Category Archives: Best Practices

Rebooting Your Syllabus

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Recently a faculty member was overhead making the comment that syllabi are just chapter headings arranged by week. The Innovative Instructor hopes that the syllabus for your course meets a higher standard. This post provides guidance and resources towards that end.

Old style and new style syllabi presented side by side

Syllabus “The Fiftes” with permission from Dr. Tona Hangen, Worcester State University, Massachusetts

Richard Shingles, a lecturer in Johns Hopkins Department of Biology who also directs the Center for Educational Resources TA Training Institute, offers graduate students in his workshops a number of suggestions for preparing a syllabus. He suggests first looking at examples to get an idea of what to include. Other faculty in your department might share their syllabi, but there other resources awaiting your perusal.

There have been several attempts to build a database of university and college level syllabi, including one by Dan Cohen, the director of the Digital Public Library of America, which unfortunately is no longer functioning. Just recently the Open Syllabus Project was announced. This initiative includes partners from Columbia, UNC, Harvard, Parsons, The New School, and has Dan Cohen on its advisory board. Its goal is “…to promote institutional cooperation in the task of gathering and analyzing a significant corpus of syllabi.”

A new online, peer-reviewed journal, called Syllabus is devoted entirely to the display of examples from a wide range of disciplines. At the other end there is always Google. Try searching on “syllabus your discipline” (e.g., syllabus art history) to get started.

A syllabus should be more than a list of class topics and readings. In her book Tools for Teaching (Jossey-Bass, 1993, p. 14), Barbara Goss Davis tells us, “A detailed course syllabus… gives students an immediate sense of what the course will cover, what work is expected of them, and how their performance will be evaluated.  …Further by distributing a written explanation of course procedures, you can minimize misunderstandings about the due dates of assignments, grading criteria, and policies on missed tests.”

Dr. Shingles recommends trying to anticipate and answer student questions with information provided in the syllabus, and keeping the schedule flexible when possible by giving topics for the week versus the day. As for what should be included in your syllabus, think in terms of more rather than less. Here is his list:

  • Provide basic information
  • Describe course prerequisites
  • Give an overview of the course’s purpose
  • State general learning goals or objectives
  • Describe the course format
  • Specify textbook and readings
  • List supplementary materials for course
  • List assignments/papers/exams
  • Describe grading and evaluation
  • Stipulate course policies
  • Provide a list of university support offices
  • Provide a course calendar
  • List important dates (add/drop, grade appeals)
  • Indicate supplementary study aids

For the instructor use of the syllabus doesn’t end with distributing it to your students on the first day of class. Keep a copy handy and annotate it as the semester progresses. Perhaps you find you need to spend more time on a particular topic, or that the first assignment might work better if it came a week later. It’s also good to have a copy on hand to remind students that yes, you did state that you have a no make-up policy for quizzes.  You should post the syllabus online as well.  Posting online could be to your Blackboard (or other LMS) course site. But Dr. Tona Hangen, a professor of history at Worcester State University in Massachusetts, has raised the bar to a higher level by sharing her syllabi via an application called flipsnack.

Flipsnack allows you to publish material online in an application that simulates page-turning. You can create a basic account for free. Another similar online application is ISSUU.  ISSUU also is free for a basic account. As a side note, ISSUU has been used by at JHU for the Scholar’s Bookshelf project: http://issuu.com/scholarsbookshelf – collaboration between the Sheridan Libraries Rare Books Collection and the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures.

Dr. Hangen inspires with her beautifully designed syllabi. She has an archive of examples from the past several years. While the ones on flipsnack may seem daunting to the design challenged, some of her PDF versions are more easily emulated. These could be created in Word or a basic design program such as Microsoft’s Publisher, which is often included in the Microsoft Office suite.

Barbara Goss Davis reminds us: “…a well prepared course syllabus shows students that you take your teaching seriously. (Tools for Teaching, p. 14).

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/intenteffect/4263014185/sizes/n/in/photostream/ IntentEffect
http://www.flipsnack.com/A9C8DBBA9F7/f7u8vaql Dr. Tona Hangen, Worcester State University, Massachusetts

 

Plagiarism Detection: Moving from “Gotcha” to Teachable Moment

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Parts of this post appeared in our The Innovative Instructor print series with the title Turnitin by CER staff member Brian Cole.

A previous The Innovative Instructor post on preventing plagiarism gave links to websites with guides, tutorials, and activities.

Sign with hand and text reading prevent plagiarism.Integrity is a core value for every academic community. Here at Johns Hopkins training students on ethical behavior including plagiarism begins at freshman orientation. However, the importance of proper citation and use of paraphrasing and quotations are not learned in a single session. While our librarians offer ongoing support, both directly to students and by working with faculty in the classroom providing modules on research resources and specific citation standards, improper citation practices and outright plagiarism continue to be a problem at our campus and elsewhere.

