Division of Education
Mount Saint Mary College
330 Powell Avenue, Newburgh, NY 12550
Dr. Ludmilla Smirnova
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Mount
Saint Mary College Division of Education Mount Saint Mary College 330 Powell Avenue, Newburgh, NY 12550 |
Associate Professor Dr. Ludmilla Smirnova |
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| III. Teaching Effectiveness | |||||||||||||
To demonstrate my teaching effectiveness, I will now discuss the key approaches I have selected, tested, and adopted for my typical pedagogical style. I spend exhaustive hours researching the literature to identify the latest approaches and techniques. I chose the most appropriate for the courses that I am teaching, learn them, and then adapt them for Mount Saint Mary. I then experiment by introducing the approach in my courses, collect feedback carefully on success, modify and test again. Rather than ever rest on success, I continually search for better, updating and upgrading as I go. In this way, as illustrated below, I have taken the approaches I honed in my career and modified them to produce the best outcomes at the Mount. I begin every class with a circle setting to give my students a chance to get acquainted with each other and with their instructor. Students create name tags, list information about themselves, and then share this information with the rest of the class. I myself recite a poem I wrote explaining the meaning of my name in Russian. I share it with the students and encourage them to create their own Name projects. This step serves to create a warm class environment of welcome and comfort while demonstrating how students can start their future school years with their own schoolchildren. I then place students into groups to read and discuss the syllabus and to ask questions about new terms and the content of listed reading assignments. We also jointly create rules for the class to follow, and I clarify the consequences of not following requirements or rules. Students are assigned as homework the task of designing a learning contract for the semester based upon the syllabus. As a result, students must read the syllabus thoroughly and understand the course requirements and framework and my grading policy. In subsequent classes, I conduct a series of learning diagnostics in the form of group projects where students learn how to cooperate, share responsibility, and collaboratively present results of their group work to the rest of the class. After the first group presentation, we analyze what the assignment is about. Students realize that the design of their presentation is effectively a lesson plan and the presentation itself is implementation through instruction. The class then designs a checklist of the steps in designing a presentation (i.e., lesson plan) and the elements of effective delivery. The discussion covers such issues as non-verbal communication (eye contact, etc.), voice projection, class participation, student motivation, etc. From the very beginning students are taught to answer the question "WHY" they do what they do and how it can be applied to their future teaching. These steps help to create an atmosphere of friendship and professional support in my classes. As students work in cooperative groups, give presentations of mutual projects, discuss the ways how to improve them, articulate their philosophical views and educational beliefs in front of their peers, they become more self-confident, expressive, reflective, and effective. 2. Micro-teaching and Cooperative Learning The first part of the Basics of Planning class employs cooperative learning groups. Presentations of group projects helps to build students’ comfort level for standing up in front of the classroom. As part of a group presentation, students are less likely to be embarrassed or intimidated by their peers and to have "stage fright." Later in the course, each student is required to present to the class one 3-5 minute “Energizing Activity” that he or she designs on their own. They must plan all the details and implement the activity with the rest of the class. In the beginning these activities are not complex, but to the end of the course, when the students gain more knowledge on the course content, the activities become more complicated and the students sometimes design activities for the assigned material for the upcoming class. After an activity is presented, we have a five minute “meta-cognitive moment.” During this time, the student- teacher compares what s/he planned to happen with what actually occurred. Classmates then offer three positive comments on the presented activity and the teaching style of the teacher-student, and consider how they would themselves modify the activity. To complete the feedback, I designed a reflective form, "Three Pluses and a Wish," that students then fill out, share with the class, and submit to the student-teacher. I value this method of Micro-teaching, as many students are very shy, not experienced in public speaking, inexperienced in interacting with the rest of the class or being “on stage." Micro-teaching prepares the students for the next class in this series of courses, Methods of Teaching, where they are required to design lesson plans, teach their peers, and then to teach their lesson plans to the school children in their field work placements. Most students express positive reflections to this part of the course.
