Feedback takes many forms.  This week's Teach Talk webinar focused on the gathering of feedback from your students as well as colleagues, to enhance the overall learning experience.  Sarah Prosory , Instructional Designer in the School of Life Sciences, shared  different techniques that can be used to gather feedback, and why you should ask a colleague for feedback about your course.  Enhance Learning There are many reasons to gather feedback from students, with a few being: checking for their understanding of a topic, generating ideas, and discovering concerns or issues so you can find a solution. Student engagement occurs as well, when students are asked about their learning.  Adult learners especially like to feel they are a part of their learning. By asking them about teaching or classroom activities, students will feel more included in how the course continues. This leads to better engagement, and can create a feedback loop in which students can comfort...

While it is important to test your students' knowledge in a course, it is even more important to do formative, or low stakes, assessments. Formative assessments assist you in gauging student comprehension and identifying those areas that need re-teaching. And they don't have to be complicated or time-consuming for you as the instructor, or for your students! This week's TeachTalk webinar was presented by Mark Fogelson and Katrina Fogelson , Instructional Designers from Arizona State University's College of Health Solutions. In addition to discussing best practices for incorporating formative assessments into courses, Mark and Katrina shared a helpful guide that rated the effort needed by the instructor and the potential reward for the students for each type of formative assessment. Specifically they provided ratings that considered: creation time, ease of delivery, turnaround time, level of engagement, and utility. Mark and Katrina also showcased a too...

Palm Walk, Arizona State University, Tempe Campus. While Fall is not in the weather for Arizona, the Fall semester has arrived on campus! As we get back into the swing of things, we've read some interesting articles that are relevant to you as the semester begins. How to Prepare for Class Without Overpreparing This article by James M. Lang (author of our forthcoming reading group book pick!), gives us permission to take it easy when preparing for our classes. He provides four quick ways he has adjusted his courses to engage students. You may find that you're already doing some of them! How to Make Smart Choices About Tech for Your Course This article by Michelle D. Miller, has extensive and excellent advice on considering the technology you choose to include in your course. She poses THE great question that Amy and I often have, "Is it necessary? Will it improve the learning?" The author also includes several resources that are worth checking out. How to...

In Tuesday's TeachT@lk Webinar, we talked about creating questions that challenged and engaged students in discussions .We talked about starting with knowing your objectives, and then using Bloom levels to scaffold questions from "Remembering" to "Creating". We evaluated some questions, and wrote our own after learning about the Rise Model and 4 Stages of a Discussion, and how to pose questions that drove students further into content for deeper learning. To support this type of learning, we watched a video on three technologies for the ASU Community, including BlackBoard, Turning Point and Piazza (links are below). Finally, we talked about why having Student-Generated Questions was a great way to involve them in the learning, and we highlighted some activities like: Student FAQ wikis Student Generated Test Questions Using the K-W-L exercise to help students focus on questions before class Be sure to join us for the next webinar on February 21....

By Yawar Baig A key skill for any instructor in student-centered learning, is the ability to ask good questions that lead a student to critical thinking, discovering their own answers, and exploring new ideas. In Friday's workshop we shared some techniques to make this easier, whether using questions for clickers, or having a class discussion. We defined 4 different types of questions, and practiced writing Factual, Convergent, Divergent and Evaluative questions. We talked about the types of questions to use during the four different stages of a classroom discussion. We discussed how to use Bloom's Taxonomy for developing questions, and how important student generated questions were by using the K-W-L activity to get students thinking about their questions before class. (or using it for a "ticket out" at the end of class) Links and resources are listed below: PowerPoint file Handout Additional Resources: The Second Principle: http://thesecondprincip...