Part of the problem is the ease of cutting and pasting that comes along with unparalleled access to online content. Although resources on avoiding plagiarism are available to students, often they do not have a good understanding of proper quotation and paraphrasing techniques or when and how to cite borrowed material. On the other side, it is cumbersome for instructors to check submitted papers for originality against online sources. At a certain point, particularly in courses with large enrollments, the process of checking suspect papers using a Google search becomes unmanageable, and some content will not show up using standard search engines.

Enter plagiarism detection software applications. These applications have gained popularity in the higher education community as easily available online source material has proliferated. Googling for “plagiarism checker” will yield links to a number of applications, including some that are free. At Johns Hopkins, we have a license for the widely-used application known as Turnitin. Turnitin is a web-based service for detecting plagiarism and improper citations in student-submitted work.

Some faculty have been reluctant to turn to a plagiarism detection tool feeling that it creates an atmosphere of distrust in the classroom. But rather than seeing it as a “gotcha” faculty should know that Turnitin’s value goes beyond simply identifying plagiarism in student papers. The reports produced allow instructors to flag misunderstandings as to proper usage of borrowed content and direct students to remedial resources. Turnitin can be an excellent teaching tool.

Turnitin’s Originality Report does not judge whether a student has plagiarized. Rather, it shows what percentage of a paper’s text matches a source and what source it matches. It is then up to the instructor to decide whether the matches are acceptable, whether they are the result of improper citations, or if they constitute inappropriate use of others’ works.

Instructors can decide on several variables for each assignment, such as whether students can see the Originality Report and resubmit papers. Writing classes often use these options to teach proper citation.

It’s worth noting that in the past there have been controversies surrounding the use of Turnitin and similar services. Students have contended that it is illegal for these companies to keep their papers in its database and accused them of improperly deriving profit from student submitted work. Turnitin has weathered these controversies and prevailed in court challenges, mainly because they do not publish the student submissions but only use them for matching.

Knowing that their papers will be checked sends the message to your students that they need to be mindful of proper citation practices. As a best practice, it is recommended that you not single out individual papers for checking as then all students are not subject to the same scrutiny. Rather, all student papers from a given assignment should be submitted for plagiarism detection.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Brian Cole, Senior Information Technologist
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art edited by Macie Hall

Leveraging Peer Instruction

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This post is based on an article written for our print Innovative Instructor series.

Instructors often seek student-centered, active-learning teaching practices. These teaching methods are intended to increase student retention and engagement but the ways in which they are implemented is important for success.

Professor Todd Hufnagel, Department of Material Science and Engineering (MSE), was interested in pedagogical techniques that are potentially more effective than the traditional lecture-based format for the course, Structure of Materials.

Professor David Neufeld, Department of Physics and Astronomy, planned to change his teaching approach in a 100-level, large lecture physics course in an effort to identify students’ misunderstandings and improve comprehension of the course content.

These courses – Structure of Materials and General Physics – are gateway courses. Students’ mastery of the course learning objectives is critical to success in subsequent, advanced courses. Research demonstrates that the use of active-learning strategies can lead to increased student retention in science and engineering majors. [Felder, R., G. Felder, and E.J. Dietz. (1998) “A Longitudinal Study of Engineering Student Performance and  Retention. V. Comparisons with Traditionally-taught Students.” Journal of Engineering Education, 87(4), 469-480.  Springer, L., M. Stanne, and S. Donovan. (1999). “Effects of Small-Group Learning on Undergraduates in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology: A Meta-Analysis.” Review of Educational Research. 69(1), 21-5.]

Two heads in silhouette facing with light bulb betweenIndependently, the two professors adopted the Peer Instruction method pioneered by Eric Mazur in his physics courses at Harvard University in the 1990s. Peer Instruction is a popular, research-based pedagogical tool among physics faculty; it is being used increasingly in other disciplines as well. “The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to exploit student interaction during lectures and focus students’ attention on underlying concepts,” using ConcepTests – short conceptual questions on the topic being discussed. [Mazur, E. (1997). Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Page 10.]

In Mazur’s implementation of Peer Instruction, students first gain exposure to content before class by reading texts, watching videos, or completing other activities. Instructors then solicit pre-class feedback on that content, usually in the form of questions about what students found difficult or confusing.

The in-class cycle is as follows: after a brief presentation on the topic, the instructor presents a question (i.e., ConcepTest) to the class. Students individually respond after briefly reflecting on the question. The instructor then asks students to discuss their answer, with 1-2 other students who have different answers before responding again. The instructor always debriefs the question by discussing with the students the rationale behind the correct answer and providing a short lecture on the underlying concept, depending on the percentage of students who answer correctly.

