Teaching Techniques

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Seminar XIII
Making it Work at Your Institution A Recipe for
Success
Stu BernsteinUniversity of Nebraska Whitney
LuteyMontana State University Audra MorseTexas
Tech University
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Activity

• List one ExCEEd element you plan to implement and
  explain why
• List one ExCEEd element you do not plan to
  implement and why
• You have 2 minutes!

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Recipes of Success

• We want to present how we made the ExCEEd
  elements work
• Call this the ingredients
• Collectively, the ingredients make up the Recipe
  of Success

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The Chef Whitney

• Assistant Professor
• Montana State University
• 32 full-time faculty members and adjunct 6 new
  hires in last 3 years
• 575 /- undergraduate and 35 graduate students
• Class size for junior level courses range from 25
  to 85 students
• Third Year Retained!
• ExCEEd and test scores

• Duties
• 12 units teaching/year
• Outreach
• Service
• Student advisor 45 students, internship advisor,
  student chapter advisor, etc.
• ExCEEd Graduate 2007
• Assistant Mentor 2008 Fayetteville

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Lessons From ExCEEd

• Get to know students
• Teach to variety of learning styles
• Be prepared and organized
• Anticipate questions
• Have fun

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Know the students
• First major assignment is their resume gain an
  understanding of their background
• Photographs are great to memorize names, students
  like it when you know who they are
  and their interests
• Build rapport and excitement right away
  Knex Bridge Building Competition worked
  great in Construction Estimating

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Preparation - converted 70 of lessons to board
  notes
• Retained pictures, processes, specification
  breakdowns, etc. in PowerPoint ideal for use as a
  follow-up tutorial available in the class file
• All example problems converted to board notes

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Assessment of teaching/learning in-class and
  mid-term
• Numerous thumbs up/down questions to determine if
  we were all on the same page in class
• Mid-term anonymous survey
• suggestions for improvement

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Restaurant Reviews Personal Success!
Student open-response review comments Learning
objectives help outline the objectives for the
day. Organized course material well with
learning objectives. Ive never seen an
instructor give a mid-semester evaluation and
make substantive changes based on it. Im
impressed.
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Tools of the Trade

• Sports analogies work well
• The whiffle ball and bat work as a
• good instrument for illustrating proper
  follow through in construction closeout.
• For the safety unit, I break out the personal
  protective equipment and put it on in class.
• Created the Construction Family Feud as a team
  pre-exam review tool and afterwards as an exam
  solution review.

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Tools of the Trade

• Know your gear
• Does your smart podium have media Flash
  player (so you can see current work at Burj
  Dubai)? Is the perfect video clip readily synced
  for playing to the entire class with sound? (make
  sure the speakers work)
• Always have a low-tech back-up plan
• Tote it all on wheels

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Chef Stu

• Duties
• Teach 6 classes per year
• Service
• Service Learning Projects
• Student Organization Advisor
• ASC Competition Coordinator
• Chancellors Committee on Service Learning
• Faculty Senate
• Superintendents Committee on Technical Education

(Not Stew)

• Last COE Professor to be tenured on a teaching
  portfolio
• Owed in great part to ExCEEd

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Stus ExCEEd Experience

• ExCEEd Graduate 2006 (Fayetteville)
• ExCEEd Assistant Mentor 2007-08
  (Arizona/Fayetteville)

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Lessons From ExCEEd
One needs to know something about the learner to
teach them. ---Plato Potatoes

• Get to know your students
• Teach to a variety of learning styles
• Be prepared and organized yet flexible
• Have fun

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Know their names
• Take pictures at the beginning of the semester
• Have students create tri-fold name cards
• Call on each of them every day
• Address them by name when outside the classroom

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Preparation converted 90 of PowerPoint
  presentations to board notes
• Retain one pinch of PowerPoint
• Stir up more attention and engagement
• Enhances organizational flavor
• Allows for more student participation
• Writing on board
• Having students provide questions for class
• Prepares me for class from year to year

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Make sure the kitchen is open when the
  students are hungry
• My office door is philosophically always open
• The students know I am available to discuss
  school work, job problems, and personal issues
• Establishes interpersonal rapport (time
  investment worth every minute of it)

