Over the past several weeks, the Office of Teaching and Learning has hosted group discussions with CVM faculty and staff around Part I and Part II of James Lang’s book, Small Teaching. The book provides an easy to understand overview of modern education research, with countless simple examples of how instructors can make small changes to classes of all shapes, sizes, and delivery methods in order to engage student learners.
Please feel free to join us for the discussion of the third part of Small Teaching on April 10th (8am) and 11th (noon) in VMC 0076. The book is available through the OSU library system, or for purchase through kindle, nook, or your favorite book store.
Part I Overview
Part 1 of Small Teaching focuses on how individuals work with knowledge, and the steps that can be taken to help students recall knowledge and build connections with new material.
Lang discusses the importance of frequent (at least weekly), low-stakes (ungraded or minimally weighted) assessment. These assessments could come in the form of a short quiz at the end of class over the day’s material, asking students to write a sentence or two on the most important concept they learned that day or what topic in lecture was confusing, or starting class by asking students to summarize what they learned in the session before. Top Hat is a great platform to make these types of assessments quick and easy for instructors, regardless of class size.
When introducing new material, Lang suggests instructors ask students to take five minutes to write down anything they already know about the subject. Not only does this help provide a method of “pre-testing” students, but it helps to get students thinking about content they already comprehend that otherwise might not have been connected.
The concept of “Interleaving” is also discussed in the first part of the book, with an argument being made to require students to return to old knowledge and materials frequently. As such, it is recommended that a portion of all high stakes exams and quizzes be reserved for previous material (i.e. assessments should be cumulative so students are not given an opportunity to cram and then forget materials).
Part II Overview
Part 2 of Small Teaching highlights how instructors can ensure students progress from simply memorizing and recalling knowledge to having a true understanding of what they are learning. One simple recommendation is for instructors to provide “framework” notes, where students are given an outline for the day’s topic, and then fill in their own notes as the lecture progresses.
Lang also points to the use of real case examples to help students connect the theory of what they are learning to everyday practice. In application, it is easy to see how actual cases taken from the hospital could be heavily integrated into the CVM curriculum.
Another important point made by the book is the need to move students beyond simply selecting the correct answer (i.e. simple multiple choice quiz), to a place where they can explain why a given answer is correct. This can be done in a number of ways, from oral examinations, to “think-pair-share” questions, or even just providing students space to write a sentence or two on why they selected a given answer on an exam or quiz. Thus, self-explanation is providing students active, engaging, ways to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the material.