Teaching Methodologies
Transparency and Equity
I am constantly re-thinking how to build transparency and equity into my students’ assignments. I write step-by-step assignment instructions that begin with a rationale for the assignment and a reminder of the learning objectives, I post sample assignments to help students catch the vision of the assignment, I provide templates and checklists to help students make sure they’re on track, and I give students “Lifelines” (where their lowest quiz and assignment scores get dropped) to protect them when “life happens.” In addition, I send regular grade alerts to students who are struggling and invite them to meet with me; using an online signup form, I make myself available for students for up to twenty office hours each week.
Group/Class Discussions
The nature of my subject matter/discipline (Human Development and Family Studies) naturally lends itself to personal application and real-life examples. This results in a lot of group/class discussions regarding the concepts we study. Early in my career, this sometimes resulted in only a small number of students participating, especially when the subject matter was complex or controversial. Over time, I have incorporated various strategies to encourage participation from all students:
- On the first day of class, I give students a no-stakes True/False quiz that addresses some of the myths around the concepts we’ll be studying. They work with a small group and make their best guess at the answers, often prompting lively discussions/debate. This serves several purposes: helps them break the ice with their peers, it engages from Day 1 in peer instruction, it helps develop a support network in the class, and it gets them immediately engaged in the content for the class. As discussed below, the students continue working with their peers throughout the semester, so this activity is foundational. Then, at the end of the semester, we return to the same True/False quiz so students can see how much they have learned from the class.
- I was introduced to classroom polling devices ("clickers") as a new faculty member in the early 2000s, teaching classes of up to 175 students at Western Washington University. With such large classes, clickers were a great way to get individual-level involvement--I used them for formative assessment, opinion polling, discussion prompts, etc. Clickers are especially helpful for controversial or sensitive topics, where they offer a "low stakes" way to talk about difficult issues. ("How many of you were bullied as a child?" then "How many of you bullied someone else as a child?") In recent years, this kind of interaction has become possible using the students' own device--their smartphone--through apps/websites like Socrative, Kahoot!, Poll Anywhere, Quizlet, Jamboard, or Microsoft Forms. The technology has changed, but the pedagogical approach continues to facilitate the same outcome: student engagement.
- As with classroom polling, Think-Pair-Share conversations are a low-stakes way to speak up in class. While not anonymous like classroom polling, the "audience" for initial Think-Pair-Share activities is small: just the student's partner. When we shift to the Share phase, the more vocal students are usually the first to speak up. Over time, however, I begin "cold calling" on specific students. Earlier in my career, I avoided calling on specific students, as I didn't want to make them uncomfortable in class. Now, I take a developmental approach over the first few weeks of the semester: initially, students answer discussion questions on a volunteer basis (which actually means that the more gregarious students answer the questions); then, as I respond in ways that encourage a supportive classroom atmosphere, I can see the quieter students get more comfortable in their pairs and invite them into the class-wide Share phase. "I overheard Camille tell her group an interesting experience _______. Camille, will you share that story with the class?" or "I'd like to hear from someone who I haven't heard from yet today. How about Camille?" I have found that, with the proper preparation during the early class sessions, in time, most students become comfortable speaking up. (This approach was especially important last year, when I taught the quietest group of students I've ever had. It was a small group--only about a dozen students, and by the middle of the semester, I was calling on each student in every class period. Even the quietest-of-the-quiet students were participating in class discussions on a daily basis.)
- Discussing personal application and real-life examples means honoring divergent-thinking, where the goal is not to arrive at a particular "answer." I always find it frustrating when a teacher asks a question where they are fishing for a specific response out of numerous equally-legitimate responses. I've seen teachers ask something like "What is the best thing you can do to have a happy marriage?" and then spend the discussion shooting down responses from one student after another. Not only is this approach frustrating to students in the moment, I believe that it reduces the likelihood that students will speak up over time. My approach is starkly different: when launching discussions throughout the semester, I repeatedly remind that "I'm not looking for a 'right' or 'wrong' answer here. I'm just interested in what you think," and I follow that up by responding to the students' comments with validation. This provides a safe environment for students to speak up and increases the likelihood, over time, of ongoing engagement and participation.
