Plagiarism Detection: Moving from “Gotcha” to Teachable Moment

Posted on by
1

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

Posted on by
1

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
1

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

Icebreakers

Posted on by
1

A few months back a saavy instructor, thinking ahead to fall classes, asked us about using icebreakers on the first day of class. What is an icebreaker? Essentially it is an exercise or activity that provides an opportunity for students and the instructor to get to know one another.

As we talked to faculty and did some reading on icebreaker activities, it became clear thatFour ice cubes stacked against blue background there are two camps: those who like these exercises and think they provide value, and those who think they are off topic and a waste of time.

Why would you want to use an icebreaker? The Center for Teaching Excellence at Lansing Community College lists these benefits on their page of icebreaker activities:

  • Reduces both student and instructor anxiety prior to introducing the course.
  • Fosters in a powerful way both student-student and faculty-student interactions.
  • Creates an environment where the learner is expected to participate and the instructor is willing to listen.
  • Actively engage students from the onset.
  • Conveys the message that the instructor cares about getting to know the students.
  • It makes it easier for students to form relationships early in the semester so they can work together both in and out of class.

Given the number of ways these activities can benefit the class; it seems worth looking at whether there are ways to overcome concerns about applicability and usefulness to the course.

In the book Essentials of College and University Teaching: A Practical Guide by Eleanor Boyle and Harley Rothstein (ProActive Press, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 71-74), the authors suggest using icebreakers that incorporate course material. “This may seem difficult on the first day of class, when students haven’t even read chapter one. But students enter every discipline, no matter how exotic, with ideas, preconceptions, information and misinformation. One exciting and motivating approach asks students to debate general interest questions relating the discipline.” The exercise involves creating three to six general-knowledge questions about the discipline at hand. These can be presented as true or false, shown with multiple choice answers, or made open ended for discussion. Students are asked to group themselves into pairs or threes. The instructor then projects the first question and asks the students to discuss and decide on an answer in their groups. After a few minutes, students are asked to vote on the correct answer – if clickers are being used this can be done electronically, but a show of hands will suffice. If the question is open-ended, the instructor can ask for responses from several groups. Time should be allowed for discussion or debriefing, but generally speaking, the activity should be fast paced; the advice is to move to the next question to keep the students focused. “The best questions for this exercise are relevant to your discipline but require no expert knowledge; they do not have obvious answers and potentially generate a variety of responses. Such questions pique student’ interest, expose them to different opinions, and allow them to anticipate issue that will emerge throughout the course.”

From the Teaching Professor blog at the website Faculty Focus come two posts on icebreakers that can be used to create “a climate of learning” in the classroom. The first is called A Classroom Icebreaker with a Lesson that Lasts. At the minute the class is supposed to begin, the instructor arrives with a box packed with about 15 random, preferably unrelated objects. The box is placed on a table at the front of the room, then the instructor unpacks each item and places it on the table. Once all the items are unpacked, they are returned to the box in the same order. Then the students are asked to take out a piece of paper and write down as many of the objects as they can remember. The author, Virginia Freed, writes: “Interesting things begin to happen here, and I can make some immediate points about classroom expectations. Students sitting in the back of the room have not been able to see the items on the table. The point? Sit as close to the front of the room as possible. Some students have been engaged in conversations and did not see me or the box. The point? Pay attention right from the beginning of the class; professors often offer the most interesting and important information at the beginning and ending of class. Some students come in late. The point? Arrive on time. Some students don’t have anything to write with or on. The point? Come prepared. We discuss all this with humor, but the inferences are clear.” The process can be repeated in several ways that will help students understand concepts relating to content mastery.

Another post from the same website, First Day of Class Activities that Create a Climate for Learning, by Maryellen Weimer, shares four first day activities that “…emphasize the importance of learning and the responsibility students share for shaping the classroom environment.” One of these, called Syllabus Speed Dating, helps ensure that your students are not only “…acquainted with each other, [but is] a great way to get them reading the syllabus and finding out for themselves what they need to know about the course.”

For more icebreaker suggestions see the list of activities posted by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Lansing Community College.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art

Quick Tips: Flipping Your Classroom

Posted on by
1

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.

Bring on the Collaboration

Posted on by
1

Getting students to participate in class discussions is a common challenge. Every instructor has faced the dreaded silence after posing a question. Active learning activities can stimulate student engagement, but they can be difficult to implement in classrooms that were designed for lectures –  fixed seating inhibits opportunities for collaborative exercises such as group work and discussion.

