Teaching Workshops

Department of Criminal Justice
Temple University
Spring 2009

Schedule and Readings

workshop home: click here

Workshop 1

2/6/09

Goals

You will learn about the connections between what we teach, how we teach, and why we teach. More specifically, in workshop 1 you will consider and discuss the connections between teaching philosophies, course goals, course structure, course expectations, course assignments, and assessments. You will learn to reflect on what you are doing when you construct a course. You will start making initial steps in implementing these connections by beginning to draft a course syllabus

How to prepare for the first session

READING
Lang: Preface; Before the beginning; Week 1, Week7, Week 8, Week 11, Week 15

McKeachie: Chapters 2, 15,16,17,25

Altman, Howard B., and William Cashin, E. 1992. Writing a syllabus. Center for Faculty Evaluation & Development, Division of Continuing Education, Kansas State University: Idea Paper No. 27.

Lang, James M. September 1, 2006. The Promising syllabus. The Chronicle of Higher Education 53 (2):C2.
 

DOING
A
Prepare a statement of your teaching philosophy. This eventually will be the lead section of your teaching portfolio. Details on assignments page.
B
Review Temple's current undergraduate offerings in criminal justice. Select one course for which you would be interested in serving as the primary instructor. Write a short paragraph stating why you would be interested in teaching that course. Bring your selection and your paragraph.

REFLECTING

You will start a teaching log before the first session, and make at least one entry. It could be about anything teaching related, as long as it is reflective. It could touch on one of the readings, any experiences you have had as a teacher or a student, or anything else.

Topics covered in first session (subject to change)

Confidentiality requirements in the workshops
Overview of goals for workshop series
Review of requirements
Review of additional resources available
Reflection log: purpose
Goals for current workshop
Reviewing and sharing the teaching philosophies you  have prepared
Reviewing and commenting on some other teaching philosophies
Break
Following the connections all the way through: philosophy => course goals => course structure => assignments & in class activities and structures => evaluation
Thinking about course details and implications: review of each of Altman's syllabus sections, discussion of possible choices
Discussion of various ways to introduce the syllabus
Reactions to the promising syllabus
Discussion of day 1 - balloons or serious discussion?
Review and comment on readings
Break
Introduction to goals for second session
Assignment for workshop 2 introduced: preparing a five minute lecture for your planned course
Your reactions to workshop 1

Workshop 2

2/20/09

Goals

You will think about instructional strategies, taking place inside the classroom, and beyond. More specifically, you will discuss when and why lecture, in-class group work, in-class exercises, in-class worksheets, small group discussion, role playing exercises, simulations, and other approaches may be appropriate. The discussion will take into account not only course goals and instructor philosophy, but also student differences in learning approaches, some general models about how we learn, diversity in the classroom, and technology (pluses and minuses).

How to prepare for the second session

READING
Lang: Weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 12

McKeachie: Chapters 5, 6, 14, 18, 19

Other: (read at least 2 of these)
Dyck, J. L., and N. R. Gee. 1998. A Sweet way to Teach Students About the Sampling Distribution of the Mean. Teaching of Psychology 25 (3):192-195.
Jones, P. R. 2006. Using groups in criminal justice courses: Some new twists on a traditional pedagogical tool. Journal of Criminal Justice Education 17 (1):87-102.
Lorenz, F. O., and B. T. Bruton. 1996. Experiments in surveys: Linking mass class questionnaires to introductory research methods. Teaching Sociology 24:264-271.
Taylor, R. B., and P. McConnell. 2001. BAC and Beer: Operationalizing drunk driving laws in a research methods course exercise. Teaching Sociology 29:219-228.
 

DOING
A
After you have done the readings, prepare a five minute lecture, with PowerPoint and/or handouts and/or accompanying worksheets (perhaps with blanks). Send the PowerPoint file to the instructor some time the night before. BE SURE THE FIRST SLIDE OF THE POWERPOINT HAS JUST YOUR NAME AND THE TITLE OF YOUR HYPOTHETICAL COURSE. The instructor will put all these into one file, so we do not waste time swapping out USB memory sticks during class. If you have handouts or worksheets, please bring enough copies for everyone. Do NOT feel that you must have a PowerPoint. It all depends on your class and the content and your goals. In class everyone will deliver their lecture segment, get videotaped, and then we will review and comment on each one.
B
Make a few notes about one potential assignment for the course you are designing. Just a few words about goals, content, structure. Assume that this is an out-of-class which will be graded. If you can make connections between what this assignment is doing and your teaching philosophy, and your course goals, great.

