89Once_youve_written_your_outcomes_and_objectives_and_planned_for

Once you’ve written your outcomes and objectives and planned for the methods you’ll use to assess student learning, the next step in course design is to look at the entire body of knowledge you intend to cover over the duration of the class and to break it down into logical units spanning all your class periods. Even though our first inclination might be to let the class evolve organically, disciplining ourselves to make and stick to a sched- ule ensures that we can achieve all our objectives by the end of the course.

We can break the task of making a plan for our weekly instruction into two basic steps: (1) create a long-range plan and a (2) determine a day-by-day schedule of instruction, readings, assignments, and assessments.

LONG-RANGE PLANNING

Your first job is to map out a master plan of instruction for the entire course. The easiest place to start is to create a chart or calendar broken into the number

Chapter 5

Planning for Effective InstructionPlanning for Effective InstructionPlanning for Effective Instruction

CHAPTER SUMMARY

n Long-Range Planning

n Modules

n Building Your Schedule

n Your Turn: Writing Your Assessments, Revisited

n Lesson Planning

n Scaffolding Instruction

n Your Turn: Planning Your Lessons

Mackh, B. M. (2018). Higher education by design : Best practices for curricular planning and instruction. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from amridge on 2021-10-10 03:30:10.

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of weeks of the course. You can divide the week’s tasks into specific class periods later on, after you’ve decided what you’ll cover. As you create this master plan of instruction, always keep your outcomes and objectives in mind.

Remember, if you have an instructional unit on your current syllabus that doesn’t relate to the objectives you’ve written, you’ll either need to omit it or to revise the objectives to include it. A chart such as the one presented in Figure 5.1 is helpful in working through your plans.

MODULES

One of the best organizational methods involves dividing the course into modules, each ending in an assessment. Minimally, this would include a midterm and a final, as is common across the landscape of higher education. An even better practice would be to create four modules by dividing each half of the semester into two

FIGURE 5.1 Semester Planning Grid

Week Date Topics and Activities Assignments and Assessments

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separate modules, each ending in an assessment. For example, you could place an assessment for Module 1 at Week 4, an assessment of the content in Module 2 at Week 8 (midterm), an assessment for Module 3 at Week 12, and a final exam at the end of Module 4 in Week 16. Modules can be of any length, from 1 week to multi- week divisions of study. They can build upon one another or can present discrete topics. The midterm and final assessments need not evaluate student learning of the entire half-term—they can measure only those modules with which they’re asso- ciated, if that makes the most sense in your particular course. The point is to build periodic assessment into your course by creating conceptual groupings of instruc- tional content.

1. Consider the entirety of your objectives. 2. Determine an appropriate assessment for each objective. 3. Input these assessments into your long-range plan, creating module

groupings.

To illustrate this point, let’s return to Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs. This course blends lecture, discussion, and project-based learning. Assessments in this course include several assignments, quizzes, an extensive project, and a final exam. Modules were constructed around these course benchmarks, aligning with the steps of the design thinking process:

Module 1: Ideation (Weeks 1–3)

n Introduction to design thinking; Virtual crash course in design thinking

n Why? How? What? Human-centered design and social entrepreneurship n Wicked problems and systems thinking n Quiz 1—Design Thinking and Wicked Problems

Module 2: Innovation (Weeks 4–6)

n Problem solving and problem finding n Lateral thinking n Critical and computational thinking n Quiz 2—Strategies for Ideation

Module 3: Implementation (Weeks 7–12)

n Entrepreneurship n Business modeling n Failure and risk

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n Prototyping and project management n Information for innovators n Funding and regulations n Marketing, branding, and social media n Quiz 3—Business Basics

Module 4: Evaluation (Weeks 13–16)

n Leadership n Ethics, histories, and social context n Project presentations n Final exam

Modules in this course align with the stages of innovation that students will ex- plore in the course. As an instructor, you need to evaluate your own course con- tent to see what works best for you. No concrete rules govern the creation of modules within a course. Rather, these groupings should align with conceptual divisions in your course content and with your planned assessments. If you’re not used to this type of organization, beginning with two modules is a good choice, one ending at midterm and one ending with the final exam. You can always refine your plans later, once you’ve taught the course and see where the natural stopping points arise.

Materials Selection, Readings, and Assignments

Before you can create a plan of readings and assignments for your students based on the modules and assessments you’ve created, you must select the print mate- rials you’ll use in your course. Textbook publishers abound, and many offer fea- tures such as online resources, pre-made quizzes and exams, and student study guides, among others. Your selection of course texts and supplementary materials such as articles from professional journals, multimedia content, guest lecturers, and even field trips should be governed primarily by your outcomes, objectives, and assessments. If the book, item, or experience you’d like to include in your course doesn’t align with these overarching concepts, you should carefully con- sider whether it is beneficial. If so, you must revise your objectives to align the item with your course.

Every course will necessarily utilize different materials, and even parallel sections of the same course at a university may vary in their materials if taught by different instructors. Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs uses excerpts from 10 different texts, published in a course pack. Students are encouraged to read those texts in their entirety, but it would be unfair to burden students

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with both the reading load and the expense of asking them to read that many books in just one semester when the course project takes up the lion’s share of their time. Instructors must approach this topic judiciously, as we’ll discuss shortly.

Reading Schedule When planning readings and assignments based on the materials you’ve selected, remember to keep student workloads manageable. Consider the number of pages of required reading very carefully. An average adult can read about 300 words per minute, and typical page is about 250–300 words in length, (both of which can vary widely, of course) for a rough calculation of about 1 page per minute. Does this mean if you assign students 50 pages of reading, it will take about 50 minutes to complete it? Unfortunately, that’s not actually true because we also have to factor in the difficulty of the reading material. If you ask students to read some- thing that’s immediately understandable, like a novel or newspaper article, this might be true, but textbooks or dense academic language will require much more intensive cognitive activity, not to mention the time required for note-taking. This increases the expected time for reading, sometimes double or more what you’d expect. In fact, technical reading rates might even be as low as 50 to 75 words per minute.1 That means 50 pages of technical reading, or 15,000 words (at 300 words per page), could require as much as 5 hours for a struggling student to complete.

Even though it might sound too obvious to mention, it’s also a good idea for the instructor to read the same pages as the students each time she teaches the course. A colleague shared a story with me about a summer school literature course she took during her undergraduate studies. As we know, summer school classes generally condense 16 weeks of learning into 8 or fewer weeks of instruc- tion, making for a challenging workload under the best of circumstances. The reading list for this class was quite long, comprised of rather obscure works that were all unfamiliar to the students. At the start of a class period about 2 weeks into the course, the instructor asked the students if they were having trouble keeping up with the readings. Feeling self-conscious, none of them spoke up. The instructor was crestfallen. “Oh,” he sighed, “I was hoping that you were, because I’m having trouble keeping up with them.” With that, all of the students admitted that they, too, found the reading expectations too demanding. This instructor had undoubtedly already read all of these novels when teaching past sections of the course, but by reading along with the students, he shared in his students’ expe- rience and kept the novels’ content fresh in his mind, allowing him to be well prepared for their class discussions. As the result of this discussion, he cut some of the selections from the syllabus, making the remainder of the class a much better learning experience for the students.

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Assignment Schedule Besides scheduling your assigned readings, it’s important to make a reasonable estimate of the amount of time necessary for students to complete each assign- ment, project, or research paper. As a general rule, it ought to take an average student about an hour to write a page of text. For many students, however, this is only the time involved in the actual writing of the page, not in researching source material or creating correct citations or a reference list (if required by the assignment), nor does it include time spend to refine and revise the paper prior to submitting it. Some students write more quickly than others, just as some read more quickly than others. Allowing an hour per page is a reasonable rule of thumb, but you need to bear in mind that individual students may find the task of writing to be much more onerous than others. In fact, some of us (including me) will take 2 or 3 hours per page of text, including research, writing, rewriting, and re-researching until it begins to align with our personal expectations.

We usually presume that our undergraduate students should spend 2 to 3 hours working outside of class for each clock hour in the classroom. For an average 3-hour course, therefore, students should be expected to complete about 9 hours of work outside of class. Empathy dictates that we should remember that ours is not the only course in which our students are enrolled. If the average undergraduate student takes 5 courses for a total of 15 credit hours per semester, and if each of those five instructors assigns 9 hours of outside work per week, this expands the student’s workload to 60 hours per week. Furthermore, an opti- mal collegiate experience encompasses co-curricular involvement such as clubs, teams, performing arts groups, and so forth, each of which makes demands on students’ time. Our students can easily face 80-hour workweeks, on top of their social relationships and commitments to paying jobs.

None of this ought to prevent us from expecting our students to complete the work we assign. But it does mean that we should take the time to calculate the total hours it’s likely to take our students to read, write, research, or otherwise accomplish the tasks we require each week. If some weeks require more than 9 hours outside of class, trading off with weeks that require less is good practice. It’s also a good idea to keep major events in mind when planning students’ work. Homecoming, Thanksgiving, Spring Break, and other days off are scheduled years in advance and most of us already work these into our plans. However, major sporting events, national conferences being held on campus, and a host of other campuswide happenings can impact even the most carefully planned schedules. If your institution’s most popular sports team is playing a home game against its greatest rival, it’s best to expect that your students will be distracted and to adjust your plans accordingly.

We should also be mindful of the monetary costs of projects we ask students to do, if this will require students to acquire supplies off campus, and whether

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they have the ability to do so. These hidden costs can have a significant impact on students’ learning experiences, sometimes even prohibiting them from remaining enrolled in our courses. In Surveying the Landscape, a professor of architecture2 discussed this financial barrier:

We require these students to go buy and make stuff. We lose a whole percentage of population when we require them to buy materials. Some don’t have $50 or $1000! I’ve seen some projects cost $1000. And this causes problems in assessment—how to compare a $1000 dollar pro- totype vs a cardboard one that someone couldn’t afford. So this is an exclusive club; this is a real problem. It doesn’t affect retention, but af- fects engagement in first place. I’ve seen students walk in and then leave when seeing what they have to buy. Then we look around and say, ‘Oh, our diversity isn’t there. How do we become more inclusive?’ Well, that cost is a big issue.

Your syllabus should include a reasonable estimate of the cost of required materials and a list of sources where students can obtain them. You should also encourage individuals to meet with you if they have problems meeting these expectations. I formerly taught an online course that asked students to purchase the latest edi- tion of the course textbook. Every time I taught the course, panicked students would email me saying they couldn’t afford a $75 book, especially on short no- tice. The newest version of the book was good, to be sure, but in my opinion as the course instructor, any of the prior editions of the book could suffice if nec- essary. I directed these students to Amazon, where used copies of older editions were available for less than $5.

I sincerely believe that we should do everything in our power to make our courses accessible and to place the fewest possible burdens on our students. If these costs are unavoidable, we need to make this information known to students well in advance. I know a student who was informed that the cost of tuition and books for the first semester of a community college nursing program would be about $1,900. On the first day of class, however, students were informed that there would be an additional $1,000 program fee and books would cost $500 more than they’d been told to expect. This student was distraught, very nearly having to drop out of the program when faced with nearly double the cost he’d been told to expect. Would we react any differently ourselves? If you wanted to install new carpeting in your home, agreeing to an estimate of $1,900 for the project, but were told on the day of installation that it would actually cost $3,400, you’d be enraged, right? Clearly, education isn’t a commodity like carpeting, but unfair or inaccurate representation of costs and expenses are just as unethical, even if they’re inadvertent.

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Implicit and Explicit Expectations Every instructor holds a set of expectations for students, which commonly involve things like meeting deadlines, classroom civility, correct formatting of written work, and appropriate use of college-level English. These are sometimes published in the syllabus, but many of us believe them to be self-evident. Of course, college students should use college-level English. Obviously, an assignment with a stated due date should be completed by that due date. Whether or not these expectations are made explicit on a syllabus, many instructors simply assume that their students will understand these as conventions of academic life.

Problems arise when any of these implicit expectations carries a poten- tially negative impact on students’ grades. Therefore, best practice requires us to include these expectations in our course objectives and proactively provide explicit classroom instruction in these standards. If a student could be penalized for using an incorrect style guide when writing a research paper, such as format- ting the paper in APA when MLA was expected, then the instructor must address this expectation by overtly teaching a lesson about MLA formatting. If a student could lose points for submitting a project after the published deadline, then best practice requires the instructor to first clearly and directly address this require- ment in class, providing a lesson on why meeting deadlines is an important aspect of professional practice in the given academic discipline. We cannot assume our students will automatically understand why we require them to meet our expec- tations unless we deliberately teach them what we want them to do and how to do it. We need to show our students what success looks like and provide them with the tools to actually achieve this success.

Many instructors whom I’ve met, whether consciously or not, subscribe to the idea of in loco parentis. That is, they feel it is their duty to take on the role of parent with their students, guiding them toward correct adult behavior. State- ments in defense of late penalties such as, “I need to prepare my students for the real world!” or “In the real world, nobody is going to make exceptions for you,” are common. This belief is incorrect on at least two levels. First, our students are generally at least 18 years old, which legally makes them adults. It is not appropriate to treat them as children. Next, the “real world” does provide some exceptions or exemptions for deadlines. Mortgage payments, for example, are due on the first of the month, but most lenders include a 10-day or 15-day grace period before late penalties are assessed. In cases where no such grace period exists, failure to meet institutional or contractual obligations carries an intrinsic consequence. If we fail to renew our drivers’ licenses or vehicle registrations, we could receive a costly ticket. If we consistently arrive late for work, we’ll receive poor employee reviews or perhaps even face losing our jobs, as is also the case with excessive absenteeism or failure to complete work-related tasks according to schedule. Productivity, punctuality, and professionalism are worthy goals to communicate to our students, but they must also be made explicit in our syllabi,

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present in our course objectives, and the topic of direct instruction that not only explains our classroom requirements but conceptually links them to the type of workplace most of your students will enter upon graduation.

As you begin planning for instruction, make sure that you schedule class time for these lessons, including every expectation or requirement that holds the potential to significantly alter a student’s grade. For example, you might decide to include an objective related to professionalism that covers punctuality, use of appropriate professional language, and strict adherence to published deadlines. These expectations should be supported by explanatory material in the course syllabus and written into your grading rubrics, checklists, and assignment direc- tions. We’ll revisit this topic in subsequent chapters, but it should be part of your plans from the very beginning of the process.

BUILDING YOUR SCHEDULE

Now that we’ve established our baseline expectations for what should be included in our courses, we can turn our attention toward mapping the structure of the course itself.

