Session 1

Chapter 5: What Kinds of Practice and Feedback Enhance Learning

1. What does research on practice and feedback tell us about how each might be most effective?

2. Based on these findings, would you make any changes to how you currently as students to engage in practice and/or the way in which you provide feedback?

For Session 1, faculty are asked to read Chapter 5 and we will begin with a discussion of strategies that were tried for helping students achieve mastery (Chapter 4).

Learning Principle 5 is “goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback are critical to learning,” where practice is defined as “any activity in which students engage their knowledge or skills” and feedback refers to “information given to students about their performance that guides future behavior” (125).

Research on practice has shown that learning and performance are enhanced when students engage in practice that:

• Focuses on a specific goal or criterion for performance (crucial to this is identifying effect learning outcomes)
• Targets an appropriate level of challenge relative to students’ current performance
• Is of sufficient quantity and frequency to meet the performance criteria

Research on feedback tells us that feedback is most effective when it:

• Communicates progress and directs subsequent effort
• Is appropriately timed

In order to provide students with goal-directed practice and targeted feedback, the following strategies are suggested.

Strategies for Addressing the Need for Goal-Directed Practice

1. Conduct a prior knowledge assessment to target an appropriate challenge level
2. Be more explicit about your goals in your course materials
3. Use a rubric to specify and communicate performance criteria
4. Build in multiple opportunities for practice
5. Build scaffolding into assignments
6. Set expectations about practice
7. Refine your goals and performance criteria as the course progresses
8. Give examples or models of target performance
9. Show students what you do not want

Strategies for Addressing the Need for Targeted Feedback

1. Look for patterns of error in student work
2. Prioritize your feedback
3. Balance strengths and weaknesses in your feedback
4. Design frequent opportunities to give feedback
5. Provide feedback at the group level
6. Provide real-time feedback at the group level
7. Incorporate peer feedback
8. Require students to specify how they used feedback in subsequent work

Again, we ask faculty to try out some of these strategies and report back to the group, and,  for Session 2, to read Chapter 6, Why do student development and course climate matter?

Session 2

Learning Principle 6: states that “students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning” (158).

The Chickering Model of Student Development (Chickering, 1969) identifies seven vectors of development which build on each other cumulatively (160-63):

• Developing competence
• Managing emotions
• Developing autonomy
• Establishing identity
• Freeing interpersonal relationships
• Developing purpose
• Developing integrity

Intellectual Development (Perry, 1968) describes students moving from a state where there reasoning is basically dual  (X is right or wrong), to one characterized by multiplicity (knowledge is a matter of opinion). to a stage that is marked by relativism (not all opinions are equal), to a final set of stages characterized by a sense of commitment (163-66).

Social Identity Development The Hardiman-Jackson model identifies an early or naive stage where children are devoid of preconception or prejudice. The second stage is marked by conscious or unconscious acceptance of messages regarding different social groups. If challenged, they may reach a third stage  of resistance – they become aware of how “isms’ impact their lives. Minority individuals may then reach a stage of immersion, where they prefer to socialize with members of their own group, and majority individuals may reach a stage of disintegration. More sophisticated stages include redefinition and internalization, where they redefine their sense of self and move past the societal dominant-minority dichotomy (166-69).

Course Climate can be thought of as a continuum. On one end, courses can be explicitly marginalizing — overtly hostile or unwelcoming. Moving on, courses can be implicitly marginalizing — also exclusive of certain groups, but subtly and indirectly so. Implicitly centralizing courses, where marginalized perspectives are validated, but unplanned, place next to the last type on the continuum, explicitly centralizing, where marginalized perspectives are intentionally and overtly integrated into course content. Four basic areas of climate include stereotypes, tone, faculty-student and student-student interaction, and content (170-80).

Strategies that Promote Student Development and Productive Climate (180-87)

1. Make uncertainty safe
2. Resist a single right answer
3. Incorporate evidence into performance and grading criteria
4. Examine your assumptions about students
5. Be mindful of low-ability cues
6. Do not ask individuals to speak for an entire group
7. Reduce anonymity
8. Model inclusive language, behavior and attitudes
9. Use multiple and diverse examples
10. Establish and reinforce ground rules of interaction
11. Make sure course content does not marginalize students
12. Use the syllabus and first day of class to establish the course climate
13. Set up processes to get feedback on the climate
14. Anticipate and prepare for potentially sensitive issues
15. Address tensions early
16. Turn discord and tension into a learning opportunity
17. Facilitate active listening

Again, try out some strategies from Chapter 6 and report back to the group; read Chapter 7 and the Conclusion for Session 3.

Session 3

Learning Principle 6 states that “to become self-directed learners, students must learn to assess the demands of the task, evaluate their own knowledge and skills, plan their approach, monitor their progress, and adjust their strategies as needed.” These are key metacognitive skills and are impacted by students’ beliefs about intelligence and learning (191-203).

Strategies for Helping Students Assess the Task at Hand (203-6)

1. Be more explicit than you think necessary
2. Tell students what you do NOT want
3. Check students’ understanding of the task
4. Provide performance criteria with the assignment

Strategies for Helping Students Evaluate their own Strengths and Weaknesses (206-7)

1. Give early, performance-based assessments
2. Provide opportunities for self-assessment

Strategies for Helping Students Plan and Appropriate Approach (207-8)

1. Have students implement a plan that you provide
2. Have students create their own plan
3. Make planning the central goal of the assignment

Strategies for Helping Students Apply Strategies and Monitor Performance (208-10)

1. Provide simple heuristics for self-correction
2. Have students do guided self-assessments
3. Require students to reflect on and annotate their own work
4. Use peer review/reader response

Strategies for Helping Students Reflect on and Adjust their Approach (210-12)

1. Provide activities that require students to reflect on their performances
2. Prompt students to analyze the effectiveness of their study skills
3. Present multiple strategies
4. Create assignments that focus on strategizing rather than implementation

Strategies for Helping Students Develop Positive and Accurate Beliefs about Intelligence and Learning (212-13)

1. Address students’ beliefs about learning directly
2. Broaden students’ understanding of learning
3. Help students set realistic expectations

General Strategies to Promote Metacognition (213-16)

1. Model your metacognitive processes
2. Scaffold students in their metacognitive processes

Conclusion: Applying the Seven Principles: Take-aways and final thoughts?