Day Twelve Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

This past weekend, Charlet Key gave a keynote at the adjunct academy professional development day entitled “Library Assignments Designed to Prevent Drowning.” The gist of the talk focused on the fact that when students are learning about how to find answers (i.e., information research), they don’t always need to do so to produce a 10-page research paper with a correctly-formatted (MLA? APA?) bibliography. The latter assignment may well fit into the learning outcomes of your class if it is a general education, transfer-oriented course; however, all of us know about additional information needs that people in our fields are likely to experience, ones that require deeper thinking and familiarity with the best places to find relevant information in our fields. Instead of that research paper, might it be even more valuable for your students to learn and practice information finding processes, especially ones that apply to problems they might experience in their everyday life?

Have you thought about creating meaningful research assignments that are real-world, but also develop searching/finding skills that students can use whether they end up majoring in your field or not? Today’s “idea” will focus on some of the tips and resources that Charlet shared, which can be adapted to fit your class.

For many students, the library provokes an uncomfortable feeling…perhaps:

• one of “overwhelm” (I have no idea where to begin! This place is huge!)
  
• one of “fear “(What if I can’t find the information required of me by ____ (due date)? What if the librarian thinks I’m stupid because I don’t know what a “refereed journal” is? Who can help me?)
  
• one of confusion (The markings on the books are not numbers, like they were in high school or in the neighborhood public library; how am I supposed to find anything?)
  
• general reluctance to doing something that feels strange.

As a result, all research-oriented assignments require scaffolding, such as clear instructions, getting-started resources (such as pointers to specific databases that will help students address the information need you give them), and feedback on early efforts. One way to get this process started is to confer with the reference librarian for suggestions on how to structure an assignment that would be meaningful to you and your students (see a few ideas below, but nothing beats this customized conversation!). Then, invite her to lead a library orientation session to help your students get started, get familiar with those selected databases and key research terms, and begin their information-finding thought processes in the library. When they return on their own (in person or online), it won’t feel like such a huge, strange place! And they will begin to learn about the importance of networking with experts when trying to solve an information-needy problem! Watch her encourage networking between students as well! [and yes, I checked; the BHC Library does provide this service to evening classes too!]

Here are a few of the research-oriented assignments she suggested, followed by some great online resources that might assist you in finding others that fit your learning outcomes and the lives of your students, as well:

1. Write five short papers on the same topic/problem, but each time must use different types of resources to write it (e.g., primary sources, Wikipedia article plus sources that verify info there, books, newspapers/blogs/magazines, annotated bibliography of all of the sources from above.)
   
2. Write short paper comparing a magazine article and a peer-reviewed article on the same topic.
   
3. Summarize an article from a core publication in your subject area of a library database every other week; be prepared to discuss summaries with the class
   
4. Write a documented persuasive paper in which students research and defend the opposite position they currently believe; planning and pre-research should be scheduled
   
5. Write a piece that is common in your field (e.g., bid for a construction project, letter of recommendation, press release, grant proposal…)

For more ideas on designing meaningful assignments that require research:

Designing Assignments That Work http://www.oberlin.edu/library/programs/assignments/alternatives.html

Creating Effective FYS Library Assignments
http://www.worcester.edu/Library/Shared%20Documents/Creating%20eff%20FYS%20lib%20assign%20and%20links.pdf

Tutorial for Developing and Evaluating Assignments http://www.umuc.edu/library/tutorials/information_literacy/sect4.html

Ten Sample Assignments
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/inst/creativesample.html

Characteristics of Effective Library Research Assignments http://library.nku.edu/faculty_and_staff/information_literacy/characteristics.php

Information Competent Students
http://library.csustan.edu/theld/research_assignment_tips.htm

Day Eleven Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

In several of the “ideas,” I have mentioned that students need to experience content repeatedly and in a variety of ways throughout the evening for maximum learning to occur. Listening to your explanations is one way to experience the content, but it is not sufficient; responding to clicker questions is another way, working through problem sets in small groups is a third. How about promoting further content experiences through online discussions, practicing sample exam questions with a partner, developing exam or study questions from the readings, and exploring case studies or scenarios in which the content is applied to solve novel problems?

Almost all of these activities require good questions to guide learning and move it from rote/recall to higher order thinking. Crafting good questions is an art and takes lots of practice. A mentor of mine when I was a new instructor shared with me the following information when I was trying to improve my ability to inspire student involvement in class discussions. I have returned to it again and again as I have written questions for many of the purposes mentioned above. I hope you find this helpful as well.

Types of Cognitive Questions (an overview)

Effective teachers are highly interactive with students --that is, they ask a lot of questions and they interact extensively during the instructional process. Teacher/student interaction takes place chiefly through questioning. Most cognitive questions in educational settings fall into three types: (1) recall or memory, (2) classification, and (3) divergent.

