Historically, storytelling has been a way to pass knowledge between generations and to facilitate an understanding of beliefs. The aim of this current research was to explore the value of storytelling in the higher education classroom, to address the question “how can sharing stories assist students in constructing new knowledge in the classroom?” The purpose of the study was to see if teaching students how to tell a story and having them tell a story in a Freshman seminar class would enhance and enrich the quality of the knowledge they gained in discussions as students. The research utilized the lens of constructivism and a community of inquiry. Findings shed light on the perceptions of the students and the level of classroom engagement after experiencing guided storytelling. The results demonstrated an increase in engagement in the classroom. Students did not feel they needed story telling guidance, but they did feel storytelling was valuable to their overall experience.
Tag: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Choice in Learning: Differentiating Instruction in the College Classroom
This article addresses the importance of differentiated instruction in the college classroom. Additionally, it focuses on the results of the students’ perceptions of differentiated instruction in the college classroom. Students in the college classroom were given choice boards to display their understanding on phonemic awareness, phonics, and morphology. The article discusses ideas for future direction based on the results from the action research project.
Language Teachers’ Intercultural Learning: A Sociocultural Perspective
Responding to the call to build teacher interculturality in more dynamic ways, this paper analyzes developmental trajectories of three pre-service teachers enrolled in a course on language and culture in a master’s in second language teaching program at a U.S. university. From a sociocultural theory perspective, the article illustrates the various ways in which the pre-service teachers incorporated (or not) the mediational means available to them. The article findings support the claim about the sociocultural nature of human learning, while the analysis informed by a sociocultural perspective on learning explicates why intercultural learning can be more enriching for some participating pre-service teachers than for others. In line with the sociocultural perspective on human learning, the article highlights the importance of the affective dimension and activity for promoting teacher learning and argues for the need to better understand the process of teachers’ application of new understandings into their practice. Besides, the article demonstrates the value of teacher educators’ reflection on their work. It ends with pedagogical implications for language teacher educators.
Using a Professional Learning Community Framework to Assist Early Field Experience Students as They Move from Teacher Candidate to Teacher
Collaboration is rapidly becoming sacrosanct in today’s K-12 schools. A basis for these collaborative school experiences is the ability to share one’s observations of classroom activities. The Professional Learning Community (PLC) framework described here is a pedagogically based process that provides opportunities for Early Field Experience students to share their field involvements. The discussions are born from the teacher candidates’ experiential learning as they take part in a 25-hour field placement. Providing teacher candidates with weekly PLC opportunities for sharing, simultaneously, has assisted teacher candidates’ dispositional and pedagogical decision making as they make the transition from student to teacher.
The Use of Feature Film for Teaching Undergraduate Bioethics: Course Format and Assessment through Student Narratives
Film is a form of engaging narrative being employed with greater frequency in undergraduate and graduate education. To optimize their pedagogical impact, it is important to carefully select films that address core course objectives. Additionally, viewing should be structured with written guidelines to direct the audience to consider the relevant dimensions associated with the instructional goals of the film. A course, “Medical Ethics and Film” is described to illustrate cinemeducation. In order to assess the impact of this recently developed course, students kept ongoing diaries in which they regularly wrote about their reactions to each film. Analysis of the diaries revealed that students routinely addressed the moral dilemmas portrayed and often applied specific ethical theories. While ethical theory is typically presented as a series of cognitive frameworks, students often expressed strong emotional reactions and frequently linked the dilemmas portrayed to their own life.
Promoting Critical Reading with Double-Entry Notes: A Pilot Study
Recognizing a need to promote critical reading among students at our STEM university, the authors implemented an active reading strategy called double-entry notes across four general education writing and humanities courses. We hypothesized that the tool would help engage students in the critical reading strategies they tended to lack. The tool aimed to encourage students to think critically about assigned readings by analyzing texts, applying assigned readings to the world outside the text, synthesizing multiple texts, and the like. After assigning the tool, we assessed its effectiveness through a survey of students’ perceptions and coded artifacts (N=182) for six markers of critical thinking. Results suggest that the tool succeeded in helping students to think critically about texts but that some markers of critical thinking were more consistent than others. Also, students’ perceptions of the double-entry notes’ benefits did not align with our findings based on analysis of their texts. Because results revealed critical engagement in reading, we plan to continue the study, adjusting the tool to address more specific critical thinking strategies.
The Strategy Project: An Exploration of Enhancing Self-Regulated Learning in an Introductory Psychology Course
College success requires development of self-regulated learning skills. This study describes a self-regulated learning strategy intervention in a large general education Introductory Psychology course, focusing on the second exam. Students’ reflection responses across five time periods were compared with exam performance. Increased self-regulated learning strategies usage correlated with decreased passive learning strategies usage, increased hours of study, and increased academic performance. Strategy project interventions can be effective for introductory courses. However, because students may revert to passive strategies that worked in the past, strategy instruction should be extended throughout a course.
Service Learning: A Multidimensional Approach to Meaningful Learning Outcomes in a Practice Profession
A service learning project was used to encourage social work student engagement with older adults, support a community need, and meet the course objectives, one being conducting a social work assessment. Paired with an older adult resident, students applied theoretical concepts to a practice experience to meet student learning outcomes and expand comfort levels. Fourteen students participated in the convergent-mixed methods study. Assessment scales regarding bias and knowledge were administered and written reflections were recorded. Findings suggest students experienced deeper learning from applying theory and skills and had a positive shift in perspectives of older adults through the service-learning experience.
Exploring Value Variations in Instructor Presence Techniques for Online Students
This study sought to define and measure online undergraduate students’ perceived value of instructor presence techniques across five communication mediums per pedagogical goal (connection to course content, connection to classmates, connection to the instructor, foster interest, and facilitate immediate feedback). Students found personalized written messages from an instructor (M=4.61) as most valuable due to their ability to provide immediate feedback. Interactive phone calls (M=3.24) were the least valuable in the area of familiarity. Results indicate all instructor presence techniques had value, but some were more valuable than others.
The Good Game: Developing Feedback Skills through Action Learning
Students, especially those from recent generations, typically encounter difficulties providing and receiving feedback. Hence approaches to teach students feedback skills are valuable. This article explores perspectives related to learning feedback by (a) examining the process of feedback, (b) showing how Action Learning as a pedagogical component is supportive of developing feedback skills, (c) explaining a student-led game, “The Good Game,” as a tool for learning feedback, and (d) discussing issues and factors related to developing feedback skills among recent generations.