategies to mitigate this resistance. The three essential strategies were framing, guiding and responding. I particularly liked the idea of framing active learning in the course. One particular example I would like to implement is - Students are asked to reflect on their perceptions of disadvantages of group work and design potential solutions to their concerns. They are provided with helpful links where information to address their concern about working in groups is addressed. Then they are asked to explain how they could help alleviate their concern during the semester. This helps students to better cope with their difficulty and engage in classroom more efficiently.
Workshop 6 (15th Feb 2018): A New Approach to Pairing Technology with Teaching and Learning
- A beautiful concept that I learned from this workshop is the Step Models in helping us leverage technology to achieve our targets for the students. It generally involves pairing technology with the the pedagogy and thinking how do we use technology further to walk through Bloom's taxonomy. Therefore laying out what technology would allow students to evaluate or create instead of just understand helps align technology with the learning outcome. For more details follow the link here - https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1FP2RvFwgk0V_2itX0S7gkJF-O88Nt5Nf
Plans for the future:
For future professional development around teaching, I plan to stay in touch with academia by securing a job as a faculty. Taking help from the Center for Teaching and Learning at the respective institute will help gain further understanding and develop skills as a teacher. I also plan to remain in touch with Dr. Megan Frary, Dr. Tasha Souza and Dr. Susan Shadle due to their expertise in this field. Online workshops and conferences could be another medium to develop expertise in this field.