Research has shown that active learning strategies can improve students’ retention of content taught in class [Michael Prince. Does Active Learning Work? A Review of the Research. Journal of Engineering Education, 2004. http://ctlt.jhsph.edu/resources/views/content/files/150/Does_Active_Learning_Work.pdf.] A variety of teaching methods – such as peer-instruction, discussion groups, and collaborative problem solving – can foster greater student engagement. Each of these methods requires students to connect, share information, and discuss possible solutions to posed problems, anticipating real life workplace situations.

eStudio-309_2D-finalFaculty who want to implement active learning strategies may find it challenging to manage in a space designed for lecture-based instruction. In the last decade, universities have introduced classrooms to address this challenge. Typically known as studio  or collaborative learning classrooms (CLC), such spaces often have round, movable tables for group work, ample whiteboard space, and large display screens for each group. This learning environment has a positive effect on students’ engagement; it alters their roles in the classroom from passive recipients of knowledge to active participants in their own learning.

At a National Academies Summer Institutes on Undergraduate Education last summer, several Hopkins colleagues and I participated in group work in a space designed for collaboration. We were impressed by the power of that learning experience. Shortly after the workshop, we learned that the Provost’s Gateway Sciences Initiative would be underwriting the conversion of a traditional learning space (Krieger 309) into a collaborative learning classroom.  I decided to offer my Biology Workshop course in the new CLC in the fall semester of 2012.

The course was designed as a guest lecture series with some meetings set aside for group discussions.  Although we continued to offer the guest lectures in a large hall, we moved to the CLC for the group discussions and were delighted to take advantage of the features of this new space. During a typical class, I provided a 5 to 10 minutes overview of the day’s lesson plan, often using the instructor projectors to play a video or podcast highlighting a current event or controversial topic in biology. For the majority of the class time (30 minutes), students worked in groups using their own laptops to conduct research, discuss potential answers to questions, create charts and other graphics, and post content to the course Blackboard site. For ten minutes at the end of class, groups took turns presenting their work to the entire class, using their team projectors to display their work.

View of collaborative learning classroom - Krieger 309 - no studentsThe room’s design allows students to work comfortably in groups, using tools ideal for collaboration. Each group has a whiteboard adjacent to its table where students can jot down notes or conceptualize and work out problems. Students can easily project their individual laptop screens for viewing by the whole class. In addition, the instructor has control over two large screens, which is helpful when presenting materials to the entire class or sharing a group’s display with the class. The room’s layout facilitates instructor visits to each group while they work, something that is difficult in a lecture hall.

One of the nicest things about teaching in the new CLC was that students seemed toStudents inCollaborative Learning Classroom - Krieger 309 know what was expected of them. Seeing the space they knew the class would not be a typical lecture format, which intrigued them. Moreover, the students responded positively as they engaged in the discussions and participated in their groups, producing a higher caliber of work than I experienced in this course previously.

Students were amazingly “on task” during group work, which speaks to their high level of engagement and enthusiasm. They clearly felt a strong sense of responsibility for their group’s performance, particularly when presenting their findings to the class.

View of collaborative learning classroom - Krieger 309In comparison to previous iterations of this course, the students’ grades were in the same range; however, the level of engagement was much higher and it was a significantly more enjoyable teaching experience. I know that the students appreciated the active learning aspect of the course because when I presented in lecture format for more than 15 minutes, I could see them squirming in their seats.  They couldn’t wait to get started on group work. It has been a challenge to limit my introduction to just a few minutes, and then post supporting material for the students to explore during class with their groups.

Because this class had more discussion and collaborative work than when I previously taught the course, I found that it helped to prepare learning objectives for each session. This kept the focus in place during class and ensured that the group work would meet the goal for the day. It also helped set the students’ expectations for what they needed to accomplish and learn for tests.

A number of faculty have taught in the new CLC since its creation, from the departments of Chemistry, French, Physics, Mathematics, and Civil Engineering. The room is flexible enough for a number of uses and can support classes from any discipline. The way I conducted my course for instance, is similar to the teaching approach for humanities courses in which class discussions are standard. Although the students in my Biology Workshop did not often use the whiteboards, other classes used them frequently.

There are many methods for generating effective group assignments in class. I found that when my 35 students first entered the CLC, the room’s layout clearly suggested that they would be working together at the round tables, which seat seven. They gravitated naturally to self-defined groups around the tables. This proved to be effective way of forming lasting and productive groups for this class.  Other instructors may wish to randomly assign groups or to purposefully break and re-form groups throughout the course.

Additional Resources

The text for this post originally appeared in the print series of The Innovative Instructor.

Rebecca Pearlman received a PhD in Biology from the University of Wisconsin.  She has over fifteen years of teaching experience ranging from small laboratory courses at a two-year college to large lecture courses at Hopkins. She is delighted to be a lecturer in the Biology Department working with amazing colleagues who are dedicated to improving the undergraduate experience.  Her past collaborations with the CER include work on creating videos of laboratory techniques and piloting in-class voting and course management systems.

Images Source: © Reid Sczerba.

 

Summer Reading

Posted on by
1

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

Posted on by
2

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.

*****************************************************************************************************

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

Posted on by
4

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.