Professor Hufnagel’s use of Peer Instruction starts with the introduction of a ConcepTest with four multiple-choice answers, often including an illustration. He asks the students to think about the question individually before voting using clickers. He then uses the iClicker software to show a histogram of the results. Students talk with their neighbors for a few minutes and then vote again. Professor Hufnagel shows the new results, explaining which answer is correct and why. The depth of explanation depends on how well the class is mastering the concept. If, based on the histogram, the class has not mastered the concept; he will ask another question on the same concept, repeating as necessary.

In Professor Neufeld’s physics course, students watch online content before class as a replacement for the traditional lecture. By flipping the lecture, Professor Neufeld can spend class time using ConcepTests. If there is general agreement about the correct answer after the first vote, he moves on to the next question. If there is substantial disagreement, then students are directed to discuss their answers for 1-2 minutes with those sitting around them. After a second vote, Professor Neufeld asks students who changed their answers to explain why they did so. This often leads to further class discussion.

In Professor Hufnagel’s course, students were administered a concept inventory at the beginning and end of a semester during which he lectured and the semester during which he employed Peer Instruction. The concept inventory included 20 questions measuring student mastery of the course learning objectives. During the semester in which he used Peer Instruction, student gains were twice those of the students in the semester in which he primarily lectured. Additional assessments will be conducted in the future to see if these gains are replicated.

Professor Neufeld used the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), a standard assessment instrument used in university-level Newtonian physics. Student learning gains measured by the FCI tend to be higher in courses with active-learning strategies compared to traditional lecture courses. In Professor Neufeld’s class, results were similar to those reported by faculty at other universities using traditional lecture methods. The gain was not what he hoped, but this is not uncommon. Sometimes the method requires a few tweaks. While disappointed, he suspects the results reflect the fact that it was his first time using Peer Instruction. He is committed to teaching with Peer Instruction again, and the FCI will be used in future semesters to determine if gains increase as he acquires more experience.

One of the challenges of using Peer Instruction is that instructors cannot script class time as they can with a lecture. It is difficult to estimate how many ConcepTests can be completed during class because the length of follow-up student discussions varies. Despite some concerns about how to structure class time, both Hufnagel and Neufeld were pleased with how engaged students were during class discussions.

The first time you try Peer Instruction can be challenging, especially when creating or selecting ConcepTests. To assist instructors, Julie Schell and Eric Mazur established The Peer Instruction Network (https://www.peerinstruction.net), a database of Peer Instruction users with links to their available ConcepTests.

Peer Instruction can be used as one of several active-learning strategies during class time. For example, at several stages in Professor Hufnagel’s course, groups of students spent class time working out detailed problems that traditionally might have been presented as part of a lecture. Professor Hufnagel mentors student groups as needed during these exercises.

Additional resources:
• Mazur, Eric. Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual. Prentice Hall, 1997
• Turn to Your Neighbor Blog. The Official Blog of Peer Instruction: http://blog.peerinstruction.net 
• Article on “flipping the classroom”, Lectures On Demand: http://www.cer.jhu.edu/ii/InnovInstruct-Ped_LectOnDmnd.pdf
• Article on “clickers”, In-Class Voting (‘Clickers’):
http://www.cer.jhu.edu/ii/InnovInstruct-Tech_Clickers.pdf

Michael J. Reese, Associate Director, CER, Johns Hopkins University
Mike Reese is the associate director of the Center for Educational Resources and a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology.

Julie Schell, Educational Researcher, Harvard University
Dr. Julie Schell is the senior educational researcher within the Mazur Group at Harvard University and an instructional designer at the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at Austin. She is an expert in innovative flipped teaching and Peer Instruction. She co-founded the Peer Instruction Network and authors the official Peer Instruction blog, Turn to your Neighbor.

Image Source: © 2013 Reid Sczerba

Quick Tips: Little Things That Can Make a Big Impact on Teaching

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You have pulled together your syllabus, lined up the readings on course reserves, planned your class presentations, and mapped out the assignments. Your Blackboard site is prepped and ready. The big stuff is all taken care of, so all you have to do is walk into the classroom. According to Woody Allen, eighty percent of success is showing up. But is just showing up to teach really enough? A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that instructors would do well to look at the other twenty percent.

Chemistry instructor facing class of students with blackboard behind himIn It’s the Little Things That Count in Teaching Steven J. Corbett and Michelle LaFrance argue that paying attention to the “less serious” aspects of teaching can make you a more effective instructor.  Their advice includes arriving at the classroom early and sticking around afterwards in order to be more accessible to your students, playing interesting YouTube videos as your students are getting settled, establishing an email policy (and sticking to it), and letting students take responsibility for leading discussions. There are some suggestions for how to handle students’ use of mobile devices in the classroom. [See also The Innovative Instructor post Tips for Regulating the Use of Mobile Devices in the Classroom.] They advocate for bringing candy to class for motivation, and depending on class size, having a pizza party or potluck along with final presentations. The authors acknowledge that their recommendations may make for more work, but feel that the payoff is worth the effort – more engaged students and a positive classroom environment.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art

Learning Your Students’ Names

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Instructors agree: learning student names helps to foster a positive climate in the classroom by creating rapport between instructor and students and improving class management and interaction. If your class is a relatively small seminar or discussion-based section, learning names usually can be accomplished in a few sessions. For a large lecture course, the task may be more daunting, although faculty report that often in these courses, students understand they have an advantage in being known by name.