A brief explanation of each follows:

1. Recall (memory): requires knowledge of facts only. The learner responds through rote memory. The purpose of the question is to converge ("get") the right answer.
   
   Examples: What is the largest species of whale in the world's oceans? What factors cause a person to be color blind? What is the "greenhouse effect"?
   
   
2. Classification (comprehension): requires the learner to go beyond recall in order to reason out a conclusion and/or solve a problem. This type of question usually requires higher order reasoning, calculating, solving, or comparing in order to arrive at an answer.
   
   Examples: Compare the quality of pineapples grown in Hawaii with those grown in Costa Rica? Considering what you know about the space shuttle, Challenger, what do you think were some of the reasons it exploded? Describe the conditions that must exist to result in a full eclipse of the sun?
   
   
3. Divergent: Divergent questions require creative, imaginative, or inventive responses. For the most part, divergent questions ask for possibilities, or they may state assumptive facts and ask for possible, plausible conclusions. Divergent questions do not necessarily have factual or "right" answers. There "rightness" or "wrongness" can often be judged in terms of logic or sound reasoning.
   
   Examples: How might the world be different if the giant dinosaurs still existed on earth? What kind of plan would you suggest to investigate if the Loch Ness monster actually exists?

Sample Questions That Promote Critical Thinking and Teacher/Student Interaction.

Helping students think critically can be aided by using the a variety of questions, forcing them to experience content by coming at it from various angles: hypothesizing, interpreting, seeking alternative views, raising questions, evaluating findings or opinions, discovering new knowledge/ideas

Hypothesizing

• What do you suppose would happen if ..
  
• You are suggesting that ...
  
• If I understand you correctly, you think. .
  
• Are you trying to tell me that...?

Interpreting

• What do you think this means...?
  
• These findings lead us to make what kind of assumptions. ..
  
• What are we observing here...?
  
• What do these results tell us...?

Seeking Alternative Views

• What might be another viewpoint...?
  
• Is this the only possible solution...?
  
• Have be consider all the alternatives
  
• What other options do we have...?
  
• Are there other ways to look at this...?

Raising Questions

• How do we know this is right?
  
• Do we have to accept these findings?
  
• How can you prove that?
  
• What makes this thing work?

Evaluating Findings or Opinions

• Can this be documented?
  
• Do we need to investigate this further?
  
• Do we have all the data necessary to draw a conclusion?
  
• How do we know that this is correct?
  
• Are there any flaws that exist in these findings/arguments?

Discovering New Knowledge/Ideas

• Has anyone looked at this idea before?
  
• How do these findings/ideas add to the existing body of knowledge?
  
• Are we on the verge of something new?
  
• Where do we go from here?
  
• What exciting new ideals have we just learned?
  
• Based on these findings, what do we know now that we did not know earlier?

Day Ten Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

Most of us have invited guest speakers to contribute to the learning of our students. In the evening, they can be one of those appealing activities to use to break up the evening and capture the attention and imagination of your students. Sometimes, securing a speaker during the day can be easier than evening because people consider it part of their jobs. Availability may be more restricted at night too because of personal obligations or the distance the speaker lives or works from BHC. As a result, today’s idea is about suggestions for inviting guest speaker presence when he/she is unable to attend the class in person in the evening.

Have you ever thought how exciting it would be to have the author of your textbook visit your class? Or a leader in your field (academic) or profession (working professional) that does not live in the BHC district? Or an expert of any kind who could contribute to your class for 10-15 minutes on a very focused topic? How about one of these alternative methods to an in-class presentation?

1. Have Andy create a guest account to your CE8 course site for the speaker. [If you don’t already have a CE8 site, he can create one for you for this purpose.] Invite your speaker to join your class in the CE8 chat room for a live interview/discussion. Students can access the chat box from their own lab computers to post their individual questions or comments, and to follow the discussion. Tip: Have your students discuss ahead of time the questions they’d like to ask or topics they’d like the speaker to address. Then, send these to the speaker in advance. You may find it helpful to moderate the Q&A time if you have more than 10 students in class so that the conversation is more controlled. You can save the transcript of the text conversation to revisit later or more fully discuss in class. Sharing the transcript with the speaker may also generate follow-up comments or ideas from him/her, as well.
   
2. Sign-up to get a free Elluminate V-room (or borrow mine!). Send the URL to your guest speaker with very simple instructions,*** including when to join you and your class online. Then, pull up Internet Explorer or Firefox on your classroom computer and project it on the big screen. You and your students can interview/interact with your guest live! Students can ask questions orally by sharing your instructor microphone, or they can direct their questions to you or another student to type into the chat box. The V-room also has a white board area, so the guest can upload PowerPoint slides, a Web site or other demo, or other informative visual to display while he/she is talking.
   
