Tag Archives: the big picture

“summer” happenings

Posted on June 17, 2010 | Comments Off on “summer” happenings

What does an instructor do when there is no one around to instruct? What does a garden do when there is no sun?

I’m learning the answers to both of those questions. The latter question is visually apparent to me right now: It does not grow many flowers, but it does grow lots of foliage. Lots and lots of foliage. I have dill that’s two feet tall! Leaves of all the flowering plants are overlapping. But few flowers.

The former question is also becoming quite apparent. I’m building. Developing. Planning. Reading. Meeting. (So many meetings!) Thinking. Writing. I’m starting to become concerned with all I’m doing! Some examples, if you’re interested: I’m planning TA and TF Development programming for the fall/winter. I met with public affairs to discuss a potential media piece on learning strategies, based off my 208 course. I’m writing a review of a textbook in preparation for an upcoming Canadian edition (more on that later!) — it’s the one I use for 217, and there’s a possibility I might be involved in the “Canadianizing” of it. I’m helping Sunaina to plan for our Psychology Tri-Mentoring program. I’m working with colleagues to start a casual network of instructors within the Faculty of Arts. I’m attending an orientation to become a peer reviewer of teaching (so exciting!). Oh, and I’m planning syllabi and assignments and lesson ideas and gathering new content for my courses! Wow. Write it all out like this is a little overwhelming. But that’s one of the things I really like about my job. I get to challenge myself to do more, think more, and be more. It can be an addiction though, and I need to watch out I don’t plan too much for the fall!

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Posted in from professional development activities

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pearls of wisdom

Posted on June 7, 2010 | Comments Off on pearls of wisdom

Today Sunaina and I had the pleasure of lunching with Russ Day, Senior Lecturer and head of the Intro Psych program at SFU. Of the many insightful ideas he shared with us, a few stand out for me in particular. Most potently, he built on the idea of of 20-60-20: 20% of students will learn in spite of you, 20% may not be sufficiently motivated to learn from you at all, but that middle 60% is where our biggest impact can be as instructors. So if I pitch my course at the 80th percentile of students, the top 20% won’t be too bored, the bottom 20% will be disengaged, but I have the potential to truly engage and challenge 60% of my students. This is interesting on its own, but he pushed it further into what this would mean for student evaluations. The students in the, say, 21st-25th percentiles will be pushed too far if I’m pitching for the 80th percentile. A psychologically healthy response to failure is an external attribution: i.e., to blame me. So if I’m not getting about 2-3% of students feeling frustrated by my course, I may be pitching my course at too easy of a level. Wow!!! That is powerful! (I’m reminded here about something else we discussed: Chickering & Gamson’s 7 Principles, one of which is “communicate high expectations.”) So often I (and others) ruminate about those few extremely critical comments in the student evaluations, and have to find ways to cope with them… but Russ offered such a thoughtful and realistic perspective on those comments! Instead, I should be ruminating on the positive comments, trying to figure out exactly what I did to connect with that student so I can do more of it.

The second idea that really stands out for me was our discussion about being a scholar. As a scholar, there is no choice but to keep up with the literature. For me, that means content, but also as a teaching-focused scholar, the education literature. This is a challenge to me, one that’s been in the back of my mind for a while now. One thing I do to help with this is that I attend the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) reading group weekly during the summer months. This is one step in the right direction. Where can I build more literature into my life?

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Course Evaluation Season Arrives!

Posted on May 26, 2010 | Comments Off on Course Evaluation Season Arrives!

My plans for working on revisions to a manuscript were derailed this morning by the news that our Student Evaluations of Teaching from last term were released. Reading these evaluations is an emotional event for me, and this is particularly true on the first look (of many!). As always, I’m filled with anxiety and hesitation: Did my students like me? Did they appreciate the risks I took in class? In testing? Did I push them to learn — just enough or too much or not enough? Did they take the time to complete the evaluations? (fyi: 583 did — which represents 54% of all my students.)

For the first look today I examined the numbers, particularly the six UBC University Module Items (UMIs), just to get a feel for what they’re saying. Here are my impressions of these numbers for 2009/2010: Overall, I’m satisfied, with some exceptions (both high and low). Psyc 217, Research Methods, is a course I love and have now taught 4 times — and I’m pleased to report that my students rate it highly. Students in my Intro Psychology courses, both terms, rated me well but not exceptional, and I think that’s totally fair. It was my first time teaching those courses, and the numbers are in the range of those I received the first time I taught Psyc 217. Onward and upward!

Across all 6 courses I taught this year, my highest scores come from the “Concern for Students” UMI. This tells me that my deep value of caring for students and their learning is being witnessed in the eyes of my students, through my efforts to this put this value into action (e.g., see my teaching philosophy). Wonderful news!

My lowest ratings come from the “Fair Evaluations” item, and this concerns me. These numbers, particularly for this of all items, are difficult to interpret: Are my students perceiving the learning assessments to be very challenging (which I don’t mind), or are assessments perceived to be so demanding that success is unattainable (which I do mind)? I definitely need to ponder this one further as I dive more deeply into the data. I already know that my evaluation strategy for 208 will change considerably next year (e.g., the midterm was much too difficult and/or lengthy; peer evaluations of papers didn’t work as smoothly as I’d hoped). Of all my courses this year, 208 was the course rated most poorly by my students. I think a large part of that had to do with the complications with evaluations. It was a brand new, custom course that I designed, and although lots went well (I have loads of data on what great things students learned!), there is a lot of room for improvement.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about my student evaluations. They help me to see from students’ perspectives what I do well and where I need to focus my improvement efforts. Thanks to everyone who completed them! I will share further insights as I consider them further. Note that I’ll be working on revising my courses over the summer months. If you were a student in any of my courses this year, and are interested in giving some specific, constructive  feedback on any aspect of the course, please feel free to contact me to set up an appointment.

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Posted in from the classroom, on course design

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Time to Breathe

Posted on May 7, 2010 | Comments Off on Time to Breathe

Ah, May is upon us. Term grades have been submitted, and I’m just cleaning up a few loose ends from the term and year. I am feeling a sense of calm and space that I haven’t had in a while. This space is allowing me to ponder my teaching and learning (T&L) activities from a broad perspective, rather than the day-to-day rush of preparations and delivery. The latter is, of course, vitally important to T&L, but for me, my meaning and purpose is derived largely from these reflective times.

After surviving my first year as full-time faculty, I am pleased to report that I still love T&L!! It has been far from easy to make it through daily preparations for class, exams and assignments, and committees, meetings with students (both graduate and undergraduate), and so on. This year I have learned much about the material I was teaching, my students, and who I want to be as a teacher. I believe I did well this year (student evals forthcoming), under the pressing circumstances, but not as well as I would like. I am excited at the promise of preparing for next year, and for having the time and space to do it better. That is, for me, one of the many joys of teaching: Each year being more effective than the last.

I look forward to documenting here my journey this summer as I work toward bettering my courses and myself for my students in 2010/2011.

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Posted in Reflections

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