Instructor in front of chalkboard pointing with a piece of chalkAs Natalie Houston blogged in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Professor Hacker forum, “Even if you do not consider yourself to be naturally “good at names,” you can improve your recall by following a few simple tips.” She breaks the process down to five parts: Commit, Prepare, Work [On It], Review, and Practice – steps that will work regardless of class size. Houston, along with others (see sources below), suggests making note cards for each student that include photographs. At Johns Hopkins, this process is made easy using Integrated Student Information Services (ISIS). Faculty can pull up a roster with student pictures and select an option to produce cards with these images and names.

Part of learning your students’ names is being sure that you are pronouncing them correctly.  Do a roll call at the start of a couple of class sessions and ask that students provide you with the proper pronunciation of their names. Make notes of phonetic pronunciation on those photo-name cards you’ve created.

For larger classes, some instructors recommend using seating charts, at least for the initial meetings of the course, to help with memorization of names. Having students give their names when called on in class will help, as will returning assignments in class by reading the names and passing the papers to each individual. Depending on the size of the class, asking students to see you during office hours within the first several weeks of the semester is another tactic for associating names and faces. Some instructors ask students to use name tags or folding cards (for larger classroom settings). Dividing a large class into smaller working groups makes it easier for some faculty to learn names.

Practice makes perfect. Greet students by name as they enter the classroom. Use students’ names when calling on them in class. Associate their names with the comments they have made in discussion that follows.

In a very large class, you may not get to 100% name recognition by the end of the semester. But our faculty assure us that it is worth the time spent. Students appreciate the effort; knowing individuals by names helps promote mutual respect.

Here are links to some academic webpages with additional tips and tricks for learning student names:

Other resources:

 

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art

Quick Tips: Flipping Your Classroom

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Text reading flipping the classroom with the classroom upside downThe CER blog, The Innovative Instructor, has posted on flipping the classroom (see here and here). Recently we came across a couple of videos and tips sheets that provide succinct overviews to the process.  What is the Flipped Classroom combines a 60 second video that gets right to the heart of the matter, with graphic explaining the difference between traditional and flipped classroom techniques. A two page document from the Educause Learning Initiative describes seven things you should know about flipped classrooms. Jen Ebbeler, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Texas Austin, has blogged about her experiences with flipping her large enrollment (400 students) course Introduction to Ancient Rome. She’s produced a seven minute video: Transforming Ancient Rome: Active Learning in a Large Enrollment Course chronicling her experiences.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: © Macie Hall, 2013.

Summer Reading

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If you are like many faculty, you probably have stacks of books, journals, articles (whether print or virtual) accumulating on various surfaces in your work space and home. So the last thing you are looking for is something else to read. With that as a given, The Innovative Instructor still wants to recommend another book for you.

Stack of books in a library.Teaching What You Don’t Know by Therese Huston (MSEL catalog, ISBNdb for online shopping price comparisons), is well worth perusing if you ever have to be teach a subject with which you are less than familiar. This situation is increasingly a common reality for faculty. Sometimes the gap between what you are asked to teach and your specialty interest is short — you’re a historian of British 20th century politics asked to teach a course on the political changes in Europe between the two world wars. Sometimes the gap is wider — Huston cites the example of a chemistry professor asked to teach a freshman year seminar called “The Common Intellectual Experience” where topics included the Declaration of Independence and slave narratives, two topics not generally covered in chemistry training (p. 11).

Huston discusses the advantages the experience can bring to an instructor who is a “content novice,” but more importantly, offers concrete steps that can be taken to teach a course outside of one’s disciplinary expertise. For example, she emphasizes the value of backward design.

Backward design involves 1) determining what you want students to be able to do as a result of taking the course, 2) deciding how you will assess their competency, and 3) based on 1) and 2) deciding what and how you will  teach. (For more on backward design see: Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. “What is Backward Design?,” in Understanding by Design. 1st edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001, pp. 7-19.) However, backward design is just one of a number of strategies Huston offers.

She examines common mistakes made (assigning too much work, underestimating preparation time) and outlines tactics for surviving in the classroom. She also covers active learning strategies and other activities to engage students. These can be especially useful when you are concerned about your level of expertise in the course subject matter.