3. Invite the speaker to audio record a short presentation or commentary that you can listen to in class (Audacity is a free download audio recorder; If you wish, you can edit the recording or cut it into pieces or ask the TLC to assist you with either task). Once the recording is ready, you can listen to it in class and brainstorm questions for your guest speaker, posting them as topics in an online discussion board. Invite the speaker to join you in the online discussion throughout the week. Students can be encouraged to join in the conversation all week, as well. Of course, you can have the speaker post the audio presentation to your CE8 or Sungard site and then conduct the Q&A live using method one or two above during class, as well.
   
4. Teach poetry? How about inviting some poets to read their poetry live using one of the above methods?
   
5. Want to direct your contact with a guest speaker to real-world settings? How about creating written scenarios/off-site video clips/case studies of common challenges or problems your guest might deal with at work and invite his/her analysis of the situation? Using any of the methods above to discuss the scenario, students have a chance to interact with the real world in meaningful ways. These can be short as well! Perhaps one per week on a problem that relates to that week’s course concepts?
   
6. If your students produce projects or designs, you might like to invite professionals in the area to do a project review. Students could post their projects online. Then, you could ask the guest to come to class live one night using the methods above and share his/her comments/suggestions, answer questions, etc.

***Instructions for live presenters using Elluminate V-room:

1. Purchase an inexpensive, USB headset with microphone or borrow one.
   
2. Visit the V-room site a day or two before to perform the automated computer checkup and audio wizard. A small download may be necessary, which you don’t want the speaker to have to do during your class time. http://www.elluminate.com/support
   
3. Practice a bit with you [instructor] so that the speaker is comfortable with the interface and how it will work. [Easy to learn and to use, but to minimize downtime or confusion, practicing a bit is always wise!] Explain your “moderator” role in the chat box.

Day Nine Teaching Evening (and Extended Time) Classes

In more than one previous post, I shared tips for managing your class time in ways that minimize mental fatigue, promote engagement, capture and recapture attention to assist students in staying focused on learning. Interspersing active learning activities with short lectures/presentations is one of those strategies. Let’s think a bit more about those short lectures. Many of us choose to use various types of visual aids when lecturing. Today I thought we would review some practical tips for using PowerPoint (or other visual aids) to support those short lectures/presentations.

For years, PowerPoint pundits included recommendations such as:

• Don’t use full sentences on the slide, unless it is ONE sentence to prompt discussion (e.g., quote).
  
• Avoid distracting background graphics that make it difficult to read the text.
  
• Limit each bullet to one line of text with 6 or fewer words, and each slide to no more than 3 bullets.
  
• Choose one animation for making each bullet point appear (mixing animations is distracting).
  
• Use a font type and font size that is easy to read from any place in the room (usually a minimum of 24 pt).
  
• Select a template that is pleasing to the eye (i.e., color) and provides good contrast between the background color and the text. Research even shows that white on dark is better than dark on light.

When using text on our slides, these “rules” still make sense. However, since those early recommendations, PowerPoint has become ubiquitous. My guess is that you all use it to some extent. The “death by PowerPoint” criticisms that have surfaced in recent years often center around problems created by presenters who either ignore the above guidelines or follow them while creating and speaking from 75 slides!

Rightfully so, PowerPoint tips nowdays tend to focus on what is really needed….. effective, persuasive presentations. If PowerPoint is used to enhance that presentation, then the tips assume the above list of guidelines, and instead, address additional recommendations, such as:

• Start the presentation with an idea and a focus, not a PowerPoint slide.
  
• Use a minimum number of slides to convey the key points that fit the learning outcome and audience. Even in a long evening class, your short presentations might each include 1-3 slides because much of the content is contained in your lively discussion with the students. Remember, it is about THEIR learning. If adding a graph or chart will help the students remember the keypoint, fine, but more words…..no.
  
• Use a minimum number of words and more graphics/images/photos to illustrate what YOU are saying out loud. This helps your students because they don’t have to choose whether to read and write down what is on the screen OR listen to you! This keeps you from reading the slides and gives them a visual to anchor the ideas to! It helps you encourage spontaneous discussions, rather than feeling married to a scripted slide of text.
  
• Press CTRL-H to make the cursor invisible during the presentation (moving cursors are very distracting). If you need to see the cursor to point to something specific, press CTRL-A and it will appear again.
  
• Avoid dimming the lights; you want the focus to be on you, not the screen most of the time. Move around a lot while presenting and use a wireless mouse to advance any slides. PowerPoint is not the focus of your presentation, the content is, as it is being delivered by you and experienced by you and your students together.
  
