Adult, Graduate, & Online Studies – Page 17 – Faculty Resources (Learning, Support, Integrity)

December 10, 2014Tracie Lambeth No Comments

Characteristics of Adult Learners/Adult Expectations

Daines and Graham (2003) identified eight elements which commonly characterized adult learners. Foremost is that adult, unlike young learners, bring to their studies a significant base of experience and information gained over their lifetime. A great deal of this information will be relevant to what is being learned in the classroom and can easily be transferred by adult learners to their current learning. In some cases, established attitudes, patterns of thought and fixed ways of doing things can be disadvantageous for the adult learner, preventing him/her from seriously considering techniques, values, developments, or concepts which are new and unfamiliar.

Assuming responsibility is a key characteristic of adult learners. They are accustomed to being accountable for themselves, setting goals, and deciding how and when they wish to do things. Accordingly, when told to do without receiving a good reason, they may not respond well. Their knowledge base has expanded since leaving high school or college, although perhaps not from formal education. Rather, this knowledge will have been gleaned from their practice through trial, error and success.

Adult learners have better comprehension and ability to organize material into a meaningful picture. On the other hand, they may be less likely to learn under pressure. In many cases, they may lack confidence in their ability to learn and have a fear of failure or looking foolish. This may stem from negative experiences with primary or secondary schooling and is especially detrimental to later learning.

Patience with the learning process is another characteristic of the adult learner. They, in most cases, are satisfied with a time perspective that sees learning as a lengthy process, provided there are current successes along the path. Daines and Graham also pointed out that the learning commitment for adult is normally part-time. This is because adults normally have other responsibilities to family and career and, accordingly, are unable to devote much time to their studies beyond the confines of the course.

December 8, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

End of Course Evaluations – Sometimes They Sting

Dr. Chip Mason, Dean of Belhaven’s School of Business, sent me an article titled “Cruel Student Comments: Seven Ways to Soothe the Sting,” knowing we are moving back to paper evaluations for the Adult Studies courses. I’m excited about this move because it means we will get a much better response rate, which will yield better information about the course and classroom instruction. However, it also may yield more of those stinging comments which we all would rather not hear. In this article by Isis Artze-Vega, she expands on the seven points below. I encourage you to read the article. This is always a touchy subject where it is easy to get defensive, but it is also can be one of the most useful tools available if approached from the right perspective, even if painful.

Seven Ways to Soothe the Sting:

1. Analyze the Data

2. Resist the lure of the negative

3. Let your critics be your gurus

4. Find counter-evidence

5. Dwell on the positive ones.

6. Read them with a friend

7. Be proactive

Thanks, Chip, for sending this to my attention.

December 3, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

Infographics as Team Projects?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am seeing more and more use of infographics in the education arena. They actually remind me of poster presentations I’ve seen at various conferences. What I like about them is the way they pull information together and organize it for clarity. At this link (The Best Simple Tools to Create Infographics for Your Class) you can find an article about several programs which can be used to create an infographic. I’ve included a sample infographic below which I found at Google Images. The point of this, I think, is that it would be a creative project for a Project Team assignment with some interesting discussion being generated in data collection, design, and presentation as well as the classroom presentation/explanation/defense.

November 24, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

Problem Based Learning Activities vs. Project Based Learning Activities

The article “Insightful Tips on How to Integrate Problem Based Learning in Your Classroom” describes the difference between problem based activities and project based activities and shares the promised “insightful tips.” I found the difference, as well as the tips, interesting. The “Infographic” which is part of the article was also interesting.

I’m seeing more and more of these infographics. I wonder if the creation of such an “infographic” might even be a worthwhile team project for some classes? Of course that would require some research on the part of the team . . . .

November 10, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

Irreducible Minimum meets Collaborative Learning Strategy

When these two concepts intersect, powerful learning can occur. However, for there to even be an intersection, the Instructor must accept a few basic premises:

That student learning is different than teaching. I have heard it said that “teaching is an art.” I can believe that, but what makes it an art is whether or not learning occurs. Teaching experiences designed without consideration of how or even if it impacts student learning are empty experiences, which can be equally frustrating for Instructor and student.
That adults learn differently than traditional age college students. Because of their life experiences the studies show they are better at synthesizing material, particularly if it is presented in a way that allows them to grasp relevance.
That there is more than one way to “skin a cat” as my Mom used to say, i.e. there are other ways to teach besides lecture.
Finally, that there are some things about any subject which are more important than others and which are crucial to mastery of the whole (this is the irreducible minimum c.f. The Seven Laws of the Learner by Bruce Wilkinson).

When these premises are accepted, the Instructor can look at the material to be covered for the class session and, because of experience and education, determine which topics are crucial. With that knowledge, it is easy to arrange the class session to focus on the crucial topics first, before moving on to the other topics, which are still important but don’t qualify as crucial.