One
of the best ways to develop student creativity and effective teaching
skills is through role play. Role play allows for real life situations
to be modeled in the college classroom, making the teaching and learning
processes accessible and meaningful and providing a venue for thinking
about how to respond when such situations actually occur. I design and
use a series of simulations and role plays throughout my courses, giving
students a chance to practice their skills in such areas as
These and other forms of experiential learning help to assure that act of studying learning and teaching mirrors as much as is possible the acts of learning and teaching themselves. 4. Modeling and Teaching Application of New Technologies: Power Point, Graphic Organizers, Web Pages, WebCT, and Webquests Key to my approach to preparing future teachers is that the professor must herself model the methods of effective teaching in order to demonstrate innovative techniques that may be hard to grasp unless they are directly experienced. This is an approach I developed in Russia and imported to the Mount. I model everything I teach my students about effective learning and teaching. I guide students' learning by showing how to use different Information Processing techniques for structuring the material they study. I develop social skills through practicing cooperative learning techniques. I demonstrate how to enhance lecture comprehension by providing “note pad” materials that summarize my Power Point Presentations and leave room for student notes. They also model how these future teachers can use this technology. These help my students to follow the logic of the presentation and think on the same page as the class and myself.
One of the most powerful tools in eliciting students' understanding of the material is the usage of graphic organizers and/or jot charts. I first model how to create and use these tools in class in the context of presenting theory to be applied to upcoming classes. I ask students to visit websites that clearly define and illustrate different types of graphic organizers. Once students are familiar with the format, I ask them to create their own graphic organizers and jot charts to summarize assigned materials from the class. In this manner, students learn to use graphic organizers to structure their learning and show their understanding of the assigned readings.
I also encourage students to use contemporary software programs that are available in our Curriculum Library and on the Internet (eg., Inspiration, Kidspiration, etc.). By using such tools for their course assignments, students learn skills needed for their future lesson design and creation of learning-teaching materials. I then model the use of such technologies in the classroom. During my first two years at the Mount, I required students to search for appropriate websites for every topic of course. I wanted them to discover how much material is available and how to apply web materials for use in their teaching. Last semester, I went a step further, incorporating WebCT in every class and selecting appropriate sites for every topic so that students can use the sites for class preparation.
Yet another program innovation was mentioned in passing already, the introduction of WebCt software and webpage design as an enhancement to my courses. This idea came to me as I taught my Summer I (June, 2003) courses Ed 521 Nature of School and Society and Psy 240 Social Interaction. In the first “online” course, I gave students two weeks before the online class sessions began to design their own Web pages. It was a very challenging assignment because none of the students had any experience in creating Web pages. They were clearly struggling with the assignment. Students indicated in their weekly course journals that they had previously thought that they were “computer literate,” but this project convinced them of the opposite. However, the experience illustrated how students can rise to a challenge rather than wallowing in their difficulties. I gave the students two options. They could design a simple webpage using the limited options of the WebCt system. Or they could use a free web server, www.geocities.com, to design a real Web page using one of the templates on the server. The first choice would allow them to complete course assignments. The second actually gives them the skills and knowledge to do rudimentary web design. To my delight most students chose the second more challenging option, and by the end of the project they were all proud of themselves. I know that many of these students have used these Web pages in their teaching jobs with their classes, and some of them are using designed Web pages in their current college classes. I provide a letter of one of my summer course students letter as an evidence for this point. It made me think that webct is a device that can help me as a professor to expose the students to the advantages of the technology and develop computer literacy skills by incorporating this system into all of my classes. I tested it through my summer II courses Ed 591 Curricular Planning and through Psy 270 Social Interaction that I was asked to teach on a short notice because of the Division of Education summer vocation situation needs. Both classes were a success. The papers submitted by the students became more presentable; most of the students learned how to use different programs for designing graphic organizers, visual aids, and teaching materials. I suggested that we should use WebCT for the Fall 2003 semester with Dr. Bill Bassett. He supported the idea, and now we both teach courses using actively WebCT software. The integration of web-based learning components with WebCt software brings added values to traditional education. Having used it for more than 5 semesters in a row, I now incorporate in every course, I have found WebCT to be a powerful tool for promoting successful student learning. Student use of WebCT has improved writing quality and presentation. Peers working in groups communicate effectively through Web mail. Student discipline improves because work submission is tightly scheduled. Student reflection becomes deeper and more thorough. Another powerful technological tool for developing student professional growth and effectiveness is the Webquest. In Ed 250 Basics of Planning, students evaluate 2-3 Webquests according to the course rubric. By Ed 260 Methods of teaching, I have my students create Webquests of their own. Both assignments require students to use the key course concepts. Webquest design demonstrates the student’s ability to create a powerful teaching tool to be applied in their own future teaching. It is gratifying to see the pride students take in their work and accomplishment. Students sometimes struggle with these assignments because their technical literacy has not been developed and/or they are not accustomed to being pushed into novel modes of learning and working. Because their grasp of such issues will be crucial to their success in the current and future teaching environment, I persist despite some student anxiety and complaints that I am pushing them too far. When the students have completed such projects, they begin to appreciate the value of the technology, and they are amazed to find out how much information is there for them and their future students. The knowledge and the skills they gain during the work on the project are very valuable. I find such exercises to be very rewarding and beneficial for the students. In
my courses, I require reflective journal writing as a tool for developing
students’ analytical and critical thinking and improving study skills.