• Provoke the class to think, come up with new ideas, provide examples, suggest solutions…throughout your presentation.
  
• If you are demonstrating a web site, it is best to use a free, virtual magnifying glass to enlarge the portion of the screen you are emphasizing (http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/ ) so that the text or image is large enough to see.

If you have worked most of your professional life on putting your ideas into words and reversing that process to turn into a visual person is a real challenge, you might like to borrow one of my books on visual presentations to get ideas. They are really great!

What other tips would you like to share with the rest of us on using PowerPoint effectively when “presenting” content to your students?

Day Eight Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

As you have all probably heard, the mission of BHC is to “provide the environment and resources for individuals to become lifelong learners.” One way we faculty can contribute to that mission is to assist students in learning how to learn on their own, how to function in the real world as a lifelong learner, how to manage personal and professional learning networks (especially in your discipline), how to select good resources from a sometimes overwhelming flood of amazing web-based tools and other sources of information. But, you say, I don’t have time to research and evaluate all of these tools and information sources to select what are best for my students!

An easy way to learn yourself without much time investment and help your students strengthen their lifelong learning skills is to engage them in doing some of the research. That process in itself shows students how you use your networking contacts to be a Master Learner (aka David Warlick), one who is engaged, active, inquisitive, skeptical, networked, connected and sharing. We can’t possibly know all, so we need to develop strategies for continuing our learning that fits into our busy lives. Engaging your students as partners in your learning network is key!

For example, if your students are doing individual or small group projects, send them to one of the web sites listed below. Have them collaborate in choosing at least one tool to use that will assist them in their work for the project, and investigate and evaluate two others. Then, add to the rubric for the project that they are to report on their experience with their chosen tool by posting their mini-report to the class wiki. They should include, for example:

• Name of the tool (and URL)
  
• What the tool does
  
• Description of how the tool was used by their group to make their work more effective or efficient
  
• A rating of the tool and the criteria that they used to rate the tool
  
• A general recommendation of what types of work the tool is best suited for.

Web sites with links to dozens of tools:

• Organizing Your Digital Self (Maria Anderson, faculty member)
  
• Top 100 Learning Tools
  
• Web 2.0 Tools and Applications Index
  
• Carrie Delcourt’s Web 2.0 Highlights/Samples
  
• Internet for Classrooms
  
• Master List of Web 2.0 Tools

Our discussion of researching information sources will be discussed in one of our other “ideas.”

Day Seven Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

Today, I want to share with you a technology that is tailor-made for keeping students engaged, awake and involved. And BHC owns enough for all of your students…upt to 155 of them for your use! They are called clickers or “audience response systems.” They are about the size of a small calculator and are often picked up from the library in groups of 20-40 in a very cute basket that Charlet Key and her staff keep refreshed! Also in the basket is a receiver unit, a small device that looks like a flash/jump/USB drive. In addition, the program that makes them work is already installed on most instructor computers in the tech-equipped classrooms on the QC campus…look for a TurningPoint shortcut icon on the desktop and if there isn’t one there, just call the Help Desk to install it for you!

OK, first let me tell you how they work (print details here later).Then, we'll talk about ways you might find them useful for your evening classes.

1. Create a PowerPoint slideshow that includes some slides with multiple choice, true-false or other objective questions. These slides can be inserted into a regular set of slides, as well.
   
2. As you arrive to class, insert the receiver in the USB port of the computer (probably near the power button).
   
3. As students arrive to class, give each of the students a clicker for the evening.
   
4. Open your PowerPoint slideshow.
   
5. As you get to each question slide, ask the question and have the students press the numbered/lettered buttons on their clicker to indicate their answers. The receiver receives and combines anonymously all of the students’ answers.
   
6. Click your mouse and the computer will display the results of the composite answers in a bar graph on the screen.

Clickers can be used in a variety of engaging ways (see specific tips here).

• Take attendance
  
• Test review or mock exam practice (gives immediate feedback; best when asking application or other higher-order questions rather than recognition)


• Note: Using them for real quizzes or exams is not advised. Students worry about their reliability and will not view them as engaging for other activities.
  
• (Anonymous) quizzes on homework readings
  
• Anonymous quizzes on prior knowledge from last class or course
  
• Measure of current understanding of a concept or principle (Does the class understand it well enough to move on?)
  
• Measure of current understanding of a concept or principle (What misconceptions do the students have? Let’s resolve them!)
  
