NUTS & BOLTS.
An electronic assessment newsletter serving Springfield College-Benedictine University at Springfield
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August 2009
Vol. 10 No. 1
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Editor's note: Due to technical difficulties, I am temporarily unable to post documents to the Springfield College-Benedictine University at Springfield website. In order to make this month's issue of Nuts & Bolts available in a timely fashion, I am sending it out by email to faculty and staff as classes begin. Please also note: This revised copy incorporates a fresh link to another website that incorporates the discussion of "What Students Want in a Teaching Professor" by Doug Eder. Until the technical problems are resolved, I will post the archival copy of this issue to my personal weblog at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2009/08/nuts-bolts-benu-springfield-aug-2009.html -- Pete Ellertsen
BACK-TO-SCHOOL ISSUE: A CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT 'SURVIVAL GUIDE' WITH REAL TOOLS NEW TEACHERS CAN USE; AND WHAT STUDENTS WANT IN A TEACHING PROFESSOR
OK, let's gather around, folks. I want to address this year's first issue of Nuts & Bolts especially to new adjunct instructors, who might like to have a couple of sure-fire, ever-ready gimmicks for this mysterious thing called "classroom assessment" that we're all supposed to do and none of us ... really ... quite know how to describe. It's getting to be a beginning-of-the-semester tradition, sort of like the "back-to-school" edition of a local newspaper. But it's not designed to sell Aeropostale and Tommy Hilfiger ads, it's designed to give new teachers information you can use right away.
Of course that doesn't mean the rest of us can't listen up, too. I've been posting introductory tip sheets like this for quite a while now, and I don't do it just to be of service to new teachers ... even though I remember what it was like for me as a new adjunct instructor. I had covered criminal court, coal mine strikes, prison escapes and a Chicago city election as a newspaper reporter, but I was virtually panic-striken by the prospect of 25 freshman English students sitting in neat little rows in front of me. So I do want to be of service to the new folks.
But mostly, going back over the basics for the newsletter reminds me how to keep my eye on the ball in my own classes.
So here, after all that windup, comes the pitch.
Classroom assessment is, in a nutshell, a process of using multiple measures to find out what our students are learning. It's mandated by our "outside stakeholders," government and accrediting agencies mostly, but it's also part and parcel of good teaching. If we rely too much on one way of measuring learning ... true-or-false quizzes, for example, or 50-point essay questions ... we don't get the full range of data we need, because no one test can measure everything. So we try to mix them up a little, and use the different measurements to control for each other. When we do it as we go along, it's called "formative assessment." Which means we can use the data to form our next lesson plans as we go along.
Confused yet? I've noticed the longer I try to talk theory to my students, the more confused they get. (Noticing things like that, by the way, is where classroom assessment begins.) So let's just throw out a couple of real tools you can use right away.
They're called CATs. The acronym, which has spawned litters and litters of tedious cat puns, stands for "Classroom Assessment Techniques." Here are two especially useful ones from a Vanderbilt University tip sheet:
-- The Minute Paper tests how students are gaining knowledge, or not. The instructor ends class by asking students to write a brief response to the following questions: "What was the most important thing you learned during this class?" and "What important question remains unanswered?"
-- The Background Knowledge Probe is a short, simple questionnaire given to students at the start of a course, or before the introduction of a new unit, lesson or topic. It is designed to uncover students’ pre-conceptions.
See? In both cases, we're using multiple measures to find out what the students are learning.
The Minute Paper, like most CATs, isn't graded. Instead, it tells us what we got across that day and what we need to spend a little extra time on in our next class. We're using it to control for the feedback we get via our graded assignments, much in the same way a scientist - or an auditor, for that matter - builds in controls to keep tabs on what's really going on.
A lot of experienced teachers at Benedictine like the Minute Paper, by the way; it comes back time after time on our CAT surveys. For one thing, it gets its name for just about how long it takes to administer it, and it gives us the information we need right away. Often it confirms what we were beginning to suspect from blank looks, furtive texting in the back rows and other visual cues our lessons aren't going over exactly as planned. But the one-minute essay helps us document it.