- Like Think-Pair-Share, group work can provide support/safety for students with challenging work. In my Lifespan Development class, for example, students complete a series of video observations throughout the semester: watching 30-minute videos of an individual in a given developmental stage and then writing a report identifying two concepts that they observed within each of three areas of development (physical development, cognitive development, psychosocial development). This can seem daunting at first, so we work together on the first observation assignment using a flipped-classroom, group-based approach: we watch a few minutes of the video together, and then I pause the video and have each group discuss concepts that they observed. By the time the activity is complete, each student has an outline of the concepts they can write about for their report. I have developed a variation on this activity and plan to test it out the next time I teach this class: give the students the concepts they will observe in a short video clip (so they can review the concept ahead of time), then watch the video clip together, then have students discuss examples of each item on the list of concepts. For example, I will have the students review the following list of concepts at home before class:
- Physical development: gross motor skills, fine motor skills
- Cognitive development: language use (holophrase, mean length of utterance), object permanence
- Psychosocial development: Freud's oral stage of development, types of play (solitary, onlooker, and parallel play)
Then, in class, I will play the first four minutes of the video below and instruct students to identify at least one example of each of the concepts above.
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By doing so, they will realize that they could complete their entire report based on those four minutes alone. Additionally, as they continue practicing, they will begin to develop their ability to observe course concepts in other real-world settings.
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Examples in the News
I am always on the lookout for media, culture, and news stories that are related to my teaching. I have created a spreadsheet with over 700 links to resources (news stories and other online content) that I can use in the class I am teaching. I include columns reflecting the relevant chapter for each of my classes where the resource would fit best, and I can sort the spreadsheet by those columns to quickly find content for a particular chapter of a given class: See the screenshot below. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)
I am always on the lookout for media, culture, and news stories that are related to my teaching. I have created a spreadsheet with over 700 links to resources (news stories and other online content) that I can use in the class I am teaching. I include columns reflecting the relevant chapter for each of my classes where the resource would fit best, and I can sort the spreadsheet by those columns to quickly find content for a particular chapter of a given class: See the screenshot below. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)
Examples in Media/Culture
In addition to news stories, I love to bring in other aspects of media, culture, or entertainment to illustrate concepts from class. Here are two clips from the TV show The Carbonaro Effect that I use to illustrate two Piagetian concepts of experiential learning: assimilation and accommodation. Piaget used the term assimilation to refer to the process that occurs when new experiences "fit" into the way we already see the world. By contrast, the term accommodation refers to the process that occurs when new experiences require a person to change how they see the world. (Note: Michael Carbonaro is a magician. Essentially, his entire job centers on disrupting adults' tendency to engage in assimilation.)
In addition to news stories, I love to bring in other aspects of media, culture, or entertainment to illustrate concepts from class. Here are two clips from the TV show The Carbonaro Effect that I use to illustrate two Piagetian concepts of experiential learning: assimilation and accommodation. Piaget used the term assimilation to refer to the process that occurs when new experiences "fit" into the way we already see the world. By contrast, the term accommodation refers to the process that occurs when new experiences require a person to change how they see the world. (Note: Michael Carbonaro is a magician. Essentially, his entire job centers on disrupting adults' tendency to engage in assimilation.)
Assimilation (beginning at 0:30)
(Note that the woman insists on an explanation that matches her previous understanding of the world.) |
Accommodation
(Note that the woman accepts a new "reality" that is very different than her previous understanding of the world.) |
Evidence-based Content
The nature of my subject matter/discipline (Human Development and Family Studies) naturally lends itself to personal application and real-life examples--"everyone's an expert." It's not uncommon for me to have students say something like, "I was spanked, growing up, and I turned out fine so..." without understanding that they're making implications based on a very small sample size. From the beginning of the semester, then, I make sure that the content is research-based. When answering a question, I will often refer specifically to researchers and their work, or I'll say "I have not read any research on that" and ask the student what their hypothesis would be.
