Starting the Guided Pathways conversation at my insitution

I applied to and was accepted to the Clark College Summer Guided Pathways Institute. It is a four day workshop that looks to start the conversation on Guided Pathways (GP) at the college. There have been a number of readings that have discussed the data supporting the use of GPs, different models used, and how Choice Architecture can be applied to helping undergraduates choose majors and/or programs.

Overall I have been really impressed with the thoughtful and smart people in the institute. The conversations have always been positive, constructive, and shared different perspectives I would not have normally encountered in my day-to-day. The readings have been helpful to see what other institutions are doing, and we've begun to think about what parts of these programs we want to try.

Below is a version of a discussion forum post I made to the course site. Feel free to add your thoughts, or comments below.

I finished Implementing Guided Pathways at Miami Dade College: A Case Study and had a few thoughts.

1. The recommendation "Integrate academic programs and student support services." seemed on-point for our campus. The few times I have reached out to support services the results have always been positive, and we achieved more than I could as an individual instructor. I get the sense that faculty occasionally feel like the world is on our shoulders, when we can (and should) share the load with student support service staff. In most cases they may be better trained and equipped to help in certain situations and with specific student populations. I would love to see a way to integrate these two pillars of the college through Canvas, CTC Link, or some other medium.
2. The recommendation "Increase student engagement through communities of interest." is very appealing, and would strengthen a number of goals in the Academic Plan. These communities could be students from the same meta-major, and supported through a 'wrap-around' class. As the terms progress students could be exposed to other classes they may want to take, student clubs they may find interesting, student government positions that are open, career services for their industry, and the talks and seminars we regularly put on. (The STEM Seminar Series is awesome btw.) I could also envision these communities of interest organized around specific themes, or the big intractable problems of the day. A Global Warming Group could contain students from biology, government, engineering, and a variety of other meta-majors to talk about the causes, 'controversy', solutions, market applications, and the other facets of this problem.
3. The "Getting Faculty Buy-In at the Front End" issue, in my view, is one of the thornier questions of this entire endeavor. What does the arc of developing these pathways look like when some faculty don't even recognize the problem?
4. "Because of the initial positive results from the restructured intake process and the added revenue generated by the improved retention, the college's leadership approved the hiring of 25 new full-time advisors." (emphasis mine) This was not something I thought very much about until reading this article; increased retention rates would help provide for the funding of the continued development of pathways. It may also increase our ability to try new initiatives within pathways as they develop over time.
5. "Overall, the largest threat to institutional redesign at MDC was organizational inertia. Communicating frequently about progress, building consensus, and creating a sense of urgency were vital to creating a sense of shared ownership and to generating momentum for change across the college." Once we leave this institute, what group/committee/mechanism will there be to communicate progress on developing pathways? How are expectations for progress going to be set? Can the 2016 Fall Term Faculty Workdays be structured in a way to move this forward?

Lots of little changes to classes this week.

I've been making little tweaks to my classes based on student performance and responses. All of these actions are being taken on qualitative data, not quantitative data, which isn't a bad thing, but something I want to move away from. I would like to develop some metrics over spring break to put into place next term that would help me make these decisions based on data. Percentage of available homework in the online system (WAMAP) that is complete, number of zero quizzes, and other metrics would help in making data-driven decisions.

My tweaks this week:

• In Calculus I students were to complete the homework on the related rates section on Tuesday. Most did not. This was not completely surprising, the topic is a physical application, and the setup of each question can take a while. Additionally this homework took quite a bit more time than others, so even if they budgeted for it, they may not have budgeted appropriately. I gave them an additional six days, to Monday at 11:59 PM, the day of our next exam. 
• Also in Calculus I we are currently talking about graphing functions, using information about the first derivative and second derivative. This is a difficult section because it includes conceptual knowledge about these derivatives, and quite a bit of computation. For today's quiz in the morning class I divided students into two groups. One group would work on graphing one function, the other group, another function. For the first five minutes students were to work on it themselves. Next five minutes students were to work with a partner. Last five minutes students were to working with all the students who had the same function. Each group would have one person present the question. After trying it out, only one group presented, and I finished the other question. To let them using the quiz as a study aide, I allowed them to take it home, but to get credit they would have to email me a hand-drawn graph of the function I presented. 
• In College Algebra I did not have a pre-made quiz to start the day so I had students take out a sheet of paper, write one of the questions we have been talking about, give it to another student, and have them solve the question. Overall it was a fun activity, albeit a little broccoli covered in cheese. At the end I talked about how I like them making these questions, 

What change in course structure, grading, or presentation did you make on the fly that worked well? That didn't work so well? Feel free to share below. 

