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Pedagogy matches to apps to use

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All Posts,Translations,Wheels The Padagogy Wheel English V5 Dr Matt Harris is Past Chair Continue Reading

With the Padagogy Wheel Model, teachers have an at-hand reference that ties apps to specific learning outcomes directly connected to modern pedagogies and theories. They can easily sit with the wheel during lesson planning time to find tools that will best aid their students or use it during class time to extend or deepen learning towards a specific 21st century skill or content area. This connection of theory, practice, and application makes the Padagogy Wheel an invaluable resource that should be on the wall of every classroom".

Matt Harris, Ed.D.
Past Chair of ISTE, EdTech Leader and Teacher

Announcing the English V5.0

Apps linked for Apple iOS to Web Previews then to your installed iTunes. For the Android apps are linked to Google Play. With help using the model and the selecting of apps. Please visit the post

Both Apple and Android versions are Available

Download a PDF for Printing A2 Poster or Download PDF for Screen use. Please visit the announcement post of the language of your choice. PDF versions have all apps linked to either the iTunes App Store or Google Play

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Home: In Support of Excellence - In Support of Excellence

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All Posts,Translations,Wheels The Padagogy Wheel English V5 Dr Matt Harris is Past Chair Continue Reading With the Padagogy Wheel Model, teachers have an at-hand reference that ties apps to specific learning outcomes directly connected to modern pedagogies and theories.

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In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about one's thinking. In an educational context, it is students' awareness and understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as learners and their ability to adapt accordingly to be more successful learners. Metacognition involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning.

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Retrieval practice is a simple research-based teaching strategy that dramatically raises students' grades. When students retrieve and bring information to mind, this mental challenge produces durable long-term learning. Easy learning leads to easy forgetting. Stop cramming, reviewing, and re-teaching. Instead, simply ask students what they remember. No prep, no grading, just powerful teaching.

The science of learning exists. It's time to unleash it.

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Retrieval Practice: Unleash the Science of Learning

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Harness powerful teaching strategies, unleash the science of learning, and transform your classroom with resources by cognitive scientists.

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Metaphor and metacognition: Alise Shafer Ivey at TEDxSunsetPark

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TEDxWilliamsport - Dr. Derek Cabrera - How Thinking Works

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No Significant Difference - Presented by WCET

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The primary purpose of the NSD website is to expand on the offerings from the book by providing access to appropriate studies published or discovered after the release of the book. In addition to studies that document no significant difference (NSD), the website includes studies which do document significant differences (SD) in student outcomes based on the mode of education delivery.

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Thank you to today's guest blogger, Jackie Luft, Online Accessibility Specialist for Texas Tech Worldwide eLearning. As we start the new academic year, the issue of assuring that our courses are accessible arises anew. Jackie gives us great resources and advice on how to better serve our students. I also invite you to check out the keynote at WCET's upcoming Annual Meeting. We kick-off with what is sure to be an outstanding, engaging, and entertaining keynote by Mike Hess, Founder of the Blind Institute of Technology. Thank you, Jackie and I'll see everyone else in Denver. Russ Poulin
The beginning of the semester brings updates to all of our online courses. Dates are entered, a few new assignments are added, and few are revised and we throw a few assignments in the trash. Maybe there is a textbook with a new edition. Maybe now is a good time to add some Universal Design elements, and consider reviewing your course for online accessibility?

Accessibility - Not Just a Good Idea, It's the Law!

As you know, providing online accessibility is a federal law. Several lawsuits in the past years have made an impact on the progression towards accessibility in online environments in higher education. The following laws are the basis of the lawsuits, and are used as guidance for online accessibility.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 states that no qualified student with a disability shall on the basis of disability, "be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any...postsecondary program or activity....".

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 includes specific requirements for communication, "A public entity shall take appropriate steps to ensure that communications with applicants, participants, members of the public, and companions with disabilities are as effective as communication with others."

Lawsuits say that, "Accessible means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantial ease of use" ( South Carolina Technical College). Most lawsuits emphasis the statements "fully and equally accessible" and "ease of use." University of Montana - Missoula adds that "individuals with disabilities are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services within the same time-frame."

Can I Just Wait Until I Have a Student with an Accessibility Need?

But what if I don't have a student with a disability in my class, I never have." This may be true, but your instructional material needs to be ADA compliant whether you have a student with a disability enrolled or not.

Have you considered the population of students that do not declare their disability? Did you know that implementing ADA standards to your online instructional material helps all students to learn more easily?

For example, in an article written by 3Play " Who uses closed captions? Not just for the Deaf or hard of hearing", according to Television Access Services, 80% of people that use closed captions do not have a hearing disability. Many people also utilize software programs that allow text on a page to be read out loud. Check out the best free text to speech software.

How Can I Address Online Accessibility in My Courses?

Online accessibility and Universal Design of Learning can be overwhelming. Below is a checklist that includes both online accessibility and Universal Design of Learning elements. The list is broken into areas that are typical of an online course. Instructors can use this list as a quick review to decide what to work on throughout the year.

Adding a few of these elements every semester will leave you with a well-designed, inclusive course that will be more accessible to all your students, not just those with disabilities. Note that the items on the list with bold and an asterisk are the federal ADA standards for online content, and the rest are suggestions for Universal Design of learning.

Contact information for instructor is easily accessed.

Discussion Board includes a place for course questions.

Students have email address to ask personal questions.

Office hours and phone number are listed.

Learning materials are presented in more than one format:

Audio lecture with transcripts*,

Videos have closed captions*,

Readings are in accessible PDF files*,

Presentations are accessible*,

PowerPoints,

Wiki,

Blogs, and

Visual Aids include pictures that have alt tags (picture descriptions). *

Variety of assignments to increase motivation.

Course website is organized and consistent from page to page.

Links have description of link and do not read "Click Here". *

Navigation tabs are the same on each web page.

Color does not convey meaning*.

No flashing or blinking content*.

Information is accessed with minimum clicks.

Every image has an Alt Tag (image description)*.

Images are used only to increase understanding of text.

Avoid decorative images and borders.

Text should be in text format, not image. Example, clipart words*.

All fonts are sans-serif*.

Avoid color in text that shows meaning.

Colors have been checked with Color Contrast Checker.

Number of fonts used is minimal, less than four.

No text is underlined unless it is a hyperlink.

Tables have headings for rows and columns, should be explained in text*.

Graphs have a description, either use alt tags or explain in text.

Synchronous discussions and chats are at a moderate pace and can be accessed after discussion event, including audio descriptions and synchronized captions*.

Wow, That's Quite A List. How Do I Proceed?

Knowing exactly how to implement all these elements can be a daunting task.

WebAIM is a resource that assists instructors in tips on how to implement accessibility elements. Texas Tech University also provides many resources for online instructors. Online Instructional Materials offers step by step guides on how to make all your courses compliant. On this website you will find information about Seven Steps to an Accessible Documents, How to Check Documents for Accessibility, and Creating Accessible Instructional Videos.

Keep in mind these resources for your online instructional material as you are prepping for your next year of instruction. Not only will your class meet federal guidelines, but you will be making your course accessible to all students, including for those with undeclared disabilities.

Although the list may seem daunting, selecting one area at a time and focusing on that will lead to constant progress towards providing accessible instructional material.

Jackie Luft
Online Accessibility Specialist
Texas Tech Worldwide eLearning
www.ttu.edu/accessibility

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Increasing Online Accessibility and Design Quality in your Online Courses

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Thank you to today's guest blogger, Jackie Luft, Online Accessibility Specialist for Texas Tech Worldwide eLearning. As we start the new academic year, the issue of assuring that our courses are accessible arises anew. Jackie gives us great resources and advice on how to better serve our students.

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4.5 million+ Stunning Free Images to Use Anywhere - Pixabay - Pixabay

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Find your perfect royalty-free image or video to download and use. ✓ Royalty-free ✓ No attribution required ✓ High quality images.

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Harsh Binani
Harsh has helped a lot of multi-national corporations and startups to leverage technology for greater productivity. Read full profile

You are probably an ardent user of Gmail and use it almost every day. Do you think you've utilized every function of Gmail to ensure maximum productivity when you work? Likely not.

In fact, not all useful Gmail features are spelled out explicitly. So in this article, I will run you through 16 less known Gmail hacks that will super boost your productivity.