Huston is reassuring with her statement, “It may not be the world’s most comfortable teaching, but students can learn as much, if not more, than they can in classes where you’re teaching form the core of your expertise.” (p. 8). After all, the chances are excellent that no matter what you are teaching, you will know more than your students.

In fact, Teaching What You Don’t Know is full of great advice for anyone teaching, whether or not familiarity with the subject matter is an issue. There is also a section with guidelines for administrators, such as department chairs, who may be in the position of making these teaching assignments. While not a primary source for instructional basics like how to build a syllabus or stimulate engaging class discussions, the curriculum design descriptions, teaching activities, and strategies for classroom management Huston offers make the book well worth a read.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art

Learning by Doing – Case-in-Point

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group of business people in silhouette against city skylineCase-in-Point is a method of experiential learning used to teach leadership. An integral part of the theory of Adaptive Leadership™  it was developed over the past 15 years by Ronald Heifetz, Marty Linsky, and their colleagues at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The method involves using the actions and behaviors of individual participants as well as focusing on the group of which they are members.

Case-in-Point is an immersive, reflective, and ideally a reflexive exercise facilitated by an instructor but in best practice, shaped by group/class participants. Case-in-Point help leadership practitioners with two key components of leadership development:
• It is teaching method that more realistically prepares people to have stamina, resilience and a willingness to work with others in the heat of change in order to adapt, because “to lead is to live dangerously.
• It helps practitioners generate a heightened awareness of themselves, their impact and the systems they are a part of.

Two Critical Distinctions
According to Heifetz, the Adaptive Leadership framework includes two critical distinctions that are central for understanding case-in-point:
• Authority/Leadership
• Technical Problems/Adaptive Challenges

Authority/Leadership. The first distinction clarifies that having a position of authority does not mean that we exercise leadership. Heifetz reminds us that an expert is not necessarily a leader:

For many challenges in our lives, experts or authorities can solve our problems. . . . We look to doctors to make us healthy, mechanics to fix our cars. . . .We give these people power, authorizing them to find solutions. . . . The problems may be complex, such as a broken arm or a broken carburetor, but experts know exactly how to fix them.

To determine whether we need to exercise authority or leadership, we need to analyze the nature of the problem we face. That brings us to the second distinction:

Technical Problems/Adaptive Challenges. Rather than being technical problems, many of the challenges we face today are adaptive. Heifetz and Linsky maintain:

The problems that require leadership are those that the experts cannot solve. We call these adaptive challenges. The solutions lie not in technical answers, but rather in people themselves. . . . The surgeon can fix your son’s broken arm, but she cannot prevent your son from rollerblading without elbow pads. The dietitian can recommend a weight-loss program, but she cannot curb your love for chocolate chip cookies. . . . Most people would rather have the person in authority take the work off their shoulders, protect them from disorienting change, and meet challenges on their behalf. But the real work of leadership usually involves giving the work back to the people who must adapt, and mobilizing them to do so.

The practice of leadership takes place in an authority structure. In an adaptive challenge, the authority structure—the people in charge—can contribute, but others must participate as well. All people involved are part of the problem, and their shared ownership of that problem becomes part of the solution itself.

Reflecting on these two distinctions, it is easy to see how professors, trainers, and consultants often end up treating the adaptive challenge of teaching as a technical problem, and applying the power of expertise by telling people what to do.

Professors, trainers, and consultants are paid for teaching, not for facilitating learning in others. “You are the expert: teach us” seems to be the implicit contract that students expect instructors to uphold. Many educators consider teaching a technical problem, exercise authority rather than leadership, and deploy their power or personality to influence student learning. In the process, they avoid conflict, demonstrate resolve and focus in their use of time, and provide decisive and assertive answers to problems through authoritative knowledge built over many years. Learners in the class find comfort in the predictability of the endeavor and by its inevitable output delivered according to the plan.

The cost of this collusion is the energy, engagement, effectiveness, and ultimately meaning of the learning enterprise itself. The result is that people lose their ability to grow through experience, tolerate ambiguity, and use sense-making skills.

Case-in-point supports learning over teaching, struggle over prescription, questions over answers, tension over comfort, and capacities and needs over deficiencies. It is about embracing the willingness to be exposed and vulnerable, cultivating persistence in the face of inertial pushbacks, and self-regulating in the face of challenge or open hostility. Why? Because this is what leadership work looks like in the real world. In the process, students and the facilitator learn to recognize their default responses, identify productive and unproductive patterns of behavior, and test their stamina, resilience, and readiness to change the system with others.

Planning and Facilitating with Case-in-Point
In case-in-point, a facilitator must not take reactions toward him personally and must encourage the same in participants. This may mean not taking offense for disrespectful behavior and later asking the person to reflect on how productive his statements were.