• Discussion warm-ups:
  
  
  • Stimulus for discussion on sensitive or controversial topics
    
  • Stimulus for discussion about different perspectives on a topic
    
  • Stimulus for discussion about potential solutions to problems or scenarios
  
  
• Practice in solving problems (Of several possible solutions, which is best? Why? discussions)
  
• Individual responses and level of confidence in it; turn to partner to discuss about question/problem presented; enter answer a second time
  
• Collect (anonymous) input about the class (Classroom Assessment Technique), such as when deciding about course policies or getting feedback on class activities
  

Good questions are key, of course. Our library has an excellent book with lots of sample questions for various purposes by Derek Bruff, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creative Active Learning Environments (2009). He also has a blog: http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/

Have any of you tried clickers yet? I’d love to hear about your experience! (Hint: Click Comment button below)

DAY SIX Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

When discussing the prevention of mental fatigue strategies in Day Two, I introduced the idea of using “core content scaffolding, such as incomplete handouts, review sheets, worksheets, or other printed resources that students work with while listening or doing throughout the evening.” Today, I thought I would share some tips and resources for developing these types of documents/tools.

Learning research demonstrates that using handouts that are incomplete help students develop note-taking skills, manage their learning in and out of class, and support good study habits. Sometimes these tools are called templates, interactive study guides, word pictures, concept maps, outlines, or job aids. The purpose of each one is to help students stay focused on the activities of the evening while learning the core concepts or principles being emphasized, their structure and relationship to each other, and perhaps their varied applications to real-world problems. They also serve as excellent review tools prior to exams or job aids when trying to replicate a procedure or problem-solving sequence, in part because they can provide a visual anchor for later recall (Almost all students are visual learners these days!).

Perhaps one of the least visual of these options is an outline, given to the students near the beginning of class. The outline could delineate the core material to be emphasized that evening. Many words, phrases, or other key points are left blank, however, to be filled-in by the students as they experience the content in many different ways throughout class. Adding minimal numbers of text boxes or circles to demonstrate relationships makes for an interesting adaptation of the incomplete outline; these are often called interactive study guides. Email me if you’d like an electronic copy of Tom Cyrs chapter “Communicating with Word Pictures” to see lots of examples. I know sometimes we spend so much time trying to put our ideas into words, we find calling on our visual capabilities a challenge!

More visual, but no less troublesome to create than an outline is a basic concept map, again with many missing words/phrases or details on the various nodes of the map. These are quite simple to create using the drawing tools in Microsoft Word or free Web 2.0 tools such as FreeMind or Mindomo. Take a look at some Mindomo examples that Maria Anderson, a math instructor at Muskegon Community College, has created for her students and for the rest of us. Notice that when you see a “paper” symbol next to any of the nodes, you can hover your mouse over it to see her explanatory notes pop up. A more detailed icon near a node represents a link to another page (with perhaps another level of the concept map!). These are fun for students to develop too!

Finally, job aids can be built during class under your guidance, but be used more AFTER class (in their complete state) while doing homework or practicing. Job aids do what they imply, assist us in remembering what is important when doing a complex, infrequent, often-changing or solitary job/task. It helps us track our progress in improving while doing the tasks. It can even help in doing peer review of our colleagues as they practice doing the task. Job aids provide that scaffolding that we have been talking about until the job/task has been done so often and so well that the job aid is no longer needed. An incomplete job aid that is built during an evening class will be more effective since it is developed by each student on his own or in collaboration with his small group at various junctures during class. I have two books (written by Allison Rossett) on developing effective job aids for improving performance if this idea is useful for your type of learning outcomes and you’d like to see examples.

You may want to create a simple interactive study guide/concept map/outline/job aid for each lecture, for each core topic or one for the entire evening. In all cases, leave plenty of white space near the various elements of it so that students can take additional notes, as desired.

Have any of you used incomplete outlines, worksheets, etc. in your classes? How? Why? Tips?

DAY FIVE

I have mentioned using small group work several times in the first four “ideas” as an effective approach for breaking up the long hours of class, promoting student engagement and reducing mental fatigue, etc. The fifth “idea” here will answer some of your questions about how to do this effectively. Of course, several variables that affect that decision are the size of the class, the physical arrangement of the classroom and how much flexibility you have to change it, and the types of tasks that you want the small groups to work on. We’ll discuss each of these briefly in a moment, but first let me share with you some research findings about in-class small group work and student learning.

1. Peer teaching and student-led discussions are superior for learning compared to teacher-led discussions, even if the teacher provides the discussion questions. Why?

a. Preparing to teach and explain promotes more learning than hearing the explanations of others.

b. Constructing thought-provoking questions demands analysis of the readings.

c. Accepting responsibility for helping each other learn is motivating and gets students to class!

2. Using small groups regularly reduces absenteeism (students feel more accountable to their group).

3. Each student talks more in small groups than in whole-class discussions:

a. They ask more questions of each other when confused.

b. They work harder to explain and help those who are confused.

c. They offer positive feedback to each other.

d. They feel compelled to work toward having the meeting stay on track.