REFLECTING
In your log, after reading the assigned readings, reflect on how you think you will approach any one type of in-class active learning activity or assignment. Comment on possible connections between how you are wired as a person, your own experiences, and your teaching philosophy. Between the first and second session you want to make at least a couple of entries a week.

Topics covered in second session (subject to change)

(please note - it is extremely likely this session will run for a full 3 hours. I will not keep you longer than that.)

Confidentiality reminder
Review of your reactions to the first session
Preamble: listening to my first taped lecture
Presentation and videotaping of your lecture segments.
Review of videotape segments and commentary
Break
Overview: learning styles, individual differences, attention, active learning approaches
In-class discussions in small and large classes
    Importance of pre-developed, "user generated" class norms
    How to ensure that the students are "keeping up with the reading"?
    Short presentation on the guided discussion moderator model (Christensen, C. R., Garvin, D. A., & Sweet, A. (Eds.). (1991). Education for judgment: The Artistry of      discussion leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press)
    Discussion starters and low stakes writing
    Discussion in small groups and reporting out vs. discussion in the entire class
Small group work, structuring the activity, monitoring the activity
    Small group work and high stakes writing
Class-wide group exercises/simulations/role playing: key points, tolerance for chaos, willingness to fail
Back to lectures: lectures and PPT + / - ; increasing engagement through worksheets, periodic question pause w/i or w/o group discussion; lectures and assigned readings; lectures and pre-packaged PPTs
Getting feedback from students
Issues of classroom "discipline" and professionalism
The continuing conundrum: participation and attendance
Your reactions to Workshop 2
 

Workshop 3

3/20/09

Goals

The purpose of Workshop 3 is to begin to reflect on all things related to assessment of student performance. This includes an extremely wide array of topics including but not limited to: what are the purposes of assessment broadly, and what are the implications of those purposes for timing of assignments, making assignments high stakes vs. low stakes, staged assignments vs. one-offs, whether to allow revisions, timing and depth and types of feedback, group-based vs. solo-based assignments, aligning assignment parameters with teaching philosophies and course goals, the places of grading rubrics, dealing with academic misconduct.

It will also follow up with Workshop 2 by allowing participants to reflect on their in-class observations.

How to prepare for the third session

READING
Lang: Week 6, Week 9, Week 14

McKeachie: Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Other:
CLA's academic misconduct policy from the mid-1980s. Available online at www.rbtaylor.net/plagiarism_all.pdf

McCabe, Donald L., and Linda Klebe Trevino. 1997. Individual and contextual influences on academic dishonesty: A Multicampus investigation. Research in Higher Education 38 (3):379-96.

DOING
A
Conduct your in-class observations and write them up; see Assignment 3

B
Prepare your assignment which will be graded; see Assignment 4

REFLECTING
Your write up of your observations counts as one log entry. Make at least one additional entry reflecting on your preliminary thinking about the assignment you are planning. Make at least one further entry reflecting on something else to do with teaching, based either on the readings or something else.

Topics covered in third session (subject to change)

Confidentiality reminder
Your reactions to workshop 2
From each student: contribution from your observation series
Small group work followed by all-group discussion: similarities / differences / generalizations
Goals of assigned work:
    Questions of formative vs. evaluative
    Appealing to different learning styles and the overall mix
    The trade off between innovative and time consuming
    Clarity for students - course purpose, relevant materials they need, exactly what are they doing, exactly what will they be graded on, what are the regrading options
    Clarity for the instructor - alignment with your philosophy and course goals
 In class exercise: can you add the extra columns
Ways to prepare students' for tests
Some nuts and bolts on testing: the MARC, online tests with Blackboard, multi-versions, understanding what are good/bad tests and good/bad items, curving or not
 The medium is the message: how we return grades and what options/expectations we convey
 Late work
 Academic misconduct: how to prep them for this, faculty do it too, the importance of specificity and an impersonal approach, doing it by the book, undergraduate grievance procedures in the department
 Gradekeeping, transparency, currency, the promise and pitfalls of the Blackboard gradebook  
The last day of class: getting them to reflect; before vs. after exercises (trip to the train station example); active processing and higher learning possibilities (or not!).
Your reactions to Workshop 3, remaining issues
Your suggestions: if there is another iteration