How I teach

A photo of me doing what I rarely do--lecturing

I was recently asked about how I teach. Obviously, teaching is something I do daily, and I do give it a fair amount of thought, but I’d never been asked this all-encompassing question before—or at least not for a long time. It got me thinking about how I actually do teach, and how I create a learning environment in which learners can learn.

How do I teach?

The person asking the question offered a few prompts to help focus my thinking. The following are my bullet-point responses to his questions.

What strategies do you use to get and keep students engaged in class?

• Active learning: What better way is there to learn, other than by doing, and learning from your mistakes while doing?
• Flipped learning: Let’s apply new knowledge and skills during class, when questions can be asked, and save the lower order of Bloom’s taxonomy for individual learning outside the classroom.
• Learner-centered teaching: Teaching and learning is about enabling the learner to learn, not about enabling the teacher to teach.
• iClicker learner response system: This and similar tools provide a great way to provide (anonymous, if desired) responses and feedback in the classroom.
• Check in surveys throughout the semester: Giving the learners opportunities to reflect on how their learning is progressing during the semester, and what you might be able to do to create a better learning environment can be powerful for both learner and teacher.
• Reflection papers: Like the check in surveys, creating opportunities for learners to reflect on what and how they are learning is powerful.
• Specifications grading (and exploring ungrading): Points are not the only way to represent what an individual has learned. I’ll even go further and say they may be a bad way to do so. I’ve found specifications grading to be a much better option and have recently been dabbling with ungrading. I've previously posted about specifications grading.
  

What strategies do you use to get and keep students engaged in community and to develop an identity within your class? (That is, to encourage engagement in campus life or contact outside class, i.e., studying together.)

• Pair-programming and group work: Have learners work together on a regular basis in class, and the relationships will inevitably flow to outside of class.
• Small group discussions: Taking time to share opinions and understanding with others—and listening to their point of view—opens a communication channel.
• Immersive learning: Learning while doing, and satisfying others needs in the process is a tremendous motivator.
• Expert of the Day: Asking learners to complete work on their own before class, and then serve as a teaching assistant during class helps reinforce their learning. It also provides multiple opportunities to interact with others.
  

What strategies do you use to lecture or otherwise deliver course content effectively?  

• I try to avoid lecturing! I’ve found that talking about a topic for an extended period of time seldom is productive. Learning by listening is not near as productive as learning by doing.
• Flipped learning: See above.
• Active learning: See above, again.
• Discussion (mostly Socratic): For teaching things other than skills, discussion is great—especially if I can avoid stating my personal opinions, but rather provide an environment in which the learners critically think about their own ideas and understanding, share that with others, and learn from others.
• Disability awareness and accessible Canvas course site: If you have challenges accessing the course site—for any reason—your learning opportunities are going to be diminished. Every learner deserves full access to every learning opportunity.
• Diversity, equity, and inclusivity: Understanding what others bring to the classroom provides opportunities to reduce or remove barriers to learning, as well as providing rich opportunities for all to learn.

How do you think about course design (syllabus, sequencing, assessment, assignments, activities, etc.)?

• I think about Understanding By Design (Wiggins & McTighe), but admittedly seldom am successful at fully implementing it due to the time I provide myself. I need to do better.
• I keep Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in mind: If I do something to help one learner, I likely will help many others.
• I tie course activities/learning outcomes to workforce competencies (NACE): Beyond content knowledge (which may become obsolete, given time), learners also need to learn and recognize non-domain transferable skills. Anything I can do to establish the relationships between class activities and workforce competencies will be a good thing.
• I have a very long, but “warm,” supportive, learner-focused syllabus: My approach is to incorporate useful (non course) content into the course syllabus in the hope that the learner will discover some other content while they’re looking for the first thing.
• Diversity, equity, and inclusivity, and having an accessible Canvas course site: See above.

How do you balance rigor with flexibility?

• Rigor is an interesting word! (See www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rigor.) Brief definitions follow:

1. harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment: severity
2. the quality of being unyielding or inflexible: strictness
3. severity of life: austerity
4. an act or instance of strictness, severity, or cruelty
5. a tremor caused by a chill
6. a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable
7. strict precision: exactness
8. obsolete: rigidity, stiffness

Based on those definitions, I’m not sure I want rigor. (I’ll admit I don’t have a better word at the moment, however.) Obviously, I do want learners to learn, and want a reliable way to measure that learning.

• Specifications grading: Beyond what I’ve said above, and elsewhere, Specs grading encourages learners to work on assignments and projects until learning occurs, rather than measuring the learning at one predetermined moment in time. I teach so others can learn, not so that I can assign a grade.
• Open/flexible assignments: Having flexibility in assignments can provide options to the learner, and greatly reduce the temptation to copy someone else’s work. If your project is different than someone else’s, you can’t do exactly the same thing. You can share ideas and learn from each other, however.