One of my favorite informal "learning outcomes" in the class is to get to the point where students' questions begin with "What does the research say about...?"
In addition, I incorporate research (beyond that which is in the textbook) into class whenever possible. In a class session on relationship conflict, for example, I display the following image and explain that this is longitudinal data from researchers Ragnar Storaasli and Howard Markman about the kinds of problems that newlywed couples experience. The numbers on the Y axis represent percentages, and the X axis represents time: T1 is when the couples are newlyweds and T3 is 4-5 years into the marriage after the couple becomes parents. That means that the blue line at the top of the screen represents something that about 95% of newlyweds are struggling with, and it continues to be a struggle for 95% of couples over those first 4-5 years of marriage. By contrast, the green line represents an issue that is a problem for around 65% of newlyweds, but by about Year 5, almost every couple (around 95%) reports it as being a problem. Click on the image to enlarge it.
The nature of my subject matter/discipline (Human Development and Family Studies) naturally lends itself to personal application and real-life examples--"everyone's an expert." It's not uncommon for me to have students say something like, "I was spanked, growing up, and I turned out fine so..." without understanding that they're making implications based on a very small sample size. From the beginning of the semester, then, I make sure that the content is research-based. When answering a question, I will often refer specifically to researchers and their work, or I'll say "I have not read any research on that" and ask the student what their hypothesis would be.
One of my favorite informal "learning outcomes" in the class is to get to the point where students' questions begin with "What does the research say about...?"
In addition, I incorporate research (beyond that which is in the textbook) into class whenever possible. In a class session on relationship conflict, for example, I display the following image and explain that this is longitudinal data from researchers Ragnar Storaasli and Howard Markman about the kinds of problems that newlywed couples experience. The numbers on the Y axis represent percentages, and the X axis represents time: T1 is when the couples are newlyweds and T3 is 4-5 years into the marriage after the couple becomes parents. That means that the blue line at the top of the screen represents something that about 95% of newlyweds are struggling with, and it continues to be a struggle for 95% of couples over those first 4-5 years of marriage. By contrast, the green line represents an issue that is a problem for around 65% of newlyweds, but by about Year 5, almost every couple (around 95%) reports it as being a problem. Click on the image to enlarge it.
To make the discussion interactive, I then have students guess what topics will appear on the chart (either verbally or using a polling system, as described later in this section). Once there has been some robust conversation and engagement, I reveal the labels from the data. Click on the image to enlarge it.
We then discuss the implications of the data: which topics are most common (a three-way tie between money, sex, and communication by Year 5), how conflict is normative and couples can still be happy, etc. Many young couples believe that their relationship will be conflict-free over time, so this information is vital for a more realistic understanding of real relationships. Repeatedly throughout the semester, I emphasize that these are actual couples' data, gathered from systematic research, rather than a belief based on one's own very limited experience.
Real-world Connections
As explained above, the concepts in my courses are reflected in every day life. Consequently, personal application is an ongoing theme of the course. Above, I described this as it relates to class discussions, but it is also built into every assignment in my classes, from the Observation Reports described above to short essays where students choose from a list of possible prompts that are based on real-world applications of course concepts. Some examples from my Marriage & Family Relationships course:
Authenticity: No Sugarcoating
A critical approach to my teaching is to be authentic. I want my students prepared for the real world, so I am candid about the challenges that students will face when applying the concepts from class, as in any area of the behavioral sciences. Sometimes an informed approach helps us navigate life smoothly, but it's no guarantee--sometimes there are variables we didn't anticipate/consider. I am straightforward about my own experiences, both positive and negative, with marriage, raising children, fostering development, etc.
