by Steven W. Rose, Simpson College, IA

A quarter century of research, some focusing on the brain itself, have made it abundantly clear that the brain is an organ (Some argue that it is several highly connected organs.) that needs to actively shape and reconstitute knowledge before that knowledge is truly learned. This workshop will focus on strategies calling for college students to meaningfully work with knowledge in and out of the collegiate classroom so it can be recalled more easily and applied more generally. The workshop will be quite interactive in format, as are the strategies presented.

All of the following activities combine two elements: 1. They involve active participation on the part of the students. 2. The students get formative feedback about their knowledge/performance.

I. Out-of class-activities

The use of electronic “bulletin boards,” requiring students to post and respond to comments, has become quite popular this century so I will not address that methodology, but below are a couple of less high tech strategies that achieve some of the same results.

A. E-mail the instructor. The students e-mail responses to previous class discussions, new readings, or a combination of both. The following describes the way I have used e-mail both formatively and summatively.

Students explain four or five points from previous readings and discussions that they perceive as valuable.
They explain two or three points from the reading for our next class session that they deem particularly important.
They must choose one of these two options: either design an assessment item—multiple choice question or restricted response essay—relating to the previous discussions, or they can write a brief narrative about how one of the points they’ve identified relates to them personally.
I use a pretty simple evaluation system. If it’s pretty clear that the student has satisfied the aforementioned requirements, the student gets an “OK.”
I require so many OK’s” each quarter for students to get full credit.

One could do this daily—I have. It does lead them to do the reading more consistently, and thus is better, but it is extremely time-consuming. The method explained above is a compromise of sorts.

B. Response cards. This is a very low-tech practice similar to the e-mail response. At a session’s beginning, students are each given three-by-five-inch cards with their names and previous responses on it. They date their new response, and then write briefly something about what they learned in the previous session and another point about something they have gained from their reading for that day. These can be assessed and tabulated in a fashion similar to the e-mail responses, and, can also be used as a means of taking attendance (Rose, 1996).

C. Learning logs. These can be done in any variety of ways. Murphy Waggoner of the math department is a master at this. The key here is a cursory reading with instructor response focusing on a point or two, not a comprehensive reaction. otherwise, you’ll kill yourself.

II. In class “discussion” shapers

The next set of strategies are aimed at bringing required reading and previously addressed material to the “top” of students’ minds in the actual class setting. Many of them also spur student-to-student interaction in meaningful ways.

A. So what do you know? Before starting a discussion or activity, the teacher asks students to individually write down what they know about a topic or concept (Mullin and Hill, 1997). The instructor could simply collect these notes, or ask students to share orally. (Costa and Kallick, 2000; Howard, 2000; Sprenger).

B. Diagnostic quizzes. The instructor gives the students a brief quiz over their readings for the day and/or previous material (McIntosh, 1997). This helps the instructor and students know what the students know, and what the instructor should re-teach. I also give students the option of averaging in the grade they get on the quiz to their total average, if they choose.

C. One-minute paper. One can have students write a one-minute record of their understandings of a topic, etc. at the beginning of a class session (McKeachie, 2002). This can be about the previous discussions of that topic, about their readings prior to that day’s discussion, or a combination. These papers can be used in a three simple ways. The instructor can simply collect the papers and do an analysis of individual and group understandings, or the students can trade papers and discuss in pairs or small groups. A third method--students must volunteer to share their papers with the large group, but only share those understandings that have not been voiced first by the students who have gone before them. They quickly learn that those going first are have an easier time of having something new to contribute.

D. Prioritized lists. Students make a prioritized list of information. Again, that information can be from previous lessons, the readings for that day, or a combination. Again, students share these lists, but they also need to defend their prioritizing. (Asking students to develop a list of five to eight items seems optimal.) One may also ask the students in groups or as a whole class to develop a synthesis of the prioritized lists with rationales for their arrangement.

Another way to do this is to give the students a list of bullet points one might use to guide ones lecture/discussion and ask the students to prioritize that list. A third means is to give the students random list of points and ask them to organize the list into different categories, either generating their own categories or providing them with a set of headings.