To what extent, and how, do you keep up with discussions in your field about pedagogy?

• Conferences: I attend and present at as many as I can. Some of my regulars include:

• SIGCSE (ACM Special Interest Group on CS Education)
• CCSC:MW (Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges: Midwest)
• Lilly Conference on College Teaching
• The Grading Conference

• Blog and Twitter: I tend to use my blog and social media to be reflective about my academic life and experiences. I also learn from others who do the same thing.
• Professional development:  I’m very fortunate to have a university that is focused on ensuring every faculty member has an opportunity to be the best they can be. I’ve taken advantage of many of these opportunities.

What are the most common barriers to learning for your students? How do you approach these barriers?

• Fixed mindset: If you don’t think you can do something, you’re probably right. I fight this by being supportive, encouraging, and affirming. I also strive to dd “yet” to their vocabulary, as in, “I can’t do it yet.”
• Life gets in the way: Learners often struggle because of “life.” I provide Oops Bits to the learners for them to “spend” when they need to submit something late or miss a class. I’m also flexible with due dates when learners have extreme circumstances occur in their lives.
• Lack of preparation prior to the course: Sometimes learners come into my class without a specific skill or knowledge. To help these learners, I often offer recurring/scheduled office visits. Depending on their need, I may also refer them to our Learning Center or online resources.
• Lack of preparation during the course: To encourage learners to continue to prepare for the course all semester, I administer reading quizzes, offer recurring/scheduled office visits, and refer them to our Learning Center or online resources.
• I tell struggling learners: I will work at least as hard as they do to help them learn the material, thus communicating that they must try, but I will be right there with them.

Let's share and learn

If I were to ask you how you teach, what would be your response? Would it be similar to mine, or completely different? What do you do that works for you and your learners? Please share; let’s learn from each other.

Of lemons and lemonade on Friday, the 13th of March, 2020

[I started writing this post on Friday, March 13, 2020. It took me more than a month to get back to finishing it.]

 

It's been a weird day. 

No, actually, it's been a weird week. 

I sat in my office until 8:00 tonight, not interested in going home, but not sure why I wanted to stay. I was busy doing something, but not really being productive at anything. I felt a bit numb, but wasn't sure why.

Eventually, I did go home and started reflecting on the events of the last week or so. Perhaps they would shed some light on the weirdness I was feeling.

😊😟😕😞 I had a workshop I was leading at SIGCSE Technical Symposium in Portland, OR during March 11-14. I had been looking forward to attending for months. But with the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic looming, there were questions if I should attend, or if the conference would actually be held. Ultimately, I decided I would attend the conference, and flew to Portland Tuesday evening, March 10, arriving late that evening. I attended two preconference workshops Wednesday afternoon and evening, one via the web. The opening keynote was scheduled for Thursday at 8:15 AM. I received an email at 7:14 AM stating the conference was cancelled due to the Oregon governor mandating late the evening before that all gatherings of more than 250 people were banned. I was up and dressed and ready to head to the conference, but now it was time to reschedule my flight home, pack, and get to the airport. I was successful, and arrived home in the wee hours of Friday morning.

😟😕😞 While I was in Portland, I received word that all classes at Ball State University were going to transition to online due to the Pandemic, effective Monday, March 16. My first reaction was that I had some work to do in the next couple of days to be ready for that when I returned home from the conference. I then realized that when I physically met with students prior to flying to SIGCSE was likely going to be the last time this semester. I was a bit sad at that prospect. But then when the conference was cancelled, and I was able to get a flight back, I was able to meet with three of my four classes on Friday, March 13. Life was a bit better.

😊 I wore my yellow smiley-face tie on Friday in an attempt to spread a bit of cheer to my self, if not others. As I was leaving my house, I happened to think about the making lemons into lemonade proverbial phrase. That prompted me to stop at the store on my way to campus and buy some lemonade mix and cookies to share with the classes I was meeting with that day. The picture above is a result of that. It was appreciated by the students and some staff as well. Even though there were a lot of students missing, it was good to meet with the ones who attended one last time in person.

😊 Good news also arrived while I was in Portland. I was notified that a three-year internal Provost Immersive Learning grant proposal I submitted was being funded. This grant will allow me to continue for another three years the CS4MS+ immersive learning project I started three years ago. It is working with local schools to help them incorporate more computer science and problem solving topics into their curriculum by working with schools administration, teachers, and their students.

