The Three Most Time-Efficient Teaching Practices
A recent study (Bentley & Kyvik, 2012) found that
faculty in the United States spend on average over 50 hours per week on the
job, and of those hours, over 20 are spent in teaching activities. These hours
can be much higher for faculty at certain stages of their career or at certain
kinds of institutions, but regardless, we spend a lot of time at our work. But
more isn?t necessarily better?we don?t measure productivity in academia in
terms of hours logged. What are we gaining by the time spent? And are we finding
the time we spend meaningful and rewarding?
What constitutes productivity in teaching is a point of
debate, of course, but many of us agree that we want to facilitate student
learning. When faculty are challenged to change traditional teaching practices
to promote better student success, all we may see looming before us is
additional class preparation time. The best kept secret, however, is how much
more time-efficient some of these touted teaching practices are. Below I
discuss three of these best practices and the positive impact they can have on
the way we spend our time teaching.
Begin with the end in mind.
The principle of backward course design (Wiggins &
McTighe, 1998) echoes one of the late Stephen Covey?s Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People (1989). In this model, course design begins by determining
what it is that we really want students to be able to do or feel or think long
after the final exam is over. Then we make every other aspect of the course
serve those goals. Once we have articulated our goals, whether lofty or
pragmatic, our next step is to determine how students will demonstrate to us
that they have indeed achieved the kind of learning we want of them
(assessment). Lastly we turn our attention to the class format and activities
that would facilitate that achievement. Aligning these three facets of course
design (goals, assessments, and activities) builds in a coherence and synergy
in the course that creates greater opportunities for students to learn what we
want them to learn.
Clear course goals that communicate the nature of our
disciplinary work to students tend to take the form of ?At the end of this
course students will be able to: explain concepts such as?, develop a thesis
(or hypothesis), analyze data (or texts or images), contrast points of view on
issues, or write cogent arguments based on research (or analysis).? We may
assess students? achievement of these goals through exam questions, papers, or
projects, checking that the level of thought or skill that we want students to
gain is represented in those assessments. Key to alignment, however, is making
sure that we give students opportunities on lower stakes assignments or during
class activities to practice the same skills we want them to ultimately
demonstrate on our assessments.
The backward design approach helps focus our course
efforts, not only generating better chances for students to learn what we want
them to learn, but also saving class preparation time in at least three ways.
First, we spend less time deciding what readings and assignments to include in
our course because we now have targeted criteria to use to make that
determination?our course goals. Second, we design our assignments around those
course goals, so we spend less time grading or responding to assignments that
don?t accomplish what we had hoped and are, in essence, busy work for our
students and for us. And third, we are more apt to restrain ourselves from
taking on too much in the course. Articulating our goals rather than masking
them in a generalized descriptive statement (e.g., ?In this course we will
discuss the effect of global economics on world trade?) helps us see more
clearly the demands we are placing on the novice learners in our disciplines.
Generate criteria or rubrics to describe disciplinary
work for students.
Once we have clear course goals we can use them to
generate criteria or rubrics, a time-efficient approach to grading. We faculty
know what quality student work is when we see it?but our students do not.
Disciplinary work is a mystery for students. As faculty we may have forgotten
what it was like to be a novice learner in our field (a phenomenon known as
expert blind spot), or we may have been more intuitive about these processes
even as students. In all likelihood, we faculty were not representative of the
other students in classes with us at the time. We are a self-selected group
that shares little in common with the vast and diverse array of contemporary
students. Providing students with criteria or rubrics gives them a glimpse into
the way that we think.
Sharing with students the criteria that we will use to
evaluate their work both models disciplinary thinking for them and helps them
develop the ability to evaluate their own work. Although we may think that these
kinds of guides ?give it away? and make our assignments too easy for students,
rarely is this the case. Instead these sets of criteria or rubrics can be a
motivator for students. They make the assignment less of a mystery and make the
students? own success seemingly more under their control. For examples of
rubrics in many disciplines see Walvoord & Anderson, 2010 (pp. 195-232).
