Group work whether online or in-person almost always begets one or more emails that read “I’d really rather not do group work. Can I complete this project alone?”. Students, limited on time and juggling a number of courses and responsibilities rarely get a thrill at the thought of a “group project”. Despite our best efforts as instructors it can be difficult to inspire in students the notion that life and work in general are often group projects, and one can rarely go at it alone. We want our students to experience collaborative and active learning, and group work is often one way of doing this on a smaller, more intimate scale ( Hesterman, 2016 ). How can we relieve the pressure and the fear that one group member feels will become their solo burden under the name “group project”? Group contracts and reflections may be a good place to start. What is a Group Contract? In several of our courses we begin group projects with a Group Contract, a collaborative document signed by all group m...

While racism is very apparent in the world today, many don’t realize how prevalent it is within academia as well. Not only have I experienced this myself, but I have many friends with countless stories of their own. The reality is that I have experienced and witnessed racism and discrimination at almost every single school I have attended. It’s always a matter of exterior judgement. Does that student look professional? Does this student look “college ready?" Does that student look like they could be in higher classes? Throughout my public school experience I was classified as "gifted" and although anyone could technically take the tests to be in these "gifted" programs, the demographic was completely discriminatory. Not only was I literally the only black person, I was one of very few females. Because there was no representation of black people in these types of classes, I felt like an outsider, and was seen this way as well. At a volunteer event outside ...

How can we act individually to promote inclusive classroom spaces? When the daily structure of classes are up to so many factors, pin-pointing a single source to propagate positive change in educational settings can seem far-fetched. This is because it is. Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire strongly believed that cultural shifts require equal efforts from both sides of the system. In other words, if marginalized students are putting in the effort for a course then it should follow that those responsible for teaching said course are putting in an effort for the marginalized students. Educators with authority in these spaces can have profound impacts by creating space for others. When creating inclusive spaces, I’ve learned that there are three important concepts that need to first be understood. The Space You Occupy In a classroom, to not only grow your own set of skills but somebody else’s is an amazing opportunity that should not be wasted.  To make sure this doesn’t happen, f...

As instructors, we’re all looking to help our students deepen their learning in ways that make the content “stick,” or in other words, make it memorable and meaningful. Cognitive and educational scientists have discovered that strategies such as reflection, retrieval practice (opportunities to recall content), making predictions/hypotheses, and other active learning strategies can have a significant impact on the depth and durability of student learning (Lang, 2016 and Brown, Roediger III, & McDaniel, 2014) but there are practical barriers to implementing these strategies. For instance, how can you confirm which students completed the activities? How can you find time in-class or out-of-class to collect and grade these activities? How can you get students to do these activities ? Fortunately, ASU faculty already have a free and easy-to-use tool to promote these types of non-punitive learning activities that requires no grading time or class time by instructors, and as an added...

Typical approaches to learning center heavily around objectives, which are discrete, measurable, and focused on specific narrow outcomes. But what about when your education shakes up your entire mindset and radically changes your fundamental perspectives of your self-identity, society, or the entire world? Transformative Learning Theory (TLT) addresses how teaching and learning could accomplish such ambitious tasks.  This week's Teach T@lk webinar was presented by Abigail Smith , Instructional Designer for the School of   Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. She shared with us a brief history of TLT, some of the basic concepts it presents, and practical applications for how we can apply the findings of TLT to our own teaching practices. Background  We began with sharing moments from our own learning experiences that were life changing; moments that gave us pause, and ones that surprised us. Then, we learned how the theory came to be developed by Jac...

This week's TeachT@lk Webinar focused on a challenge that many of our faculty are focused on this summer. Change ! As ASU begins to convert BlackBoard courses to Canvas, there are many opportunities to improve all our courses in ways to benefit both faculty and students. Most materials CAN be moved into Canvas, but the question is SHOULD you move all your materials? Peter van Leusen , from EdPlus, talked about strategies to determine whether materials in your Blackboard course were valuable and important enough to import to Canvas. He suggested spending time looking at course evaluations, talking with TAs and your instructional designers to determine if content should be kept, modified or "dumped" before moving to Canvas. Jason Neenos , from UTO, then went over tips regarding file structure in BlackBoard and how it would import into Canvas. Showing that each folder became a "module". He shared a quick "Cheat Sheet" to help faculty remember how ...

How do you feel now that the semester is almost over?  Our final TeachT@lk Webinar for 2015 was a terrific way to wrap up the year. So often we are overwhelmed with grading, and just submit grades and walk away, never thinking about the course until we teach again. This is not an effective way to end the semester, and loses some great opportunities to reflect on your course and make improvements for the next time you teach. Dr. Peter van Leusen shared 7 Action Tips for wrapping up the semester.  They included: Collect student feedback Get student permissions for exemplary work Archive important information on your course Document the experiences from student interactions and reactions to assignments Get additional feedback from peers, TAs and Instructional Designers Prioritize and make a plan for any changes Take action now to prepare for next semester Participants went through this worksheet , and took time to write comments about their courses for each of ...