1. Unsend a Sent Email

Email blunders are extremely common. An AOL survey, covered by CBS states that around 32% of people accidentally forward the wrong email.

A wrongly sent mail with an undesired attachment or carrying confidential knowledge may create a bad impression as a professional or can even ruin your career.

Keeping this common error in mind, Gmail has created a feature that can help to "unsend" a sent email within a time span of up to 30 seconds.

To do this, simply go to the "Settings" page of your Gmail account. Enable the Undo Send button and set the invalidation period according to your wish. The below given screenshot will help you to understand better.

2. Get All Emails in One Tab

Are you the kind of person who hates tab hopping? Would you rather see all your emails at one place rather than different tabs like Social and Promotional?

This hack ensures that all your emails, irrespective their category are all neatly stacked up in your primary Inbox.

To achieve this, simply go to the settings of your Gmail and click on the Inbox tab. You can un-select the promotional and social check box and now all your email would be in one place.

The following screenshot should help:

3. Get More Tabs

However, if you are not someone who likes a laundry list of things, you can likewise add tabs like Updated and Forums and further segregate emails.

Emails will now automatically be clubbed into the new tabs, helping you focus on important emails.

4. Self Destruct Email

Gmail has developed a custom software script that hosts a self-destruct feature. Using this can add a timer to your mail and it will be self-destructed after a certain interval of period.

This helps when you don't want an email to be forwarded to someone else. To do this, click on the padlock icon near the send button before you send out the email.

A new tab named Confidential mode opens with the option of Set Expiration. Make the necessary changes here. Refer to the screenshot and easily self-destruct emails!

5. Send Mails with a Verification Code

The confidential mode discussed above also allows you to send an email with a verification encryption sent via SMS to the recipient.

This will enable you to build an additional coating of security to your mail. Using this feature, you can be sure that the mail is read by the intended recipient only.

6. Keyboard Alternatives

If you use your desktop or laptop computer to check your emails, you can use shortcuts from your keyboard to enhance your productivity. Some popular Gmail hacks to improve your productivity are -

Use the alphabet key "N" to read the next message and "P" to read the previous message if you are reading a multi-message conversion.

By holding Ctrl + Enter you can send your composed message.

To utilize the keyboard alternatives, you have to enable it from the settings of your Gmail as given in the screen capture below:

7. Display Density

If you are not receiving a lot of emails, I'd recommend you to decrease the display density of your Gmail Inbox.

It serves like a multi-window function. It is also helpful for you to glance at the just important part of the email.

8. Reply All

Occasionally, we forget to select the "Reply All" option while sending a response to multiple recipients.

However, Gmail has come up with a solution to this problem. Just click on the settings tab and go to the general tab. Scroll down to the "Default Reply Behaviour" and select the Reply all option.

Now the "Reply All" option will always be the default option selected when conversing with multiple recipients.

9. Showing Maximum Number of Emails per Page

If you are receiving too many emails in a day, then you should definitely explore this option.

Scroll down to continue reading article

It gives you the ability to access more conversations per page. To achieve this, go to settings, click on the General menu bar and scroll down to " Maximum page size".

Thereafter set the number of conversions you want per page. For reference, check the screenshot given below:

10. Conversion View

If you are a fan of the classic Gmail, this is a handy hack.

To avoid a "thread" view in favor of the old conversation view - just follow these steps. Go to the General menu in the setting tab and simply scroll down to the "Conversion View" and select the option "conversion view off". Refer to the screen capture underneath.

11. Desktop Notification

If you live off your emails, then this is a great option. You can simply add a chrome extension of Gmail or go to Settings > General > Desktop Notification and turn it on. It is also extremely helpful if you have set up email alerts for critical functions . The screenshot shared below will help you get it set up.

12. Advanced Search

This is one of my favorites of all the features. You probably would be using the regular search feature for your Gmail.

However, with the sheer amount of emails in the inbox, it is difficult to find specific information. This is where advanced search comes in.

Using this feature you can search a specific mail among hundreds of email of your inbox by applying useful filters as illustrated below:

13. Insert Google Drive Files

Need to send a large file? Not a problem with Gmail's new integration feature. You can insert Google drive files as attachments to your mail.

Simply click on the Google drive icon on the lowermost portion of the window. It will convert your file as a link or an attachment as shown below:

14. Right Click Menu

Previously absent from the classic feature. The good old right click is here. Now if you right click on your emails, you can get the option to mark it Unread, Archive, or remove a message. All at a click of a button, straight from your Inbox page.

15. Vacation Responder

On leave? Don't have time to reply to all the email you get? Head to the auto-responder option in Gmail.

You can customize what message you want to send out to people. To activate it, simply go to settings, click on general tab and scroll down to the vacation responder.

16. Account Recovery

I get at least one email a day that is spam that tries to hack into my account. So for security purposes, do update your account recovery options. This will be helpful when you are unable to remember your password or have been hacked.

It is just a series of questions you need to set up while opening the account (or update later on).

Additional tip: You'd need to remember the answers. So choose something you have negligible chance of forgetting or getting it wrong.

The Bottom Line

If you spend considerable amount of time on Gmail, theses hacks are sure to boost your productivity and better your email using experience.

Start adjusting your Gmail settings and make use of all these hacks for maximum productivity!

Featured photo credit: rawpixel via unsplash.com

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15 Best Brainstorming And Mind-Mapping Tech Tools For Every Creative Mind

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Harsh Binani Harsh has helped a lot of multi-national corporations and startups to leverage technology for greater productivity. Read full profile You are probably an ardent user of Gmail and use it almost every day. Do you think you've utilized every function of Gmail to ensure maximum productivity when you work?

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Benefits of Bubbl.us mind maps over text:

Superior clarity of structured information

Whether it's a family tree, a decision flow map, or an algorithm, mind maps have a huge advantage in presenting complexity clearly and concisely.

Better retention of complex ideas.

Visualizing complex ideas in shapes, lines, and pictures leads to much better recollection later than simple text.

Creative collaboration with others.

Visual brainstorming with a team can dramatically improve the quality of the final product because of diversity of perspectives and experiences.

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Bubbl.us - Create Mind Maps | Collaborate and Present Ideas

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Mind map and brainstorm online with Bubbl.us! Create colorful mind maps to print or share with others. Millions of people are using Bubbl.us worldwide to generate ideas, map out processes and create presentations.

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LibGuides: Digital Media: Fair Use + Copyright

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RESOURCES FOR RESEARCH IN DIGITAL MEDIA, INCLUDING ANIMATION + GAME DESIGN + INTERACTIVITY

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This resource guide is a jumping-off point for finding Open Access Images.

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We are busy around the clock adding new educational resources to OER Commons. We work with the finest producers of instructional content in the world and gather their best work together especially for you. Then we ensure the resources are carefully described and fully indexed because we want you to be able to find exactly what you need, when you need it.

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OER (Open Educational Resources) Introduction

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Traumatic Brain Injury - Interactive Brain

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Welcome to the Interactive Brain. This section of the website shows the various anatomical and functional lobes of the brain. By highlighting each lobe, you can learn about the normal functions of that part of the brain and what happens as a result of an injury.

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Penn State Student Self-assessment of  Online Learning Readiness

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Penn State Student Self-assessment of  Online Learning Readiness

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Before enrolling in an online course, you should first assess your readiness for stepping into the online learning environment. Spend some time thinking about yourself as a learner and see whether your characteristics would help you be a successful online learner.

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Assoc of College and Univ Educators: Effective Practice Framework

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Assoc of College and Univ Educators: Effective Practice Framework

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With great teaching, students succeed. Decades of scholarship have identified practices that help students engage, persist in their studies, and learn more. ACUE's Effective Practice Framework is a leading statement of the instructional skills that every college educator should possess. It was independently validated and is endorsed by the American Council on Education.

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About the journal

Trends in Neuroscience and Education aims to bridge the gap between our increasing basic cognitive and neuroscience understanding of learning and the application of this knowledge in educational settings. It provides a forum for original translational research on using systems neuroscience findings to improve educational outcome, as well as for reviews on basic and applied research relevant to education.