Ultimately, the role of the facilitator in case-in-point is to demonstrate the theory in practice, by acting on the system in the class. Case-in-point uses the authority structure and the roles in a class (instructor, participants, stakeholders) and the social expectations and norms of the system (in this case, the class) to practice in real time the meaning of the key concepts of authority, leadership, adaptive challenge, technical problems, factions, and so on.

Planning. How does a facilitator plan a session where she uses case-in-point? As in Jorge Luis Borges’ novel The Garden of the Forking Paths, the text—in this case, the lesson plan—is the point of departure for many possible learning events. The facilitator follows the emergence of interesting themes amid interpersonal dynamics and investigates those dynamics, in response to the guiding question, “What does this moment illustrate that is relevant both to the learning and to the practice of leadership in participants’ lives?” What emerges in the action pushes the class down one path of many possible junctures. For the facilitator, the implicit lesson plan turns into a labyrinth of many exciting—albeit sometimes overwhelming— possibilities.

Facilitating. A case-in-point facilitator’s main tool is the question. Questions are the currency of inquiry, and ultimately case-in-point involves ongoing research into the art of leadership that benefits as more people join the conversation. Here a few questions that I have used successfully:
• “What’s your intention right now?”
• “What did you notice as you were speaking?”
• “In this moment, what do you need from the group to proceed?”
• “What happened as soon as you asked everyone to open their books to page 5?”
• “What have you noticed happens in the group when I sit down?”
• “Am I exercising leadership or authority right now?”

Michael Johnstone and Maxime Fern have expanded on four different levels of intervention for a case-in-point facilitator.

At the individual level: The facilitator may comment on someone’s contribution or action for the sake of reflection, trying to uncover assumptions or beliefs. For example, “Mark, could I ask you to assess the impact on the group of the statement you just made?” “What should I do at this point and why should I do it?” “Are you receiving enough support from others to continue with your point?”

At the relationship level: The facilitator might intervene to name or observe patterns that develop between two or more participants. For example, she may say something like, “I noticed that when Beth speaks, some of you seem not to pay attention.” Or “What does this disagreement tell us about the different values that are present in the room?”

At the group level: The facilitator might confront a faction or a group with a theme emerging from the conversation, maybe after participants agree with or disagree on a controversial statement. For example, “What does the group propose now? Can you articulate the purpose that you are pursuing?” “I noticed many of you are eager to do something, as long as we stop this process of reflection. Why is that?”

At the larger level: The facilitator might comment on participants’ organizations, communities, nationalities, or ethnicities, saying for example, “In light of the large number of foreign nationals in the room, what are the implications of the insistence in the literature that Jack Welch of GE is a model for global leadership?”

 A Way of Being, Not a Way of Teaching
For me, case-in-point is rooted in the distinction between an ontological (science of being) versus an epistemological (science of knowing) view of leadership. When we teach using the case-in-point approach, we’re helping our students learn how to act their way into knowing what is right for their specific organization rather than bestowing our knowledge for them to apply, whether it fits their circumstances or not. Likewise, case-in-point is a statement of congruity, of “practicing what we preach” and, in the process, learning to be better instructors. At the same time, we introduce our students to an exciting realm of possibility, aspiration, and innovation beyond technique or theoretical knowledge.

Rules of Engagement
Johnstone and Fern provide the following rules of engagement for case-in-point facilitators:
• Prepare participants by warning them that learning will be experiential and may get heated. For example, create a one-page overview to leave on each table that clarifies all the concepts of the class and includes bibliographical information.
• Encourage listening and respect (though not too much politeness). For example, establish a clear rule that participants need to listen to each other and state their opinions as such rather than as facts.
• Distinguish between case-in-point and debriefing events. For example, set up two different places in the room—one for case-in-point sessions and one for debriefs—or announce ahead of time which kind of event will follow.
• Facilitators must not take reactions toward them personally and must encourage the same in participants.
• Recognize that no one, including the facilitator, is flawless. Acknowledge and use your own shortcomings by recognizing mistakes and openly apologizing for errors.
• Treat all interpretations as hypotheses. Ask people to consider their own reactions and thoughts as data that clarifies what is going on in the room.
• Respect confidentiality.
• Take responsibility for your own actions. Invite people to own their piece of the “mess” by asking how they have colluded in the problem they are trying to deal with.

For Further Reading
Brown, J., and Isaacs, D., The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter (Berrett-Koehler, 2005)
Daloz Parks, S., Leadership Can Be Taught (Harvard Business School Press, 2005)
Johnstone, M., and Fern, M., Case-in-Point: An Experiential Methodology for Leadership Education and Practice (The Journal, Kansas Leadership Center, Fall 2010)
Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., and Linsky, M., The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (Harvard Business Press, 2009)

The text for this post originally appeared as a longer article by Adriano Pianesi: “The Class of the Forking Paths”: Leadership and “Case-In-Point.” The Systems Thinker, Vol. 24. No. 1. Feb. 2013.