E. Compare notes. The instructor stops mid-way through a class discussion and asks students to gather in pairs or triads for a few minutes. The students trade the notes they have taken thus far and discuss why they choose to include or exclude parts of the discussion (Bonwell, 1997). The instructor also has the option of opening up these small group discussions to the class as a whole.

F. Graphic displays. Many instructors make considerable use of graphic displays of information and concepts, e.g. Venn diagrams, fishbone charts, and so on. Likewise students can take information and concepts and facts the class has discussed, read about, or experienced, and display that information and concepts in a graphic fashion. One might give students a variety of types of graphic displays from which they may choose a style best suited to the relationship they wish to convey. This leads students to stronger metacognition and well as retention of the information and concepts.

Sometimes I ask students to justify and even debate their choices of type of graphic display, thus leading them to think more about the nature of the logic that connects the elements of their display. The initial selection of graphic display types seems to work best as an individual or small group activity as opposed to a large group discussion.

G. Inside circles/outside circles. This is a means of organizing discussion of a reading where a group of three to five students is placed in the middle of a larger circle of students. Given a prompt or two by the instructor, the inner circle must maintain a meaningful conversation for “X” amount of time. (Be very cautious: more than one or two prompts takes ownership away from the inner circle students. The outer circle students listen and perhaps take notes. The outer circle then queries the inner circle on points they feel need addressed.

The instructor then asks the outer circle folks to evaluate each member of the inner circle on that students’ knowledge of the material, ability to help maintain the conversation, etc. The instructor collects this feedback, which can be used in a graded way, and returns it to the inner circle folks the next meeting. This is a.k.a. peer scored discussion. Personally, I also want to be one of the scorers if the scores result in a formal grade.

III. Highly assessment-oriented activities

As mentioned above, many if not most of these activities can be used to formally, a.ka. summatively assess students. The following strategies are more directly tied to assessment.

A. Ongoing review sessions. Students generate what’s important, drawing on their notes. Again, the one-minute paper is helpful as a prompt. A good example of an appropriate time frame would be the last 1/2 of a Friday for 50 minute M.W.F. classes

B. Student-designed rubrics. Typically, teachers develop the criteria for assessment, but to promote student ownership and analysis of their work, we might give students a hand in that design. Teachers can sketch out am assignment—paper, project, etc.—then enlist the students to design the actual criteria for assessment (Bonwell, 1997; Mullin and Hill, 1997). One might begin by having individual students brainstorm the criteria for an exemplary paper, then turn in their lists with the instructor putting together a composite or share their lists in groups and have each group synthesize their ideas. I often start with one of these approaches to develop a criteria list for an exemplary performance then have students individually create initial drafts or products. After students have gotten to that point, we might brainstorm about the criteria and break it down into gradations of quality, in other words a true rubric. Students then use that rubric to assess their own rough drafts, etc. before creating the final product.

C. Peer evaluation/editing. While peer editing has been a mainstay in the language arts classroom for some time, it need not be confined to that area. Any subject area that has student create a product—a lab report, historical analysis, modeling of geometric principles and so on—can make use of peer analysis. Typically one provides students with the rubric that will be used to evaluate the product, and then have the students use that rubric, along with plentiful qualitative feedback, to assess another student’s work. Weaker students will gain insights about the assignment if they assess a stronger student’s product, and stronger students will, at the least, gain a stronger grasp of the criteria for quality performance. Typically, this strategy works best if, after the product is returned to its creator, the creating student reads the comments before the students share their assessments verbally, and the teacher should also assure that the discussions of the papers share the allotted time equally. This strategy can also be combined with student-designed rubrics as described above.

D. Revised criteria rubric. This strategy can be combined with either or both of the two strategies just discussed. Students have created a working “draft” of an assignment, using a criteria list or rubric as mentioned above. However, at that point the teacher provides them with a new rubric which basically speaks to the same indicators of quality as the previous one, but which is designed in a fashion—new terminology and phrasing, re-ordering of categories, etc., so that it seems rather new to the students. The students then use these “new” criteria to re-examine their work.

E. Student-designed test items. Students can design quiz or test items well before an examination. One might reserve 25 minutes of a class session weekly I prefer to have them do this at the individual level at the onset and in written form so I can determine the understandings of each student. Then I might to a pair-share or group activity, leading to large group discussion. We discuss the merits of these items, and that serves to both solidify learning and provide remediation for students who need it.