4. Heterogeneous groups are more successful than homogeneous ones. Use exam performance, learning style inventories, your first-day “getting to know them” surveys, or ??? to distribute groups evenly, or do random assignment such as birthdays between January and March. Natural group formations may work well too, e.g. all students at a DL site, the same employer or time zone.

5. Learning facts is not necessarily better than in non-group learning environments, but motivation is higher, students are more curious about the course content, and they develop deeper thinking skills.

6. Higher amounts of structure are needed if learners have little prior knowledge and little experience working in task-oriented groups.

7. Ideal group size in face-to-face groups is 5-6 and in virtual groups is 4, unless the virtual groups are only discussing, in which case up to 10 is workable.

Now, knowing these things about effective groups, you can think about your classroom situation and how these research findings fit. For example, if you teach in an auditorium with immovable, tiered seating, groups of 5-6 may not be feasible. Perhaps four would work, so that two can turn around to the two behind them. Perhaps your room has tables and chairs, but they all face forward and the room is not big enough or there isn’t time enough to move them for every class. Again, if two sit at each table, how about having them turn around their chairs to form a group of four? The point is, you want enough in each group so that if one is absent, you still have a group! And you want the group large enough for many tasks you might give them to draw on the expertise and points of view of several students.

Now, there may be times where you just want students to turn to one other person, discuss something for 2-3 minutes, and then share; in this case, you don’t need a larger group. But if you can see value in having students work through study questions together, practice applying course concepts to real-world scenarios or problems, produce a number of mini-deliverables on a large-scale project, or other learning activities in which groups are ideal and need blocks of time to do these tasks, small group work is possible to do in an evening class or extended time class. Plus, for all the reasons cited in the research and the positive impact small group work can make on keeping students engaged when in class for 2-4 hours or more, they are worthwhile!

If your students do not have much experience working effectively in groups, you may want to provide some group scaffolding for them, at least until they have had a chance to learn how to do it effectively and efficiently. Consider reviewing our “Groups and Virtual Teams” resource for additional guidelines on how to accomplish this.

Day Four: Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

Let’s consider an additional major factor (listed on Day Two) that affects students’ attention and engagement, nutrition. Of course, overall nutrition affects the brain also, things like enough iron, vitamins, calcium, and fiber. But here we are going to discuss how what and when your students eat the day of class can make a major difference in their ability to stay awake, focused and able to learn for several hours at the end of the day.

Brains need proteins, carbohydrates and fats to produce energy that can be draw upon while learning. However, not any type of protein, carb or fat will do. Some of these actually make a person drowsy or prevent the right kind of proteins, carbs and fats from doing their job! Consider these facts and then read more about it at http://www.askdrsears.com/HTML/4/T040400.ASP

1. Students who arrive hungry, in general, are likely to be irritable, restless, apathetic, sad, unmotivated, and less able to recall earlier learning or apply new learning to problem-solving tasks. Hunger contributes to mental fatigue, as discussed in Day Three. This goes for skipping breakfast before an extended morning class, as well.
   
2. Eating habits such as eating a large meal before class or eating a high-carbohydrate/low protein meal may solve the hunger problem, but makes your students drowsy and lethargic. Chocolate, pastries, bean burritos, sunflower seeds, bananas, dairy products, spaghetti with heavy sauce, and fattier meats tend to relax the brain and are ideal in the evening if you are trying to wind down!
   
3. Omega-3 fatty acids are important to general brain health. Foods such as eggs, flax or canola oil, salmon or tuna, soybeans, walnuts or pumpkin seeds, wheatgerm, and almonds are excellent sources of these healthy fats.
   
4. Best foods for pre-class eating before an evening class include:
   
   1. A lower-calorie, light meal, such as a salad with tuna, vegetables, and dressing made with canola oil, stir-fried vegetables on brown rice, or even yogurt and fresh fruit.
      
   2. A more filling, but nutritious meal such as a PB&J sandwich on whole grain bread and an apple and glass of milk.
      
   3. Complex carbohydrates such as fruits like apples or oranges (not fruit juice), whole grain cereals (e.g., oatmeal) or whole-grains (not wheat, but whole wheat, brown rice), and as little refined sugar as possible (e.g, colas, candy, pastries).
      
   4. Proteins containing tyrosine amino acids, such as seafood, turkey, tofu, lentils, peanuts (or peanut butter), tuna, salmon. These proteins wake up the brain, rather than relax and wind it down.
      
   5. When eating both energy-producing proteins and carbs, eat the protein BEFORE the complex carbohydrates.
      
   6. Avoid nicotine, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated fats in prepared foods, alcohol, junk sugars and white bread before class.

What suggestions do you have for the “brain friendly food list” that you might provide to your class to take turns bringing for snacks?