Just as 200 years ago, medicine was little more than a mixture of bits of knowledge, fads and plain quackery without a basic grounding in a scientific understanding of the body, and just as in the middle of the nineteenth century, Hermann von Helmholtz, Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and a few others got together and drew up a scheme for what medicine should be (i.e., applied natural science), we believe that this can be taken as a model for what should happen in the field of education. In many countries, education is merely the field of ideology, even though we know that how children learn is not a question of left or right political orientation.

Contrary to the skeptics (who claim that "brain science [...] is not ready to relate neuronal processes to classroom outcomes ", Cf. Hirsh-Pasek K, Bruer JT, 2007), we believe that we know today more about the neuroscience of learning than Helmholtz et al. back then knew about the body. In fact, from our perspective very little was known, as cellular pathology, microbiology and pharmacology hardly existed as domains of scientific investigation, let alone as tools for physicians. But the very idea - medicine is applied science - caught on and led to unprecedented and dramatic improvements in medicine.

In our view, this is precisely what we must do in order to make progress in education. "You claim all learning is taking place in the brain. If that's so, which type of preschool is most effective? " - From a medical perspective, it is obvious that a neuroscientist cannot answer such questions alone. But it is just as clear that the answers will come from research informed by developmental cognitive neuroscience. Trends in Neuroscience and Education will foster activities on the translational research that is needed.

Neuroscience is to education what biology is to medicine and physics is to architecture. Biochemistry is not enough to cure a patient, and physics is not enough to build a bridge. But you cannot perform great work, neither in medicine nor in architecture, against the laws of physics or biology. And in fact, they will inform you about many constraints and rule out a great many of projects right from the start as failures.

Trends in Neuroscience and Education aims to bridge the gap between our increasing basic cognitive and neuroscience understanding of learning and the application of this knowledge in educational settings. It provides a forum for original translational research on using systems neuroscience ...

View full aims & scope

The average number of weeks it takes for an article to go through the editorial review process for this journal, including standard and desk rejects.

The average number of weeks it takes to reach from manuscript acceptance to the first appearance of the article online (with DOI).

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Professor Manfred Spitzer, MD, PhD

University Hospital Ulm Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy III, Leimgrubenweg 12-14, 89073, Ulm, Germany, Fax: 0731/500-61402

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Trends in Neuroscience and Education aims to bridge the gap between our increasing basic cognitive and neuroscience understanding of learning and the application of this knowledge in educational settings. It provides a forum for original translational research on using systems neuroscience findings to improve educational outcome, as well as for reviews on basic and applied research relevant to education.

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Neuroeducation: Learning, Arts, and the Brain | Dana Foundation

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Findings and Challenges for Educators and Researchers from the 2009 Johns Hopkins University Summit

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Submit a short video about any neuroscience topic for a chance to win $1,000 and a trip to SfN's Annual Meeting! A beginner's guide to the brain and nervous system. Engage local scientists to educate your community about the brain.

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All Posts,Translations,Wheels The Padagogy Wheel English V5 Dr Matt Harris is Past Chair Continue Reading

With the Padagogy Wheel Model, teachers have an at-hand reference that ties apps to specific learning outcomes directly connected to modern pedagogies and theories. They can easily sit with the wheel during lesson planning time to find tools that will best aid their students or use it during class time to extend or deepen learning towards a specific 21st century skill or content area. This connection of theory, practice, and application makes the Padagogy Wheel an invaluable resource that should be on the wall of every classroom".

Matt Harris, Ed.D.
Past Chair of ISTE, EdTech Leader and Teacher

Announcing the English V5.0

Apps linked for Apple iOS to Web Previews then to your installed iTunes. For the Android apps are linked to Google Play. With help using the model and the selecting of apps. Please visit the post

Both Apple and Android versions are Available

Download a PDF for Printing A2 Poster or Download PDF for Screen use. Please visit the announcement post of the language of your choice. PDF versions have all apps linked to either the iTunes App Store or Google Play

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Home: In Support of Excellence - In Support of Excellence

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All Posts,Translations,Wheels The Padagogy Wheel English V5 Dr Matt Harris is Past Chair Continue Reading With the Padagogy Wheel Model, teachers have an at-hand reference that ties apps to specific learning outcomes directly connected to modern pedagogies and theories.

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Introduction Context is Everything Functional Images Decorative Images Advanced Images Form image buttons Image maps CSS images Logos Complex images Figure and figcaption Conclusion Alternative text is a textual substitute for non-text content in web pages. This article is focused on images, but its principles also apply to multimedia and other non-text content.

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National Center on Universal Design for Learning

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Motivation Theory: Herzberg (Two-Factor Theory)

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Herzberg's Two-Factor theory of motivation at work is introduced in this revision video.

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3366894/

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Learning how to learn cannot be left to students. It must be taught. ( Gall et al., 1990 )

Imagine yourself as the instructor of an introductory undergraduate biology course. Two students from your course independently visit your office the week after the first exam. Both students are biology majors. Both regularly attend class and submit their assignments on time. Both appear to be eager, dedicated, and genuine students who want to learn biology. During each of their office hours visits, you ask them to share how they prepared for the first exam. Their stories are strikingly different (inspired by Ertmer and Newby, 1996 ).

During office hours, Josephina expresses that she was happy the exam was on a Monday, because she had a lot of time to prepare the previous weekend. She shares that she started studying after work on Saturday evening and did not go out with friends that night. When queried, she also shares that she reread all of the assigned textbook material and made flashcards of the bold words in the text. She feels that she should have done well on the test, because she studied all Saturday night and all day on Sunday. She feels that she did everything she could do to prepare. That said, she is worried about what her grade will be, and she wants you to know that she studied really hard, so she should get a good grade on the exam.

Later in the week, Maya visits your office. When asked how she prepared for the first exam, she explains that she has regularly reviewed the PowerPoint slides each evening after class since the beginning of the term 4 weeks ago. She also read the assigned textbook pages weekly, but expresses that she spent most of her time comparing the ideas in the PowerPoint slides with the information in the textbook to see how they were similar and different. She found several places in which things seemed not to agree, which confused her. She kept a running list of these confusions each week. When you ask what she did with these confusions, she shares that she brought them to her weekly study group with peers from her course lab section. There, she says, she got most of her questions answered and lots of her confusions cleared up. She has come to office hours to ask you about a couple of things that she did not figure out before the exam that she thinks she probably missed. She is not too worried about her score on the exam, because most of the material related to problems and concepts that she felt had been thinking about a lot.

So, what is different about Josephina and Maya? No doubt many things, including their educational histories, their personalities, and more. However, one key difference in their approach to their studies is evident from their stories. They appear to be strikingly different in knowing how to learn, being able to monitor their own understanding, being reflective about what they understand and do not understand, and being able to strategize about how to resolve their confusions. They are different in their ability to use metacognitive approaches in their learning.

INTRODUCING METACOGNITION

The importance of metacognition in the process of learning is an old idea that can be traced from Socrates' questioning methods to Dewey's twentieth-century stance that we learn more from reflecting on our experiences than from the actual experiences themselves ( Dewey, 1933 ). What is more recent is the coining of the term "metacognition" and the emergence of a metacognition research field in the last four decades. Credited to developmental psychologist John Flavell in a publication from the 1970s, metacognition is used in different disciplines in different ways, and a common, succinct definition appears to be elusive in the literature. Below is an excerpt from Flavell's original writing, as well as several additional definitions and conceptualizations from different sources:

Metacognition refers to one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes or anything related to them, e.g., the learning-relevant properties of information or data. For example, I am engaging in metacognition if I notice that I am having more trouble learning A than B; if it strikes me that I should double check C before accepting it as fact. (Flavell, 1976)

Metacognition also includes self-regulation-the ability to orchestrate one's learning: to plan, monitor success, and correct errors when appropriate-all necessary for effective intentional learning... Metacognition also refers to the ability to reflect on one's own performance. (National Research Council, 2000)

