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Center for Teaching and Learning

USNA’s Third Annual Conference on Teaching & Learning


USNA’s Third Conference on Teaching and Learning, Concurrent Sessions, May 15-18, 2018 (NOTE: USNA login Required to view the following videos)

Time / Location
Session
Event Listing
May 15, 2018
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Address: “Flipping the Classroom”
        CDR Matt Schell (Mechanical Engineering)
Panel Discussion on Flipping the Classroom
        Stephen Graham (Mechanical Engineering), moderator
        Ric Crabbe (Computer Science)
        Hatem Elbidweihy (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
        CDR Mike Flynn (English)

There has been a lot of discussion about the Flipped Classroom in the last couple years. The flipped model is basically to have the students do the passive part of learning outside the classroom, and the active part in the classroom. There are social, cultural, pedagogical, and technical challenges to successful implementation of the flip. This panel will discuss the challenges and offer suggestions on how the panelists have addressed these challenges.

This session will focus upon how student content knowledge and thought processes can be captured and analyzed through interviews where students are asked to work problems aloud. In Fall 2014, the chemistry education research group conducted interviews with 72 students enrolled in SC111 during which they were asked to solve aloud a series of questions from the recently administered 12-week common exam. The range of questions varied from repetition of previous calculations to transfer of laboratory concepts. The methodology developed for analyzing the interviews as well as the most impactful results will be presented. These insights will be applicable to all faculty interested in student learning and their approach to responding to test questions, suggesting pathways for improving understanding and skills in multiple content areas.

"To develop Midshipmen…" We are often told that we are all here to develop leaders, but what does that mean? How do we incorporate that into the classroom? How do we know if we are succeeding? This session will introduce attendees to the various cognitive and behavioral outcomes of leader development and describe ways to assess development across these outcomes, with an emphasis on improving the developmental experience we are providing our students.

As the concept of flipped classroom gaining more popularity, various educational technologies become essential to make it possible. This session will discuss the use of Tegrity (a Lecture Capture System) and Google apps (such as Google Hangouts, Classroom, Drive, etc.) to help flip the classroom. Using these tools, videos and course materials can be shared with students before class, freeing up valuable classroom sessions for active learning.

For over thirty years, the Naval Academy has participated in the Higher Education Research Institute’s Freshman Survey along with hundreds of other colleges and universities around the country.  Using these survey results, this talk will discuss the experiences, opinions, and aspirations of the Class of 2021, how they compare to first-year students at other institutions, and how they differ (or not) from incoming midshipmen in prior decades.

I provide an overview of a technique I use to (1) build trust with students, (2) naturally achieve a professional yet intimate classroom atmosphere, and (3) have students look forward to attending class. I use this technique in all of my courses (with positive feedback on SOFs and FACTs), but I have particularly found it useful when teaching core or non-major courses.

This presentation focuses on developing cross-cultural adaptability and fine-tuning future officers' capability to read human terrain so as to successfully engage with foreign communities once deployed. Over the years, I have created a program that allows students to learn ethnographic methods which supports effective communication in new cultural contexts. Surprisingly, we need not go far to encounter foreignness which has allowed for successful cross-cultural development. The session will take you through the  progressive experiences students can have at  home to fine tune their ability to adapt abroad. In the end, faculty will help each other develop experiential learning possibilities for their own classrooms.

Are you looking for a better way to inspire and monitor student engagement with assigned readings?  In my current course, instead of assigning a reading plus some written product like a summary, outline, reading questions, or reflective responses--all of which suffer from serious drawbacks (they demand too much additional student time, and/or don't require deep or complete reading, and/or are arduous to grade)--I have students hand in their marked-up readings, which I then grade for evidence of intensity of engagement, gauging this by the quality and thoroughness of the highlighting/underlining as well as the quantity and quality of the insightful questions and ideas scribbled in the margins in reaction to the text.  This has incentivized careful, thoughtful, and thorough reading, without adding an extra writing burden on the students.  It's also been relatively painless to grade--even, dare I say, interesting, as I not only learn about how the students are reading, but also find my own ideas stimulated by the more perceptive and creative marginal comments.

This workshop is open to everyone, but it was designed for military officers—especially new course coordinators—who want a crash course on teaching. We will cover everything from what pedagogy is and how learning works to USNA-specific guiding principles for course development.