😕 As of this Friday, March 13, there was little information about how long we would be conducting emergency remote learning. It was known that it would be for at least two weeks, but could well extend to the end of the semester. Uncertainty often leads to fear and frustration. I can't say I got to that point, but it would have been nice to know for sure what to expect. The situation simply did not allow for that level of knowledge, however.

😟 My wife had been out of town for two weeks, caring for her parents. Her father was having some medical issues that resulted in him being in the hospital for an extended stay. He was usually the one to watch after her mother, who has dementia. With her father in the hospital, my wife took on that role, while also attending to his needs. She hoped to be able to return home soon, but the exact date was uncertain.

😕 So there I sat in my campus office at the end of a long day that had seen me arrive home around 2:00 that morning, after eleven hours of travel. I slept a few hours, then got up in time to be on campus by 9:00 for a 90-minute Zoom meeting with colleagues. I had taught three face-to-face classes one last time that afternoon, sharing lemonade and cookies with the students who were able to be present. I had projects which badly needed evaluating. Not only did I have classes to prepare for the next week, but I needed to figure out how I was going to transition them to emergency remote learning, yet continue the learning process and keep the students engaged.

😕😟 And then the flood of questions started piling up. What tools was I going to use to transition the classes? Would I use asynchronous or synchronous learning, or some combination? How would I administer an exam which was usually administered on paper? Would the students have access to adequate internet bandwidth to participate? What other challenges might the students experience that could interfere with their learning? What could I do to keep them engaged? What could I do to help with their personal circumstances? When was my wife going to be able to return home? How, if at all, will I report on my vita the conference workshop that was accepted to be delivered, but was not delivered, due to the conference cancellation? Would my university reimburse me for expenses I incurred to attend a conference that basically did not happen? How long would we be doing emergency remote learning? Would we be back in the classroom by the end of the semester? Will the Pandemic spare my family and friends?

😕 And so, I sat in my office for five hours after I had met with my last class. Why did I stay? Why did I not go home? No one was expecting me to arrive at home at a particular time, since my wife was out of town. If I stayed in my office, I had the affordances of two large monitors to evaluate projects and prepare for classes the next week. I couldn't focus enough to do either task justice though. Nor was I excited about doing either task. Yet, I didn't want to leave my office. There was no one at home to interact with, so why not just stay in my office and try to get some work done? Was my office somehow comforting me? Was it providing a sense of normalcy amidst the weirdness I was experiencing? 

😕 I eventually convinced myself that 8:00 PM was late enough, and forced myself to head home. I changed my Facebook and Twitter cover photos to the picture on the left to remind me of the classroom in which I often teach. I also left the picture to the right on my office door.

😕😊 Upon arrival home, I ate a bit of supper, and started writing this post. I fell asleep part way through. The next morning provided the good news that my wife's father was doing well enough to care for himself and her mother, and that my wife would be home that afternoon. It was also a new day after a good night's sleep. Time to get busy on the tasks at hand. I had student projects to evaluate and classes to plan for Monday. It was time to get my desk set up for working from home. And my wife was coming home after two weeks' absence. This had to be a good day.

As evidenced by the variety of emoticons prefacing each paragraph above, there were a lot of emotions I experienced this week in March. Some were up, some were down, and some in some unknown direction. Life also became busy, and I never quite completed this post--until now.

So, how's your week been? Was your experience similar a month ago, or since?

SIGCSE 2019: Where the inspired inspires the inspirer

I attended my first SIGCSE Technical Symposium as a faculty member last week. I attended one other time, way back in 2010, when I was a graduate student. At that time, I delivered a Student Research Competition talk and poster about my thesis work related to small group development as it relates to software development teams. I also served as a student volunteer for the symposium. It was a great experience, but I only experienced part of the full event. This year, attending as a faculty member, I was able to experience the full gamut that SIGCSE has to offer, including being both giver and receiver.

One of the symposium co-chairs is a two-time graduate of Ball State University's Department of Computer Science. Manuel Pérez-Quiñones now serves as the Associate Dean of the College of Computing and Informatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I first met him when he returned to the Ball State campus a few years ago to deliver a keynote at a diversity research symposium. It was good to greet him again and deliver a “hello” from BSU.

Dave, Christian, and James

I was fortunate to have a workshop proposal about specifications grading accepted for presentation Wednesday evening, at the start of the symposium. (I've previously posted about specs grading.) James McGuffee (Christian Brothers University), Christian Roberson (Florida Southern College), and I jointly authored this proposal, and I am indebted to their help making it a reality. The material we presented resonated well for the thirty-plus workshop attendees, and I believe we made a few converts that evening. We had lots of great questions and discussion, with many attendees staying well past the 10:00 PM ending time discussing possible ways to implement specs grading in their courses. All in all, it was a great way to start the symposium off on a high note.