I do the same with the research we study in class. I show my students the line graphs below, from Ted Huston's longitudinal study of marriage, which paint a sobering view of how marriages change in the early years. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Real-world Connections
As explained above, the concepts in my courses are reflected in every day life. Consequently, personal application is an ongoing theme of the course. Above, I described this as it relates to class discussions, but it is also built into every assignment in my classes, from the Observation Reports described above to short essays where students choose from a list of possible prompts that are based on real-world applications of course concepts. Some examples from my Marriage & Family Relationships course:
- One of the best things that a person can have in their “relationship toolkit” is the ability to resolve conflicts through effective communication. Review the section entitled “Positive Communication Strategies” and try using them in a conversation with a loved one. You may teach the strategies to your partner before the conversation. The conversation should last for at least 5 to 10 minutes. In your paper, describe your relationship with your partner, the topic of the discussion and your reaction to the conversation. Interview your partner and get their reaction as well. What skills were most helpful?
- Suppose your 21 year old child or best friend came to you and asked the question, "How do you know if you are ready for marriage?" How would you respond? If it will help, you may interview two other people and list their answers in your paper. As you consider the factors predicting marital success, look at your own past relationships. What factors, such as background, personality characteristics, and relationship characteristics, might have predicted the quality of your relationship? Were any particular characteristics especially important for you? Why?
- Interview two or three couples who are in their 20’s or early 30’s and who have been married for more than a year and less than five years. Record their responses to the following questions: What are the important tasks that young couples need to undertake in order to have a long-term successful marriage? Is it okay for a woman to be more successful than her husband? What impact could her success have on their marriage? What should be the marriage partner’s relationship with his or her own parents? What should be the person’s relationship with his or her in-laws? What were their hardest adjustments to marriage?
- Research indicates that couples are choosing to have children later in life than in previous generations. What do you see as the advantages and/or disadvantages of this choice? When do you think is the “ideal” time to have children? How would you feel if you could not conceive a child? To what lengths would you be willing to go to conceive – in vitro-fertilization; artificial insemination; surrogate motherhood? What about adoption? Many couples cannot afford these very expensive conception techniques. How do you feel about poor people not having these options?
- Based on your life experiences, what makes a good parent? What makes a bad parent? Does your definition of what makes a good or bad parent change depending on the age of the child? Should our parenting styles or techniques change as our children get older or should they stay the same? Explain. In your family of orientation, what child-rearing attitudes (authoritarian, permissive, or authoritative) predominated? What impact did your parents child-rearing attitudes have on you? Interview either one or both of your parents. If you do not have access to your parents, interview the parents of a close friend or relative. Ask them to describe their greatest joys and challenges as a parent. If they had to do it again, what would they do differently? What would they do the same?
Authenticity: No Sugarcoating
A critical approach to my teaching is to be authentic. I want my students prepared for the real world, so I am candid about the challenges that students will face when applying the concepts from class, as in any area of the behavioral sciences. Sometimes an informed approach helps us navigate life smoothly, but it's no guarantee--sometimes there are variables we didn't anticipate/consider. I am straightforward about my own experiences, both positive and negative, with marriage, raising children, fostering development, etc.
I do the same with the research we study in class. I show my students the line graphs below, from Ted Huston's longitudinal study of marriage, which paint a sobering view of how marriages change in the early years. Click on the image to enlarge it.
I've had students respond to this by saying, "I'm not sure I want to get married anymore."
My response to this is, "I don't show you this to scare you; I show it to prepare you." I then help them to recognize what would happen if they went into marriage not knowing the data above--if they were to experience that decline themselves, it could be catastrophic for their marriage. if, by contrast, they know the data above, then if (when) it happens to them, they will see it in a totally different light. "This is normative. This happens to everyone, and many people stay happily married. If they can do it, we can too."
In short, I believe that being authentic, both with my own stories and with the research, will best prepare students for their future.
My response to this is, "I don't show you this to scare you; I show it to prepare you." I then help them to recognize what would happen if they went into marriage not knowing the data above--if they were to experience that decline themselves, it could be catastrophic for their marriage. if, by contrast, they know the data above, then if (when) it happens to them, they will see it in a totally different light. "This is normative. This happens to everyone, and many people stay happily married. If they can do it, we can too."
In short, I believe that being authentic, both with my own stories and with the research, will best prepare students for their future.