A Discussion with our African Partners and USNA faculty

  • Jay Antonelli (Djibouti)
  • Mark Goers (Djibouti)
  • Karyn Sproles (CTL) Benin, Djibouti, Madagascar
  • Joe Thomas (LEL) Madagascar
  • Angela Yu (IPO) Benin
  • Commander Virgile Dado, Benin
  • COL Lawrence Gbetanu (Ghana)
  • MAJ Saidu Karbgo (Sierra Leone)
  • CO Jose Langa, Mozambique
  • COL Jean Ngendah Imana, Rwanda
  • LTC Henry Robin, Sierra Leone
  • Elisa Tembe deAlmeida (US Embassy) Mozambique

Cyberbullying is an international issue.  The boundaries of cyberbullying continue to expand.  It doesn’t just effect children in primary school, it is knocking on the doors at our college dormitories and has begun to follow our graduates into the workplace.  The stakeholders are no longer just parents and teachers, this is an epidemic that the entire community needs to help prevent.  The internet is a cruel breeding ground for bullying that can reach millions of people in a matter of seconds.  The discussion will define cyberbullying and look at the communication factor on how to best educate and prevent cyberbullying issues.

"Growth mindset" has become a buzzword in education.  The idea comes from the work of psychologist Carol Dweck, who has been studying success, failure, and motivation for over 30 years.  I will review some of the research on growth mindset, and we will think about how we can use this idea to help our students and to help ourselves.  

Do you devote class time to review course material prior to a test? If not, how come, and do you prep students at all for a test? If yes, how do you balance the competing interest of having the students develop a deep understanding of all the testable course material and their innate desire to find out exactly what specific topics will be on the test?
Have you ever felt like getting the students to participate in a review session is like pulling teeth?
What practical methods have you found to work best during an in class review session? For example-- a fast-paced lecture, active learning, a Jeopardy-style competition (?), etc.

CDR Matt Schell will share his lessons learned from 4 semesters of using self graded quizzes at USNA. The focus will be on STEM content, but non-STEM instructors may also benefit.

Members of the Faculty Senate will be on hand to discuss and answer questions about departmental assessment and assessment reports

I have been showing students in all of my classes a series of videos about various aspects of public speaking, and we do a workshop. I have remade these videos with midshipmen going over the various techniques, with addenda about how each skill will be particularly useful in the fleet. I propose running the workshop with these videos and workshopping ways of encouraging public speaking skills in all departments.

This session will introduce attendees to new ways of thinking about information literacy and ask them to critically consider how information literacy can be effectively integrated into the curriculum in large and small ways. During the second half of the session presenters will facilitate a conversation about information literacy within the disciplines.

For the last two years, the chemistry department has run a pilot program in SC111, looking at whether we should adopt a new model for teaching this course, called “Atoms First.” Textbooks following an “Atoms First” order of topics for general chemistry are being published and the chemistry faculty found the books appealing but adopting this approach would require a reconfiguration of laboratories and lecture.  In the new curriculum (SC111AF), the focus begins with the particulate level of matter before teaching more math based chemistry, leading to the question of whether this emphasis results in (1) a better understanding of the particulate level of matter and (2) better retention of this understanding through the second semester of general chemistry. A new arrangement of laboratory experiments was used in the pilot, including both new and revised experiments to align with the lecture changes.  We will present how this experiment alignment was chosen and the lessons learned for the laboratory program.  In addition, an in-depth analysis of student success in SC112, the second semester of general chemistry is being undertaken to assess whether this new approach leads to improved retention and application of fall topics. This assessment has become an educational research project involving a midshipman research student. Responses to a variety of question types, including multiple choice and free response, are being analyzed and we will discuss what we are learning and the limitations of various assessment approaches. A breakdown of results by student expected achievement level, as determined by validation score, will be included. These results will be helpful for the chemistry department and other departments that are considering major curricular changes and how to assess the effects of such changes.

