Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning

Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning PDF

Author: Kimberly M. Williams

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-10-10

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1317695585

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Given the increased accountability at the college and university level, one of the most promising ways for faculty at institutions of higher education to improve their teaching is to capitalize upon their skills as researchers. This book is a step-by-step guide for doing research to inform and improve teaching and learning. With background and instruction about how to engage in these methodologies—including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods—Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning provides examples across disciplines of how to use one's research skills to improve teaching. This valuable resource equips faculty with the skills to collect and use different types of research evidence to improve teaching and learning in any college and university classroom. Special Features: Chapter openers highlight the questions and issues that will be addressed in each chapter. Recurring text boxes provide authentic examples from actual research studies, student work, and instructor reflections. Coverage of challenges, key successes, and lessons learned from classroom research presents a nuanced and complete understanding of the process.

First-order Principles for College Teachers

First-order Principles for College Teachers PDF

Author: Robert Boice

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13:

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Based on his many years of experience teaching new faculty about teaching and writing, Boice presents ten basic, interrelated principles that underlie effective teaching. These principles address attitudes as well as actions. Unique in its approach, the book is a valuable resource for both novice and experienced teachers.

Improving How Universities Teach Science

Improving How Universities Teach Science PDF

Author: Carl Wieman

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2017-05-22

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0674978927

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Too many universities remain wedded to outmoded ways of teaching. Too few departments ask whether what happens in their lecture halls is effective at helping students to learn and how they can encourage their faculty to teach better. But real change is possible, and Carl Wieman shows us how it can be done—through detailed, tested strategies.

Learning to Improve

Learning to Improve PDF

Author: Anthony S. Bryk

Publisher: Harvard Education Press

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 161250793X

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As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.” Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education. Organized around six core principles, the book shows how “networked improvement communities” can bring together researchers and practitioners to accelerate learning in key areas of education. Examples include efforts to address the high rates of failure among students in community college remedial math courses and strategies for improving feedback to novice teachers. Learning to Improve offers a new paradigm for research and development in education that promises to be a powerful driver of improvement for the nation’s schools and colleges.

Using Data to Improve Teacher Education

Using Data to Improve Teacher Education PDF

Author: Charles A. Peck

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0807764701

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"A collaborative effort between researchers and practitioners, this volume presents lessons learned to assist teacher educators who are engaged daily with the challenges of making data useful and used in their programs. Readers will see how the work carried out in "high data use" teacher education programs strengthened local program identity and coherence"--

What the Best College Teachers Do

What the Best College Teachers Do PDF

Author: Ken Bain

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0674065549

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What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators. The short answer is—it’s not what teachers do, it’s what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out—but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn. In stories both humorous and touching, Ken Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students’ discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership

Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership PDF

Author: Mary-Ann Winkelmes

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-03

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 100097832X

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This book offers a comprehensive guide to the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework that has convincingly demonstrated that implementation increases retention and improved outcomes for all students. Its premise is simple: to make learning processes explicit and equitably accessible for all students. Transparent instruction involves faculty/student discussion about several important aspects of academic work before students undertake that work, making explicit the purpose of the work, the knowledge that will be gained and its utility in students’ lives beyond college; explaining the tasks involved, the expected criteria, and providing multiple examples of real-world work applications of the specific academic discipline. The simple change of making objective and methods explicit – that faculty recognize as consistent with their teaching goals – creates substantial benefits for students and demonstrably increases such predictors of college students’ success as academic confidence, sense of belonging in college, self-awareness of skill development, and persistence. This guide presents a brief history of TILT, summarizes both past and current research on its impact on learning, and describes the three-part Transparency Framework (of purposes, tasks and criteria). The three sections of the book in turn demonstrate why and how transparent instruction works suggesting strategies for instructors who wish to adopt it; describing how educational developers and teaching centers have adopted the Framework; and concluding with examples of how several institutions have used the Framework to connect the daily work of faculty with the learning goals that departments, programs and institutions aim to demonstrate.

Small Teaching

Small Teaching PDF

Author: James M. Lang

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-03-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1118944496

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Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students? Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.