Step 1: The first step in building your schedule is to block out any scheduled time off, such as Thanksgiving or Spring Break. Then input your planned assess- ments for each of the modules you’ve created.

Step 2: Next, think back from each assessment to the teaching and instruction that should precede it, filling in the schedule with the specific topics and activities for each week of each module. You’ll need to anticipate:

n Lectures, demonstrations, work time, readings, and discussions that must occur before students can complete a project or take a written assessment

n The amount of time you feel is reasonable for students to complete a task, such as a creative project or research paper

n The number of in-class and out-of-class hours available to deliver requi- site instruction or complete these tasks

n Instruction in important classroom policies or assignment expectations

This schedule of assignments and assessments is just a skeleton, which you’ll flesh out with additional planning later on. Upon further analysis, you might want to re-order assignments or make any number of other changes depending on your previous experience with the course content or teaching in general. Making a plan for instruction doesn’t mean that it’s set in stone. Every syllabus is a work in progress, subject to continuous development. The point is to exercise your best judgment as you formulate a plan for your instruction, but then to use your professional knowledge and disciplinary expertise to make the plan work, imple- menting changes as necessary.

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Figure 5.2 shows a partial course schedule for Design Thinking for Entrepre- neurs. The grid has been divided into two class periods per week, with the first class of the week designated as a lecture section, and the second class dedicated to discussion and active learning.

FIGURE 5.2 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Schedule Excerpt

Week Date Topics Assignments

MODULE 1—IDEATION

1 Course introduction Introduction to design thinking

Read Brown Ch. 2 & 4; Kelly Ch. 4

Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking

2 Why? How? What? Human-centered design and social entrepreneurship

Read Brown Ch. 9; Collins; Liedtka et al. Assignment 1: 30 under 30

Discuss relationship between design thinking and social entrepreneurship based on students’ responses to Assignment 1 (due today)

3 Wicked problems and systems thinking

Read Cabrera Quiz 1: Design Thinking and Wicked Problems

Complete “Draw Toast” activity

MODULE 2—INNOVATION

4 Problem solving and problem finding

Read Michalko—all Read articles: “Sitting is the New Smoking” and “The Best Chair is No Chair” Assignment 2—The Chair Problem

Problem-solving activity Discussion of “the chair problem”

5 Lateral Thinking Assignment 3: Easy Company Tea—a Rube Goldberg Puzzle

Discuss student results on “the chair problem” Share Assignment 3, Parts 1 and 2; complete Part 3 in class. Assignment 2 due

6 Critical thinking and computational thinking

Assignment 4: Strategies for Ideation Quiz 2: Strategies for Ideation

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YOUR TURN: WRITING YOUR ASSESSMENTS, REVISITED

Before we move on to developing individual lessons, this might be a good oppor- tunity for you to write the assessments you’ve scheduled. Remember: Every- thing that happens in your classroom should lead directly to student learning, and all learning should be measured. It is your responsibility to ensure that your assessments fairly and accurately reflect your students’ accomplishments in your course. This necessarily varies between disciplines, topics, focus areas, and even individual instructor’s preferences. Furthermore, it’s best to use a variety of assessment mechanisms rather than relying on two high-stakes tests administered as midterm and final exams.

You should also develop detailed student resources with specific instructions and expectations for all projects, papers, presentations, or other product-based assignments and assessments. These resources should be attached to your course syllabus so that students can prepare to meet these expectations from the very first day of the course, including any rubrics or checklists you plan to employ when evaluating their work, clearly indicating all criteria that could result in penalties to a student’s grade and linked to the course objectives and program expectations.

Creating a large number of related documents can complicate the task of course planning. I’ve discovered that it helps to create a course map that lists everything needed for each week of the course, with columns for Readings, Assignments, Assessments, Student Resources, and Instructor Resources. I keep this document open on my computer as I’m planning, listing each item in the correct column by week. Of course, not every assignment needs a separate doc- ument for instructions, nor does every assignment necessitate creating a student resource such as a note page or instructor resource such as a grading rubric. I’ve found, though, that these documents tend to pile up and become disorganized as I’m planning, especially if I start rearranging the course content as I go. By keep- ing track of them on something like a spread sheet, I can be more productive. It’s also a great tool while teaching the course because it provides both you and your students with a quick reference guide for where to find the materials or informa- tion planned for each week.

Creating a well-planned course seldom progresses sequentially. We begin with our outcomes and objectives, and then we envision the assessments we’ll use, but once we go deeper into the actual planning and developing of readings, assign- ments, and resources, we engage in a process of iteration, revision, research, and creativity that moves between and among these steps in order to arrive at the final design of the course.

For instance, I determined that students’ first assignment in Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs would be to read an article I’d found on the Forbes website called “30 Under 30”—the magazine’s yearly list of notable young entrepreneurs. Then I set up an assignment grid for the syllabus titled “Written Directions for

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Assignments” dividing it into three columns: when the task would be assigned, when it would be due, and a short set of bullet-point instructions, entering this assignment as the first item in the grid, along with a hyperlink to the article, as shown in Figure 5.3.

Because this first assignment is relatively simple, I decided that I didn’t need to provide a template or a separate set of written instructions that students could download from the course web page.

Later in the planning process, I wanted students to complete a short reflec- tive summary of the strategies for innovation we’d been studying. I find it’s easier to grade students’ work if their papers are substantially the same, so I created a very simple template for them to use for that assignment. I also cre- ated a quiz covering the content of that module and an answer key for the quiz. Week 6 of the course also marks the beginning of the course project. Figure 5.4 is an excerpt from the course map, showing each of the items for the week. (Note: the “Readings” cell is blank because I didn’t assign any new readings for this week. Students had quite enough to do without reading added on to their workload.)

Students have access to the Project Documents folder from the first day of the course, but we explain the relevant documents during our discussion section in Week 6. The project has been thoroughly resourced in an attempt to eliminate as much confusion and ambiguity as possible and to maximize students’ successful completion of this task. Therefore, the Project Documents folder contains (1) a blank business canvas document; (2) detailed written instructions; (3) a grading rubric for the project; (4) a form that students will complete when they submit their project, summarizing their work; (5) instructions for creating and uploading the required video documenting their work on the project over the duration of the course.

FIGURE 5.3 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Week 2 Syllabus Excerpt

Assigned Due Description

Week 2 Class 1

Week 2 Class 2

Assignment 1: 30 Under 30 • Read “30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs, 2017”

www.forbes.com/30-under-30-2017/social- entrepreneurs/#4a368d385752

• Choose one of these social entrepreneurs: what was most remarkable about this person?

• Write a short (150–200 word) statement. • Be prepared to discuss this person in the Discussion

Group this week. Submit written response to instructor at the end of Week 2, Class 2

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http://www.forbes.com/30-under-30-2017/social-entrepreneurs/#4a368d385752

PLANNING FOR EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION

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LESSON PLANNING

Instructional planning begins with the broadest strokes, working backwards to the finest details. Once you’ve determined what your students must learn during the course you’re planning and how you will measure their acquisition of this knowledge and skill, we turn our attention to what we, as teachers, will do during each class period. This, too, begins with planning.

Mentioning the phrase lesson plans conjures up the notion of K–12, something faculty tend to meet with indifference or even disdain. Nevertheless, skillful instructors in higher education can benefit from planning their teaching activi- ties beyond the general weekly level, determining the specific activities that will occur in each class period.

While I’m planning each week of a course, I create the PowerPoints for my lectures. These don’t provide a fully formatted script for what I’ll say in the class- room, but they give me a conceptual framework that allows me to make sure that my instruction aligns with the assignments I’ve planned. It also reminds me of

FIGURE 5.4 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Course Map Excerpt

Wk # Readings Assignments Due and/or Project Task to be Completed

Assessments

(in Assessments folder)

Student Resources (in Student Resources folder) A = Assignment ** = must complete using document provided SR = Student Resource

Instructor Resources (Instructor Resource folder also includes copy of all items in Student Resources and Assessments folder, including answer keys)

6 A4: Strategies for Ideation ** Form project groups

Quiz 2: Strategies for Ideation

• A4: Strategies for Ideation**

• SR6-Critical Thinking

• SR7- Computational Thinking

• Project Documents Folder

• Week 6 Lecture

• Week 6 Lesson Plan

• Quiz 2: Strategies for Ideation

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resources I might want to create for students, and it helps to ensure that students will have been exposed to all of the relevant course content prior to administra- tion of the planned assessments.

As I mentioned previously, Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs is held twice a week, with the first class period devoted to lecture and the second to discussion and active learning. My lecture PowerPoint sets out the main ideas I want to high- light, drawing from or building upon the assigned readings or prior assignments. I don’t create a PowerPoint for the discussion sessions, but I do write an outline for myself that includes questions I plan to ask and basic directions for any student activities.

Crafting a lesson requires thoughtful preparation resulting from working knowledge of good teaching. It’s likely you’ve already addressed these key con- siderations while you completed the overall design of your course, but they apply equally to the plan for an individual class period as they do to the map of the entire progression of study. In all you do as a teacher, keep the following points in mind:

A. Rationale and Objective: What’s the point of the planned instruction? In other words, why is it important, how will you convey these ideas to your students, and what do you expect your students to know and be able to do after they’ve received this instruction?

B. Instructional Context: Where does the planned instruction fit into the overall design of the course?

C. Learner Support: What common student misconceptions or errors can you anticipate?

D. Enrichment: How might you extend student learning or challenge your higher-achieving students?

E. Assessment: How will you know if your students have learned what you intended to teach them during the class period?

Instructional Components

Good instruction usually includes five components: (1) the lesson objective; (2) a “hook” that grabs the students’ attention; (3) teaching, including both lecture and active student participation; (4) checking for understanding; and (5) independent practice.

(1) Objective: Just like the course as a whole, each lesson has a unique ob- jective. In other words, we need to ask ourselves what’s the point of what we’re teaching? What should students know and be able to do by the end of this class period, not just by the end of the course or program of study?

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Even if it’s strictly for your own reference, it’s helpful to create an outline of the major points you want to address during each class period. You might decide to provide these outlines to your students, freeing them to participate actively rather than focusing their attention on taking notes. This also serves to keep the day’s instruction on track. Instructors who use presentation software such as PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi (and so on) can create a note-taking copy for students or they might post an electronic copy of the lecture to the course website. That way, students who are absent can make up for the missed lecture, or students can review it to remember key concepts prior to an exam.

The day’s objective can be stated on the outline or course notes for the indi- vidual lesson, and it should also clearly relate to the outcomes and objectives of the course, as stated on the syllabus. Remember: every lesson and every assignment and every assessment should clearly and specifically relate to the outcomes and objectives of the course, and these should all be evident on the course syllabus.

The lesson outline should include key vocabulary terms and definitions appropriate to the day’s discussion. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it took us years to acquire the level of knowledge we now possess because the language of our disciplines has become second nature to us. I’ve spoken to many faculty members who hold high expectations that their students use correct disciplinary terminology from the first day of class. This is logical in an upper-division course. However, the instructors of intro- ductory courses, even those designed for majors, must deliberately teach the language of the discipline in order for students to be successful in the course.

(2) Hook: An excellent lesson should begin with a “hook” that captures the students’ attention. If you view any TED Talks on YouTube, the most effective and engaging speakers use this technique. The hook should only take the first 5 minutes of class and can include (among other things): – Alarming statistics – An interesting fact (related trivia) – A story or anecdote – Personal experience – Literature – Exaggeration – An image, artwork, a map, or other visual element – Audio recording/media clip – A graphic organizer (Venn diagram, concept web) – Questions – An example – An artifact – A riddle, joke, or funny anecdote

Note: Distributing copies of the lesson outline does not count as a hook, nor does saying, “Okay, Class, today we’re going to talk about ________.” That said, if

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you’re continuing the discussion from a previous lesson, you can just remind stu- dents of where you left off and then proceed. But, if you’re presenting something new, a hook is highly recommended. It establishes the tone of the lesson and puts students in a receptive frame of mind.

(3) Teaching: Once you have the class’s attention, you can begin your lec- ture or instruction. Instructional activities can include, but are not lim- ited to, lecture, discussion, demonstration, active student participation, project-based learning, or a combination of these and other approaches. (In-depth discussion of such pedagogical activities will be the subject of Chapter 8.)

(4) Check for Understanding: It’s not enough to end your daily instruction with, “Any questions?” A student who’s confused won’t usually speak up, and students might not realize they’ve failed to grasp the material until the test. One simple method of checking for student understanding is to use an exit slip: a half-sheet or quarter- sheet of paper containing one or two questions that students must answer prior to leaving the classroom. The same purpose could be accomplished by requiring students to post a response to your class web page or to send you a quick email. You don’t have to grade these exit slips (although you do have to read them), but they allow you to see what your students know or don’t know, guiding your plans for the next lesson. If many students exhibit the same lack of understanding, you can adjust your plans to address the problem during your next class period. This technique is especially valuable in courses where the day’s instruction contains pivotal concepts that students must grasp to understand subsequent course content, as frequently occurs in science and mathematics. Any time you intend to hold students accountable for any content, or when that content is foundational to subsequent learning, checking for understanding is definitely a best practice.

(5) Independent Practice: This is the purpose of assignments. Make sure that the tasks you ask students to do – relate to what you’ve taught in that class period, – touch on one or more of the course objectives, and – are within the students’ ability to accomplish independently.

Timing

Although you’re not required to plan your lessons down to the minute or script your lectures and questions ahead of time, it’s good to get a rough idea of how long you intend to spend on each part of your lesson.

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n Hook: 5%–10% of class n Lecture or Demonstration: 25%–50% of class n Active Student Participation: 25%–50% of class n Guided Practice: 25%–50% of class n Wrap-Up/Assignments: 5%–10% of class

Example 1 Given a 90-minute class period, the distribution of time might be scheduled in this way, but many variations exist.

n Hook: 5 minutes n Lecture/Demo: 45 minutes n Student Participation: 30 minutes n Wrap-Up/Assignment: 10 minutes

Without a doubt, it takes some work to develop strong lesson plans for an entire course, but the time you invest is well spent. You’ll not only create a working doc- ument that you can reuse each time you teach the course in the future, but you’ll be engaging in professional practice exceeding the standards of a typical course.

Example 2 Figure 5.5 is a sample lesson plan for a week of Design Thinking for Entrepre- neurs. I created a lesson plan template and then used this tool to plan each week’s instruction.