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Adriano Pianesi teaches leadership at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School and is the principal of ParticipAction Consulting, Inc.  He holds a Master’s degree in Corporate Communication from the University of Milan. Pianesi is a member of the Society for Organizational Learning and the World Cafe’ community of practice, as well as a certified Action Learning coach and a passionate experiential learner/teacher.

Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art

To Curve or Not to Curve

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A version of this post appeared in the print series of The Innovative Instructor.

Yellow traffic signs showing a bell curve and a stylized graph referencing criterion-referenced grading.Instructors choose grading schemes for a variety of reasons. Some may select a method that reflects the way they were assessed as students; others may follow the lead of a mentor or senior faculty member in their department. To curve or not to curve is a big question. Understanding the motivations behind and reasons for curving or not curving grades can help instructors select the most appropriate grading schemes for their courses.

Curving defines grades according to the distribution of student scores. Grades are determined after all student scores for the assignment or test are assigned. Often called norm-referenced grading, curving assigns grades to students based on their performance relative to the class as a whole. Criterion-referenced grading (i.e., not curving) assigns grades without this reference. The instructor determines the threshold for grades before the assignment is submitted or the test is taken. For example, a 92 could be defined as the base threshold for an A, regardless of how many students score above or below the threshold.

Choosing to curve grades or use a criterion referenced grading system can affect the culture of competition and/or the students’ sense of faculty fairness in a class. Curving grades provides a way to standardize grades. If a department rotates faculty responsibility for teaching a course (such as a large introductory science course), norm-referenced grading can ensure that the distribution of grades is comparable from year-to-year. A course with multiple graders, such as a science lab that uses a fleet of graduate students in the grading, may also employ a norm referencing technique to standardize grades across sections. In this case, standardization across multiple graders should begin with training the graders. Curving grades should not be a substitute for instructing multiple graders how to assign grades based on a pre-defined rubric (The Innovative Instructor: “Calibrating Multiple Graders”).

In addition to standardizing grades, norm-referenced grading can enable faculty to design more challenging assignments that differentiate top performers who score significantly above the mean. More challenging assignments can skew the grade distribution; norm-referenced grading can then minimize the impact on the majority of students whose scores will likely be lower.

A critique of curving grades is that some students, no matter how well they perform, will be assigned a lower grade than they feel they deserve. Shouldn’t all students have an equal chance to earn an A? For this reason, some instructors do not pre-determine the distribution of grades. The benefit of using a criterion-referenced grading scheme is that it minimizes the sense of competition among students because they are not competing for a limited number of A’s or B’s. Their absolute score, not relative performance, determines their grade.

There are multiple ways to curve grades.

Image showing a bell curve.I. The Bell Curve

Normalizes scores using a statistical technique to reshape the distribution into a bell curve. An instructor then assigns a grade (e.g., C+) to the middle (median) score and determines grade thresholds based on the distance of scores from this reference point. A spreadsheet application like Excel can be used to normalize scores. CER staff can assist instructors in normalizing scores.

Image showing clumping.II. Clumping

The instructor creates a distribution of the scores and identifies clusters of scores separated by breaks in the distribution, then uses these gaps as a threshold for assigning grades.

 

Image showing quota system.III. Quota Systems

Often used in law schools, the instructor pre-determines the number of students who can earn each grade. The instructor applies these quotas after rank ordering student scores.

 

Image showing criterion-reference grading.IV. Criterion-reference grading

Using a pre-determined scale, assessments are based on clearly defined learning objectives and grading rubrics so students know the instructor’s expectations for an A, B, C, etc.

 

During the 2011 Robert Resnick Lecture at Johns Hopkins, Carl Wieman, Nobel Laureate and Associate Director for Science at the President’s Office of Science and Technology, argued that most instructors are not trained to create valid assessments of student learning. Curving can be used as a tool to adjust grades on a poorly designed test, but consistent use of curving should not be a substitute for designing assessments that accurately assess what the instructor wants students to learn by the end of the course. CER staff are happy to talk to faculty about defining learning objectives and/or strategies for designing challenging and accurate student assessment instruments.

Additional Resources

• Campbell, C. (2012). Learning-centered grading practices. Leadership. 41(5), 30-33

• Jacobson, N. (2001). A method for normalizing students’ scores when employing multiple graders.  ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. 33(4), 35-38.

• Joe Champion’s Grading Transformation Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet automatically curves students’ scores after the instructor copies the scores into the spreadsheet and sets a variable defining the amount of curve.

Michael J. Reese, Associate Director
Center for Educational Resources

Image Sources: © Reid Sczerba, 2013.

Making Group Projects Work

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Instructors often find that student engagement increases when active learning strategies are implemented in the classroom. One strategy is to assign problem-based collaborative learning projects. Well-conceived group projects help students develop critical thinking skills, learn how to work in teams, and apply theories learned in the course to real-life situations, producing an appreciation for how the knowledge gained will be useful once the class is over. The end result is a richer learning experience for the students.