These multiple perspectives on what metacognition might entail-which expand on Flavell's original definition to include an emphasis on planning, monitoring, and evaluating one's own learning processes-are likely related to the relative youth of the metacognition research field and the associated growing pains of an emerging discipline ( Flavell, 1979 Schraw, 1998 Zohar, 2009 Schraw et al., 2006 Schraw et al., 2006 Bandura, 1977 ). Because the goal of this feature is to translate ideas from other disciplines that may have immediate, practical relevance for biology education, I will leave these intriguing overlaps and areas of active inquiry for the exploration of interested readers. ) and self-efficacy (an individual's conceptualization of his or her own competency; ). In addition, there are complex overlaps between metacognition research and other research arenas focused on self-regulated learning (an individual's ability to take control of his or her learning; ; ). Delineation of distinct aspects of metacognition, development of tools for measuring these aspects, and strategies for teaching them to students are all active areas of inquiry among researchers across several social science disciplines ( ;

So, let us reconsider Josephina and Maya. Their stories are likely familiar to anyone who has taught college biology even for a short period of time. And the reactions from faculty to these two kinds of students might be briefly summarized as exasperation with Josephina and elation with Maya. Faculty are often perplexed by students like Josephina, who do not seem to have mastered learning how to learn, and some faculty will assert that it is their job to "teach biology, not study strategies." Yet metacognition, which represents more than just study skills, has been linked to improving thinking skills and promoting conceptual change in younger students ( Nickerson et al., 1985 White and Gunstone, 1989 Georghiades, 2000 Adey and Shayer, 1993 Kuhn and Pearsall, 1998 Kruger, 1999 Dunning et al., 2003 ). But there remains much to be learned about the influence of metacognition on learning, especially among college-age students and within particular disciplinary contexts (e.g., biology vs. physics vs. music theory). So, how can we as biology educators use what is currently known about metacognition to our and our students' advantage to support biology teaching and learning? What could integrating student metacognition into a college biology course look like? And how might active learning look different with more emphasis on metacognition? ; ). Evidence indicates that individuals with poor metacognitive skills perform less well academically than peers ( ; ). Additionally, there is evidence that improved metacognition is associated with promoting young students' overall academic success ( ; ;

USING METACOGNITION TO HELP STUDENTS LEARN TO THINK LIKE BIOLOGISTS

With the recent publication of the 2011 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) report, Vision and Change for Undergraduate Biology Education, and the 2012 President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report, Engage to Excel, considerable attention is being paid to transforming the learning experiences of undergraduate students in the sciences ( AAAS, 2011 PCAST, 2012 ). An example of our collective aspirations as a biology education community for what we want students to be able to do at the conclusion of their undergraduate biology education is stated as follows in ; Vision and Change:

Biology in the 21st century requires that undergraduates learn how to integrate concepts across levels of organization and complexity and to synthesize and analyze information that connects conceptual domains.

This aspiration can be approximated by the assertion that we want undergraduate learning experiences to help students learn to think like biologists. Promoting student metacognition-teaching students to think about how they are thinking about biology and how they approach learning about biology-would seem to be a useful strategy in striving to reach these kinds of goals for students ( NRC, 2000 D'Avanzo, 2003 Crowe et al., 2008 ). Below, I describe potential approaches to increasing attention to metacognition in undergraduate biology classrooms, including: 1) explicitly teaching students metacognitive strategies, and 2) more generally building a classroom culture grounded in metacognitive strategies by modifying what we are already doing. ; ;

EXPLICITLY TEACHING STUDENTS METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN BIOLOGY COURSES

Teaching students to use metacognition to understand how they are thinking about biology provides an important step on the path to thinking like a biologist ( AAAS, 2011 ). In the context of undergraduate biology teaching, this need not take much time, and it is an effort that is in the service of learners and learning, as well as teachers and teaching. Table 1 provides examples of self-questions that metacognitive undergraduate biology learners might ask in the process of planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning in the context of a single class session, a homework assignment, an exam, or an entire course. While this collection of questions by no means represents the entire landscape of what metacognition could involve, it does provide starting points for faculty who wish to talk with students explicitly about metacognitive strategies. These questions can be shared directly with students and/or embedded into particular assignments. Several examples of how these student self-questions can be explicitly used in teaching a biology course are considered below.

Table 1.

Class session

Active-learning task and/or homework assignment

Quiz or exam

* What strategies will I use to study (e.g., study groups, problem sets, evaluating text figures, challenging myself with practice quizzes, and/or going to office hours and review sessions)?
* How much time do I plan on studying? Over what period of time and for how long each time I sit down do I need to study?
* Which aspects of the course material should I spend more or less time on, based on my current understanding?

Overall course

* In what ways is the teaching in this course supportive of my learning? How could I maximize this?
* In what ways is the teaching in this course not supportive of my learning? How could I compensate for or change this?
* How interested am I in this course? How confident am I in my learning? What could I do to increase my interest and confidence?

Preassessments-Encouraging Students to Examine Their Current Thinking

The importance of instructors knowing what students are thinking about a topic prior to trying to teach them something new has been written about extensively. However, preassessment can also be helpful for the learner and is a wonderful opportunity for promoting metacognition among students. "What do I already know about this topic that could guide my learning?" is an example of a self-question that it at the core of most preassessments used by instructors. It takes no more than a few simple statements by an instructor to transform an existing preassessment prompt-be it a homework assignment, an index card, or a clicker question-into a metacognitive activity for students, directing them not only to complete the task as part of the course, but also to be metacognitive in doing so and to use the information given on the preassessment to help them begin thoughtful planning of how they might approach learning this new idea.

The Muddiest Point-Giving Students Practice in Identifying Confusions

Reflective Journals-Providing a Forum in Which Students Monitor Their Own Thinking

In the case of Josephina, one of the metacognitive strategies that she simply does not seem to possess is to be analytical about what did or did not work well for her in studying for the last exam, and to then use that information in preparing for future exams. Instructors can assign something as simple as a low-stakes, low-points writing assignment after a first exam, asking students to reflect and write a brief letter to their future selves covering: "What about my exam preparation worked well that I should remember to do next time? What did not work so well that I should not do next time or that I should change?" If an instructor assigns such writing, either in conjunction with an exam or as part of a specific reflective writing assignment, he or she is explicitly giving students a strategy for developing metacognitive approaches, as well as practice using that approach in the context of their disciplinary course. To extend this, instructors can also assign a reread of this writing before the next exam and a second writing assignment on how well students followed their own advice to themselves. In addition, students can be asked to share their strategies with fellow students and to identify at least two new exam preparation strategies used by their peers. If such writing about their metacognitive, thinking, and learning strategies is done regularly, students can create a reflective/biologist journal and can be rewarded with some form of credit, as for other course activities.

BUILDING A BIOLOGY CLASSROOM CULTURE GROUNDED IN METACOGNITION

While using specific individual assignments to teach students metacognitive strategies is one explicit approach, there are more subtle ways that metacognition can be integrated into the fabric of any course and become part of the everyday language of both teacher and students. This is particularly useful in helping students to become aware of when it is appropriate to apply their own metacognitive strategies-for example, identifying confusions-that they may have learned through previous assignments. The point at which students have both learned metacognitive strategies and have become aware of when to apply these strategies is hypothetically the point at which they have matured into lifelong learners within their disciplines. Below are several starting points for thinking about how the language and habit of metacognition could become part of everyday classroom culture. In addition, provides some sample prompts that can be used to add a metacognitive aspect to learning activities that may already be in use in your teaching, such as pair discussions after clicker questions, a variety of types of homework assignments, and the ever-present exams and quizzes. Simply adding one additional question or using some of the language in the table in making the assignment can demonstrate to students the value you as an instructor place on their efforts to develop metacognitive habits of mind as a biology student. Below are four general ways that instructors might build a classroom culture that promotes metacognition and conveys that culture to students.

Table 2.

Pair discussion after a clicker question

Active-learning tasks and/or homework assignments (e.g., case studies, concept maps, problem sets)

Preparation for quizzes or exams

Share how you thought about what the question was asking.
Share the process you used to arrive at an answer you wanted to choose.
What was your main reason for choosing your answer, and what were the main reasons you did not choose each of the other answers?
How did your ideas compare with your neighbor's ideas?
What was most confusing to you about this question?
How confident are you in your answer? Why? What else would you need to know to increase your confidence?