Using criteria or rubrics to grade student work saves
time by: helping students produce better quality work (and better quality work
is both faster and more pleasurable to grade); allowing us to assign points
more quickly and consistently as we grade; and providing clear criteria for us
to use in talking to students about their grades. When a student comes to
appeal a grade, we can ask her to explain how the work meets the criteria. So
the session becomes less about faculty defending their judgment, and more about
helping the student learn to evaluate work from a disciplinary perspective.
Although it does take time to generate really useful sets of criteria or
rubrics, we can use them over and over and adapt them to multiple purposes.
Embed ?assessment? into assessments.
Generating criteria for student work also serves another
purpose that is time-efficient?it helps us in our assessment of student
learning outcomes for institutional purposes. Although assessment of student
learning in terms of assignments, tests, and papers is second nature to
faculty, ?assessment? in the sense of tracking student learning outcomes is
often considered a four-letter word. In reality, determining precisely what
students are learning in our classes focuses our scholarly minds on our
teaching. Just as we look for evidence to make arguments for our theses or
hypotheses in our discipline, when we assess student learning outcomes we
determine if our courses are accomplishing what we planned in terms of student
learning. Based on what we learn, we can change our courses to make them more
efficient in producing the outcomes we want.
Assessment processes have been criticized for consuming
time without producing results. Because data collection often occurred at
levels at the institution beyond the course (or possibly even department)
level, it seemed removed from day-to-day course activities and needs
(Hutchings, 2010). Some of the most meaningful assessment, however, is data
that we as faculty collect about what activities engage students most
productively, what concepts and skills students find most challenging, and what
interventions advance student progress. The key to making the assessment
requirement work for us is to embed our assessment of student learning outcomes
into regular class assignments, exams, papers, and activities.
Faculty are accustomed to assessing student work with a
grade. When we think about student learning, however, a grade represents a
composite accounting of all the knowledge and skills we ask students to
demonstrate on a piece of work. Assessing student learning outcomes requires us
to deconstruct or unpack what that grade represents. What specific kinds of
knowledge and skills did students demonstrate on a graded piece of work? For
example, if our goal is to develop students? critical reasoning abilities in
our discipline, we may record the level of students? performance on certain
test questions that are specifically directed at that goal. These questions may
be multiple choice or short answer, in which case we keep track of correct
student responses. Or we can examine students? performance on an essay using
criteria (or a rubric) that capture the elements of critical analysis that we
want students to demonstrate (see above). We then keep track of students?
rubric scores to
determine what
aspects of analysis they have mastered and what aspects they need to improve.
The information gained from monitoring students?
performance makes our teaching more time-efficient by directing our choices on
class activities and assignments. For example, rather than lecturing on all
aspects of course material, we focus class activities on those areas that
students find most challenging. Likewise, we spend our preparation time
designing and responding to assignments that are targeted more directly at
developing key skills in students. The time we spend is more likely to produce
the kind of learning we want in students.
Summary
Redesigning our teaching based on recognized effective
teaching approaches does require an investment of time upfront. But that
investment pays off every day, all year long. And our time is often spent in
more intellectually satisfying interactions with students, increasing our sense
of productivity, and making the time more meaningful and rewarding.
References
Bentley, P.J., and S. Kyvik, S. 2012. ?Academic Work from
a Comparative Perspective: A Survey of Faculty Working Time across 13
Countries.? Higher Education, 63: 529-547.
Covey, S. 1989. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Hutchings, P. April, 2010. Opening Doors to Faculty
Involvement in Assessment. National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
Occasional Paper #4. Retrieved from www.learningoutcomesassessment.org
Walvoord, B., and V. J. Anderson. 2010. Effective Grading
(2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wiggins, G., and J. McTighe. 1998. Understanding by
Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
CONTACT:
Linda C. Hodges
Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Director, Faculty Development Center
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
No comments:
Post a Comment