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Keep it fun but safe
• Establish classroom ground rules on the first day
• Students should feel comfortable making mistakes
• Create your own demonstrations and models to keep
  it fun and interesting

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Classroom dialogue
• Ask a question and call on student to respond
• If they cant answer, they can ask for assistance
  or call on another student
• Have students explain their answers
• Encourage students to disagree with given answers
• Contributes to reading of text and active learning

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Assessment of teaching/learning
• Expectation paper at beginning of semester
• Fulfillment of objectives and further
  expectations at midterm
• Final assessment paper at end of semester
• Peer evaluations

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The Chef Audra

• Associate Professor
• Texas Tech University
• Approximately 500 Undergraduate Students
• Approximately 150 Graduate Students
• Teach 22 each year (sometimes more, sometimes
  less)
• Mixture of UG and Grad classes
• UG Class 40-70 students
• G Class 10-20 students

• Duties
• Teach
• Research
• Advising
• ASCE Advisor
• ExCEEd Graduate 2004 (Fayetteville)
• Assistant Mentor 2006, 2007, 2008

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Objectives
• Must use!
• Practice making sure the action verbs are
• Appropriate for what you are asking
• Cover all taxonomies
• Varieddont use the same ones!

• Objectives
• Post them using an overhead because of a room
  with a poor layout
• Great review
• Clearly stated so the test questions are clear
• Keeps lessons organized

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Laugh at yourself and they will laugh with you!
• They know I cant spell
• I like to incorporate the Shel Silverstein poem
  Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The
  Garbage Out into the solid waste lecture
• Come up with a few catchy sayings to make things
  memorable
• Humor, as stressed, is a great communication tool

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Bring in current events
• Possible for every discipline of civil
  engineering
• Assign articles from ASCE Magazine or other trade
  journals
• Newspaper current events show that you are
  up-to-date with your trade
• Discuss your research

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Ask questions
• Default format
• Be sure questions are clear
• Great for bringing people back to the fold
• Encourages them to pay attention
• Provides opportunities to reward the students

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Reward the Students
• Worked at ExCEEd
• Works in the classroom too
• Reward participation
• Smarties
• Loved by all age groups
• Hand out trophies for top 3 test grades

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Personalizing ExCEEd Ingredients

• Mid-semester performance review
• What works well in this class? What do you like?
  What helps you learn?
• What does not work well? What do you not like?
  What does not help you learn?
• What suggestions or recommendations do you have?
• Allows changes to be made before final
  evaluations
• Encourage students to participate by providing
  bonus homework points

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Restaurant ReviewsPersonal Success!

• Feeling of competence in the classroom
• Recognized by my peers and students
• University and national teaching awards
• Student nominated teaching awards
• Member Teaching Academy
• Recruiting top-notch undergraduates for graduate
  school
• Respect from my peers

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Restaurant ReviewsPersonal Success!
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Restaurant ReviewsPersonal Success!
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Restaurant ReviewsPersonal Success!

• Relaxed and confident
• Some days it is hard to be at the top of your
  game but I know I have the mechanics!
• More fun
• Now, can add more demos and in class activities
• Wastewater Treatment Charades
• More time for discussion

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Fusion Cuisine(results of the activity)

• What are you going to implement this semester?
• What arent you going to implement?

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to get started?
• Start with objectives and board notes
• Easy to do, low risk - high reward
• Incorporate a new ExCEEd element each time you
  teach the coursedont try to change everything
  over night!
• How to maintain energy?
• Have fun (music, candy, etc.).
• Build rapport with students get their ideas and
  feedback to tell you what works and what else to
  try.
• Tie teaching to other interests (research,
  service, volunteer activities)

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to survive the heartbreak of failure
• Need thick skin and short memory
• Consider partnering with a colleague on your
  efforts - spread the pain

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to convince administrators (Chair, Dean,
  etc.) to value effective teaching
• Student enthusiasm high teacher ratings
• Awards and recognition
• Better learning (good for alumni, employers,
  accreditation)
• Higher efficiency, means more time for research
  or other activities

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Kitchen Secrets How to

• How to get your colleagues involved
• Start with one willing partner
• Success attracts more partners
• Encourage colleagues to attend ExCEEd
• Build rapport with colleagues

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Chef Whitney Cooks for You!
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Bon Appetit!