Lesson plans such as these don’t require the level of detail expected in K–12, where many teachers must script their every question and tie instruction to state-mandated standards. Most fortunately, we in higher education retain our academic freedom in this regard. However, creating lesson plans remains a best practice at every level because it helps us to anticipate the actions we’ll take, and subsequently allows us to develop or gather any resources, materials, and equip- ment we’ll need.

Lesson planning requires a substantial investment of time and energy, without a doubt. Once the task is completed, though, the semester is likely to go much more smoothly. You’re also moving beyond common practice, taking your teaching to an advanced level, which is definitely an admirable and worthy goal.

If you’d like to learn more about how to achieve excellence in teaching, I rec- ommend George Kuh’s High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter (2008). The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) offers an excerpt from this pivotal resource, including a chart of these high-impact practices.3 Kuh echoes many of the ideas we’ve been discussing, including

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FIGURE 5.5 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Lesson Plans Week 6

LESSON PLAN—WEEK 6

LECTURE CLASS 1

Week Number/ Topic

6—Critical Thinking and Computational Thinking

Lesson Objective Students will acquire new strategies for innovation through deeper understanding of critical thinking and computational thinking.

Materials and Equipment

Computer Projector/projection system/microphone PowerPoint presentation Internet connection

Hook Visual example—is the glass half full? (Slide 2 of ppt)

Instruction Compare critical thinking and computational thinking Critical thinking as a life skill Steps to critical thinking Define computational thinking Turn and Talk: High school track repair scenario Preview: Quiz 3 due before the Week 7 lecture Assignment 4—Strategies for Innovation due in this week’s Discussion class period.

DISCUSSION GROUP

CLASS 2

Materials and Equipment

Print out and make copies of the project requirements and grading rubric. Distribute to students.

Questions for discussion

What might you be interested in working on for your course project? What are the requirements for the course project?

Guided Practice Review the project requirements with students Emphasize the requirement that groups document their process. This could involve appointing a note-taker, using video, taking still photos, etc. Remind students that they may work alone, but that those choosing this option will be considered a group during discussions and worktimes even though they’re pursuing different projects. Allow student time to walk around and talk to each other freely, discussing their preliminary project ideas. By the end of the period, students should have determined their groups and begun to discuss possible project topics. Group members should exchange contact information so that they can confer outside of class.

Independent Practice/ Assignment

Students may conduct some independent, exploratory research in order to decide on their project topic.

Assessment Quiz 3 should be completed on D2L prior to the Week 7 lecture.

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n First-year seminars and experiences n Common intellectual experiences n Learning communities n Writing-intensive courses n Collaborative assignments and projects n Undergraduate research n Diversity and global learning n Service learning and community-based learning n Internships n Capstone courses and projects

Several of these topics will be examined at greater depth in subsequent chapters.

SCAFFOLDING INSTRUCTION

Most instructors have encountered situations where we notice that our students dis- play misconceptions or lack basic disciplinary knowledge, hampering their ability to learn what we’re trying to teach. For instance, university faculty members frequently mention that their students don’t know essential disciplinary vocabulary or complain that students lack basic skills or subject-area knowledge they “ought to know.” But how can we hold students accountable to know what they’ve never been taught? Students attending a live theatrical performance, for example, may lack basic knowledge of polite audience behavior simply because they’ve never been in this situation before.

Therefore, no matter how obvious or basic they may seem to us, we must systematically and deliberately teach these fundamentals regardless of whether we believe that students should already possess this foundational knowledge. We also need to deliver direct instruction in necessary skills, providing concrete examples and incorporating opportunities for students to practice these new skills before expecting them to perform at a level of mastery.

This may necessitate building additional lessons into your syllabus beyond the specific content you intend to cover. Such lessons might address

n Essential vocabulary n Instruction in new or foundational skills n Overt instruction in appropriate behavior during discussions, presenta-

tions, performances, and in laboratory or studio activities

Furthermore, it’s usually not enough to simply tell students how to do something. We need to provide deliberate, systematic, concrete instruction, building in op- portunities for practice, for everything we expect students to know or be able to do. This is sometimes called scaffolding instruction, which can be understood to occur in three phases.

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n Demonstrate: Direct instruction using models and examples of the skill students must acquire

n Facilitate: Guided activity, often in a group setting, involving supported student practice of the skill

n Evaluate: Independent practice of the skill, assessed separately from a content-area assignment

Example: Let’s say you’re teaching an introductory film course in which students will be expected to write a critical analysis of a particular film. You decide to plan a lesson teaching students how to meet this expectation successfully.

n Demonstrate: Provide explicit instruction in how to write film criticism by giving students step-by-step directions, sharing examples of professional criticism, and clarifying the specific criteria you’ll expect the students to meet.

n Facilitate: Divide the class into small groups and give each group a different prompt featuring a film that most students are likely to have seen in the past, such as Star Wars, along with the step-by-step directions you demonstrated in the first part of the lesson. Walk around the room, helping groups as they work together to complete the task. At the end of the allotted time, have groups share their critical analyses with the class, while you provide commentary and immediate feedback.

n Evaluate: Allow students to choose a film they’ve seen before and ask them to write their own critical analysis as a homework assignment. This is a formative assignment, so it should have a low-point value and be graded only based on the student’s demonstration of skill rather than the broader criteria you’ll use in grading more important student work.

A simple way to understand how to scaffold instruction is to think of it as:

Walk through: Walk students through the skill by demonstrating how to do what you expect them to do (demonstrate).

Talk through: Guide students as they practice the skill together under your supervision (facilitate).

Drive through: Independent student practice (evaluate).

Scaffolding is sometimes also shortened to: I do (demonstrate); we do (facilitate); you do (evaluate).

This approach is especially helpful for instructors teaching beginning-level courses or those open to non-majors, providing essential vocabulary, back- ground knowledge, or disciplinary skills through the course’s plan of instruc- tion. Admittedly, this seems very basic, and instructors often resent having to

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spend valuable class time teaching things they think students “should already know.” Think, though: How often have you been frustrated at students’ apparent lack of crucial knowledge and skills? Didn’t you wish someone else had taught them the things they need to know to succeed in your class? Whether or not this should have occurred, it clearly did not. That’s why it’s up to you to step in and provide this important learning experience, thereby enhancing your students’ chances for success in your classroom and in their subsequent coursework as well.

YOUR TURN: PLANNING YOUR LESSONS

Before completing this chapter, you should verify that you have accomplished the following tasks:

1. Aligning your outcomes, objectives, assessments, and assignments 2. Selecting instructional materials and experiences such as textbooks, sup-

plementary readings, field work, trips, guest lectures, etc. 3. Creating modules organizing your course content, each ending in an

appropriate assessment 4. Preliminary planning of individual lessons, including lecture, demonstra-

tion, and/or active student participation 5. Completing the assessment mechanisms such as quizzes, exams, projects,

presentations, or written assignments that you’ve planned and creating written student resources such as directions or expectations for each task that your students will be asked to do during the course

The time we invest in planning our instructional activities is never wasted. The more organized we are, the more deliberate and informed our pedagogical choic- es, then the better prepared we are to meet our students’ learning needs and to enhance their opportunities to acquire the skills and knowledge we intend to teach them to meet both our course objectives and our program outcomes.

Remember:

• Planning for effective instruction increases your potential success in meeting your course outcomes and objectives and helps to ensure continuing accreditation and strong instructor evaluations.

• A plan is always a work in progress. Each time you teach the course, you can modify and adapt the plan to reflect your growing expertise as an educator.

• Planning begins with the development of assessments, working backwards to the level of individual lessons. Know where you want your students to go, and then plot the course that will best help them to arrive at your destination.

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Notes 1 Thomas, M. (2017). What is the average reading speed and the best rate of reading? HealthGuidance. www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading- Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html 2 Interviewees in the Mellon Research Project were not identified by name in compliance with the University of Michigan’s Institutional Review Board protocols for the project. 3 Kuh, G. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. AAC&U. Excerpt available at www.aacu.org/leap/hips

Identify Ideate

Why do we need to create a comprehensive plan for our course instead of allowing it to evolve organically? Since our first priority is to ensure that our students will meet our course objectives and program outcomes, we need to plan and organize our instruction so that all of the content we plan to cover is addressed by the end of the semester and everything we do supports that priority.

How can we possibly plan everything before the course even begins? We need to take a strategic and systematic approach to our teaching, creating a plan of instruction and then digging deeper into each week’s planned content to anticipate our students’ learning needs, then developing each of the resources we will need in order to support them in achieving our outcomes and objectives.

Iterate Implement

When you teach, keep track of the times when you notice that an additional resource would have helped your students to be more successful, where you need to change the schedule, or noting any other changes you should make prior to teaching the course again.

What resources do we need to develop? Minimally, every assessment needs a rubric (or other grading tool) and a set of explicit written instructions. Each class period should have at least a rough lesson plan outlining what you intend to teach, along with any materials or resources you’ll need to do what you’ve planned.

FIGURE 5.6 Chapter 5 Design Connection

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http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading-Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html

http://www.aacu.org/leap/hips

CASE of AIDEN

INTAKE DATE: August 2020

IDENTIFYING/DEMOGRAPHIC DATA: Aiden is a 24 year old Black English male. Aiden’s religion is Protestant. He is single and attending the University of Maine for his Masters Degree in Finance. Aiden was born and raised in Liverpool, England and came to the United States 6 months ago to attend school.

CHIEF COMPLAINT/PRESENTING PROBLEM: Over the past three months Aiden reported things were becoming strange and he cannot explain it. He heard voices of an angel. It confused him since the angels’ voice was telling him to kill his roommate by suffocation. Aiden claimed that he heard fireflies telling him the roommate is influenced by Satan.

HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS: In the last several weeks, Aiden began to become socially withdrawn (keeping himself in his room) because he was suspicious of his peers in the dorm. With collateral discussion with his roommate, it was reported that Aiden had signs of disorganized speech & thought. The roommate complained about Aiden being disorganized in the dorm with papers all over. Aiden began spending his time browsing and chatting in Facebook about God and UFO’s. He would spend a lot of time online until he passed out.

PAST PSYCHIATRIC HISTORY: Aiden denies any past psychiatric history.

SUBSTANCE USE HISTORY: Aiden denies any use of illicit drugs. He does report occasional use of alcohol. He has been drunk as a teenager but prefers not to indulge that much.

PAST MEDICAL HISTORY: Aiden had been admitted to a hospital to get treatment as his wrist was injured due to a suicide attempt, six weeks ago.

FAMILY MEDICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC HISTORY: Aiden is the second from five siblings. Aiden denies any mental illness in the family.

CURRENT FAMILY ISSUES AND DYNAMICS: Aiden attends school for finance. His family continues to reside in England. His parents are very supportive of his attendance at an American school. Aiden was able to socialize with other students and professors. Before this onset he engaged in leisure activity such as surfing the Internet, kept his room tidy, did household activity such as washing clothes, and kitchen preparation.

MENTAL STATUS EXAM: Aiden appeared disheveled with poor hygiene. He was properly attired with hospital attire and had adequate eye contact. Aiden was able to cooperate during interview. There were some signs of anhedonia and inappropriate behavior. He raised his voice at one time during the interview. His mood was irritable with upset speech. He was not coherent at times. Sometimes there appeared irrelevant talk. Thoughts were preoccupied with obsessions, and persecutory delusions and ideas of reference. Perceptions showed auditory hallucinations. He was oriented: able to state person, place and time correctly. His short term memory was intact: able to retrieve game rules. His long term memory was good: able to recall previous history. Insight was good.

Chapter 2

Understanding Educational TheoryUnderstanding Educational TheoryUnderstanding Educational Theory

As we discussed in Chapter 1, all faculty members, regardless of our primary academic discipline, are educators. However, few of us have spe- cifically studied the ontologies and epistemologies of education, including study of educational or developmental psychology. These concepts are fundamental to understanding how our students think and learn. This chapter provides a basic overview, particularly with regard to young adults. Some of these theories are decades old, yet they remain staples of textbooks used in current educational psychology courses, such as the widely used Essentials of Educational Psychology (Ormond, 2014), among many other mainstays of teacher-training programs. We need not become experts on educational theory or developmental psychology, but gaining a working familiarity with these concepts can facilitate our un- derstanding of why we should implement the approaches to teaching and learning presented in subsequent chapters.

Nearly everything we human beings do is supported by theory and philosophy, although many of us remain unaware of it. In higher education, our actions are par- ticularly influenced by two branches of philosophy: ontology and epistemology.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

n Student Development Theory

n Related Theories

n Theories and Practices of Teaching and Learning

n Theories and Practices of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

n Rationale

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To keep things simple, we’ll define ontology as the study of the nature of being, which involves attempting to categorize and understand the kinds of things that exist. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, or as a professor under whom I studied for my PhD explained, it’s “how we know what we know and why we know it.”

Scholars are concerned with both of these philosophical concepts, but their applications across academic disciplines vary widely. Moreover, the more deeply we study any given discipline, the narrower our focus becomes. Once we reach the “terminal degree” stage, we’ve become super-specialists in just one knowledge area, understanding what exists within it and why this knowledge is important. In other words, we’ve mastered the ontology and epistemology of our disciplines. Therein lies our claim to disciplinary expertise. At this level of super-specialization, the ontologies and epistemologies of quantum physics would be self-evident to a quantum physicist, but they would be largely opaque to a political historian of Renaissance Italy. Likewise, the quantum physicist would lack sufficient under- standing of the ontologies and epistemologies of historical study of the Italian Renaissance. We know what we know, but we don’t know what other scholars know. Therefore, we gather together in colleges and universities so that collec- tively, we form a comprehensive assemblage of knowledge.

To better understand the ideas that support all of our work as educators, we’ll take a brief look at a selection of relevant theories of education. Since our design process begins with understanding our students, we’ll first consider some theo- ries of student development.

STUDENT DEVELOPMENT THEORY

From approximately ages 18 to 26, college students undergo a period of intense intellectual, social, and emotional growth. They enter college as teenagers, but they leave as adults who are presumably ready to find their own way in the world. Theories related to human development occurring during this age range include student development theory, developmental psychology, and educational psychology.