I enjoyed the keynote presentations. Marie desJardins (Simmons University in Boston) focused on inclusion in computing, ultimately discussing these “Five Pernicious Myths.”

“He was born to be a computer scientist.”
“Computer scientists are… {insert stereotype here}.”
“Anybody can be a computer scientist—girls just don’t want to.”
“It’s a joke—don’t you have a sense of humor?”
“’Diversity programs’ are just political correctness.”

Check out her presentation slides for a wealth of information and resources.

Gloria Townsend (DePauw University) provided a top-ten list that identified the most effective strategies used at DePauw to recently award 47% of their computer science undergraduate degrees to women. Her list included these items, many focusing on women:

10.  Celebrations
9.    Networking
8.    ACW-W chapter
7.    Mentoring
6.    Role modeling
5.    Outreach
4.    Content preview
3.    Social activities
2.    Female CS1 teachers
1.    Encouragement

Mark playing a ukulele

Mark Guzdial (University of Michigan) delivered a keynote in which he posited that “teaching programming as a way to express ideas, communicate with others, and understand our world is one of the oldest goals for computing education,” and that “Computer Science was invented to be a tool for learning everything else.” His justification can be found in his presentation slides. At the end, he gave us a call to action to find our allies and grow the community, and to invent, mutate, and evolve. His blog is well worth your time, so take a look.

I first met Mark when he chaired my paper session at ICER 2010 in Aarhus, Denmark. This was my first international academic conference. To put things into perspective, I started my first semester of full-time teaching at a university a few days after the conference. I presented my thesis work related to small group development as it relates to software development teams. After collecting five years worth of data, I turned it into an ACM TOCE journal article. If I recall correctly, my table-mates for dinner that evening were Mark, Beth Simon, and someone from NSF, whose name I have long since forgotten. Talk about being out of my element! But they were all very gracious, and it was a great dinner. Beth and I talked about peer instruction and the use of clickers. I started using clickers that fall, but it was three more years before peer instruction made its way into my classrooms.

I attended a variety of paper presentations and a workshop. Since this post is already lengthy, and I have one more big thing I want to share, I’m going to skip the details of the papers and the workshop. If you really want to know, ask me about them.

But wait; there's more...

My two presentations served as bookends for my symposium experience; I started with the specs grading workshop and ended Saturday morning by presenting a poster about the CS1 Art Show I’ve been coordinating for six years. For much of that time I anecdotally knew the show had a generally positive impact on our students, the department, and how others view us. This past summer I started collecting data, and now can more formally make that claim, with data to back it up. My poster presented some of that data and described the details and logistics of producing the art show. Included were student and judge comments.

I talked with a dozen or more people during my two-hour poster presentation who seemed genuinely interested in doing something similar with their own course. I remember one person exclaiming “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for!” All these interactions provided a wonderful affirmation that I did something good. But there were three visitors, in particular, who but me over the top, providing a great way to end my symposium experience.

In the fall of 2013 we started using the media computation textbook authored by Mark Guzdial and Barb Ericson. That same semester, I was inspired to hold an art show based on collages our CS1 students were creating for one of their course projects. The idea originated from an article by Beth Simon and Leo Porter about a similar event they produced. I took their idea and modified it to work in our environment.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I wondered if Mark, Barb, Beth, or Leo (all of whom I knew were present at the symposium) might be interested in my research about the art show, so I sent them all a message letting them know I was presenting my poster Saturday morning. They all expressed interest, indicating that they’d try to drop by my poster session, but some of them indicated they had busy schedules. As such, I wasn’t holding my breath.

To my delight Mark arrived and talked with me for 10-15 minutes. While reviewing the presented data, he seemed excited about how learner-centered and engaging the whole art show process is. After he left, Barb arrived a few minutes later. I was talking with another individual at the time, but she very patiently waited until they were done, spending time reviewing my poster. She also provided lots of encouragement about the art show project.

Image by rawpixel.com

It was getting close to the end of the poster session when Leo arrived. We talked at length about the logistics of how I run the show. The more we talked, the more excited he became, and the more questions he asked. I could see a light bulb starting to glow. Now remember, Leo originated the art show idea with Beth when he was serving as a Teaching Assistant at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and operationalized it while at Skidmore College. But, after moving back to UCSD, he was faced with very large class sizes, and dismissed the possibility of continuing the art shows. Now, after years away from the art show, he was seeing a way to make the process scale to larger class sizes. Maybe he could produce an art show with large class sizes at UCSD. The light bulb was definitely on at this point, and that made me very happy. What a way to end my SIGCSE Technical Symposium experience.

The inspired (me), had just inspired the inspirer!