The other CAT is called the Background Knowledge Probe (no acronym, alas! Perhaps because it doesn't lend itself to cat jokes). It's especially useful in the humanities and social sciences, where preconceptions and attitudes come into play so often. A lot of instructors like to administer the questionnaire at the beginning of the semester as a pre-test, and again at the end as a post-test. Done right, pre- and post-tests can be a good measure of "value added." If the kids didn't know who did what to whom in the Battle of the Little Bighorn at the beginning of the semester and they do at the end, then we can assume they learned it during the semester. So it counts as value added.
Vandy's Center for Teaching defines CATs as "generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening." They list several others, followed by bullet-point answers to "Why Should I Use CATs?" and "How Should I Use CATs?" I'll paste the address below in my Works Cited list. It'll get you started. Or, if you've been teaching a while, it'll remind you why and how we do what we do. Either way, I highly recommend looking it over as the new school year begins.
Also highly recommended is a tip sheet on "What Students Want In a Teaching Professor" by Douglas Eder, emeritus biology professor and assessment guru at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. It's no longer available on the SIU-E website, but it has been copied on a Brazilian website called "Ser Professor Universitario" in Brazil.
Eder cited research indicating students were looking for clarity & organization, an easy command of content knowledge, a caring attitude, challenge, spontaneity, drama, enthusiasm, sincerity, acknowledgment, a sense of humor and involvement. Students respond positively, he added, to:
-- High levels of interaction with faculty outside the classroom
-- Genuine effort to make courses interesting
-- Frequent examples, analogies, and metaphors
-- Use of contemporary issues as appropriate
-- Application of course materials to other fields of study
-- Enthusiasm for the student and the subject
-- Clear, well-organized classes
-- Involvement of students through: Discussion, library research, oral presentations [and] small group activities.
There's more. Eder also listed nine “Key Traits for Good Teaching and Learning on which Students and Faculty Agree.” They're worth reading and going back to. In fact, if you click on the "IMPRIMIR TEXTO" at the bottom of the page, you can print out the entire handout on one page and tape it to your office wall for convenient reference. It's linked below in the Works Cited list.
Included among the nine traits is "Sensitivity to and Concern for Students' Level and Learning Progress." We all have that sensitivity we wouldn't be teaching, we'd find an easier way to make a paycheck. But using CATS helps us do something about it.
ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE NOTES
New members of the committee have been appointed now. They are Teresa Saner, who teaches math, and Nancy Weichert, new director of Becker Library. Dave Holland, who teaches biology and has chaired the General Education (standardized testing) subcommittee, has been appointed co-chair. Other faculty members are: Wayne Burrows, Brian Carrigan, Tom Jackson, Darlene Snyder and Pete Ellertsen (chair). Serving ex offico, in addition to Nancy, are Kevin Broeckling, dean of students; Michael Bromberg, academic affairs dean; Joanna Beth Tweedy, associate dean; and Amy Sayre-Roberts, resource center director.
Other interested faculty, especially adjuncts, are invited to consider joining the committee. Bringing our assessment program in line with Benedictine University's will be an important part of the transition to a four-year university offering graduate degrees in Springfield.
-- Pete Ellertsen, editor, Nuts & Bolts.
WORKS CITED
Eder, Douglas. “What Students Want in a Teaching Professor.” Aug. 24, 2009. Reprinted in _Ser Professor Universitario_ at http://www.serprofessoruniversitario.pro.br/ler.php?modulo=7&texto=309.
Vanderbilt University, Center for Teaching. 2008. “Classroom Assessment Techniques.” Teaching Resources. Aug. 24, 2009. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/resources/teaching_resources/assessment/cats.htm.
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Nuts & Bolts is an electronic newsletter published by SCI's Assessment Committee. If you have information, comments or feedback, please contact any committee member or editor Pete Ellertsen, in 211 Beata Hall, 525-1420 ext. 519 or by e-mail at pellertsen at sci.edu.
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