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cog- nitive development. His work disrupted longstanding beliefs that children were unable to answer questions correctly only because they lacked proper training. Piaget revealed that development progresses in discrete stages, influenced both by the growing maturity of children’s brains and through environmental input. He proposed that human beings acquire and use knowledge according to “schemas,” or mental maps about the world. For example, an adult would possess a schema

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for a basic task such as going to a movie: arrive at the theater, decide which movie to see, purchase a ticket, enter the theater, find a seat, wait for the lighting to dim, watch the coming attractions, and finally watch the movie. The environment of the theater, the progression of actions, and the experience as a whole would each be part of this schema. Young children have few schemas to explain the world around them, but these form as the child progresses toward adulthood.

Intellectual growth is a process of adapting to the world around us, and according to Piaget, it progresses through four distinct stages. First, infants begin life in the sensorimotor stage, marking a major developmental milestone when they are able to understand than an object hidden from view still exists (object permanence). Toddlers and very young children enter the preoperational stage, where they are able to think about things symbolically—a word or other symbol is understood to stand for the object itself. Older school-age children are in the concrete operational stage. They can think logically and work out problems men- tally instead of having to solve them manually. For example, a child in the preop- erational stage might not be able to associate the symbol “5” without counting the number on the fingers of her hand, but a child in the concrete operational stage can use the logical idea of “5” to perform mathematical calculations mentally. Piaget’s last developmental stage is formal operations, lasting into adulthood. During this time, human beings can develop abstract concepts and logically test hypotheses (Piaget, 1936, 1957).1

Although we in higher education might presume that all of our students have achieved the “formal operations” stage of development, this may not actually be the case. Keating (1979)2 found that between 40% and 60% of college-age stu- dents failed when attempting formal operation tasks. Dasen (1994)3 found that only one-third of adults ever reached the formal operational stage. For those of us working in higher education, this means we would be wise to implement some of Piaget’s recommendations for teaching an audience of learners in the concrete operations stage. Interestingly, these continue to exist among best practices in teaching and learning today. Figure 2.1 matches Piaget’s recommendations in the left column with some higher educational applications on the right.

Piaget’s theories remain a cornerstone of developmental psychology, although not uncontested. For example, Vygotsky (1934)4 and Bruner (1957)5 preferred to think of development as a continuous process and linked more closely with social interaction and language development. Nevertheless, Piaget’s theories remain influential to the present day.

Psychosocial Theories

Psychosocial theories, such as the foundational ideas promoted by scholars such as Erik Erikson (1959)6 view human development as a series of stages through which individuals experience changes in their thought processes, feelings,

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behavior, values, and the ways in which they relate to themselves and others. Erikson proposed that we can identify eight developmental stages, of which many undergraduates may still be in late adolescence and moving into early adulthood or beyond. Adolescence is marked by establishing one’s identity, setting goals and finding one’s purpose. Young adulthood involves developing lifelong relationships such as finding a life partner and making lasting adult friendships. These devel- opmental stages also include the development of fidelity, which Erikson defines as the ability to accept and make commitments to others even when differences are recognized.

Arthur Chickering (1969)7 built upon Erikson’s theories, proposing seven “vectors” or non-sequential developmental tasks that all individuals work through in their journey toward adulthood. These include developing competence,

Piaget Higher Education

Focus on the process of learning, not only the end result.

Instruction in strategies for ideation (e.g., critical thinking, design thinking, lateral thinking); institution-wide emphasis on teaching students to become “lifelong learners” and to acquire critical thinking skills

Use active methods that allow students to discover or reconstruct knowledge.

Discussion groups (humanities); studio- based learning (the arts); laboratory requirements (the sciences)

Use both collaborative and individual activities.

Project-based learning; collaborative learning; independent research

Match tasks to the student’s level of development.

Scaled courses of instruction with simpler content or tasks for freshmen, progressing in complexity to upper-class or graduate- level students

The role of the teacher should be that of a facilitator.

Student-centered pedagogies; flipped classrooms; online learning; independent study

Learning should be active, not passive. Internships, co-op and practicum experiences; project-based and/or collaborative learning

Problem-solving skills must be discovered— they cannot be taught.

Hands-on, practical learning, including all of the above

FIGURE 2.1 Piaget and Higher Education

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managing emotions, moving through autonomy to independence, increasingly mature interpersonal relationships, establishing identity, establishing purpose, and emerging integrity.

Student development theories are evident in our everyday observations of our students, whom we know to be highly relational and intensely focused on inter- actions with their peers. The communities in which students choose to associ- ate shape their collegiate experience significantly, such as co-curricular groups, roommates or housemates, romantic partners, or membership in athletic teams or performing arts organizations. This relational focus affects their performance in our classrooms. Knowing it’s normal for our students to be preoccupied by human relationships, we can plan learning experiences that tap into this power- ful motivator, such as collaborative learning and group projects. This knowledge also prepares us to exercise understanding and empathy when these relationships impinge on what we expect our students to accomplish. Mature adults learn how to manage their personal relationships and still perform their jobs adequately, but this is a developmental task most college-age students have not yet mastered.

Cognitive and Moral Development Theories

Cognitive and moral development theories focus on the ways people think. Law- rence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development8 explained that human beings progress through six stages occurring at three levels. Elementary school students move through the preconventional level, characterized by obedience to rules set forth by authority figures. In the second stage, conventional morality, individu- als follow social norms, first because they seek the approval of others and later because they accept the existence of law and order. The third stage involves learn- ing that morality is a social contract and developing a genuine interest in the wel- fare of others, leading to an understanding of ethics as a set of universal principles such as justice, equality, and respect for human dignity.9

Perry’s Theory of Intellectual and Ethical Development10 also posits that indi- viduals move through stages, beginning with Dualism, an interpretation of the world as governed by unqualified absolutes of right/wrong or good/bad. This is followed by Relativism, in which the individual recognizes multiplicity in the world and understands that all knowledge is contextual and relative, developing analytical thinking skills and the ability to evaluate different perspectives. Author- ity is seen as open to question, and individuals are able to evaluate their own thinking and to assess their own ideas and the ideas of others. Perry’s model is widely accepted among student development professionals, who regularly see the important transition between Dualism and Relativism occurring among the college students with whom they work.

Students who are still in the dualism phase of their development are generally willing to accept whatever their professor has to say as unmitigated truth, since

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they retain a belief in authority figures. Students who have entered the phase of relativism, however, are more likely to evaluate an instructor’s statements criti- cally and to seek additional corroboration, input, or verification before accepting information as fact. They are more likely to question course content, to disagree with assigned readings, or fail to view the instructor as a source of consistently reliable information.

Instructors and university administrators often say they want to teach students how to think critically, which is the fundamental skill of relativ- ism. Therefore, we cannot simultaneously become offended when we find ourselves on the receiving end of our students’ questions. Our best course of action in those situations is to provide cogent, thorough, and convincing explanations, just as we would if we were challenged by a colleague or by one of our administrators.

Typology Theories

Typology theories focus on individual differences in how people view and relate to the world. These include, or are based on, Carl Jung’s theory of psycholog- ical types.11 Jung proposed that human beings primarily receive information through either their senses or through intuition. They make decisions based on either objective knowledge or subjective feelings. They also tend to be either introverted or extroverted. Based on these categories, Jung identified eight per- sonality types, which were further developed by Katherine and Isabel Briggs who proposed that humans have four primary operational modes that govern their flow of energy, how they receive information, how they make decisions, and the everyday lifestyle they prefer (extravert/introvert, sensing/intuitive, thinking/ feeling, judging/perceiving). These theories of personality types remain prev- alent, often implemented through assessments such as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, a self-assessment tool that leads individuals to identify their dominant personality characteristics.12

Several other typology theories pertain directly to college-age individuals. For instance, Astin’s Theory of Involvement states that the greater a student’s involve- ment on campus, the more they will persist in their pursuit of academic success, influenced by their satisfaction with the campus environment: in other words, student involvement is directly linked to learning.13 Typology theories and their applications can be useful, especially when advising students about their choice of major or career, but assessments such as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, although popular, might not be generally applicable to a classroom setting. Rather, it’s wise for instructors to understand the following:

1. Students have many different personality types, which subsequently affect their learning in our classrooms.

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2. Students’ involvement on campus can help them to be more successful in their educational journey.

3. Students bring a number of preexisting cognitive and experiential conditions with them when they come to our classrooms, all of which affect their learning: past academic experience, family dynamics, personal preferences, and much more.

4. The institutional environment, the frequency and quality of our interac- tions with our students, and the character of students’ individual effort will all affect their performance in our classrooms.

To be even more concise: These theories tell us that treating all students as though they were the same is mistaken. Just as you and I are different from one another, and both of us are different from our colleagues, our students come to us as indi- viduals, not as a group. High-quality teaching and learning require that we offer the same kind of individual consideration to our students that we would wish for ourselves. Sometimes this includes offering the student additional help or tutor- ing when course content proves difficult, sometimes we need to exercise leniency and compassion, and sometimes the best choice is to stand firm on course poli- cies. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve discovered that erring on the side of empathy is seldom wrong.

Person-Environment Theories

Person-environment theories consider the relationships that can be identi- fied between the individual and the environment. John Dewey’s Education and Experience (1938)14 remains a seminal work in this field. Dewey proposed that the environment holds a profound and usually unacknowledged influence on the individual, leading to formation of habits that control our behavior and our thinking. Educators who shape the learning environment to encourage student participation increase engagement in the task of learning. Social environments shape human behavior by involving people in purposeful activities that entail specific consequences. Students must learn introspection and self-awareness to recognize the impact of the environment on their thinking and behavior, to eval- uate this influence, and then to gain a measure of control over their thoughts and actions. Dewey was a strong supporter of experiential education, empha- sizing the importance of learning by doing rather than by passive listening. He also proposed that educators must take into account the individual differences between their students, opposing traditional approaches to education in which a defined body of preordained knowledge was conveyed uniformly to all students. Sandeen (1991)15 built upon Dewey’s work, studying the environment of higher education, identifying the sources of influence on college students as including clarity and consistency of objectives; institutional size; curriculum, teaching, and

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evaluation; residence halls; faculty and administration; and friends, groups, and student culture.

The structures of higher education continue to operate on a model befitting the Industrial Age rather than the Information Age in which we now live, elo- quently explained by Sir Ken Robinson.16 Consider any large lecture section of a general education course, no matter what academic field: Students sit in an auditorium-style room, all facing a stage with a lectern, where the instructor stands and delivers course content by talking, sometimes assisted by visual aids. Students take notes as quickly as possible, and interaction between students and the instructor is minimal, perhaps limited to 5 minutes at the end of the class period where the instructor acknowledges a few students’ questions. All students complete the same assigned readings, take the same standardized exams, and write the same papers. The traditional classroom is effectively a factory designed to convey knowledge provided by the instructor, ensuring uniformity. Dewey, among theorists for the past 80 years, says that we should question this model of instructional delivery. As Graham Gibbs (2013) reported,

More than 700 studies confirmed that lectures are less effective than a wide range of methods for achieving almost every educational goal you can think of. Even for the straightforward objective of transmitting factual informa- tion, they are no better than a host of alternatives, including private read- ing. Moreover, lectures inspire students less than other methods, and lead to less study afterwards.17

We should question, then, why we continue to rely on a method of instruction that has soundly been proven to be less effective than other tools at our disposal. The work of Dewey, Robinson, and Sandeen, among many others, asks us to con- sider our practices as educators more thoughtfully.

RELATED THEORIES

Two further theoretical models factor significantly into discussions of educational theory.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” (1954)18 remains an influ- ential explanation of human motivation. Maslow proposed that an individual’s needs exist in two categories. Deficiency needs must be satisfied in order of importance, beginning with the most basic physiological needs: hunger, thirst, or other bodily comforts. Next, the need for safety and security must be met, followed by the need to belong and to be loved. Finally, an individual must meet

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their need for esteem: to achieve, to be competent, and to find approval and rec- ognition. Once these deficiencies have been addressed, an individual can act upon growth needs. These include cognitive needs to know, understand, and explore, followed by an aesthetic need for symmetry, order, and beauty. An individual can then move toward self-actualization, or realizing one’s potential, and finally to self-transcendence where the individual is able to connect to something beyond the self and help others to find self-fulfillment. These highest levels result in wis- dom, or the ability to know what to do in virtually any situation.

Maslow’s ideas have had a lasting impact on educational theory because they align with universal experiences and common sense, which is why we can eas- ily see their impact on what we do in our classrooms. We know from our own experiences that being physically distressed—hungry, thirsty, exhausted, too hot or too cold, among other things—prevents us from learning or from doing our jobs well. We know that students who don’t feel safe are too anxious to learn. We know that a sense of belonging and the presence of strong caring relationships in our lives help us to be more successful in whatever we choose to do. Every one of the levels of the hierarchy conveys something we’ve experienced ourselves. We should note that Maslow’s work has been criticized as being too simplistic and subjective, with some theorists making a point that a person can become self- actualized even in poverty, danger, or in other conditions that prevent basic needs to be met prior to moving up through the hierarchy. Nevertheless, it is helpful to understand Maslow’s concept in order to think about our students’ needs from a more comprehensive and holistic perspective.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Next, Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist who created a well- known and widely accepted structure for classifying levels of knowledge in higher education, partially in response to his observation that university educators relied much more heavily on lecture and student memorization of information than on higher-order cognitive activities.

The taxonomy, originally produced in 1956, organized the goals of learning, ranging from the most basic to the most complex: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. This structure has been widely used in education for decades, undergoing revision by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl19 that changed the nouns to verbs, renamed Synthesis as Creating, and reordered the categories slightly.

Figure 2.2 shows the current form of the taxonomy. Bloom observed that the majority of university courses featured the lower

levels such as recalling facts, while students had fewer opportunities to demon- strate higher-order thinking found in the upper levels of this taxonomy. The low- est levels of knowledge exist at the base of the pyramid, ascending to the highest

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levels at the top. Figure 2.3 organizes these terms in the opposite order, with the lowest stages of learning appearing first, then building to the highest levels at the opposite end of the continuum.

Bloom’s taxonomy is foundational to the task of writing outcomes and objec- tives for student learning in higher education, so we’ll revisit this topic in the chapters that follow.

When taken together, these educational theories help us to form a deeper understanding of the students we teach and the ways in which they learn. We enter into teaching with the presumption that students are adults such as our- selves, but in actuality, many of our students more closely fit the profile of a late adolescent, seeking to form their own identities and set individual goals. Now that we’ve prepared our thinking with this basic knowledge, let’s consider some further theories of teaching and learning that are relevant to higher education.