Clickers are conventionally used to provide real-time assessment of concepts that are taught during a lecture. When participating in a clicker-based exercise, students can anonymously submit an answer to a question via an online platform and obtain immediate feedback, allowing for the instructor to rapidly intervene when there exists a broader lack of understanding among all students. While this technique has been used with great success in a wide variety disciplines, the usefulness of clickers is often limited in STEM classes due to the significant number of quantitative problems that are provided as examples during lecture. In this presentation, Prof. Warzoha describes an extension of the Clicker-based technique to include assessment of students' understanding of general problem solving processes. Using this implementation, students in Prof. Warzoha's classes often avoid making common mistakes on exams.
This session will cover how to use Google Apps to manage and share course documents and grades, as well as communicate with students. Topics to be covered: (1) Use of Gmail and Calendar tool to communicate with students. (2) Use of Google Drive to store and share course documents. (3) Use of Google Sheets to manage and analyze student grades. (4) Use of Google Form to collect students feedback. (5) Use of Google Classroom to create, distribute and grade student assignments.
This presentation will focus on a variety of projects designed to foster transformative learning within the classroom, and nurturing meaningful engagement in a wide range of civic and global issues. Presenters will explore challenges and opportunities in developing a careful guided research agenda that integrates leadership, foreign languages, and regional expertise. Additionally, presenters will analyze how to design and develop a research project that brings to the forefront students’ voices, histories, and perspectives.

Are you students "Confused Fact Finders", "Biased Jumpers", "Perpetual Analyzers", "Pragmatic Performers", or "Strategic Envisioners"? The scholarship of adult learners has identified five typical Thinking Performance Patterns when adults encounter unstructured problems, those real-life problems that have no "right" answers. After introducing the five patterns and their accompanying thinking behaviors, Prof Niewoehner is suggesting an open discussion of how recognizing the Thinking Patterns might help us foster our students' broad intellectual growth. A short reading will be provided in advance for participants.

This session will introduce attendees to standards based grading.  I will describe how it has been used in my classroom, by my math colleagues and how it might also be implemented in humanities or social science classes.  After describing what it is, I will provide some more detailed thoughts about the advantages and drawbacks to this grading system.
Diversity and inclusion are among the most important Navy core values.  In this brown bag session, faculty members are invited to discuss the role of identity in workplace interactions with the goal of envisioning pathways towards creating a sense of belonging for everyone in the USNA community.

Midshipmen are intelligent, driven, and curious, making them exceptional candidates for undergraduate research. Mentoring a student on an Honors, Bowman, or Trident Research project is a unique opportunity for faculty to engage with their students outside the classroom as both mentor and collaborator. This advisor-student relationship is different than the teacher-classroom dynamic, and can play a significant role in a student’s future career plans or interests. This panel will consist of 5-7 faculty members from various departments who have conducted research with Midshipmen; during the session, the panel will briefly share their experiences (2-5 minutes) before opening up the floor for questions and general discussion. One week before the panel, a Google survey will be sent to conference attendees with the opportunity to submit questions. Questions may also be submitted during the panel discussion. Topics that may be addressed by the panel and during the discussion include: How is being a research adviser different from being a research student? What is the best/most challenging part of working with student research projects? What are reasonable expectations to set for a student researcher? What meeting formats have had the most success in the advisor-student relationship (e.g. set weekly meetings, emails, open door policy, shared folders)? How can professors balance student research projects with their research interests, and assist student researchers without “taking over” the project? How many student researchers can a professor reasonably mentor? How can a professor say “no” to a student when he or she is at their limit of student researchers?

Effective instructors use a variety of techniques to determine how well their students are learning.  These include exams, essays, and projects that tend to be formal and summative in nature.  Grades typically provide extrinsic motivation.  Informal techniques can also be used to gauge if students are ready to proceed with course materials and need not be limited to indirect (class participation was good) or implicit (no one has any questions) approaches.  This session will focus on informal and direct assessment techniques that facilitate quick adjustments.

Most foreign language instruction in the United States is form-based, focused primarily on rote memorization of grammatical forms. This presentation will briefly summarize data explaining why this approach does not lead to proficiency. Active learning strategies incorporating student-centered inquiry-based learning will be presented.

This workshop focuses on balancing scholarship with the rest of our lives to create a sustainable and productive academic career.

Bonus reading! For those interested, here is a link to the Chronicle for Higher Education's recent article, "Making Summer Work" http://www.chronicle.com/article/Making-Summer-Work/239726

Workshop #4: “Creating Faculty Development Programs for African Military Educational Institutions From Orientation to Evaluating Teaching,”
Karyn Sproles (Center for Teaching & Learning)
May 18, 2018
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
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