Integrating Reflection into Credited Course Work

Integrating reflection into any course can be achieved by a relatively simple tweaking of existing course assignments. In addition to having students respond to homework questions or solve problems, instructors need only add one or more questions that push students to consider their own thinking (see ). These questions can be as simple as "What was most challenging to you about this assignment?" to "What questions arose during your work on this assignment that you had not considered before?" The instructor's decision to make these kinds of questions part of an assignment-and part of the grading scheme for the assignment-can prompt students to bring a more metacognitive stance to their everyday coursework. Similarly, for assignments that involve diagramming or concept mapping, instructors can encourage (or require) students to indicate in their work what questions arose and which concepts they found most confusing. In this more subtle approach, what changes is not the assignment itself, but the nature of the assignment.

Metacognitive Modeling by the Instructor for Students

As a professional, practicing biologist, it can be almost impossible to remember a time when you did not think biologically, to remember the nature of your own biological confusions as a student, and to be able to offer up self-reflective examples of your own transitions in thinking for your students. As researchers, we think metacognitively all the time, reflecting on our current understanding of our research system, what the burning questions are, and how our thinking has changed over the years with new data. Showing students explicitly how you, as a biologist, think procedurally in solving a problem-how you start, how you decide what to do first and then next, how you check your work, how you know when you are done-is one example of metacognitive modeling. A teaching colleague of mine shared that he was perplexed as to why students were unable to make accurate predictions about the proportions of different phenotypes in the offspring from a specific cross, as required in response to a homework question. But when he asked all of the students to do a problem in class one day, he noticed that only a minority of them were drawing a Punnett square. When he asked several students why they did not have pencil and paper out, they said they thought they should just be able to do it mentally. My colleague then went to the stage and proceeded to metacognitively present how he thinks through a problem similar to their homework question. His first step-always, even as a practiced biologist-is to get out a pencil and a piece of paper and to translate the problem into a Punnett square! Showing students how we think about a biology concept, or how biologists more generally have thought about a concept over the history of biology, illustrates how the entire field of biology has changed its collective understanding. For example, what biologists think about how plants grow and build mass has undergone multiple revisions over time. In addition, our collective understanding of how genetic information is transferred from parent to offspring across all species is ripe for analysis of how "thinking like a biologist" looked different in Mendel's time versus the modern era.

ON INSTRUCTOR METACOGNITION AND BIOLOGY TEACHING

We began this exploration of metacognition by considering two contrasting students-Josephina and Maya. Now, imagine that you have the opportunity to talk to two of your biology faculty colleagues about their approaches to teaching. Both are research-active, full professors in biology. Both regularly teach introductory courses for biology majors. Both appear to be genuinely eager to help their students succeed in their biology courses. In your conversation with each of them, you begin by asking them about how their teaching is going this semester. In addition, you ask each of them how they prepare for class each week. Their stories are strikingly different.

Kara expresses dissatisfaction with the students in her upper-division biology course. She thinks that the students are getting worse every year, even though she works harder and harder to bring them more cutting-edge research in the field. She shares that she has committed to updating all of her PowerPoint lectures this semester, even though she already has tenure, and has often stayed up very late the night before to make sure that her slides are really clear. When queried about how she gets insights into how students are thinking, she shares that she has added an additional exam between the mid-term and the final to motivate students to keep up with the reading. She is also very frustrated that no students come to her office hours. She feels like she is doing everything she can to help students understand the material, but they do not seem to be willing to work as hard in a course as she did when she was an undergraduate. She is worried about her student evaluation scores, which have declined over the years, and she thinks it is not fair to be evaluated by students who do not seem to care about their learning.

In contrast, another faculty colleague, Aerial, seeks your input on a new series of clicker questions she has developed as the basis of a classroom activity she is trying out with her students the next day. From prior experience, she knows that few students are able to connect the ideas of photosynthesis with those of climate change, and she wants to start her new unit on transformation of matter and energy with an assessment question that will really get students thinking about their prior ideas. She has changed this unit of her course each time she has taught it over the last several years, based on all the information she has collected from students about their ideas on the topic. She is aware that the more she knows about how students are thinking, the more ideas she has about new things to try in her teaching. She also shares that many of the homework writing assignments students have already submitted before the midnight deadline show that they have identified exactly the confusions she wants to alert them to tomorrow! When you ask her if she is concerned about how students will react to her new clicker-based classroom activity, she is not too worried. She regularly shares with students her own rationale for why she has developed a particular learning activity for them and gets their feedback on it through an index card or homework assignments so that she will have insights for the next time she teaches the same activity.

So, what is different about Kara and Aerial? No doubt many things, but one key difference is their ability as faculty members to be metacognitive about their teaching. Similar to the contrast between Josephina and Maya's abilities to be metacognitive about their learning, there is a difference in the extent to which each of these faculty members is thinking about how they think about their teaching. While instructors no doubt bring a deeply metacognitive approach to their field of scientific research, cultivating a metacognitive lens toward one's teaching does not appear to automatically or easily transfer. However, developing a metacognitive stance toward one's own teaching-thinking about how you think about teaching-can be a wonderfully natural entry point into iteratively changing one's own teaching practice. Self-analysis about one's own ideas about teaching could include: What assumptions do I hold about students? To what extent do I have evidence for those assumptions? Why do I make the instructional decisions that I make? What do I know about teaching? What would I like to learn? What am I confused about? These analyses can also become more specific to particular granularities, ranging from an individual class session to the scope of an entire course. provides some starting points in the form of sample self-questions for faculty that may aid them in becoming more metacognitive about their teaching.

Table 3.

Class session

* What do I notice about how students are behaving during this class session? Why do I think this is happening?
* What language or active-learning strategies am I using that appear to be facilitating learning? impeding learning?
* How is the pace of the class going? What could I do right now to improve the class session?

* How do I think today's class session went? Why do I think that? What evidence do I have?
* How did the ideas of today's class session relate to previous class sessions? To what extent do I think students saw those connections?
* How will what I think about how today's class session went influence my preparations for next time?

Overall course

* Why do I think it's important for students pursuing a variety of careers to learn the ideas in my course? What are my assumptions?
* How does success in this course relate to my students' career goals? How might I reveal these connections to them?
* What do I want students to be able to do by the end of this course? Still be able to do 5 yr later?

* In what ways am I effectively reaching my goals for students through my teaching? How could I expand on these successful strategies?
* In what ways is my approach to teaching in this course not helping students learn? How could I change my teaching strategies to address this?
* How is my approach to teaching this course different from last time I taught it? Why?

Postscript 1: Using Metacognition to Make the Most of Active Learning-Learning from History

As stated above, attention to improving undergraduate biology education is high at present, and active-learning strategies are a central approach among suggested changes ( AAAS, 2011 Ebert-May et al., 2011 Tanner, 2011 ). Metacognition is not generally central, or even included, in discussions and articles about active learning. In fact, the term "active learning" is prominent and often used in the AAAS, 2011 ). One possible difference in the effectiveness of active-learning pedagogies in the hands of different instructors may lie in the extent to which these instructors consider student metacognition when they implement active-learning strategies. ; ). However, what different instructors mean by active learning and what active learning actually looks like in a different classrooms has not been well documented or investigated ( Vision and Change for Undergraduate Biology Education report, whereas "metacognition" does not make an appearance (

During the 1980s, K-12 science education experienced a period of intense focus on hands-on learning, which might be considered parallel to the recent rise in emphasis on active learning in undergraduate biology education. However, there was a general dissatisfaction, with reports that K-12 students were doing a lot of activities but not necessarily very much thinking. The hands-on era in K-12 science education was followed a shift in both the language and emphasis in policy documents to minds-on and inquiry-based learning in the 1990s ( National Research Council, 1996 ). One aspect of this shift in emphasis in K-12 science education reform was an increased emphasis on student metacognition, students thinking about what they were thinking while they were doing, as opposed to just doing hands-on, active things without the thinking. As such, attention to student metacognition may be especially salient at this moment in the history of the undergraduate biology education revolution. To avoid repeating the trajectory of K-12 science education reform, explicit attention to integrating metacognition into undergraduate biology classrooms could help keep a focus on the learning part of active learning.

Postscript 2: On Thinking about Your Thinking about This Article...

Why, in the first place, did you choose to read this feature? Was it the title? The term "metacognition"? What did you already know or think about metacognition before reading this feature? How, if at all, have your ideas changed? What in this article was most intriguing to you? What are you thinking about in terms of how you might use those ideas? What in the article was most confusing? How do you plan to follow up on that to clarify your ideas and learn more? Will you? Why or why not? As you read, what, if anything, came to mind that you already do with your students that may promote their use of metacognitive strategies? Are you thinking about how explicit you are with your students about the thinking strategies and processes that you yourself use as a practicing biologist? What is the most important thought you had in reading this article? Did it even have anything to do with metacognition?