THEORIES AND PRACTICES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Although there are far more theories of teaching and learning than a single chapter can contain, the following overview allows us to gain an appreciation for some of

Crea�ng Evalua�ng Analyzing Applying

Understanding Remembering

FIGURE 2.2 Bloom’s Taxonomy

FIGURE 2.3 Bloom’s Verbs Hierarchy

LOWEST  Remembering: define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce, state  Understanding: classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report,

select, translate, paraphrase  Applying: choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate,

schedule, sketch, solve, use, write  Analyzing: compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine,

experiment, question, test  Evaluating: appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, evaluate  Creating: assemble, compose, construct, create, design, develop, express, formulate

HIGHEST

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the theoretical basis for what we do, or can aspire to, as educators. These theories and practices are organized alphabetically, not chronologically or hierarchically.

Traditional approaches to education might be termed instructivism, rooted in John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) in which Locke pro- poses that the human mind is a blank slate at birth, filled by accumulated expe- rience. Education has, therefore, historically been predicated on the belief that students’ minds are empty until filled by the instructor, who carefully plans and organizes a program of study on behalf of the learner. Learners must first become literate and gain a measure of self-discipline to pay attention to the information presented by the instructor and to remember concepts they do not understand, including rote memorization of information.20 Clearly this is an instructor- centered model of learning, with the student remaining a passive recipient of transmitted knowledge. It’s also the predominant model in settings from lecture halls to K–12 classrooms where students sit at individual desks facing the teacher and listen attentively to verbal instruction. Many other educational models have followed this longstanding norm, yet it remains preeminent nevertheless.

Andragogy

We usually refer to the work of teaching as pedagogy, a term derived from two Greek words: paîs, which means “child,” and agōgós, which means “guide.” How- ever, in common usage, all teaching is included in the term pedagogy, regardless of the age of the student. In the 1980s, Malcolm Knowles21 proposed that teach- ing adults was different than teaching children, an idea that lead to his theory of andragogy (andra- from the Greek word for man, ἀνδρ-).

According to Knowles, adults are self-directed, and they expect to take responsibility for their own learning, which impacts four key considerations in the design of learning experiences for adults.

1. They want to know the rationale behind what they are asked to learn. 2. They learn best through experience. 3. They approach learning as problem solving. 4. They need to recognize the topic’s immediate value.

Andragogy is a much different approach to teaching than traditional lecture-based college courses, where we presume the audience will accept any statement at face value as the wisdom of a qualified expert. Nevertheless, adult learners have moved beyond Perry’s dualism phase to a position of relativism, able to think about their own thinking (metacognition) and to question statements that they would previously have accepted unthinkingly. Adults can think critically and trust their own judgments. They approach learning skeptically and want to know the reasons why the course content is important, prioritize and weigh the value of

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the information or skills being imparted through the course, and accept respon- sibility for their own learning.

In my experience, most colleagues expect their students to receive instruction at face value, believing that students should simply accept their authority because they are experts in their academic fields. Few faculty members welcome students’ questions about why they’re being asked to learn something, and they often dis- like explaining how the course content will apply to real-world situations. Nev- ertheless, adult students learn better when they are empowered to understand the instructor’s rationale and can see the relevance of what they’re asked to learn.

Many faculty members I’ve encountered believe they need to “prepare stu- dents for the real world” by implementing strict classroom policies for missed class periods, late assignments, and so forth. Most adults, however, already know that punctuality, meeting deadlines, and absenteeism carry intrinsic penalties and rewards. They neither need nor appreciate inflexibility by an instructor who feels it is his or her bounden duty as an educator to teach life lessons on top of the stated curriculum.

A philosophy of andragogy leads instructors to treat their students more like peers than children who need instruction in behavioral standards. It also means understanding that older adult students may have encumbrances and responsibili- ties uncommon among typical 18- to 22-year-olds. Many adult learners have full- time jobs, young children, or aging parents in need of care. These nontraditional students greatly appreciate an instructor’s flexibility, such as allowing additional time to complete assignments or granting an exception to an attendance policy. We will discuss these concepts at greater length in our discussion about class- room policies later in this book, but the philosophical foundation of all of these ideas exists in andragogy—treating our students as though they were responsible adults.

Cognitive Flexibility Theory

Not all knowledge comes neatly packaged into a single discipline or context. Spiro, Feltovitch, and Coulson’s Cognitive Flexibility Theory (1990)22 examines the nature of the learning related to students’ ability to transfer knowledge and skills beyond the context in which they were initially acquired. To allow students to most effectively acquire transferrable knowledge, instruction must impart information from multiple perspectives, incorporate diverse examples or case studies, and allow learners to develop their own representations of information to maximize their learning.

Our instruction should not only apply within the four walls of a classroom or lecture hall. Students must be able to implement their learning in external con- texts or situations. Instructors can incorporate this knowledge into their planned teaching, providing explanations and examples of how course topics exist in

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external contexts and designing learning experiences that allow students to prac- tice this cognitive flexibility. Perhaps the best demonstration of cognitive flexibil- ity would be the 1980s television program MacGyver, in which the protagonist was a secret agent with an uncanny ability to use everyday objects resourcefully based on his advanced scientific knowledge. Instructors concerned with imparting cog- nitive flexibility to their students will incorporate activities that require students to apply knowledge or skills in unfamiliar or novel contexts. Our students aren’t likely to emulate MacGuyver’s ingenious uses for paper clips and duct tape, but we do need to prepare them to apply their classroom learning to situations we can’t anticipate at the time of our instruction.

Constructivist Theory

Cognitive Flexibility Theory is based on a constructivist theory of learning (Jerome Bruner, 1960),23 which states that learning is an active process through which learners build new knowledge upon the knowledge they’ve already acquired, standing in marked contrast to “instructivism.” Piaget’s idea of “schemas” is appli- cable in constructivism, as well. A student’s schema, or mental model, serves as the basis for acquiring new knowledge. Earlier, we discussed the adult schema for going to a movie. Constructivist theory would explain that this schema could serve as the basis for a person familiar with going to a movie who is attending a live theatrical performance for the first time. Many aspects of the two activities are the same, but the variations found in the live performance would then expand the learner’s schema to include greater knowledge of both types of experience.

Constructivism explains many aspects of human development. For instance, when my oldest son was a toddler, every round red object was a “ball,” every four-legged creature was a “kitty,” and all beverages were “juice.” Building on this initial knowledge, he learned the differences between a ball, an apple, an orange, and other round objects. He learned that a horse is not just a really big kitty. And, of course, he learned that there are more things to drink from a cup than just juice and that they all have their own unique names and characteristics. All learn- ing builds upon existing knowledge. Instructors cannot expect their students to retain new content unless they have some kind of existing schema upon which to build. It is up to us as instructors to deliberately make these connections for our students, and to anticipate their learning needs by first building the schemas that allow students to acquire the advanced knowledge we intend to teach. Some of this occurs naturally through the logical progression inherent in education. Other times, though, we must be more intentional and more empathetic than may come naturally. Our own schemas, especially within our academic disciplines, are highly developed and habitual, so we seldom stop to consider that our students do not possess similar mental models. Disciplinary vocabulary, for instance, seems quite obvious to us, but it can be as unfamiliar as a foreign language to our students. If

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we first take the time to provide instruction in key disciplinary terminology, we help our students to build the basic knowledge upon which they can more suc- cessfully acquire the learning we seek to impart.

Criterion-Referenced Instruction

Robert Mager (1961)24 developed a comprehensive framework for training pro- grams that can serve as a functional model for instructional design. This follows four key steps.

1. Analyze the goal or task to identify specifically what students should learn.

2. Determine performance objectives that specify the outcomes students must demonstrate and criteria by which these will be evaluated.

3. Design evaluation mechanisms for student learning of the knowledge and skills specified in the outcomes and objectives of the course.

4. Develop learning modules aligned with specific outcomes and objectives.

This approach to educational design is fundamental to this book and to achieving excellence in teaching. The four principles seem quite obvious, yet many faculty members do not systematically work through them prior to teaching a course, re- lying instead on their own expert knowledge and the familiar structures endemic to higher education. Unfortunately, this can result in disorganization, excessive subjectivity in grading, and increased likelihood that important course content might not be presented before the end of the course.

Design-Based Research

The idea of design-based research (DBR)25 originated as early as 1992 in the work of Brown and Collins, among others, later expanded by the Design-Based Research Collective (2002). As the name suggests, it incorporates key principles of the design process, which involves an ongoing cycle of ideation, implementa- tion, evaluation, and revision.

DBR is more closely aligned with the development of theories and processes for education than specific instructional methods, bridging the gap between the- ory and practice and attempting to create generalizable principles upon which sound actions may be built. As we work to design our courses, each of us utilizes DBR, although perhaps informally or unintentionally. We have an idea for a new course. We teach the course. As we teach, we notice what works and what should be changed. Then we teach it again, implementing the changes we made, which begins the cycle yet again. Applying DBR means that we not only make observa- tions about our own courses, but we thoughtfully apply educational theory to our

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actions as instructors, and we also share our own learning about curricular and pedagogical design with others.

Experiential Learning

Carl Rogers (1969, 1994)26 identified two types of learning: cognitive learning, which he considered to be meaningless, such as rote memorization of vocabulary words or multiplication tables, and experiential learning, which addresses the needs and wants of the learner. Experiential learning is self-initiated, involves the learner personally, is evaluated by the learner (not the instructor), and holds pervasive effects on the learner. The instructor’s role is that of a facilitator, which involves five actions.

1. Establish a positive climate for learning. 2. Clarify the purpose for the learner. 3. Organize learning resources and make them available to students. 4. Balance the emotional and intellectual aspects of the learning experience. 5. Share thoughts and feelings with students without dominating their learn-

ing experience.

Rogers states that students must participate completely in the learning process and must have control over its nature and direction. Learning is most significant when it directly confronts genuine social, practical, personal, or research prob- lems. Students should be the primary evaluators of their own learning, as well as assessing their own progress and success. Further, they should be assisted in learning how to learn and increasing their openness to change.

Rogers’ views align well with the principles of andragogy and other educa- tional theories pertaining to adult learners. By implementing the five instructor actions listed in the preceding paragraph, we can increase student engagement— frequently listed prominently among universities’ priorities—which then pro- duces better learning experiences for our students. As with andragogy, however, this runs contrary to standard operating procedures for higher education, which rely on the delivery of instructional content that Rogers identified as “cognitive learning,” expecting students to assimilate information disassociated from its application.

Heutagogy and Digigogy

If the term pedagogy is inclusive of all teaching, and andragogy is teaching tai- lored to the identified needs of adult learners, heutagogy is an instructional meth- odology for facilitating self-directed learning. This term, coined by Steward Hase and Chris Kenyon (2000),27 is particularly applicable to 21st century educational

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trends. Kevin Carey’s The End of College (2015)28 describes a future in which tra- ditional collegiate systems will cease to exist, replaced by self-directed, mostly online, learning that Carey terms “The University of Everywhere.”

Heutagogy takes andragogy a step further, moving beyond problem solving to proactivity. It also includes an emphasis on capability, active learning, reflection, and experiential learning. Instructors taking a heutagogical approach to teaching provide a selection of tasks and learning materials to their students, with which the students structure their own learning around critical questions or issues, determining what is personally relevant and then working with the instructor to select further readings and appropriate assessments. These assessments are also part of the learning experience, not simply measures of knowledge acquisition. Heutagogy strives to develop the learner’s capability and skill to produce gradu- ates who are not only competent, but prepared are to cope with a rapidly chang- ing world.

Digigogy, on the other hand, refers to the methods of instruction employed in online learning environments, including growing emphasis on instructional delivery through cell phones rather than desktop or laptop computers, enabling individuals in remote areas unprecedented access to educational opportunities. Educators can access a wealth of resources for creating engaging online course content; however, just because a course is offered online does not mean that it is actually heutagogical or even truly self-directed. The more structured the course content, the more traditional it is in terms of its approach, even if stu- dents have freedom of choice as to when to view the lectures or contribute to online discussions. The model in Carey’s The End of College relies more on heu- tagogy than digigogy, in that he envisions students creating their own course of study by choosing among a virtually unlimited selection of online content from many different providers. Heutagogy is necessarily learner driven, whereas digigogy is not.

Employing heutagogy can be unnerving for instructors who are accustomed to retaining full control over their students’ learning experiences since it puts students squarely in the driver’s seat. Nevertheless, this trend is worth exploring. Universities that offer the option of a self-designed major, for example, tap into this instructional model, such as the University of Alabama’s New College. At Canada’s Open University, students choose a faculty mentor, and together they design a program of study, including selected readings centered on a student- generated question, followed by a comprehensive project demonstrating the stu- dent’s learning, presented to the university community at the conclusion of the student’s course of study. Although this is a radical departure from the norms and traditions of higher education, it holds great promise for the future, moving well beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to education that has been prevalent for centuries.

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Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning is both an instructional method and an educational theory, based on creating active, hands-on classroom experiences that promote engaged learning (Woods et al., 2003).29 As the name suggests, students must work to find a solution to a problem, usually linked to a real-world situation. Problems are either selected by the instructor or discovered by the students, depending on the course. They can be well-defined, especially in courses offered at the freshman or sophomore levels, but they can range up to “messy” or very complex issues. The instructor is a guide, mentor, and facilitator. Students may work alone or in collaborative groups, varied by course or subject area.

Problem-based learning presents natural opportunities to form partnerships with local organizations, allowing students to gain firsthand experience in the world outside of the classroom as they attempt to address genuine problems. It is a relatively uncomplicated first step into student-directed learning, mak- ing it a good choice for instructors who heretofore have not ventured beyond lectures. As an example, in my Marketing and Promotions course, students were partnered with a local arts organization and given the task of designing its new social media campaign. By the end of the course, they acquired real-world hands-on experience in the professional sector, and the organization had a suc- cessful marketing strategy that proved to be quite beneficial. I monitored the students’ activities, communicating frequently with the organization’s director to make sure that things were progressing smoothly. Our class periods included direct instruction, but they also allowed time to discuss the students’ work with the organization and the progress they were making with the campaign. Facilitating this process required as much of my energies as planning and deliv- ering lengthy lectures, but the results were much more satisfying to everyone involved.

Situated Learning

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991)30 argue that learning is a process of partic- ipation situated in communities of practitioners. New learners engage in “legiti- mate peripheral participation” until they become assimilated into the community, with mastery of knowledge occurring when an individual achieves full partici- pation in the socio-cultural practices of the community. Educational organiza- tions are also social institutions, within which students must learn to participate according to specific norms befitting this society. This becomes evident when we consider the structure of higher education itself: New students are outsiders who must learn the social norms and practices of the educational community. Pro- fessors are those who have mastered the knowledge of the community and have achieved full participation.