Same course, different terms, completely different classes.

Last term I taught MATH151 Calculus I in the morning daily, and it felt so RIGHT. The pacing of the class, my in-class examples, questions from students, the schedule, the end of week activities that have students explore different topics, everything felt like the best it could ever be. This term for whatever reason things are not going so well. I'm teaching two sections of the class and both feel wildly different.

The morning class seems tired, not really 'there', and swings between general bewilderment and complete boredom at what we're doing. Test scores are low, and there are still (WEEK 7!) students who haven't registered for the online homework system. I've even started moving back to lecturing two days a week since participation through the in-class examples has been low. There are a number of students who think of mathematics in very linear terms which limits their ability to solve application questions, but at the same time their work is unorganized. Other students are unprepared to complete most of the algebra in the course, whom I fear are not going to pass for this reason. In this class I feel like a task master.

The afternoon class is energetic, but has a habit of going off the rails at the slightest provocation. I have to do a lot of sheep-dogging (making sure the group is together) as we go through each question. In-class examples are better received with this class, and they work well in groups, but questions that require a long, sustained method are difficult. Numeric outcomes for this class are generally positive, but I wonder if they are getting the conceptual understanding down. In this class I feel like a positive guide to the discipline.

I hope this doesn't come across as complaining about my students, it just seems that a class reflects both the instructor and students, as it is a culture both groups are building together. I'm coming to recognize that each class has to be different because it contains different people in it. I may have 'empirical' ('imperial'?) methods and assessments, but if they don't somehow reflect the students in the course am I being as effective as I could be?

Experienced Faculty = Font of practical knowledge and hard truths.

I recently had an observation by an experienced faculty member and they gave me some great advice that I thought I would pass along.

• Trying to use random whiteboard markers that don't work looks bad. Every college classroom has an assortment of whiteboard markers in the tray that people have left. Some work, and some don't. When an instructor tries to make a point, but their marker doesn't work it brings up thoughts of the absent-minded professor who isn't prepared for their class. While this is a minor issue it is one that helps set the tone of the class. Solution? Bring your own supply of whiteboard markers, with some kind of tape or rubber band to mark them. 
• Every instructor apparently has some kind of verbal tick. Some phrase or series of words that they use as a crutch to fill the empty space between actual words. Mine? "Right?" I have heard that I use "Right?" before, but after forty times this faculty member stopped counting. I think I get into a 'flow' and don't really think about my word usage sometimes. Since being told this I am trying to be very conscientious about the words that come out of my mouth, but sometimes I just get back into that flow. The observer did ask "If its not harmful to students, is it really something you need to worry about?" to which my answer is no. At the same time, I don't like the idea that my language is not controllable and that sometimes I just say stuff. 
• I pack a lot of material into my courses. Some of it could be done by students ahead of time. In this particular lesson I was having students graph rational functions using their calculator. We were then looking at the patterns in the graphs, factors of the numerator and denominator, etc. looking for the specific patterns we discuss with this subject. The observer mentioned that students can do a lot of this work ahead of time. 

What advice have you received from an observation? Did you incorporate feedback into your teaching?

Changing things up! How to inject discussions into quizzes.

I offer daily quizzes in all my classes. I know that might seem scary to a few (developing, grading, student anxiety) but it is one of the few times I get to see students 'work'. These quizzes are based on three levels of participation (5 points = a quality attempt, 2 points = a minimal attempt, 0 points = no attempt) and have a variety of purposes which I have talked about before. I do review them right after the student's attempt for additional feedback, to model a solution method, and to start the day's lesson.

In Calculus I we are reviewing the limit definition of the integral. Suffice it to say that this is a difficult area because it relies on both conceptual understanding, but also computational understanding of things we have not seen together (limits, summation, etc.) There are three major tasks for each question; setting up a generalized area formula, taking a summation of these areas, and then taking the limit of these areas. The specifics aren't important for this discussion, but if you know them great.