Day Three: Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

In Day Two, I listed several challenges that can occur in an evening (or extended time) class that affect students’ attention and engagement. We explored ways to help students shift gears when getting to class. Today, we’ll take a look at another one on that list, mental fatigue…its impact on your evening students and a variety of easy-to-implement ideas to reduce its potentially negative effects on learning.

Of course, some mental fatigue may already be in place when some of your students arrive. They may have a demanding job, a full day of childcare behind them, a long drive to class, something stressful going on in their personal lives, or even incomplete nutrition. Other types of mental fatigue may set in during class as a result of intense prolonged concentration, emotional reactions to not understanding something or not being interested in the class’s topic that evening, or physical fatigue, among other things.

Psychological research tells us that mental fatigue effects the human brain in several ways that can impact a student’s ability to get the most out of class:

• Normal tasks may appear to be more complicated.
  
• The process of exploring solutions to problem-solving tasks is less systematic and more inefficient.
  
• Concentration is more challenging, increasing distractability (i.e., daydreaming, looking around at irrelevant things).
  
• Ability to recall prior learning is reduced, increasing errors.
  
• Reactions to normal tasks may prompt more emotions, such as impatience, fear.
  
• Sustained effort is more difficult.

Knowing that we have some students who arrive with mental fatigue or develop it during an extended-time class, what can we do to structure the learning environment in ways that would reduce the fatigue or at least minimize its impact on student learning? How about some of these tips?

1. Evening focus: At the beginning of class, outline what the 3-5 things are that you will be focusing on this evening, and some of the ways they will be experiencing this content. Several of the ideas in Day Two reveal this information in active ways. Then, revisit this often throughout the evening in the form of short summaries, review “minutes,” and transitional or orienting statements such as “We have just completed an analysis of _____ concept, as I mentioned at the outset of class; next we’ll explore how that that concept can be utilized in…”
   
   
2. Presentations: Use the “bob and weave technique” of moving between facts, concepts, and stories or vivid examples, making the connections between them clear and frequent. When possible, use visual aids (images, video clips, graphs, maps, etc.) to anchor core ideas and provide variety (reducing distractability). Limit presentations to 10-15 minute chunks with alternating activities in between.
   
3. Core content scaffolding: Provide incomplete handouts, review sheets, worksheets, or other printed resources that students work with while listening or doing throughout the evening. Having something to complete keeps them engaged and focused better, plus provides a tangible prompt to assist in recall or homework applications of the evening’s learning outcomes.
   
4. Physical movement: Plan for regular moving around of the students (changing small groups, posting discussion results on newsprint on the walls, etc.). Even standing up and stretching every 30 minutes can make a huge difference in getting blood to the brain!
   
5. Pacing: Besides the “10-minute rule” for presentations, plot the evening schedule around logical sequencing of content focus, but frequent changes in types of activities, such as: present, pair and share a discussion question, watch a video clip and brainstorm “what to do next” in small groups (posting ideas on newsprint to the wall), dot vote on all solutions posed by all groups, short summary of learning outcomes so far, break, present again…etc. Change of any kind helps refocus attention! Complex or challenging tasks need to be broken down into smaller pieces with “report outs,” and potentially handled in the first half of the evening.
   
6. Questions: Allow time at several junctures during the evening for questions. Adult learners often have many and will be more engaged when they are given the opportunity to share and ask.
   
7. Food: If you discover that many of your students come to class without having eaten anything since lunch (or what they did eat won’t give them lasting mental energy), consider asking them if they’d like to take turns bringing something from your “brain food” list to share with the class.

Let’s hear from some of you who have noticed this mental fatigue in your students. What have you found seems to help prevent or alleviate the situation? Click the Comments link below to share your thoughts or ideas, or questions!

DAY TWO: Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

The focus of our Day Two “idea” relates to the challenge of maintaining attention and engagement when the class is a long one. Consider these facts:

1. Research says that an adult’s attention span is not much more than 30 minutes, and for many, as little as 10 minutes is what they are used to! [Fact: Maintaining focus for 2-3 or more hours is tough!]
   
2. Add to that the mental fatigue for those students who have been working all day or handling other challenges during the day, such as childcare. [Question: How much mental energy do they have to process the learning experiences you have developed for them? Are there some types of experiences that can be handled better than others?]
   
3. Add the reality that many students need to shift mental gears from whatever they do during the day to think about the issues and topics in your course. [Example: Shifting from solving problems on the job that have nothing to do with the course’s content, for example, is challenging!]
   
4. Finally, a common situation that contributes to attention issues is students may be rushing from work to class without having time to eat anything, or at least nothing that the brain can use for thinking. [Brains need nutrition!]

Let’s take a look at #3 above for today. How can you assist your evening students in getting on track quickly, shifting gears to your course’s content?