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Although we can see how situated learning functions, traditional educational practices tend to decontextualize knowledge, presenting it apart from its legit- imate situations. We learn about the ecosystem of a rainforest in a lecture hall, not an Amazonian village. We learn about systems of government in a classroom, not in the halls of Congress. In contrast, situated learning takes place in the same context in which it is applied. According to Lave and Wenger, learning should not simply entail the transmission of abstract and decontextualized knowledge from the instructor to the student, but should be a social process through which knowledge is co-constructed, embedded in a specific context and within a unique social and physical environment. Field-based learning, apprenticeships, co-op, practicum, and internship experiences all offer opportunities for situated learning.

As with constructivist theory, andragogy, and other learning theories we’ve examined thus far, situated learning involves a move away from the lecture hall and toward more engaging methods of instructional delivery that allow students to make knowledge explicit and concrete rather than remaining in the abstract. The problem-based learning in my Marketing and Promotions course could also be identified as situated learning, since students actively engaged in a real-world workplace and participated in the same type of task they would be expected to do as employees of the organization.

Systems Thinking

Based on the recognition that the world itself is a complex system, systems thinking promotes understanding of the interconnected nature of a whole rather than examination of its diverse parts (Meadows, 2009).31 For example, instead of taking separate courses in urban architecture, city planning, urban sociology, municipal water systems, and so on, a systems-thinking approach would com- bine all of these subsystems into a larger and more comprehensive study of a city. Natural phenomena, too, can be seen as complex systems such as climate change or the human circulatory system. Study of interconnected components and the relationships between them is the heart of a systems-thinking approach to education.

Systems thinking is included in this list of theories because it is the approach applied to the design of this book itself. To a lesser extent, all instructors should be cognizant of how a given course fits into the overall system of their students’ educational experience as well as its relevance to their eventual professional careers. This information should be communicated to students from the first day of class, explaining why the course is of value, how it will apply to further study or professional engagement, and what connections and relationships the course bears to other courses or contexts.

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THEORIES AND PRACTICES OF DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

The movement beyond oppressive socio-political systems and practices in the United States ranks high among the most significant developments of the past 100 years. Cultural shifts including women’s suffrage in the early 1900s and the changing role of women in the workforce during and after World War II, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and activism by the LGBTQQIP2SAA32 com- munity up to and including the US Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in favor of marriage equality have fundamentally changed the character of our society. This is most certainly not to say that we no longer experience problems with sexism, racism, homophobia, or a plethora of other forms of prejudice and hate. Rather, our society has become increasing aware of the destructive influence of system- atic exclusion and oppression, and we have begun to reject the notion that preju- dice is inevitable or acceptable. By no means have we arrived at a truly equitable, just, or inclusive civilization. But many of those who work in higher education embrace this goal as a driving force behind organizational, programmatic, and individual choices as educators.

Critical Theory

These sweeping social changes were fueled, at least in part, by the growth of critical theory. Beginning with the Frankfurt School in the 1930s, theorists such as Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Water Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Jurgen Habermas challenged Enlightenment-era beliefs that knowledge is objective and discoverable, existing apart from an individual knower. Instead, we now view knowledge as contingent upon specific socio- historical contexts and further influenced by individuals’ values and beliefs. We have begun to accept that many views can coexist simultaneously rather than insisting that our particular viewpoint is the only “right” way to interpret information. Textbooks, for example, were once widely accepted as neutral, objective, and reliable tools for educating students because they convey prov- able facts. Critical theory revealed that the authors’ and publishers’ decisions of which facts to include and exclude from the text, and the manner in which the book’s content is presented, implicitly communicate attitudes and ideals about what is important and what is not, all conducted under the guise of factual objectivity.

Bias and Privilege

No social institution is immune from intrinsic bias, either in its history or its pres- ent practices. Privilege—the unearned, unasked for, often invisible benefits given

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to some—and oppression—discrimination of one social group by another backed by institutional policy—continue to be widespread. Our colleges and universi- ties work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, employing comprehensive efforts to identify, overcome, and eliminate exclusionary systems and practices. Yet thus far, the results fail to reach our aspirations.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the demographic composition of our faculties and student bodies. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (www.nces.ed.gov) and the US Census Bureau (www.census.gov) illus- trate differences in representation among four demographic categories (White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian—the descriptors used by the two government agen- cies)33 for full-time faculty, undergraduate students, and the US population as a whole. Of course, race is only one analytical dimension among many that could be considered, yet the findings of this cursory investigation are enlightening nonetheless. Whites comprise 62% of the general population, but 78% of the faculty, whereas 18% of the general population identifies as Hispanic but hold only 4% of faculty positions. Blacks exemplify similarly unfavorable disparities, at 13% of the general population and only 6% of the faculty. We could make sim- ilarly startling representations of other demographic categories such as religion, gender and sexual orientation, ethnicity, or socio-economic factors, all leading to the conclusion that White, Christian,34 heterosexual, relatively affluent individu- als of European descent represent the majority of persons involved in US higher educational institutions. Admittedly, I fall into this category myself, as do most of my colleagues.

Despite ongoing efforts to promote diversity among faculty and students, including increasing scrutiny for hidden bias in our institutional policies and prac- tices for hiring and admissions, many of our systems remain inequitable. Much remains to be done before higher education can live up to its potential as a pos- itive force for promoting diversity, increasing equity, and truly helping all per- sons to achieve their potential. Our examination of educational theory, therefore, should also be informed by the present reality in which we attempt to recognize the inherent bias of the systems in which we live and work as well as the influence of our own attitudes and assumptions.

The climate for diversity varies greatly between our higher educational insti- tutions, influenced by four key factors. Our institutions’ historical track record of inclusion or exclusion of racial or ethnic groups, their present levels of repre- sentation of diverse groups, faculty and student attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs about diversity, and the patterns of interaction between racial and ethnic groups on campus each have an impact on an institution’s diversity climate, as shown in Figure 2.4.35 We cannot control our histories or legacies, but we can work toward increasing our demographic range, working to change our value structures, and promoting positive interactions among campus groups.

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Individual Attitudes

Since the emphasis of this book is on the choices we make as individual instruc- tors with regard to our curriculum and instruction, we will shift our focus from the inequities that are still present in society and in our higher educational insti- tutions to steps we can take as educators. Each of us has considerable power to make a positive difference in the lives of others through our personal and profes- sional actions, but to do so, we must first become aware of our own hidden biases through reflective self-analysis.

Most conscientious educators strive to be open-minded, inclusive, and sup- portive of diversity, yet each of us harbors hidden preferences and biases of which we may not be aware. We humans are especially good at passing judgment on one another, most of which occurs below the level of consciousness. This ability had survival value for early humans, where instantly distinguishing between friend and foe, or telling the difference between members of one’s own group and “outsiders” was sometimes a matter of life and death. Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), explains that our brains have two systems for cognitive functioning. System 1 operates automatically and extremely quickly, capable of processing about 11 million bits of information per second, nearly all of which occurs outside of conscious awareness.36 We rely on our System 1 responses for driving a car, for example, a task that demands we make up to 200 decisions per mile,37 nearly all of which depend on our unconscious, automatic capabilities. We fluently receive, process, categorize, and act upon incoming sen- sory information, handled with ease by our brains’ powerful System 1. Conscious processing, on the other hand, occurs in System 2, which works at a much slower rate. We depend on System 2 for tasks that require concentration such as con- ducting research, assembling a newly purchased piece of furniture, or preparing a tax return. Active learning engages System 2, whereas prior knowledge occupies

Diversity Climate

Historical Legacy

Behavioral Climate

Structural Diversity

Psychological Climate

FIGURE 2.4 Diversity Climate

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System 1. I know that the product of 4 and 6 is 24 without engaging in conscious thought because this knowledge is instantly available via my brain’s System 1, but if I were to attempt to convert US dollars to British pounds at the present rate of exchange rate, I would need to engage System 2 and actively concentrate on finding an answer.

We continuously acquire information about the world through multiple chan- nels: our personal experiences, our family and upbringing, the kind and quality of our education, our existence with in a particular socio-cultural context, environ- mental factors, and our lifelong exposure to media, among others. Each of these causes us to form implicit associations occurring below the level of conscious thought, which instantly transpire through System 1. Such associations are helpful when they tell us to step on our car’s brakes when the stop light turns red, but when they create unconscious bias, our implicit knowledge doesn’t serve us as well. Furthermore, we tend to create broad categories and generalizations out of this information. If someone was bitten by a Cocker Spaniel as a child, she may well develop a lifelong aversion to all dogs of this breed. Likewise, the identities we perceive in others, including ethnicity, gender, race, age, and any number of other factors will necessarily affect our attitudes toward the people we encounter, but because they are deeply embedded in System 1, we usually remain unaware of their existence or influence. Even those of us who genuinely strive to value inclusivity, open-mindedness, and diversity cannot help but harbor these invisible biases.

Our work toward a more just and equitable world must, therefore, begin with ourselves, attempting to recognize and change our implicit biases. Each time we successfully question our underlying assumptions or work to alter an ingrained behavior, we remove an invisible bar in the cage that imprisons us, preventing us from truly living our conscious values. Harvard University’s “Project Implicit” offers a series of free online Implicit Associations Tests that can reveal hidden bias related to sexuality (gay/straight), disability, gender and career, gender and science, age, weight, skin tone, Arab/Muslim, Asian, Native American, and race (Black/White).38 If you’ve never completed one of these surveys, I recommend the experience, even though it’s disturbing or disappointing to learn that we’re not as open-minded as we’d formerly believed ourselves to be.

Implicit preferences are not harmful in their own right, as long as we do not act negatively upon them. They can also change over time. We might compare this to our aesthetic preferences. Most of us naturally prefer or dislike certain types of music, genres of literature, or foods and beverages. However, these preferences can change when we learn more about something that we formerly disliked. For example, most of us can remember a time when we didn’t enjoy something like jazz music, or mystery novels, or coffee. As we experience something repeat- edly over time or learn more about them, such as taking a college course about jazz, our affinity grows. We might still like Led Zeppelin better than Wynton

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Marsalis, but we can understand and appreciate a greater variety of musical forms by becoming more familiar with them. Similarly, our political views or religious beliefs may change over time as the result of our experiences, education, and rela- tionships. No one is predestined to hold one set of beliefs, tastes, or preferences forever, which (in my opinion) is a very good thing. I can only speak for myself, but I know that I am not the same person I was 20 years ago. I’d like to think that the transformations I’ve undergone have caused me to be more ethical, compas- sionate, open-minded, and receptive to new experiences and ideas. The same can be true of us all.

Dimensions of Diversity

Since understanding is the foundation of empathy and compassion, achieving greater knowledge of others hinges upon getting to know them as whole human beings rather than only by name and appearance. When we speak of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the conversation generally relates to groups or individuals who have experienced negative treatment based on one or more identifying char- acteristics. Yet each of our identities is comprised of multiple factors, not only our race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, but characteristics such as income level, occupation, marital status, and others. We might organize these identities in four dimensions: personality, internal, external, and institutional.

A model of diversity in higher education based on these four dimensions, adapted from Gardenswartz and Rowe (2003, partially based on Loden and Rosener, 1991) appears in Figure 2.5.

Any one of these dimensions can place an individual into a minority group or among a population that is subject to prejudice or condemnation by others who hold membership in a more dominant group. We tend to equate “diversity” with internal factors such as race, ethnicity, physical ability, age, gender, and/or sexual orientation. However, external factors can also exert significant influence on an individual’s life. These 24 dimensions affect everyone to varying degrees, depend- ing on a complex array of circumstantial, environmental, and associative factors.

Discrimination, just like diversity, takes many guises, both covert and overt. Nearly everyone has been on the receiving end of another person’s unfair judg- ment based on generalizations, prejudice, or preconceptions. This can even involve judgments based on our disciplinary affiliation, academic rank, or oth- ers’ opinion of the institution where we work. By no means should this imply that all forms of discrimination are equally harmful—we cannot draw a parallel between disciplinary stereotypes and systematic racism, for example—but it’s unproductive to create a rank order of the ways in which we humans hurt one another based on prejudicial perceptions of our identities. Our emphasis should not be to say, “My suffering is worse than your suffering,” but to engage in empa- thy, saying, “I can understand something of how you’re feeling because I have

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also suffered discrimination, even though it was different from the situation you face.” The points that divide us can also be points of connection, depending on the worldview we choose to employ. I cannot truly know what it is to be Black, or female, or transgender, or Muslim, or Hispanic. Nevertheless, I can draw upon my own experiences as the recipient of other forms of prejudice to empathize with those who have undergone discrimination, to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to practice these core values in my classroom.

It’s easy to make a philosophical argument that all discrimination is wrong. It’s much more difficult when we’re faced with so many different manifestations of discrimination, or when individuals exhibit multiple dimensions of diversity that combine to make their lives extraordinarily difficult. Experiencing discrimination

Personality

Race

Ethnicity

Physical Ability

Age

Sexual Orienta�on

Gender

Marital/ Rela�onal

Status

Parental Status

Appearance

Work Experience

Educa�onal Background

Religion

Recrea�onal Habits

Personal Habits

Income/ Financial

Status

Geographic Loca�on

Leadership Role(s)

Work Loca�on

Organiza�onal Affilia�on(s)

Rank or Seniority

Func�onal Level or

Classifica�on

Department, Program, College,

School, or Unit

Academic DisciplineInternal Dimensions

External Dimensions

Ins�tu�onal Dimensions

FIGURE 2.5 Dimensions of Diversity

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based on things we can change, such as the place where we live, is quite differ- ent than the impact of factors that are beyond our control such as race, age, or ethnicity. However, no matter why it occurs, how it is exhibited, or what has happened, discrimination is always wrong. We will not eradicate this evil until we have achieved its complete absence—becoming fully diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Heightened awareness of the incredible complexity of diversity should inform our decisions as educators, causing us to be sensitive to our students’ multifaceted identities and to maintain awareness of how our own implicit and explicit biases affect our actions. Designing curriculum with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind takes this personal awareness a step further, providing opportunities to engage in critical thinking about how our disciplines intersect with these values. We must move beyond longstanding “stale, pale, male”39 disciplinary perspectives by implementing purposefully designed, aesthetic, creative communication in/ through/with/about our academic disciplines that motivates students to develop critical consciousness, builds community, and inspires them to work toward a more just society and a better world for future generations.