The structure of each journal entry includes sections called “Preparation”,
“Assistance” and “Application.” The “Preparation”
section of the entry requires that students write down their reflective
thoughts on assigned readings, assisting in preparation for an upcoming
class. During the “Assistance” stage, when students are in
class, they are constantly asked to reflect on what is going on in the
classroom. Specifically, they address how the instructor’s lesson
stimulates their thinking and develops their comprehension of the main
concepts of the course, how different activities influence their understanding
of the planning and teaching process, and how class events help develop
students’ pedagogical skills and traits. For the last part of the
journal entry, students are asked to think about how the reading materials
and class happenings can be applied in their current and future teaching.
The reflective journal has proved to be an effective tool in developing
students’ ability to see the connection between the educational
theory and existing practice, to exercise pedagogical prediction and do
independent professional thinking.
Students prepare a supporting paper to explain the main idea of their book, describe its methodological and educational values, based on the theories they learned, and present ways of incorporating the book in the actual educational process. This assignment impresses students, encourages their creativity and expands their sense of personal expectation and potential. This project also provides students with the feeling of accomplishment and self-confidence that are crucial in becoming a good teacher. They leave the course with an instructional tool that they themselves designed, not for the professor, but for themselves. This is a tool that they will use in their own teaching. Students described the outcome with terms such as “it brought me beyond my realm.” This midterm project is one of two options – the students are offered to choose either to create a webquest, or design a book. I implemented this type of midterm project in my class of Fall 2003. It’s been a tremendous success. Dr. Lucy DiPaola suggested that the students should published their projects on www.teachnology.com site.
While designing courses (i.e., lesson plans, assignments and scenarios), I carefully consider the best assessment techniques for measuring student learning and mastery of the materials. I have used a variety of materials in my work at the Mount. At first I employed conventional multiple choice tests, quizzes, in class and take home tests, etc. For me as a Russian educator, some of these techniques were novel, the multiple choice test for example. The main assessment tools in Russian education are oral and written essays and exams. Especially in the Teaching program, we attempt to create opportunities to observe how well students can articulate their thoughts out loud, explain the choice of their teaching materials, methods and techniques, etc. These methods of assessment, frankly, capture learning much more deeply than does the multiple choice test. When I first began teaching at the Mount, to address the short fall of the American testing approach, I also experimented with oral exams. I then began to investigate ways of merging this approach into a more American context, employing techniques that are accepted and preferred. Although I use inclass tests when appropriate, as a result of my experiments, I have concluded that take home tests work better for students' learning and for my assessment, checking student understanding of the material while avoiding problems of test anxiety. My take home tests include multiple choice, true/false answers, definitions and a short reflective essay. The essay is to integrate two of the three educational issues that I select for reflection. Back in class, students are asked to discuss the answers with partners and then submit the test to the professor. For the most part, I use tests and quizzes designed to elicit students' critical thinking and creativity. One of the techniques is a test in the form of a Cube. I designed this Cube so that each side is an assignment for the students to articulate their thoughts on the studied concepts. The six assignments require that the student journery from lower to higher levels of thinking. Students are allowed to spend only one minute per side. Although students do not like being timed on nthe assignments, they have come to like this approach to testing, finding that it makes them think more deeply about the topic.
