Instructional Advancement Center

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Lunch and Learn Series - Spring 2006

Apr. 20 - Short Collaborative Quizzes Combined with Bridge Tasks Using the "Mastery Level" Model

2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
Vaidy Jayaraman
School of Business, Management

How do we help students to learn, rather than just focusing on the exam? How can we use assessment to increase learning? How can we have students demonstrate learning? How can we actively engage students in learning?

In this Lunch and Learn session, Vaidy Jayaraman will demonstrate some of the practices that he uses to enhance student learning outcomes in his classes. Rather than using the quizzes as a measure of learning, the quizzes become a learning tool. Rather than using formal testing as the primary assessment method, students produce projects to demonstrate their achievement of learning outcomes. Come and hear how these techniques work and how they have changed his teaching and the students' learning.

Apr. 13 - Course Capture Systems

William Vilberg
Instructional Advancement
Don Knight
Sonic Foundry

How can we capture what is happening in the classroom so that it can be used in various ways? What systems are available to do this? What plans are underway to make use of such systems? How are other institutions using such systems? Attend this workshop and help build a vision of where we want to be in a few years, so that we can begin moving in the right direction.

Don Knight will show what the Mediasite system can do and discuss how other schools are using it. Bill Vilberg will talk about some other solutions that are available. Participants will include those who will use the systems, those who will support them, and those who will pay for them. This session is open to all faculty and staff at UM. Everyone will be invited to help create a vision of the future and define steps that will move us toward that vision.

  • This session was not recorded.

Apr. 11 - What's New at Apple?

John Allen
Apple Computer, Inc.

Apple computer has exciting and innovative products, from the iPod to its new Intel based computers to its iLife software suite. Come and see John Allen demonstrate some of the latest products, both made from Apple and third parties. This is a wonderful chance for Apple users at the University of Miami to join with those who are interested in knowing more about Apple. This session is open to students, facutly and staff.

  • This session was not recorded.

Apr. 5 - Creating On-Screen and On-Line Demonstrations: Teaching with a Tablet PC

William R. Vilberg
Instructional Advancement

How can we help students learn technical processes that require symbolic manipulation? For example, how can we help statistics students solve problems, music students arrange harmonies, english students rewrite paragraphs, and chemistry students balance equations?

One learning tool that we can provide is a step-by-step sample solution that the students can watch and listen to repeatedly. Such samples can easily be created using a Tablet PC and software such as Camtasia. The Tablet PC allows the instructor to write on the screen, just like on a piece of paper. The Camtasia software captures everything on the screen and everything the instructor says. The instructor works the problem while explaining what steps are being taken and why they are being taken, saves the recording, and makes it available on the Web for students to review as needed.

The same process can be used to capture entire lectures. Rather than working problems on the board, overhead, or document camera, work the problems on the Tablet PC. Everything can be shown in real time on a projector and also captured and made available for later viewing by the students so they can understand exactly what you did, how you did it, and how you explained it.

This presentation will demonstrate how the Tablet PC can support your teaching and help achieve student learning outcomes.

Mar. 30 - Podcasting 101

John Allen
Apple Computer, Inc.

Do you know what Podcasting is? If not, come to this workshop and find out. If so, come and learn what plans are being made to support Coursecasting (recording and distributing recordings of course sessions) at UM. John Allen, Apple Computer, Inc., will demonstrate the entire process of creating, posting, subscribing to, and listening to a voice recording. The session will last 75 minutes (one period) with lots of time for Q&A if you can stay longer. The same presentation will be presented in the morning and in the afternoon. This workshop is designed for faculty who are interested in learning about the podcasting process, but it is open to anyone at UM who would like to know more about this exciting method of communication.

Mar. 8 - Just-in-Time Teaching in Genetics: Creating an Interactive Teaching and Active Learning Environment

2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
Yunqiu (Daniel) Wang
College of Arts and Sciences, Biology

How can we reduce student fears when taking challenging subjects? How can we provide prompt feedback when teaching a class of 200 students? How can we motivate the students to prepare for class by studying the material? How can we help students to actively construct knowledge? 2005 Excellence in Teaching award winner Daniel Wang uses a Just-in-Time Teaching (www.jitt.org) feedback loop and has found that it increased student/faculty interaction, improved student study habits, and increased cognitive gains in his Genetics classes. The loop starts with the students completing a "warm-up" exercise before class. The results are available immediately, allowing the material taught to the students to be adjusted based on their performance, and their performance to be included in the teaching of the material. The classroom time can now be spent helping the student correct preconceptions and more fully integrate their learning. This presentation will feature his results as presented in his Excellence in Teaching submission (available at www.snurl.com/excellence) with additional reflections from his experiences this academic year.