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Learning how to learn cannot be left to students. It must be taught. ( Gall et al., 1990 ) Imagine yourself as the instructor of an introductory undergraduate biology course. Two students from your course independently visit your office the week after the first exam. Both students are biology majors.

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Metacognition in Teaching and Learning paper

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Metacognition in Teaching and Learning paper

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Summarized by Cindy Perras, M.Ed., OCT
Educational Consultant, LDAO

"Efficient learners use metacognitive strategies but students with learning disabilities tend to lack the skills to direct their own learning. However, once they learn the metacognitive strategies that efficient learners use, students with learning disabilities can apply them in many situations."

Description

In order to be effective learners, students must not only use their memory and the language skills they have internalized, they must also develop their own way of learning. Students who "learn to learn" gain control of their learning process and gradually develop the ability to master their mental processes more effectively. A student's inner language is what enables him/her to develop the high-level cognitive skills associated with metacognition.

According to Pierre Paul Gagné et al. (2009):

"Metacognition enables students to be more active in their learning, i.e., to mobilize all of their resources in order to have successful learning experiences. In order to do this, they must know how they learn and be aware of the steps that are followed and the means that are used to acquire knowledge, solve problems, and perform tasks." [Unofficial translation]

According to the LD Online Glossary (2014), metacognition is the process of "thinking about thinking." For example, good readers use metacognition before reading when they clarify their purpose for reading and preview the text.

So in other words, metacognition is the understanding and awareness of one's own mental or cognitive processes. Here are some examples of metacognition:

A student learns about what things help him or her to remember facts, names, and events.

A student learns about his or her own style of learning.

A student learns about which strategies are most effective for solving problems.

Students become increasingly autonomous in their learning as they become aware of their strengths and weaknesses and understand that being successful depends on the effort they make and the strategies they implement. Their ability to regulate their cognitive processes increases accordingly and their self-image improves. Students with LDS can improve their learning capacity through the use of metacognitive strategies.

According to a number of research studies (Brown et al., 1983, Paris et Lindauer, 1982, Paris et al., 1988 ainsi que Persely et al., 1985), when students are able to manage their own performance on a task, they perform better and their learning is more meaningful than when they are not able to manage it.

To paraphrase Edgar Morin (2014), metacognition involves thinking and reflecting before, during, and after a learning task. Metacognition starts when students think about the strategies they will use to perform a task. Metacognition happens when they choose the most effective strategies and decide for themselves whether the outcome of these strategies meets the standards. The time taken to teach a variety of strategies is very important because students must choose strategies for each task they perform.

Implementing Metacognitive Strategies

According to the Inclusive Schools Network (2014), "Metacognitive strategies refers to methods used to help students understand the way they learn; in other words, it means processes designed for students to 'think' about their 'thinking'." Teachers who use metacognitive strategies can positively impact students who have learning disabilities by helping them to develop an appropriate plan for learning information, which can be memorized and eventually routine. As students become aware of how they learn, they will use these processes to efficiently acquire new information, and consequently, become more independent thinkers. Click here to access the Inclusive Schools Network article on metacognitive strategies.

Many metacognitive strategies are appropriate for use in the classroom, for students with and without LDs, including:

Think-Alouds (for reading comprehenshion and problem solving)

Organizational Tools (such as checklists, rubrics, etc. for solving word problems)

Explicit Teacher Modelling (for math instruction)

In the Info Brief, "Learning How to Learn" (The National Collaborative on Workplace and Disability for Youth [NCWD/Youth], 2014), educators are provided with practical suggestions on strategic learning, compensatory techniques, cognitive and metacoginitve strategies, and literacy programs and learning strategies. Table II illustrates the cognitive and metacognitive strategies.
Click here to access the chart as a PDF. Click here to access the document as a PDF.
Printable LD@school Resources

This student worksheet encourages students to reflect on what they know, what they want to know, how they will find out, and what they have learned when learning about a new topic. Click here to download the student worksheet PDF.

This student worksheet that encourages students to reflect on what they know, what they want to know, how they will find out, and what they still need to learn when learning about a new topic. Click here to download the student worksheet PDF.

This Sample Strategy Evaluation Matrix provides educators with a variety of metacognitive strategies that can be used in the classroom. The chart identifies how to use the strategy, when to use the strategy, and describes what it is used for. Click here to access the Sample Strategy Evaluation Matrix.

Additional Resources

LD@school has created a summary which explores the use of metacognitive strategies in mathematics. Click here to open the LD@School research summary on Verbalization in Math Problem Solving.

LD Online is self-described as a leading website on learning disabilities and ADHD. Click here to access the LD Online website.
Click here to read an article on how metacognitive strategy instruction enhances reading comprehension.
The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth produced an Info Brief entitled, "Learning How to Learn: Successful Transition Models for Educators Working with Youth with Learning Disabilities". Click here to open the Info Brief in PDF.

Questia.com is an online journal search engine. Click here to read an excerpt of the article on Metacognitive Strategies for Students with Learning Disabilities. Note: the full article may be accessed by registering for a free trial membership.

References

Gagné, P. Leblanc, N., Rousseau, A. (2009). Apprendre ...une question de stratégies : Développer les habiletés liées aux fonctions exécutives. Montreal: Les Éditions de la Chenelière.

Fogarty, R. (1994). How to teach for metacognition. Palatine, IL: IRI/Skylight Publishing.

LD Online Glossary (2014). Retrieved July 10, 2014. Accessedfrom http://www.ldonline.org/glossary#M

Learning How to Learn: Successful Transition Models for Educators Working with Youth with Learning Disabilities (2014). Retrieved July 10, 2014 from http://www.ncwd-youth.info/information-brief/learning-how-to-learn

Lerner, J., & Kline, F. (2006). Learning disabilities and related disorders: Characteristics and teaching strategies (10th Ed). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Pohlman, C. Adaptation by Côté, C. (2011). Aider l'élève en difficulté d'apprentissage : Guide pratique pour les parents et les enseignants. Montreal: Les Éditions de la Chenelière.

Winebrenner, S. Adaptation by Demers, D. (2008). Enseigner aux élèves en difficulté en classe régulière. Montreal: Les Éditions de la Chenelière.

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Metacognitive Strategies or "Thinking About My Thinking"

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Summarized by Cindy Perras, M.Ed., OCT Educational Consultant, LDAO "Efficient learners use metacognitive strategies but students with learning disabilities tend to lack the skills to direct their own learning. However, once they learn the metacognitive strategies that efficient learners use, students with learning disabilities can apply them in many situations."

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Our brains are wired to forget, but there are research-backed strategies you can use to make your teaching stick.

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Teachers have long known that rote memorization can lead to a superficial grasp of material that is quickly forgotten. But new research in the field of neuroscience is starting to shed light on the ways that brains are wired to forget-highlighting the importance of strategies to retain knowledge and make learning stick.

In a recent article published in the journal Neuron, neurobiologists Blake Richards and Paul Frankland challenge the predominant view of memory, which holds that forgetting is a process of loss-the gradual washing away of critical information despite our best efforts to retain it. According to Richards and Frankland, the goal of memory is not just to store information accurately but to "optimize decision-making" in chaotic, quickly changing environments. In this model of cognition, forgetting is an evolutionary strategy, a purposeful process that runs in the background of memory, evaluating and discarding information that doesn't promote the survival of the species.

"From this perspective, forgetting is not necessarily a failure of memory," explain Richards and Frankland in the study. "Rather, it may represent an investment in a more optimal mnemonic strategy."

The Forgetting Curve

We often think of memories as books in a library, filed away and accessed when needed. But they're actually more like spiderwebs, strands of recollection distributed across millions of connected neurons. When we learn something new-when a teacher delivers a fresh lesson to a student, for example-the material is encoded across these neural networks, converting the experience into a memory.

Forgetting is almost immediately the nemesis of memory, as psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered in the 1880s. Ebbinghaus pioneered landmark research in the field of retention and learning, observing what he called the forgetting curve, a measure of how much we forget over time. In his experiments, he discovered that without any reinforcement or connections to prior knowledge, information is quickly forgotten-roughly 56 percent in one hour, 66 percent after a day, and 75 percent after six days.