RATIONALE

The purpose of presenting all of this background information is to provide the readers of this book with a means of learning more about how our student learn and to increase their awareness of how institutional climate and personal attitudes toward dimensions of identity can influence our decisions as educators. Then we will be better able to subsequently utilize this information to become more skill- ful in the execution of the teaching components of our professional lives.

The overview provided in this chapter is but the tip of a very large iceberg. Many more theories, philosophies, and practices exist, and each one is suffi- cient to fill numerous books on its own, from both supporters and critics. Those interested in exploring such theories further can easily find many intriguing resources.40

Developmental psychology, educational theory, and even the philosophical domains of ontology and epistemology are always in flux, with each new theory or emerging philosophy altering the conversation. Even though most educational theory focuses on children, this does not prohibit its applicability to our pur- poses in higher education. This field is constantly expanding, especially through cognitive neuroscience and its revelations about how the human brain functions. Despite the fact that we cannot possibly pin down a comprehensive theory of edu- cation that will serve to inform all we do as educators, acquiring working knowl- edge of these ideas is the first step toward improving our pedagogical practice and to subsequently creating optimal learning experiences and environments for our students. The same is true for recognizing our own biases and the inequities that

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are present in higher education. The more aware we become of these attitudes, the better prepared we are to work for positive change in the world, beginning in our own classrooms.

Remember:

• Although we cannot identify a single, unifying educational theory that will serve all of higher education, numerous theories can inform and guide our practice as educators.

• Curriculum should be designed with educational theory in mind to deliver the best possible learning experience to our students.

• When we grow in our knowledge of these theories, we are better able to enact pedagogical and curricular practices that serve our students’ learning needs.

Notes 1 Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of Intelligence in the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Piaget, J. (1957). Construction of Reality in the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Piag- et, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. AMC, 10, 12.

Identify Ideate

Why should we acquire a working knowledge of the theories and philosophies behind our teaching? We should understand the impact of our choices as educators and the effect of these practices on student learning.

How can we implement this knowledge in our teaching? Our new awareness of the theoretical basis for educational practices can shape our choices as instructors, allowing us to teach more mindfully and less reflexively.

Iterate Implement

When you teach, take note of the educational theories you’re employing, especially if you find yourself reverting to an instructivist position. We don’t need to remain under the influence of educational theory from the 17th century when more effective models exist.

What should we do with this information? If you’ve recognized your prior teaching practice in any of the theories presented in this chapter, you can build upon this to improve your approach to curriculum development and instruction. You can also begin to incorporate models or ideas that you might not have known about before, which can significantly improve your students’ learning.

FIGURE 2.6 Chapter 2 Design Connection

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2 Keating, D. (1979). Adolescent thinking. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of Adolescent Psychology. New York: Wiley, 211–246. 3 Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. In W. J. Lonner and R. S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and Culture. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. 4 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 5 Bruner, J. (1957). On perceptual readiness. Psychological Review, 64(2). http://dx.doi. org/10.1037/h0043805 6 Erikson, E. (1959). Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 7 Chickering, A. (1969). Education and Identity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 8 Kohlberg, L., and Hersh, R. (April 1977). Moral development: A review of the theory. Theory into Practice, XVI(2). 9 Barger, R. (2000). A summary of Lawrence Kohlberg’s states of moral development. University of Notre Dame. www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/kohlberg01bk.htm 10 Perry, W. G., Jr. (1981). Cognitive and ethical growth: The making of meaning. In A. W. Chickering and Associates, The Modern American College. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 76–116. 11 Jung, C. (1921; translated by H. G. Baynes, 1923). Psychological Types. Classics in the History of Psychology. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm 12 MBTI basics. (2017). The Myers & Briggs Foundation. www.myersbriggs.org/ my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/ 13 Astin, A. (1999). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Development, 40(5). 14 Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi. 15 Sandeen, A. (1991). The Professional Student Affairs Administrator. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 16 For an excellent explanation of changing educational paradigms, see Sir Ken Robin- son’s influential TED Talk at www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_ paradigms. Robinson’s remarks are directed at K–12 education, but those working in higher education can also learn from this message. 17 Gibbs, G. (November 21, 2013). Lectures don’t work, but we keep using them. Times Higher Education. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/lectures-dont-work-but-we- keep-using-them/2009141.article 18 McLeod, S. (2016). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology.org. www.simplyp sychology.org/maslow.html 19 Anderson, L., and Kranthwohl, D. (2000). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assess- ing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Educational Objectives, Complete Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson. 20 Hase, S., and Kenyon, C. (2001). From andragogy to heutagogy. http://pandora.nla.gov. au/nph-wb/20010220130000/http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec00/hase2. htm

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http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

http://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/lectures-dont-work-but-we-keep-using-them/2009141.article

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/nph-wb/20010220130000/http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec00/hase2.htm

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21 Knowles, M. S. (1980). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall/Cambridge. 22 Spiro, R. J., Coulson, R. L., Feltovich, P. J., and Anderson, D. (1988). Cognitive flexibility theory: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In V. Patel (ed.), Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 23 Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 24 Mager, R. F. (1961). On the sequencing of instructional content. Psychological Reports, Southern Universities Press, 9, 405–413. doi:10.2466/pr0.1961.9.2.405 25 Design-Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-based research: An emerging para- digm for educational inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 5–8. 26 Rogers, C. R. (1969). Freedom to Learn. Columbus, OH: Merrill; Rogers, C. R., and Freiberg, H. J. (1994). Freedom to Learn (3rd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill/Macmillan. 27 Hase, S., and Kenyon, C. (2000). From andragogy to heutagogy. Ultibase Articles, 5(3), 1–10. 28 Carey, K. (2016). The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere. New York: Riverhead Books. 29 Wood, D. (2003). ABC of learning and teaching in medicine. British Medical Journal, 326, 328–330. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7384.328 30 Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. 31 Meadows, D. H. (2009). Thinking in Systems—a Primer. London: Earthscan. 32 This acronym has undergone rapid change in recent years, expanding from LGBTQ to include additional identities and designations. At present, LGBTQQIP2SAA is among the more inclusive forms in use, which encompasses Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, 2S (a Native American identi- fier), Asexual, and Ally. From: Urban Dictionary, www.urbandictionary.com/define. php?term=LGBTQQIP2SAA 33 Demographic categories representing less than 5% have been omitted simply for the sake of brevity. 34 This designation does not refer to an individual’s personal belief, but to the overar- ching influence of Christianity on US culture, history, and government. An individual may ascribe to Christian values apart from personal acceptance of Christian doctrine or theology. 35 Based on Hurtad, S., Milem, J. F., Clayton-Pedersen, A. R., and Allen, W. (1998). En- hancing campus climates for racial/ethnic diversity: Educational policy and practice. The Review of Higher Education, 21(3), 279–302. 36 Nørretranders, T. (1999). The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (New York: Penguin) and Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux). See more at: www.aft.org/ae/winter2015-2016/staats#sthash.b58KyinW. dpuf

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37 United States Department of Labor. (n.d.). Guidelines for Employers to Reduce Motor Vehi- cle Crashes. www.osha.gov/Publications/motor_vehicle_guide.html 38 Harvard University. (2017). Project Implicit: Test Selection. https://implicit.harvard. edu/implicit/selectatest.html 39 See the Yale School of Management. (November 2, 2013). Getting conscious about unconscious bias (by Anees Chagpar). http://som.yale.edu/getting-conscious-about-unconscious-bias 40 For a very comprehensive interactive map of learning theories and theorists, visit http://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1LNV3H2J9-HWSVMQ-13LH/Learning%20The ory.cmap, created by Richard Millwood (2013).

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Chapter 1

Beginning With the End in MindBeginning With the End in MindBeginning With the End in Mind

Higher education is populated by dedicated professional educators who deliver a high-quality academic experience to their students. However, professional development activities related to teaching are usually lim- ited to occasional workshops featuring a single skill, such as creating a syllabus, techniques for assessment, or new instructional technolo- gies. Many of us attended required onboarding seminars for new faculty members that provided basic instruction in the teaching component of our jobs. Nevertheless, no matter how many workshops or seminars we attend, or how experienced we may be, it is not the same as undergoing a formal program of study into the art, science, practice, and skill of teaching.

Faculty members come to their positions as subject-matter experts, having earned the highest degrees available in their respective fields and achieving rec- ognition as producers of new knowledge through research or contributors to culture through creative practice. In fact, these are standard criteria for virtually all faculty job postings. Members of the professorate continue their disciplinary

CHAPTER SUMMARY

n Educational Philosophy

n Backwards Design: Beginning With the End in Mind

n Learning-Centric Teaching and Instructional Design

n Empathy, Definition, Ideation, and Iteration

n Where Next?

n The Design Process

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activity throughout their professional lives, with an expectation that each person will make ongoing contributions to knowledge or culture.

Furthermore, all faculty members are educators because we teach stu- dents the essential skills and knowledge of our academic disciplines. Our achievements in research or creative activity strengthen this expertise, which we then bring to our classrooms. Professional service further supports our disciplines and our college or university, consequently enriching our teaching as well.

Traditional evaluative criteria for promotion and tenure generally split fac- ulty activities into 40% for research, 40% for teaching, and 20% for professional service, but in actual practice, we often spend the majority of our time teaching or on related tasks such as course development, grading, and meeting with stu- dents. According to the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (2003),1 teach- ing and related tasks account for 62% of faculty members’ time, with 18% spent on research and 20% on administrative or other tasks. All of these activities ought to work in concert, and all of them ultimately support the success of our alumni as well as contributing to knowledge and culture. Even when research is valued above all other faculty pursuits (which is especially evident at top-tier research universities), it also contributes to our graduates’ success across disciplines, as shown in Figure 1.1.2

Research, teaching, and service each contribute to student learning and our graduates’ eventual success, either directly or indirectly.

1. Research builds upon existing knowledge to create new learning. 2. Teaching improves and expands student learning. 3. Service translates learning into action that improves communities and

citizens.

Isn’t it curious, then, that we seldom undergo formal training in educational theory or in curricular and pedagogical development, despite the demonstrable importance of our responsibility to teach? Yet instead of the prerequisite study and certification required of many other educators, faculty members typically learn to teach by teaching, sometimes assisted by colleagues and mentors in our academic disciplines.

Speaking from my own experience, the only preparation I received for the first course I taught as a graduate instructor occurred when my academic advisor handed me a copy of the former instructor’s syllabus. He answered my questions and dropped by my classroom on occasion, but for the most part, I was on my own. At the institution I attended for my doctoral studies, graduate instructors were first required to serve as teaching assistants, a task mainly involving taking attendance and grading papers for the instructor of

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record. Once we were given a teaching assignment of our own, a copy of the previous instructor’s syllabus and perhaps some verbal advice were treated as sufficient preparation for independent teaching. I opted to take my training a step further by participating in a TEACH Fellowship, a competitive program offered through the university’s Teaching, Learning, & Professional Devel- opment Center.3 This yearlong experience included 18 hours of workshops, videotaped consultations, two midterm evaluations of teaching performance, completion of a teaching portfolio and curriculum design project. None of the other graduate instructors in my program chose to take this step, but I found it to be a valuable asset to my subsequent teaching both then and in my later faculty positions.

This book was written as a way to bridge the gap that I observed between the actual practice of teaching and the knowledge that can be gained through focused formal study. As a comparison, consumer electronics have advanced to such high levels that we can use them intuitively right out of the package. Even so, many of us have experienced moments of frustration where we can’t make a device do what we want it to do, wishing it had come with a detailed user’s manual. Author David Pogue and O’Reilly Media produce a series of publications in response to this need—the “Missing Manuals”—beginning with Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual and most currently Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition (2016).4 I’d like you to consider this book in the same spirit—to be the guide for teaching in higher education that most educators never received when we were given our first teaching assignments. The chapters that follow will help those at all levels of experience to design, develop, and deliver excellent educa- tional content to their students.

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Much of what we do in our classrooms depends on how we view our role as instructors. You’re probably familiar with the debate between an instructor’s role as “a sage on the stage” or “a guide on the side.” Some instructors remain firmly in the sage-on-the-stage camp, lecturing through every class period, while students listen attentively and take copious notes. Conversely, other instructors rarely lec- ture at all, allowing students to construct knowledge independently, intervening only when the student requests assistance.

This need not be an either/or proposition. Most courses utilize a variety of instructional strategies, including lecture, project-based learning, discussion, group activities, and more. We might visualize this as a dual continuum as illus- trated by Figure 1.2: the more active the instructor, the less active the student; the more active the student, the less active the instructor.

Another common debate involves the philosophical orientation of the classroom toward an instructor-centered or student-centered model. An

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instructor-centered classroom operates under the assumption that the instructor possesses knowledge that she transmits to the students through a one-way com- munication. The instructor is responsible for his or her teaching, and students are responsible for their own learning. In contrast, a student-centered classroom places the student at the forefront of this equation, but this might raise troubling issues such as whether the student is a consumer of education and what respon- sibility the instructor shares in the student’s acquisition of knowledge. For exam- ple, under a completely instructor-centered model, a student who fails a course is wholly responsible for his own failure. However, under a completely student- centered model, the instructor might be deemed to have failed to provide ade- quate instruction rather than the student failing to learn.

Taking a learning-centered approach avoids the problems of these extremes. In this model, students are neither passive recipients of transmitted knowledge, nor are they demanding clients. Likewise, the instructor is neither the font of all knowledge nor the students’ servant. The focus of a learning-centered classroom is the subject matter of the course as it occurs within a specific disciplinary con- text, engaging both the student and the instructor as active participants. We might frame learning-centered education as a pedagogical triangle (see Figure 1.3), in which the student, instructor, and subject matter exist within a balanced yet dynamic relationship occurring in the context of a given academic discipline.

Therefore, this book adopts a learning-centered educational philosophy. The instructor’s primary responsibility is to create and deliver a learning experience in which the student is an active participant, aligned with a particular academic discipline’s norms and practices and shaped by the instructor’s application of skill and knowledge in teaching.

Listening/Note-taking Ac�ve Par�cipa�on Independent Study

Lecture Facilita�on Supervision

Instructor Ac�vity

Student Ac�vity

FIGURE 1.2 Student–Instructor Continuum

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BACKWARDS DESIGN: BEGINNING WITH THE END IN MIND

In his bestseller Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey rec- ommends “Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind.”5 Even though it’s become some- what cliché, this isn’t just good advice for life—it’s the first step toward planning and designing effective curriculum. Beginning with the end in mind is like plan- ning an expedition: First, you choose the destination, then you plan how you’ll get there.