The list could go on, and I could get heretical by suggesting that one even let students rework papers or design their own assignments. I do. Why? In the words of Ken Bain (2004):

“Outstanding teachers recognize that that rules do not constitute academic or artistic standards. Thus, rules can be changed to fit individual needs whereas standards of achievement cannot . . .. As one instructor put it, ‘I want my class user friendly . . . because I’m interested in students getting it. If they don’t learn, I fail.’” Also, using any of these methods reduces coverage to a degree, but as I teach my teachers-to-be, “An obsession with coverage is only important with nudity and fertilizer.”

Also, any strategy involving formative assessment certainly seems in line with mainline cognitive psychology, i.e. Vygotski’s notion of proximal development where optimal learning occurs when a student can achieve a task with some, but not excessive assistance. Formative assessment also fits with the more esoteric “flow” theory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and others; flow theory holds that students must be both deeply challenged and yet confident in their ability to eventually perform a task before optimal cognition occurs.

Selected References

Bain, K. 2004. What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bonwell, C. C. 1997, Nov./Dec. Using active learning as assessment in the postsecondary classroom. Clearing house, 71 (2), 73—74.

Costa, A. L. and Kallick, B. 2000. Activating and engaging habits of the mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Howard, P. J. 2000. The owner’s manual for the brain: Everyday applications from mind-brain research. Marietta GA: Bard Press.

McIntosh, M. E. 1997, Nov./Dec. Assessing mathematical content knowledge. Clearing House, 71 (2), 92--96.

McKeachie, W. J. 2002. McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers, 11th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Mullin, J. and Hill, W. 1997, Nov./Dec. The evaluator as evaluated: The role of formative assessment in history class. Clearing house, 71 (2), 288--291.

Rose, S. 1996, Fall. Attendance cards: more than drudgery. National teaching and learning forum, 5 (6), 11—12.

Sprenger, M. 1999. Learning and memory: The brain in action. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.