Mar. 7 - Classroom-based Service-learning Projects: Developing Civic Involvement

2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
Donn Tilson
School of Communication

How can we engage our students in active learning and cooperative learning?  How can we more fully prepare them professionally for the challenges that lie ahead while fostering a greater sense of civic responsibility?  Classroom-based service-learning projects, if structured and directed properly, can enhance teaching and promote learning. Such an approach can further develop a variety of student skills -- from problem-solving, oral/written communication, technical and managerial to social and consensus-building -- while, more important, instilling a sense of commitment to service of the community. In the final analysis, developing students into professionals who value civic involvement ultimately may be a teacher's greatest contribution not only to education but to society.

Feb. 23 - Refworks/Write-N-Cite: A Tool to Collect References and Create Bibliographies

Holly Ackerman
Richter Library

How do you help your students manage their references and include citations/bibliographies in the proper style? RefWords is a personal database manager that they can use to store and annotate all their references. Write-N-Cite is the Microsoft Word addin that allows them to tag the citations in their paper and produce a final document in most any style that is needed.

Did you know that there is no charge to use this web based system at UM? Did you know that you can import citations from search results on many of the library's databases?

You can help your students if you will take a moment to learn about this valuable resource so that you can encourage them to make use of it. Of course, you can use it for your references, too.

Feb. 21 - The Role of Academic Assessment in Teaching, Research, and Student Learning

Richard Light
Walter H. Gale Professor of Education
Harvard University

All faculty are invited to attend a workshop with Richard Light, Walter H. Gale Professor of Education at Harvard University, from 3 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, February 21, titled “The Role of Academic Assessment in Teaching, Research, and Student Learning.” His 45-minute presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. This event is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Senate and is part of the systematic assessment project at the University in preparation for SACS re-accreditation. The workshop will be held in the third-floor dining room of the James W. McLamore Executive Center, Jenkins School of Business Administration Annex on the Coral Gables campus.

Feb. 14 - Pursuing Academic and Social Integration through Highlighting Individuality

2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
Joy Beverly
College of Arts & Sciences, Mathematics

How can we encourage our students to have quality interaction, both academically and socially, in ways that help them to grow as scholars and individuals? This workshop will present inexpensive and practical ways to increase academic and social integration within the classroom through highlighting individuality. The two major components of this practice, name-calling and interviewing, will be outlined, as well as techniques for learning students' names. Some of the supporting research for this practice will be presented, as well as exploration of the possible benefits to both instructors and students, including better class interaction and discipline, more group study and better instructor evaluations.

Feb. 13 - XanEdu - Electronic and Printed Coursepacks

Rodney Sims
Coursepack Sales Specialist
www.xanedu.com

How do we make sure that students have access to the materials that they need, especially if the materials are copyrighted articles from magazines or journals? One of the solutions available today is the XanEdu coursepack. The professor goes on-line and spcifies what needs to be in the coursepack. XanEdu calculates the charges, including copyright fees. The professor determines whether to use electronic or printed deliver. Printed copies can be sold out of the bookstore. Electronic copies can be purchassed on-line by the students. Come to this Lunch and Learn to see how this process works and what problems it solves.

Feb. 6 - The Personal Course Guide

2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
April Mann
College of Arts & Sciences, English Composition

How can we encourage our students to view themselves as active participants in the learning process? How can we help them collect the information provided in our courses in a way that will be most useful to them? This workshop is about an assignment based on the course guides sold at university bookstores. Those guides claim to provide the course's content in a laminated, brightly-colored nutshell; unfortunately, these prefabricated guides suffer from the need to cover all potentially relevant material and so can not be tailored for an individual instructor's course or, more importantly, an individual student's needs. They also put the student in the position of passive recipient of all the knowledge given by the textbooks and professors, rather than the gatherer, synthesizer, or even creator of that knowledge.

The "Personal Course Guide" assignment asks students to use the course guide format as a template for their own task of gathering the material that will help them achieve the learning goals of their class. Although this assignment was created specifically for a writing course, the activity itself should be applicable to any course in which the students are expected to learn actively from their experiences in the class and build on that knowledge throughout the term and afterwards.