Once the irreducible minimum has been identified, now comes the choice of how to present the material, i.e. what learning strategies will you employ to insure these crucial topics are not just taught but learned. While those activities include lecture, it is probably the most over used and least effective technique employed by Instructors. There are other articles in this blog which talk about collaborative learning activities and any search engine will turn up hundreds if not thousands of ideas, so I won’t include those in this blog post. Suffice it to say, to contemplate what it will take to achieve student learning will require more time and energy as well as some creativity. It will mean becoming comfortable with a certain amount of creative chaos in the classroom, something may Instructors find uncomfortable. On the plus side, this intersection of Irreducible Minimum and Collaborative Learning Strategy will dramatically improve the learning of the students in your class and may have an unexpected consequence of re-invigorating you love for the “art” of teaching.

October 28, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

Using Google Docs for Team Project Collaboration

Most of us have at least heard about Google Docs but may have been too busy to explore this application or consider what it might offer to us or our students. A colleague, Julien Marion, and I discussed this last week while we were having lunch. I had used Google Docs only in a superficial way up to this point, but after our discussion I began to explore this application more fully. I discovered an amazing tool which not only allows real-time collaboration on papers and spreadsheets, but also tracks revisions so that Instructors can see who has made contributions. I’ve included a short video below which I found on YouTube. There are hundreds more on the same topic (i.e. “Using Google Docs for Collaboration”). I really encourage you to watch this short video and perhaps even show it in your class and encourage your project teams to give it a try. You could even reserve the computer lab and set up a real-time experiment with your class. If you decide to give this a try, I would be interested to hear how your experiment turned out, as well as how to make using Google Docs even more effective. There are likely many more ways you can think of to use this application; again, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas, email me at: rupchurch@belhaven.edu

October 22, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

Using Evernote in the Classroom

I just read the article posted in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the title: Using Evernote in the Classroom. For those of you who may not know, Evernote is a computer program WITH mobile applications for Android and Apple whose primary function is to store information in a way that easy to retrieve. It syncs information across all devices so that what you save to Evernote from your computer is also available on your mobile device or the other way around. It has a free version which I have yet to exhaust and a premium (paid) version with even more functions.

The article describes ways to use Evernote to support your teaching and would make a great repository for your class notes and materials. the information can be tagged for even easier recall and shared. There is also a link to an Evernote Notebook which is full of ideas on how to effectively use this program. In that notebook there are a variety of other articles such as: “5 Tips to Use Evernote for Academic Achievement,” “7 Smart Ways to Use Evernote for Research,” “How academics use Evernote to make life easier.”

This program has been around for quite a while and only gets better with more functions. One of the functions I especially like is the “webclipper” which provides an icon at the top of my browser so that if I find an article I like, I can click on that icon and it “clips” a copy and stores it in my Evernote notebook.

Read through the article and the links and give it a try. Its free and I have found it a great tool.

October 20, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

20 Collaborative Teaching Tips

Because most faculty default to teaching the way they were taught, i.e. LECTURE, I am constantly on the look out for examples and ideas for fostering a more effective pedagogy. This is an article on teaching tips which can be used with some modification in any classroom. College instructors will be MUCH more effective if they can realize the goal is Student LEARNING, not teaching in the traditional sense of pontificating from the lofty peak of knowledge to the beggars down below. That may seem funny, but it is too often true.

Here is the link to the article: 20 Collaborative Teaching Tips. Hope you enjoy it AND hope you use some of them. Yes, collaborative teaching requires more preparation, but the pay-off in student learning is HUGE!

October 20, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

Group Work / Team Projects

Most of the undergraduate and some of the graduate courses in Belhaven University’s Adult Studies programs required Group Work/Team Projects. The benefits of developing the ability to work in teams is obvious and most students recognize the importance of developing these skills. Paradoxically, most students express extreme dislike of having to participate in Team Projects. In most cases the dislike arises out of perceived inequity of workload, perceived relevance, and the possibility of receiving a lower grade due to a lower performing team mate. Many faculty have asked about resources which they can use to provide a better experience for students as well as lessening their own frustration in providing guidance and appropriate assessment.

In researching this, I ran across a series of articles which I think you will find useful:

How Can I Monitor Groups

Group Work Strategies to Ensure Students Pull Their Weight

What are the Benefits of Group Work

What are the Challenges of Group Work and How Can I Address Them?

How Can I Assess Group Work?

Group Project Tools

You will also find multiple other links within these articles which you can follow to find even more information on this topic. The Team Project can be a powerful learning opportunity for our students. Taking the time to learn more about how to make the best use of the Team Project is definitely worth the effort.

October 8, 2014Rick Upchurch No Comments

How to Accelerate Learning and Change Lives

There are two kinds of change that individuals experience: incremental change and deep change. “We frequently make incremental changes: We make adjustments, we elaborate on a practice, we try harder, and we exert a greater degree of control. In other words, we attempt to solve the problem using the assumptions we currently hold. Deep change is more demanding because it requires the surrender of control….It involves embracing purpose and then moving forward by trial and error while attending to real-time feedback.”

To read the full article: How to Accelerate Learning and Change Lives by Michael McKinney