So what can be done to preserve the hard work of teaching? After all, evolutionary imperatives-which prune our memories of extraneous information-don't always neatly align with the requirements of curriculum or the demands of the Information Age. Learning the times tables doesn't avail when running from lions, in other words, but in the modern world that knowledge has more than proved its mettle.

The Persistence of Memory

The same neural circuitry appears to be involved in forgetting and remembering. If that is properly understood, students and teachers can adopt strategies to reduce memory leaks and reinforce learning.

MIT neuroscientists, led by Richard Cho, explain the mechanisms for synaptic strengthening in a 2015 article, also published in Neuron. When neurons are frequently fired, synaptic connections are strengthened; the opposite is true for neurons that are rarely fired. Known as synaptic plasticity, this explains why some memories persist while others fade away. Repeatedly accessing a stored but fading memory-like a rule of geometry or a crucial historical fact-rekindles the neural network that contains the memory and encodes it more deeply.

Researchers have also learned that not all new memories are created equal. For example, here are two sets of letters to remember:

For readers of English, the second set of letters is more memorable-the more connections neurons have to other neurons, the stronger the memory. The seven letters in NPFXOSK appear random and disjointed, while ORANGES benefits from its existing, deeply encoded linguistic context. The word oranges also invokes sensory memory, from the image of an orange to its smell, and perhaps even conjures other memories of oranges in your kitchen or growing on a tree. You remember by layering new memories on the crumbling foundations of older ones.

5 Teacher Strategies

When students learn a new piece of information, they make new synaptic connections. Two scientifically based ways to help them retain learning is by making as many connections as possible-typically to other concepts, thus widening the "spiderweb" of neural connections-but also by accessing the memory repeatedly over time.

Which explains why the following learning strategies, all tied to research conducted within the past five years, are so effective:

1. Peer-to-peer explanations: When students explain what they've learned to peers, fading memories are reactivated, strengthened, and consolidated. This strategy not only increases retention but also encourages active learning (Sekeres et al., 2016).

2. The spacing effect: Instead of covering a topic and then moving on, revisit key ideas throughout the school year. Research shows that students perform better academically when given multiple opportunities to review learned material. For example, teachers can quickly incorporate a brief review of what was covered several weeks earlier into ongoing lessons, or use homework to re-expose students to previous concepts (Carpenter et al., 2012; Kang, 2016).

3. Frequent practice tests: Akin to regularly reviewing material, giving frequent practice tests can boost long-term retention and, as a bonus, help protect against stress, which often impairs memory performance. Practice tests can be low stakes and ungraded, such as a quick pop quiz at the start of a lesson or a trivia quiz on Kahoot, a popular online game-based learning platform. Breaking down one large high-stakes test into smaller tests over several months is an effective approach (Adesope, Trevisan, & Sundararajan, 2017; Butler, 2010; Karpicke, 2016).

4. Interleave concepts: Instead of grouping similar problems together, mix them up. Solving problems involves identifying the correct strategy to use and then executing the strategy. When similar problems are grouped together, students don't have to think about what strategies to use-they automatically apply the same solution over and over. Interleaving forces students to think on their feet, and encodes learning more deeply (Rohrer, 2012; Rohrer, Dedrick, & Stershic, 2015).

5. Combine text with images: It's often easier to remember information that's been presented in different ways, especially if visual aids can help organize information. For example, pairing a list of countries occupied by German forces during World War II with a map of German military expansion can reinforce that lesson. It's easier to remember what's been read and seen, instead of either one alone (Carney & Levin, 2002; Bui & McDaniel, 2015).

So even though forgetting starts as soon as learning happens-as Ebbinghaus's experiments demonstrate-research shows that there are simple and effective strategies to help make learning stick.

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Why Students Forget-and What You Can Do About It

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Our brains are wired to forget, but there are research-backed strategies you can use to make your teaching stick. ©Shutterstock.com/Lightspring Teachers have long known that rote memorization can lead to a superficial grasp of material that is quickly forgotten.

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Attention and Memory :: DNA Learning Center

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Attention is important for several aspects of learning and memory storage. When you learn something you encode the information and that itself requires attention. But in addition, recall of memory also requires attention. So, attention is absolutely critical.

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The benefits of a good night's sleep - Shai Marcu

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Cite this guide: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom's Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/.

Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information

The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You're free to share, reproduce, or otherwise use it, as long as you attribute it to the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. For a higher resolution version, visit our Flickr account and look for the "Download this photo" icon.

Background Information

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known as Bloom's Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as "skills and abilities," with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Here are the authors' brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( Handbook One, pp. 201-207):

Knowledge "involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting."

Comprehension "refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications."

Application refers to the "use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations."

Analysis represents the "breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit."

Synthesis involves the "putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole."

Evaluation engenders "judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes."

The 1984 edition of Handbook One is available in the CFT Library in Calhoun 116. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

Barbara Gross Davis, in the "Asking Questions" chapter of Tools for Teaching, also provides examples of questions corresponding to the six categories. This chapter is not available in the online version of the book, but Tools for Teaching is available in the CFT Library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom's Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of "educational objectives" (in Bloom's original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These "action words" describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge:

Remember

Understand

Interpreting

Exemplifying

Classifying

Summarizing

Inferring

Comparing

Explaining

Apply

Analyze

Differentiating

Organizing

Attributing

Evaluate

Create

In the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the basis of these six cognitive processes, but its authors created a separate taxonomy of the types of knowledge used in cognition:

Factual Knowledge

Knowledge of terminology

Knowledge of specific details and elements

Conceptual Knowledge

Knowledge of classifications and categories

Knowledge of principles and generalizations

Knowledge of theories, models, and structures

Procedural Knowledge

Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms

Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods

Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures

Metacognitive Knowledge

Strategic Knowledge

Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge

Self-knowledge

Mary Forehand from the University of Georgia provides a guide to the revised version giving a brief summary of the revised taxonomy and a helpful table of the six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge.

Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy?

The authors of the revised taxonomy suggest a multi-layered answer to this question, to which the author of this teaching guide has added some clarifying points:

1. Objectives (learning goals) are important to establish in a pedagogical interchange so that teachers and students alike understand the purpose of that interchange.

2. Organizing objectives helps to clarify objectives for themselves and for students.

3. Having an organized set of objectives helps teachers to:

"plan and deliver appropriate instruction";

"design valid assessment tasks and strategies";and

"ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives."

Citations are from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

Further Information

Section III of A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, entitled "The Taxonomy in Use," provides over 150 pages of examples of applications of the taxonomy. Although these examples are from the K-12 setting, they are easily adaptable to the university setting.

Section IV, "The Taxonomy in Perspective," provides information about 19 alternative frameworks to Bloom's Taxonomy, and discusses the relationship of these alternative frameworks to the revised Bloom's Taxonomy.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Patricia Armstrong Print Version Cite this guide: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom's Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/. Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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AAMC Leadership Development Opportunities

Each year the College of Medicine supports eligible faculty members to apply for attendance at AAMC leadership development programs. From the pool of internal applicants, one will be chosen to formally apply to the AAMC program.

Internal Application Process

The applicant must submit the following:

Updated CV in the College of Medicine format

Statement from the candidate that includes:

Description of present responsibilities

Accomplishments to date

2- and 5-year goals

Expectations for how the program will help her achieve those goals

Mentorship plan for the applicant

Letter of support from the department chair

Complete application packets in the form of a single PDF file should be sent to CoM.FAFD@drexel.edu. Do not send items piecemeal; they will not be considered.

If you have questions, please contact Michele Taylor at 215.762.4661 or mt475@drexel.edu

Program Opportunities

Early Career Women Faculty
2020 Seminar: February 2020
Westin Westminster
Westminster, Colorado

Women faculty at the assistant professor level

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faculty development; ensuring faculty vitality; professional development; office of faculty affairs & professional development; drexel university college of medicine

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Faculty Professional Development - College of Medicine

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Each year the College of Medicine supports eligible faculty members to apply for attendance at AAMC leadership development programs. From the pool of internal applicants, one will be chosen to formally apply to the AAMC program.