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They Learn What They DO - Helping Students Whistle While They Work by Steven W. Rose, Simpson College, IA steve.rose@simpson.edu A quarter century of research, some focusing on the brain itself, have made it abundantly clear that the brain is an organ (Some argue that it is several highly connected organs.) that needs to actively shape and reconstitute knowledge before that knowledge is truly learned. This workshop will focus on strategies calling for college students to meaningfully work with knowledge in and out of the collegiate classroom so it can be recalled more easily and applied more generally. The workshop will be quite interactive in format, as are the strategies presented. All of the following activities combine two elements: 1. They involve active participation on the part of the students. 2. The students get formative feedback about their knowledge/performance. I. Out-of class-activities The use of electronic “bulletin boards,” requiring students to post and respond to comments, has become quite popular this century so I will not address that methodology, but below are a couple of less high tech strategies that achieve some of the same results. A. E-mail the instructor. The students e-mail responses to previous class discussions, new readings, or a combination of both. The following describes the way I have used e-mail both formatively and summatively. Students explain four or five points from previous readings and discussions that they perceive as valuable. They explain two or three points from the reading for our next class session that they deem particularly important. They must choose one of these two options: either design an assessment item—multiple choice question or restricted response essay—relating to the previous discussions, or they can write a brief narrative about how one of the points they’ve identified relates to them personally. I use a pretty simple evaluation system. If it’s pretty clear that the student has satisfied the aforementioned requirements, the student gets an “OK.” I require so many OK’s” each quarter for students to get full credit. One could do this daily—I have. It does lead them to do the reading more consistently, and thus is better, but it is extremely time-consuming. The method explained above is a compromise of sorts. B. Response cards. This is a very low-tech practice similar to the e-mail response. At a session’s beginning, students are each given three-by-five-inch cards with their names and previous responses on it. They date their new response, and then write briefly something about what they learned in the previous session and another point about something they have gained from their reading for that day. These can be assessed and tabulated in a fashion similar to the e-mail responses, and, can also be used as a means of taking attendance (Rose, 1996). C. Learning logs. These can be done in any variety of ways. Murphy Waggoner of the math department is a master at this. The key here is a cursory reading with instructor response focusing on a point or two, not a comprehensive reaction. otherwise, you’ll kill yourself. II. In class “discussion” shapers The next set of strategies are aimed at bringing required reading and previously addressed material to the “top” of students’ minds in the actual class setting. Many of them also spur student-to-student interaction in meaningful ways. A. So what do you know? Before starting a discussion or activity, the teacher asks students to individually write down what they know about a topic or concept (Mullin and Hill, 1997). The instructor could simply collect these notes, or ask students to share orally. (Costa and Kallick, 2000; Howard, 2000; Sprenger). B. Diagnostic quizzes. The instructor gives the students a brief quiz over their readings for the day and/or previous material (McIntosh, 1997). This helps the instructor and students know what the students know, and what the instructor should re-teach. I also give students the option of averaging in the grade they get on the quiz to their total average, if they choose. C. One-minute paper. One can have students write a one-minute record of their understandings of a topic, etc. at the beginning of a class session (McKeachie, 2002). This can be about the previous discussions of that topic, about their readings prior to that day’s discussion, or a combination. These papers can be used in a three simple ways. The instructor can simply collect the papers and do an analysis of individual and group understandings, or the students can trade papers and discuss in pairs or small groups. A third method--students must volunteer to share their papers with the large group, but only share those understandings that have not been voiced first by the students who have gone before them. They quickly learn that those going first are have an easier time of having something new to contribute. D. Prioritized lists. Students make a prioritized list of information. Again, that information can be from previous lessons, the readings for that day, or a combination. Again, students share these lists, but they also need to defend their prioritizing. (Asking students to develop a list of five to eight items seems optimal.) One may also ask the students in groups or as a whole class to develop a synthesis of the prioritized lists with rationales for their arrangement. Another way to do this is to give the students a list of bullet points one might use to guide ones lecture/discussion and ask the students to prioritize that list. A third means is to give the students random list of points and ask them to organize the list into different categories, either generating their own categories or providing them with a set of headings. E. Compare notes. The instructor stops mid-way through a class discussion and asks students to gather in pairs or triads for a few minutes. The students trade the notes they have taken thus far and discuss why they choose to include or exclude parts of the discussion (Bonwell, 1997). The instructor also has the option of opening up these small group discussions to the class as a whole. F. Graphic displays. Many instructors make considerable use of graphic displays of information and concepts, e.g. Venn diagrams, fishbone charts, and so on. Likewise students can take information and concepts and facts the class has discussed, read about, or experienced, and display that information and concepts in a graphic fashion. One might give students a variety of types of graphic displays from which they may choose a style best suited to the relationship they wish to convey. This leads students to stronger metacognition and well as retention of the information and concepts. Sometimes I ask students to justify and even debate their choices of type of graphic display, thus leading them to think more about the nature of the logic that connects the elements of their display. The initial selection of graphic display types seems to work best as an individual or small group activity as opposed to a