8. Portfolio Design and Presentation For most of my courses (Ed 250 Basics of Curriculum Planning, Methods of Teaching, Reading in Content Areas, Nature of School and Society, etc.), I use as a final assignment a portfolio project. Students develop a professional portfolio, including all the samples of the completed and graded assignments that they fulfill in the course, a paper on their personal teaching philosophy based on theories taught in class, and a review of the various topics covered in the courses as an expression of their own understanding and approach to the teaching process. This final assignment helps to sum up the course work, provides students a cognitive structure for the course material, and inspires them to creatively present the results in front of the class, where they orally articulate their thoughts. It also serves as a model for the professional portfolios they will have to make in the future for job interviews.
To assure that the evaluation and grading processes are objective, fair and aligned with instructional objectives, I have employed the state of the art educational practice of rubric development. I have designed rubrics for different assignments, sometimes generating them collaboratively with my students. This technique shows the professor’s expectations transparently and allows implicit understandings to be made explicit, opening these perspectives for professional growth. I have served as a model for my colleagues as a pioneer here in the use of this approach. It was instructive that, when the Education program entered the NCATE process, we learned that all faculty must now adapt this approach that I was already using. In our NCATE seminars I shared the rubrics designed for grading students’ lesson plans of different types, portfolio rubrics and the rubrics for other projects of the courses I was teaching with the entire division.
To improve my own teaching effectiveness, I have designed various feedback tools. At first when I didn’t have a 24 hour communication through the webct mail, I made up the “Question Box.” I brought this to class and passed it around for the students to write any questions or concerns. I find this tool helpful in assuring that students follow the requirements of the course and are not confused or uncomfortable. Another feedback tool is the “One Minute Paper.” This tool, attached below, queries students at the beginning or end of class in three areas: understanding of concepts and theories, confusion, discomfort or concerns over the course content and instruction, and expectation of a final grade as expressed in the learning contract, which I ask the student to fill in in the beginning or at the end of the class with the questions, confusion, concerns. I then will use this feedback during the next class to clear up confusion and respond to problems arising from class communication. Now when I am using WebCt the students contact me any time they have a question or concern and I immediately response to their requests. The most effective instrument for feedback is the Mid-term Course Assessment, consisting of three parts. First, students evaluate their own efforts in the course on a scale from one to five. Then, they evaluate the effectiveness of their group projects. Finally, they evaluate course content and instruction. This feedback provides me with the information I need to tailor the rest of the course to meet student needs. I provide students with a summary and assessment of responses. Such information provides an important context for reviewing the College’s official end of the term course evaluation. With all of the prior feedback, this end of term evaluation can be understood in context. Unlike the final evaluation, however, the prior forms of assessment set the stage for corrections to improve effectiveness. Here I present the syllabi from five years of teaching at the Mount. Note the extensive change and development reflected from offering to next offering. Now all of my course syllabi are posted and can be reached online through the webct software.
12. Using Feedback: Course Evaluations as the Source for Teaching Effectiveness Beyond the mid-course evaluation that I do on my own initiative, the Mount collects teacher evaluations at the end of each term. While such measures are often questioned as valid and reliable indicators of teacher effectiveness, as evaluations of student attitudes at the end of the term, they can point to areas of needed improvement. My first results at the Mount were discouraging, leading me to reevaluate much of my approach to adjust to the student body. After a great deal of work, I am pleased to report that my student evaluations tend to be strongly positive. As feedback on components of the course, moreover, the evaluations suggest that most students like the experiential approach that I use. They are positive about the group work, and they report that group activities help them retain and process the course material better. Similarly, most course methods and materials are highly rated. On area of consistent complaint is workload. While students view it as too heavy, I am confident in having them experience demands comparable to the actual workload of teaching; if they actually enter the education field, it will never be light or easy. The weakest ratings I receive occur for the assignments I give and their written instructions. Uniformly, students find the assignments to be unclear. Yet, upon my rereading, I am unsure what exactly is unclear. As a result, I have queried my students at length trying to ascertain exactly what in my language and assignments they find to be unclear. I have revisited the assignments, re-read questions sent to me by some of the students in their e-mail and webmail. But I have not found out what is unclear. This bothered me for a long time. Then, early one morning, a REVELATION came to me. Student’s confusion and sometimes irritation is not about unclarity. Rather, it is about uncertainty! The assignments that I design for