• At the conclusion of the last class, put up on the screen and post to your course web site, the opening question that will be discussed at the beginning of the next class. Then, put that question up on the front screen up to 15 minutes before class, so that it is displayed as the students arrive.
  
• Begin the class with one of the following activities to help the students get on track quickly through active learning:
  
  
  • Display a focusing question related to the opening discussion topic in which students can reply anonymously with clickers. Use the composite answers that display on the screen to spark conversation. You may want to provide 3 or 4 of these clicker questions to wet their appetite and get all of their attention “on the same page” before launching other learning activities.
    
  • Display one or more focusing questions related to the opening discussion topic (in PowerPoint, or typed and projected using the document camera) that students in pre-assigned small groups are to discuss among each other for 10 minutes. Then, taking each question one at a time, have a spokesperson from each group share or be members of a panel for that learning activity/discussion.
    
  • If you have assigned study questions, an outline, a double-entry journal, or other homework assignment that involves summarizing the critical points from the reading, have the students join a pre-assigned discussion group to negotiate a common list of no more than five critical points. Each group can share one of them during the whole class discussion.
    
  • Play a short audio or video clip from a well-known movie or television show that contains a relevant story to that night’s topic. Invite students to pair up and generate three things that were happening in the clip that relate to the reading for that evening…this is an open-book activity that gets them back into the book from whatever they were doing before coming to class. Then, call on various pairs to share one of the themes they discovered as a starting point for a whole class discussion of the critical points.
    
  • Develop a series of scenarios in which the core concepts for the evening can be used to pose solutions. Have the students write down individual solution ideas, then pair up and discuss each other’s scenarios and solutions, and then have two of the pairs combine to form a group of 4 based on the color of their scenario (blue groups have the same scenario, for example). The new group is to use the text or other resource you give them to flesh out the details of a “best” solution. Then, each scenario is presented by a group along with the detailed solution. The rest of the class is invited to comment, ask questions, offer alternative analyses, etc.

Any of these activities can help students transition from their busy jobs or home life to the exciting world of learning about your content area. What other ideas have you used to jump start your evening classes? Use the Comment button below to share your ideas!

DAY ONE: Getting Started

According to Banner, 71 faculty are teaching evening classes in the spring of 2010. In other words, over a thousand students have chosen to take a weekly or bi-weekly class that meets for much more than the usual 50 or 75-minute class period. For some courses, this is a blessing, because it gives you time to do extended simulations, labs, and other time-consuming activities that enhance learning. It also minimizes travel to campus and gives the students access to an education after day-time responsibilities. However, it also creates a different set of challenges for both you and your students.

Our 15 Ideas in 15 Days theme this semester will provide you with ideas and insights into meeting these challenges and fostering the best learning environment possible in your evening or other extended time classes. Some of these ideas have been pulled from the literature and some from the experiences of other BHC evening instructors who have shared their tips with me! Please note that at the bottom of each “idea” is a Comments link. Just click it to add your own thoughts, experiences, questions. The blog will give you several choices for signing your post. Please select one that will add your name, or type your name into the post itself.

Let’s talk in this first idea about how you can utilize some valuable time on the first night of class to get to know your evening students better. Evening classes often contain more adult learners who have a wider variety of life experiences; knowing some of them can help you:

• identify what kinds of review of prerequisite knowledge is needed prior to introducing new content
  
• make intentional decisions about how to group the students for in-class activities or group projects
  
• invite their contributions in class discussions based on their relevant work or life experiences
  
• target the course to their collective career aspirations or personal interests.
  
• identify which students are new to college and might need additional support in the early weeks of the semester

You can have the students fill out a 4x6 note card or a survey in answer to your questions, interview each other and then introduce the other to the class or to a small group in the class, or make up a skit with 2 or 3 others about something they have in common. The point is, these kinds of activities show your interest in getting to know them, set the tone for active participation and sharing, and give you valuable information. Here are a few suggestions for the kinds of information you will want to find out, one way or another:

1. Name, nickname, contact information
   
2. Job or personal experiences relevant to the course
   
3. Current work; future career aspiration
   
4. Student status: what major? What degree are they pursuing, if any? Full-time/part-time? Other course work completed at BHC or elsewhere that they think might help them in this class? Class status (freshman?)
   
5. Learning style inventory (e.g., VARK)
   
6. Knowledge survey (like a prerequisite knowledge quiz, only instead of answers, the students indicate whether each content area is new to them, they have heard of it but don’t’ know much about it, can explain it in general to someone else, or could probably teach a short lesson on it). Email me if you’d like to see an example of one (bakerm@bhc.edu).

Now what kinds of other ideas or types of questions have you implemented on the first night of class to help your students get acquainted with you and each other? Click the Comments link below.