large group discussion. G. Inside circles/outside circles. This is a means of organizing discussion of a reading where a group of three to five students is placed in the middle of a larger circle of students. Given a prompt or two by the instructor, the inner circle must maintain a meaningful conversation for “X” amount of time. (Be very cautious: more than one or two prompts takes ownership away from the inner circle students. The outer circle students listen and perhaps take notes. The outer circle then queries the inner circle on points they feel need addressed. The instructor then asks the outer circle folks to evaluate each member of the inner circle on that students’ knowledge of the material, ability to help maintain the conversation, etc. The instructor collects this feedback, which can be used in a graded way, and returns it to the inner circle folks the next meeting. This is a.k.a. peer scored discussion. Personally, I also want to be one of the scorers if the scores result in a formal grade. III. Highly assessment-oriented activities As mentioned above, many if not most of these activities can be used to formally, a.ka. summatively assess students. The following strategies are more directly tied to assessment. A. Ongoing review sessions. Students generate what’s important, drawing on their notes. Again, the one-minute paper is helpful as a prompt. A good example of an appropriate time frame would be the last 1/2 of a Friday for 50 minute M.W.F. classes B. Student-designed rubrics. Typically, teachers develop the criteria for assessment, but to promote student ownership and analysis of their work, we might give students a hand in that design. Teachers can sketch out am assignment—paper, project, etc.—then enlist the students to design the actual criteria for assessment (Bonwell, 1997; Mullin and Hill, 1997). One might begin by having individual students brainstorm the criteria for an exemplary paper, then turn in their lists with the instructor putting together a composite or share their lists in groups and have each group synthesize their ideas. I often start with one of these approaches to develop a criteria list for an exemplary performance then have students individually create initial drafts or products. After students have gotten to that point, we might brainstorm about the criteria and break it down into gradations of quality, in other words a true rubric. Students then use that rubric to assess their own rough drafts, etc. before creating the final product. C. Peer evaluation/editing. While peer editing has been a mainstay in the language arts classroom for some time, it need not be confined to that area. Any subject area that has student create a product—a lab report, historical analysis, modeling of geometric principles and so on—can make use of peer analysis. Typically one provides students with the rubric that will be used to evaluate the product, and then have the students use that rubric, along with plentiful qualitative feedback, to assess another student’s work. Weaker students will gain insights about the assignment if they assess a stronger student’s product, and stronger students will, at the least, gain a stronger grasp of the criteria for quality performance. Typically, this strategy works best if, after the product is returned to its creator, the creating student reads the comments before the students share their assessments verbally, and the teacher should also assure that the discussions of the papers share the allotted time equally. This strategy can also be combined with student-designed rubrics as described above. D. Revised criteria rubric. This strategy can be combined with either or both of the two strategies just discussed. Students have created a working “draft” of an assignment, using a criteria list or rubric as mentioned above. However, at that point the teacher provides them with a new rubric which basically speaks to the same indicators of quality as the previous one, but which is designed in a fashion—new terminology and phrasing, re-ordering of categories, etc., so that it seems rather new to the students. The students then use these “new” criteria to re-examine their work. E. Student-designed test items. Students can design quiz or test items well before an examination. One might reserve 25 minutes of a class session weekly I prefer to have them do this at the individual level at the onset and in written form so I can determine the understandings of each student. Then I might to a pair-share or group activity, leading to large group discussion. We discuss the merits of these items, and that serves to both solidify learning and provide remediation for students who need it. The list could go on, and I could get heretical by suggesting that one even let students rework papers or design their own assignments. I do. Why? In the words of Ken Bain (2004): “Outstanding teachers recognize that that rules do not constitute academic or artistic standards. Thus, rules can be changed to fit individual needs whereas standards of achievement cannot . . .. As one instructor put it, ‘I want my class user friendly . . . because I’m interested in students getting it. If they don’t learn, I fail.’” Also, using any of these methods reduces coverage to a degree, but as I teach my teachers-to-be, “An obsession with coverage is only important with nudity and fertilizer.” Also, any strategy involving formative assessment certainly seems in line with mainline cognitive psychology, i.e. Vygotski’s notion of proximal development where optimal learning occurs when a student can achieve a task with some, but not excessive assistance. Formative assessment also fits with the more esoteric “flow” theory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and others; flow theory holds that students must be both deeply challenged and yet confident in their ability to eventually perform a task before optimal cognition occurs. Selected References Bain, K. 2004. What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bonwell, C. C. 1997, Nov./Dec. Using active learning as assessment in the postsecondary classroom. Clearing house, 71 (2), 73—74. Costa, A. L. and Kallick, B. 2000. Activating and engaging habits of the mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Howard, P. J. 2000. The owner’s manual for the brain: Everyday applications from mind-brain research. Marietta GA: Bard Press. McIntosh, M. E. 1997, Nov./Dec. Assessing mathematical content knowledge. Clearing House, 71 (2), 92--96. McKeachie, W. J. 2002. McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers, 11th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Mullin, J. and Hill, W. 1997, Nov./Dec. The evaluator as evaluated: The role of formative assessment in history class. Clearing house, 71 (2), 288--291. Rose, S. 1996, Fall. Attendance cards: more than drudgery. National teaching and learning forum, 5 (6), 11—12. Sprenger, M. 1999. Learning and memory: The brain in action. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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