my classes do not require the “one right answer” way of thinking that most of the students are used to. Instead, the assignments grant the students freedom of definition by forcing them to think on their own and come up with their own answers. The directions are open ended. I do not tell the students where to go in their thinking. It is this uncertainty that is the root of the confusion. Thus, some of the students have asked directly, “What do you want from us here? Tell me and I will do what you want.” In reality, what I want from them is to figure out what to do! Their problem is that I expect them merely to tell me what I want to hear. Instead, I am challenging them to demonstrate independent thinking using the studied material. This expectation that they think freely and independently scares some of the students. It is as if I am asking my students to ride a bike without “training wheels” when they are unsure of their balance. The only way to learn balance is to do just that. Some kids quickly learn to balance without support while others hesitate. Here we see the legacy of children accustomed to being spoon fed information and tested by multiple choice. The transition to a different way of being instructed is uncomfortable. True learning begins with uncertainty. Yet, for these students, the uncertainty inherent in true learning creates confusion and frustration. As a result of this revelation, I have discussed this issue at length with my students. Conversations with both undergraduate and graduate students has resulted in numerous reports that my classes confront students with a need to think for themselves for the first time in their schooling years. This difficult challenge becomes enjoyable when the student overcomes the fear of thinking and can express their opinions and discoveries after reading and discussing the concepts in class. Those who break through the discomfort of the unknown approach become really empowered and free in expressing themselves and articulating their thoughts out loud. Often I experience resistance during the student’s initial struggle with the work only to receive appreciation letters later where the student expresses their gratitude for the challenge to be creative and do critical thinking and the push to explore their potential and, in one student’s words, “to expand my mind to consider possibilities I never realized existed.” I believe teaching is about just this kind of uncertainty. Everyday situations demand that teachers make decisions quickly and with nobody there to give any directions. These future teachers must learn to think on their own if they are to succeed. This is the issue I am attempting to address in the way I design my course and assignments. Of course, there may also be points of unclarity. I am not perfect! Some of the assignments might be worded awkwardly. After all, English is not my native language. I routinely invite the class to help me clarify assignments and to get rid of redundancies. materials, and handouts that do not work or are superfluous. I invite and am always glad to hear any of my students and colleagues suggestions. One of the benefits of my current team-teaching with American partners is to help address any language unclarities. To better collect useful feedback, I also designed a final questionnaire for my courses where I give students a series of items to reflect on at the end of each semester: the main concepts they learned in the course, the skills they obtained, their thoughts about how the course helped them in their personal and professional growth, and their view of what was valuable in the course and what they would advise me to change.
13. Vertical and Horizontal Integration Another evidence of effectiveness I have worked to introduce is the improved synchronization between courses organized at different levels within the curriculum so that concepts build, redundancy is reduced, and the entire academic package appears to be coherent to the student. I was able to recognize this need because, rather than fitting into one narrow niche in the program, I have prepared offerings for a great number of our courses (I was originally hired to teach one set of courses, only to be switched at the last moment to cover for a colleague on leave. In my second year, I was reassigned to yet an entirely new set of courses). Thus, by the second year, I had a sufficient breadth of understanding of the program to recognize the importance of synchronizing the Basics of Planning course (the first course students take) and the subsequent Methods of Teaching. Subsequently, I have concentrated on these courses in order to establish this coherence. Another area of related innovation has been to additionally focus on the synchrony between similar courses taught by different faculty. In part to establish this type of program coherence (as well as to share my expertise with experiential learning and technology), in spring 2003, I initiated parallel team teaching of the courses ED 250 and Ed 260 with Dr. William Bassett. Our collaboration really improved the process of students’ learning and empowered our teaching. It has allowed us to discuss the ways we teach, to analyze the results of the courses, and to improve the courses. Because I initiated the team teaching process, I have been the designer of the course syllabi and the orchestrator of class events. I have also spent considerable time mentoring my colleague in innovative methods of teaching. The overall results of these efforts have been very positive. The content, as well as the methodological and instructional framework of the courses, have been well received by our students, demonstrating the effectiveness of my approach. An additional benefit has been to stop the prior practice of student comparison of sections according to work load and activities. Now students know that both classes are on the “same page.” Dr. Bill Bassett's Letter is one of the evidences of this success. |
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