So we have a fairly detailed process to learn and students find difficulty in what to do next. Solution: multiple daily quizzes that are similarly structured, break the question down into constituent parts, and provide a model for how students should approach questions in the homework. This quiz was the last of the four quizzes structured in this way that I gave last week. The only difference between them is the function and the interval we are looking at. (Today's quiz integrated x^2 on [0, x], foreshadowing The FTC.) I had received positive feedback from students that they like how these quizzes broke down the process, and it had helped them in homework.

By Friday I felt that students were getting a little bored of reviewing the same type of quiz, so I wanted to shake students up a bit. Humans love novelty and if I can make my class novel and even silly in pursuit of understanding the material, why not? So at the end of the quiz I made a list in my head of those students who had completed the quiz. At that time I called those students my 'exemplars', took their quizzes and tapped them to different walls. They were to then stand by their quiz and explain to others how they found each part of the process. At the end I collected the quizzes and graded them as normal. In hind sight I should have probably identified their quizzes as 'exemplars' and not the students themselves...

I think this helped all students develop a better understanding of the process, some by talking to these students who provided exemplar solutions, others by having to explain their method. It was also a nice way to break out in a different way, one where the focus was not on me or my methods, but on other students' methods.

Today I asked how last class went, and the response was pretty lukewarm. One student said "I think we got out of it as much as if you went through the quiz." In terms of mathematics, maybe, but in terms of developing connections between students and developing mathematical fluency I think it was better than if I reviewed the quiz.

Have you tried something to break students out of their 'shell'? Would you do something like the above for a participation-based quiz? What about for a graded-quiz? What about for a test? Feel free to comment below.

Is the lecture dead, or just undead?

Molly Worthen wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, titled "Lecture Me. Really", which discusses recent research on the lecture format, the push from STEM disciplines to reduce lecturing in favor for active learning, and a solid argument for why lectures are important and relevant. One passage really struck me.

Listening continuously and taking notes for an hour is an unusual cognitive experience for most young people. Professors should embrace — and even advertise — lecture courses as an exercise in mindfulness and attention building, a mental workout that counteracts the junk food of nonstop social media.

Teaching mathematics quite a bit of my course material is computational and skill based; Find the derivative of this polynomial. A good chunk of the other part is conceptual; When the derivative equals -1 at this value of x what does that mean for the function? Applications makeup the rest: What is the velocity of the ball at this time? All three of these parts of my curriculum speak to each other, and inform how to go about each type of task. Usually I do present or lecture over an example, but I have students try these things out on their own in class.

When short, quick messages and responses are the expectation we lose the ability to think and speak in big ideas. We forget how to piece all these small parts together and reason with them. This synthesis is what we need today more than ever. To use a cliche, the world is only growing more interconnected and we need to pull from myriad disciplines to make sense of it. By modeling this skill of building and connecting ideas we show students a mature and connected way of looking at the world.

I wonder though if I should try lecturing a bit more to model exactly this kind connection building. What do you think? Do you lecture? Did you hate lectures as an undergrad? Did you enjoy them? What about in graduate school? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Activity Planning: Logic and showing conditions hold.

A big part of Calculus is showing certain conditions hold. The big example is continuity. There is a very natural interpretation of the idea (If you can draw the graph of a function without picking up your pencil, it is continuous.) but then there is the very technical. (Left and right limits agree, function value must exist, and the limits must agree with the function value.) Just the idea of showing conditions hold is sometimes difficult for students, primary because they have never been asked to do this before.

For the first week of my Calculus I course I am doing a lot of review. I know, I know, some of you might yell "But they're in college, you shouldn't have to review." Let's get into that in another post, for now, let's talk what I want them to know before we talk about continuity. I want them to be able to show conditions are satisfied for a definition or theorem. How do we do that? Below are a few ideas, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Share them below!

• Using plane figures and classification of parallelograms to show whether certain conditions hold or not. 
• Giving a variety of pictures where some are classified as a 'thing' and others are not classified as a 'thing' and asking them to create definitions. 
• Something to do with the law and fulfilling certain contractual obligations.