In curriculum design, our destination depends on this question: What skills and knowledge should our students acquire by the time they graduate? Just as we can’t take a road trip without first planning our route, we can’t achieve the goal of producing well-educated graduates unless each course deliberately aligns with that goal, leading students step by step toward the excellence we want them to achieve. When applied to higher education, this is called backwards design.6

Before we go further, let’s stop and consider why we’re talking about this. In higher education, where colleges and universities have clearly defined educational missions, we want our students to do more than just memorize facts—we want them to become accomplished disciplinary practitioners who contribute to our areas of expertise and go on to lead successful, productive lives. We also want to enhance our institution’s reputation for excellence in education and raise the profile of our college and its programs and departments. Therefore, the end we should keep in mind exists on multiple levels: in the outcomes we write that

StudentCourse/Subject

Instructor

Discipline

FIGURE 1.3 Pedagogical Triangle

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explain what our students must know and be able to do by the time they gradu- ate; in the learning experiences we design that facilitate our students’ successful attainment of these outcomes; and in the deepening of our knowledge of educa- tional theory and philosophy that will allow us to improve in our instructional delivery and better fulfill our duty as educators.

Understandably, research and creative practice receive a great deal of empha- sis as major contributors to our professional reputations and the status of the institutions where we teach, whereas excellence in teaching lacks comparable prestige. Nevertheless, the impact of our teaching extends far beyond the final exam, shaping our students’ academic experience for good or ill. No matter how renowned we may be in our chosen fields, these accomplishments cannot benefit our students at all if we lack the ability to translate our disciplinary expertise into relevant and impactful instruction. Shouldn’t we, therefore, devote at least as much passion, energy, and curiosity to our teaching as we do to our other disci- plinary engagements?

Nothing prohibits us from continuing to teach as usual. Attempting to change our professorial habits is a far greater challenge, yet there is much to be gained in the attempt. Certainly, it can be awkward and frustrating to change longstanding habits, but by choosing to reach beyond what’s comfortable to what’s possible, we will benefit our students, our institutions, and ourselves as well.

LEARNING-CENTRIC TEACHING AND INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

Traditional approaches to teaching and learning focus on the subject-matter knowledge and expertise that an instructor conveys to his or her students. When we shift the emphasis to our students’ learning, we must also enter into a mindset of innovation since we are diverging from long-established procedures and habits of mind in higher education.

Innovation exists within a three-part framework, represented in Figure 1.4. Desirability is the human factor in innovation. The outcomes we seek through

our teaching and curriculum design must be attractive and beneficial to our stu- dents and to the institution for which we work, but they must also be of personal benefit at some level. In other words, our efforts must lead to a course that stu- dents want to take, that our institution wants to offer, and that we want to teach.

Viability refers to the institutional framework within which our efforts occur. Our plans and goals must be compatible with the mission, vision, and values of our institutions. They must also align with existing policies, procedures, and administrative requirements in our departments, colleges, schools, and the insti- tution at large. For example, a planned course relying on co-teaching will not be viable if one of the cooperating faculty member’s home departments cannot

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provide a way for the instructor to receive credit for a course taught outside normal channels.

Feasibility is the third side of our triangle. Even when we can clearly envi- sion what we hope to achieve and can prove it fits within our given institu- tional context, we must also be able to bring our vision to life. This involves financial resources, administrative support, faculty participation, availability of facilities, as well as things like scheduling and registration. For instance, if an elective course designed for students majoring in a particular discipline is scheduled at the same time as a course required for the major, students cannot enroll regardless of the careful planning and preparation that went into the course’s creation.

EMPATHY, DEFINITION, IDEATION, AND ITERATION

Empathy is the cornerstone of innovation and the main component in the desir- ability of a product. Just think: Why do people stand in line for days before a new Apple product’s launch? Because Apple has mastered the art of empathy. The company’s focus on desirability leads to products that people are passionate about owning. This is atypical in most commercial ventures. For instance, I used to own a sedan that looked great on the outside, but it was so poorly designed internally that it took my mechanic 14 hours to dismantle the vehicle just to change a leak- ing $5 transmission gasket. He was so frustrated by the attempted repair that he refused to work on the car again. Apple’s focus on customer experience trans- lates into huge sales, whereas the automotive manufacturer’s focus on making a visually attractive yet internally flawed product was ultimately self-destructive— production on that model ceased after just a few years.

Viability

FeasibilityDesirability

Innova�on

FIGURE 1.4 Design Venn—Innovation Is Here

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Higher education, of course, doesn’t operate under the same parameters as companies that produce telephones and automobiles, yet empathy-driven inno- vation occurs across a broad range of contexts. Service-based settings like health care, social services, and government agencies’ attempts to envision the client’s needs or wants result in a better user experience. Hospitals, for example, now allow patients to preregister for medical procedures, handling paperwork over the phone or online rather than making patients wait in line and then sit at a reg- istrar’s desk for an hour or more on the day of their procedure. Attention to the human element of a bureaucratic process increased efficiency and reduced stress for all concerned.

In this same way, higher education benefits from an empathy-driven perspec- tive. Curriculum designed with the student in mind more fully aligns with a learning-centered model of education. In the field of design, this is known as user experience—a process built on empathy.

Learning-centered course design requires that we know our students as fully as possible. Those of us who have been teaching for many years know that stu- dents today are much different than we were ourselves, and they also differ from the students we may have taught early in our careers. Higher education itself has also changed, especially in terms of public perception, which directly impacts how our students view their educational experience.

In the not-so-distant past, a bachelor’s degree in virtually any field offered sufficient proof that someone was well-equipped for professional-level employ- ment because this credential was comparatively rare: Just 25% of the US pop- ulation completed high school in 1940, and only 5% of the US population held a bachelor’s degree or higher,7 giving a college graduate a distinct edge in the job market. By 2015, however, 88% of the US population attained a high school diploma, and 33% earned a bachelor’s degree or higher.8 In other words, it’s more common to hold a bachelor’s degree today than it was to graduate from high school in 1940.

The increasing ubiquity of a college degree is exacerbated by the rising cost of higher education and by changing attitudes of parents, students, and legisla- tors. Many students and their parents incur significant debt to finance the cost of a degree, all in the hope that the student will exit college with the ability to secure a well-paying job. Whether or not we educators know that the educational experiences our courses offer are intrinsically valuable, it is difficult for others to understand how they can be worth the expense when they can’t see how the course will equip students with the means to earn a living.

We now face a much different set of cultural expectations for higher education than were prevalent when many current faculty members began their careers, and they differ greatly from the norms under which our present system of higher education arose during the last century. Not only has the perception of a college education as valuable for its own sake shifted to an expectation that earning a

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degree will prepare a student for a career, but our students themselves place less value on educational experiences when they cannot see how they might be personally relevant.

Educators, however, continue to believe that students should accept our dis- ciplinary expertise as sufficient reason to trust that what we teach is important and expect students to make their own connections between classroom learning and their eventual careers. Empathy exercised within a learning-centered model of education challenges this traditional stance. For just a moment, let’s put our- selves in the place of our students. Imagine you were told that you had to under- take mandatory professional development by completing a 3-credit hour course. Because you will not be reimbursed for tuition, you enroll in an online course through a public university, at a cost of $1,000. This is a significant expense, not to mention that you’ll have to pay for books and materials on top of the tuition, increasing your cost by an additional $200. Now imagine that the course instruc- tor never explains why this course is required and makes no connection to your professional development. Would you be frustrated and annoyed? Perhaps even resentful? I know I would.

When we imagine ourselves in a scenario such as the prior example, we can experience empathy for our students and, consequently, begin to approach our teaching from a more learning-centric model. If we were to benefit from the mandatory training in the previous example, we would need to know why it’s important, how we could apply the course content to our professional lives, and what we were actually supposed to learn. This why, how, and what of instruction is essential. Should it be any different for our own students?

On a macro level, our course planning must consider why our students need to know the concepts we intend to teach, how we will convey this information to them, and what learning experiences and assessments will allow them to learn what we’re teaching and let us measure their learning. This process encompasses all of the components we associate with course design: writing outcomes and objectives, textbook selection, creating assignments and assessments, and so on. As we work through these steps, we repeatedly engage empathy and definition on a micro level with each decision we make about the course. Why will this par- ticular textbook best help my students to learn? How should I create this rubric to evaluate their group presentations? What should students be able to do by the time they take the final exam?

The first time we teach the course that we planned can serve as a prototype, allowing us to test our instructional strategies to determine whether students successfully acquired the skills and knowledge we intended to convey. Each time we teach the course thereafter is a new opportunity to refine our instructional methods. These iterations allow us to engage in a process of continuous growth, responding to developments in our disciplines, to shifts in culture, and to the fluctuations common to university life.

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Our pursuit of pedagogical and curricular innovation also allows us to incor- porate new best practices in teaching and instruction that we may not have attempted before. Cooperative learning, teamwork, student choice, engaged learning, experiential education, and many other strategies are possible beyond standard approaches such as lecture and discussion.

WHERE NEXT?

In the chapters that follow, we’ll look at how to achieve this goal. Along the way, we must think through the steps that will allow our students to achieve the results we seek. How do we plan learning experiences? How should we design our instruction to help our students achieve these outcomes? How do we know if the students have actually learned anything in our classrooms? How can we use what we already do to create more effective curricula that also meet institutional and professional expectations?

First, we consider the norms and expectations of our disciplines at the pro- grammatic level, writing outcomes that explain what we intend our students to know and be able to do upon graduation. Second, we create specific, measurable objectives for our courses, clearly defining what students must achieve by the course’s completion. Third, we create tools to measure students’ mastery of these objectives, designing assessment mechanisms aligned with our objectives and out- comes. Fourth, we create a plan of instruction, mapping out a week-by-week sequence ensuring that appropriate and effective student learning opportunities precede and support our assessments. Last, we select or develop instructional materials to use as we deliver instruction according to the course plan. This sequence is shown in Figure 1.5.

Materials

Instruc�onal Plan

Assessments

Objec�ves

Outcomes

FIGURE 1.5 Course-Planning Flow Chart

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This process reverses the way faculty usually plan a course. Many of us begin by selecting a good textbook. Then we map out a weekly schedule, writing quizzes and tests based on the readings and lectures we’ve planned. Once we’ve planned the bulk of the course, we look at the body of knowledge we intend to cover and write objectives based this plan. Only after everything else about the course has been set in place do we think about what students should have learned by the final exam.

However, if we begin with the end in mind, or design a course “backwards,” we remain mindful of what students should learn in our course as well as what they must know and be able to do once they graduate. This not only allows us to create curriculum aligned from the first day of class to the last, but also from students’ first day on campus to the moment they proudly walk across the stage to receive their diplomas.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

Our planning efforts align with the design process, but definitions of this activity are nearly as numerous as designers. Here we’ll take a four-part approach to this important task and touch back to this model throughout the book.

1. Identify: Under a learning-centered philosophy of education, all of our decisions as educators must first consider our students’ needs as learners, driven by the particular outcomes and objectives of our course. There- fore, everything we do must meet this crucial criterion: How does this serve my students’ learning needs in order for them to meet my course objectives and program outcomes? Empathy must drive all of our decisions, considering our curriculum and teaching from our students’ perspective. In product development, this is called User Experience Design (sometimes abbrevi- ated as UX)—the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving its usability or accessibility to provide a positive interaction with the product. In other words, it’s about placing the user’s needs first to make sure that their experience is the best it can be. We might also call this user-centric or human-centric design. In education, therefore, it comes down to empathizing with our students to identify their specif- ic needs for instruction, which then informs and shapes our choices in designing curriculum and delivering instruction.

2. Ideate: The ideation stage of design involves brainstorming the best way to meet the needs we’ve identified. This can be an extended cyclical process involving developing possible solutions, prototyping, testing, evaluation, and redevelopment until a viable and feasible possibility emerges.

3. Implement: Once we have developed a possible solution, we implement it in our classrooms and observe its results.

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4. Iterate: Each time we teach a course, we have the opportunity to begin again, to revisit the design process, and to make refinements and im- provements that will further support student learning.

Although the design process has four parts, as seen in Figure 1.6, we’ll primar- ily focus on identification and ideation because our goal is to create a course and be prepared to teach it successfully. Implementation occurs when you actually teach the course, and iteration doesn’t happen until after you’ve taught the course for the first time and are ready to make changes based on your first attempt to improve it for the next time you teach.

Remember:

WHY: We want to design curriculum that fulfills our program goals, supports our university’s mission, and produces graduates who are excellent in their academic fields.

HOW: By working step by step, beginning with the results we seek, and continuing through the construction of a fully developed, well-designed course.

WHAT: We will plan a course aligned with disciplinary norms and university requirements, and we will be prepared to improve our pedagogical practice.

Notes 1 Flaherty, C. (April 9, 2014). So much to do, so little time. Inside Higher Ed. www.in sidehighered.com/news/2014/04/09/research-shows-professors-work-long-hours- and-spend-much-day-meetings 2 This chart is based on a synthesis of ideas found in:

Sinek, S. (2009). Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. New York: Portfolio/Penguin; and Walton, K. (1970). Categories of art. Philosophical Review, 79(3), 334–367.

Iden�fy

Ideate

Implement

Iterate

FIGURE 1.6 Design Cycle

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3 Texas Tech University. (n.d.). Applying to TEACH. Teaching, Learning, & Professional De- velopment. www.depts.ttu.edu/tlpdc/Teach_Program/applytoteach.php 4 O’Reilly. (n.d.). Missing manuals. O’Reilly Media Corporate Website. https://ssearch. oreilly.com/?i=1;q=missing+manual;q1=David+Pogue;q2=Books;x1=author;x- 2=t1&act=fc_contenttype_Books 5 Covey, S. (1989, 2016). The seven habits of highly effective people, habit 2: Begin with the end in mind. Franklin Covey. www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits-habit2.php 6 McTighe, J., and Thomas, R. S. (2003). Backward design for forward action. Educational Leadership, 60(5), 52–55.

McTighe, J., and Wiggins, G. (2004). Understanding by Design: Professional Develop- ment Workbook. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. 7 Ryan, C. L., and Siebens, J. (February 2012). Educational Attainment in the United States: 2009. United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p20- 566.pdf 8 Ryan, C. L., and Bauman, K. (March 2016). Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015. United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/ library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf

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