Drawing of chairs around gears, screw driver tightening screw in center of second gear.

Students are more likely to appreciate and retain information when they see a correlation between course work and what they expect to experience as working professionals. Problem-based group projects typically require an array of cognitive skills, induce collaborative learning, and allow students to take ownership of the process. Moreover, students who learn to work in teams are better prepared for their future work environments.

Developing effective problem-based group projects requires assignments that reflect your course learning goals and incorporate course information, permit management of the student groups, and facilitate assessment of student progress. Advance planning and thoughtful strategies will go a long way towards ensuring successful implementation.

I. Setting Student Expectations

  • Weight the project fairly. You want your students to take the project seriously but you don’t want to weight the project so heavily that experimentation or risk-taking is stifled. Consider dividing the project into parts and grading each separately, so the team understands which aspects of the project went well and what needs improvement.
  • Discuss student roles and what’s needed. Get the students thinking about what will be required of their team and how they can organize and manage the project.  Emphasize the importance of a team schedule. Discuss the qualities of a good teammate so that students begin the project with mutual respect.
  • Start with small exercises as a warm up. Consider starting with a couple of smaller in-class team-based exercises so that students get used to working collaboratively

 II. Group generation methods

  • Allowing self-selection of teams can create problems. Students like to choose friends as teammates. Personal issues then carry over into the project, friendships may suffer, or the members may take the project less seriously, resulting in poor group performance.
  • Random selection is a reasonable alternative to student choice. This method is the fastest way to generate groups and more reflective of the real world. While random selection is convenient, consider ensuring diversity in each group to the extent possible.
  • Skills based alignment is ideal for creating groups. Identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses through in-class exercises can help establish well-rounded teams. As a part of the preparation for the project, generate a list of the skills needed, have the students identify their strong and weak areas, then group the students accordingly.

 III. Getting each student to contribute

  • Assign the students to roles. The difference between a dysfunctional group and a successful team lies in assigning roles. If students are assigned tasks with deadlines, they are more likely to take ownership and responsibility for completing their work as part of the team. Establishing roles can be a part of the group creation process. Avoid having students doing the same task for the entire length of the project. Instead, make the skill requirements for the team more conceptual. Use abstract concepts (Researcher or Synthesizer; Gatherer of Data or Analyzer of Data) so that broad expertise is required for each role.
  • Require that a different student present the team’s progress for each report. Make sure that each student has an opportunity to participate in an in-class presentation. Presenting their work is a skill that all students will use in the future. As it involves an understanding of all the parts of the project, these presentations by each team member also help to ensure successful group collaboration.

 IV. Assessing the team/individual in and outside of class

  • Have the students do evaluations. This can be done both during and after the project. Evaluations serve as reflective exercises for the students, allowing them to comment on how the process could be improved. Evaluations are particularly useful for gauging the team and individuals’ contributions for grading. Questions that require students to evaluate their own performance, the performance of each team member, and the team as a whole can provide insight into how the team functioned.
  • Schedule time for team work in class. Scheduling group work outside of class is always a challenge for students. By allowing time during class for team work, you also will have an opportunity to monitor student progress. This is a great way to gauge whether the students are experiencing difficulties and provide an opportunity for questions, clarifications, or assistance with problems. Some of the best learning comes from spontaneous discussion in class, and peer-learning can be extremely effective when students are working together to solve problems.
  • Ask for regular status updates. Starting class with a brief progress report from each team will bring up questions and concerns that can be addressed at once, eliminating redundancy and saving time.

V. Build in time for reflection

  • Reflection is key to learning from failure as well as success. Make sure you build in time for students to reflect on their progress. The best time to get the students to reflect on their experience is after the project during a debriefing discussion. Questions such as “What went well or not so well?” and “What would you do differently?” will enhance the opportunity for learning from their failures as well as their successes.

This post was adapted from The Innovative Instructor article series: http://www.cer.jhu.edu/ii/InnovInstruct-BP_MakingGroupProjectsWork.pdf

Pam Sheff,
Senior Lecturer, Center for Leadership Education, Johns Hopkins University
Pam Sheff is an award-winning writer and marketing communications consultant, with experience developing marketing, public relations and communications strategies for clients ranging from start-ups to large corporate, institutional and government organizations. Now a full-time lecturer in CLE, Pam has taught classes on business communications and entrepreneurship.

Leslie Kendrick,
Senior Lecturer, Center for Leadership Education, Johns Hopkins University
Leslie Kendrick has taught in the CLE program since 2002 and developed the five core marketing courses. She has 12 years of experience as a marketing practitioner. She has  worked for Harper & Row Publishers, Londontown Corporation, and Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.

Image Source: © Reid Sczerba, 2012