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Drexel Women Faculty Association

The Drexel Women Faculty Association supports all women faculty at the University, including women at all academic ranks and all colleges, schools, and disciplines. The mission of the group is to improve and enrich the professional environment for women faculty at Drexel and to ensure that the University continues and strengthens its commitment to the success of its women faculty members.

The group will meet monthly to discuss topics of interest to women faculty, including issues relevant to their professional and personal lives, the University community, and work-life balance. All faculty who identify as women are welcome to join.

Faculty Co-Facilitators

Caroline Schauer, PhD, Professor, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

Michelle L. Rogers, PhD, Associate Professor, Information Science, College of Computing & Informatics

2018-19 Calendar of Events

November 13, 2018: Meet & Greet

January 23, 2019, 11-12:30: Negotiation Tips & Practice

February 25, 2019, 2-3:30: Sexual Harassment in Academia

March 11, 2019, 1-2:30: Women's History Month - Speaker

April 12, 2019, 11-12:30: Mentorship

May 22, 2019, 1-2:30: TBD

Resources on Gender in Higher Education

Welcome to the Gender in Higher Education resource page. This page is designed to provide information for all Drexel faculty members about issues in the academy related to gender.

Books and Articles

Jaschik, S. (2015, April 20). Which Groups Are Favored? Inside Higher Ed.

Sarsons, H. (2015). Gender differences in recognition of group work (Working Paper). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Mason, M. (2014, March 3). How to level the playing field for women in science. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ward, K., & Eddy, P. L., (2013 December 9). Women and academic leadership: Leaning out. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Jaschik, S. (2013, July 23). Departments without women. Inside Higher Ed.

Mason, M. (2013, June 17). In the ivory tower, men only. Slate.com

Myers. J., Newman, J. Dunn, S., Zweifler, S. (2013, June 9). The look of leadership in the ivy league. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Coontz, S. (2013, June 1). The triumph of the working mother. The New York Times.

Flaherty, C. (2013, June 6). The mom penalty. Inside Higher Ed.

Jaschik, S. (2013, June 6). Mothers in academia. Inside Higher Ed.

Chang, K. (2012, September 24). Bias persists for women of science, a study finds. The New York Times.

Misra, J., Hickes Lundquist, J., Holmes, E., Agiomavritis, S. (2011). The ivory ceiling of service work. Academe, 97(1).

ASA Press Releases. (2011, October 25). Study: Women aren't becoming engineers because of confidence issues. American Sociological Association.

Jaschik, S. (2011, January 12). The gender gap on service. Inside Higher Ed.

Moltz, D. (2010, February 23). The B-school glass ceiling. Inside Higher Ed.

Fleetwood, J. (2010). Family-friendly campuses plan for mother nature. Women in Higher Education 19(12), 35.

Additional Resources and Bibliographies

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Gender in Higher Education - Office of Faculty Affairs

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The Drexel Women Faculty Association supports all women faculty at the University, including women at all academic ranks and all colleges, schools, and disciplines. The mission of the group is to improve and enrich the professional environment for women faculty at Drexel and to ensure that the University continues and strengthens its commitment to the success of its women faculty members.

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This week, the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), in conjunction with the National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), a partner with WebAIM, jointly offer this blog on a topic of national interest to education communities. Thank you to Cyndi Rowland, Executive Director, WebAIM; National Center on Disability and Access to Education, for guest authoring today's post! Cyndi is here to discuss the rise in complaints regarding accessibility of web and digital materials and the nine common action items from analysis of complaint letters and resolution letters from the Office of Civil Rights. We hope these action items will be a starting point for institutions looking to ensure accessibility of their educational materials and resources.
Enjoy the day and enjoy the read,
In recent years, education entities have seen a rise in complaints coming from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) specifically on the accessibility of web and digital materials. I recently heard of one advocate who has initiated almost 1,500 complaint letters into OCR. The momentum is not likely to decrease, even as the current administration shifts some funding away from these offices. The advocacy groups, and the attorneys, are still out there working to strengthen accessibility for their constituents. As a team of technical assistance providers on this issue, both WebAIM and NCDAE see a fair number of districts, boards of education, colleges, and universities who need to respond to complaints or to a formal resolution letter from OCR about the inaccessibility of their web content. When this happens, they are under the gun to make fixes, and make them fast.

About a year and a half ago, a colleague from the California Community Colleges Online shared a unique activity he had performed with OCR complaint and resolution letters. He engaged in a content analysis on letters he had seen come out of the California regional office in San Francisco. He shared 6 components that were common across these letters at the time (Sean Keegan, personal communication, 2016).

As WebAIM and NCDAE have performed technical assistance on this topic with several entities across K-20 we took a similar tactic. Performing a content analysis on complaint letters or resolution letters yielded a common set of action items that should be shared more broadly. While our list contains 9 items, and not 6, we recognize that regional offices write letters unique to their region.

We have shared this list in the past via presentations, panels, and webinars. Yet the opportunity to host a joint blog with WCET and OLC is a perfect opportunity to get the message out broadly to education communities seeking focus on their accessibility efforts.

Below are the 9 items we routinely see in letters from OCR:

1. Designate a person to coordinate IT accessibility. Accessibility across the organization is a complex process with many moving parts. As such it is vital to have an individual who, as part of their role, is responsible to coordinate accessibility activities and engage in continuous improvement on behalf of the enterprise. They can coordinate and document committee meetings, identify and track issues, locate needed resources, recommend budgets, and oversee the process. They can also provide annual reporting. Moreover, this is the person who can speak to broad issues of how much progress has been made, and where you continue to be most vulnerable.

2. Define a policy specific to IT accessibility. Organizational policy is critical to sustained progress in accessibility. Far too long, local champions made headway without placing the work inside of a policy realm. When those individuals left the organization, the work often fell to the wayside. Inculcating a specific policy enables work, and budgets to be aligned with that policy. Finally, it is also a manifestation of accessibility as a priority and a value across the enterprise. You can read more about typical elements of a policy on the NCDAE site

3. Provide a public link to an accessibility page and describe the process for submitting complaints and feedback. Having a place to communicate your commitment to, and work toward, accessibility is important for the community that needs access. Yet, you have to remember that your journey towards accessibility will take years. Because of this, it is vital that users with disabilities have a place they can go to submit feedback or a complaint. This enables you to make a rapid (i.e., within a day or less) fix for them. It is vital that where you link the accessibility and feedback page is itself accessible; of course, the accessibility and feedback page must be accessible as well. Some letters require this notice or link be placed on every page rather than in one place. When this happens, organizations choose to put it in their footer. If you go this route, be careful that the template itself is accessible and individuals would be able to get to the footer to use the intended link.

4. Develop a Plan for New Content. This is essentially your implementation plan. Drawing a line in the sand, what is your specific plan for the future to make sure your content is accessible? This should be in contrast to what is happening now. This is a complex endeavor and is often done in conjunction with policy development. NCDAE has resources helpful in writing an implementation plan and many others, including the University of Montana, publically share their strategy.

5. Develop a Corrective Action Plan. OCR has been quite clear that they don't just want to know what you are going to do to assure that no new inaccessible content is added to your site, but what are you going to do about the inaccessible content you have right now? There are many ways organizations are addressing the need for a Corrective Action Plan. Some plan to fix it all on a specific timeline and include this in their implementation plan (above, in item 4). Some identify what will be fixed and what will be placed as an archival element in a separate part of the website. Everything but the archive is then fixed on a specific timeline. If you do this, know that archival documents cannot be edited or updated in any way. If they are, you must make them accessible and they lose their archival designation. Also, you need to have a process in place to address any accessibility requests about your archival content; these requests must be addressed in a timely way (i.e., rule of thumb, under a day is best but more than 3 days could create trouble). Finally, some have constituted a rapid response team to address any request for accessibility of existing content within a day during the period where they transition to new accessible content. These individuals are given an administrative blessing to drop whatever they are doing to address accessibility requests that come in. They are also given whatever resources they need to get the job done. It seems like the IT equivalent of a SWAT or SEAL team who could be deployed at a moment's notice. A good solution only if you can truly constitute your staff and their assignments in such a fashion.

6. Define a process for evaluating accessibility as part of procurement. Educational organizations procure many things that are used online. Some of these are purchased (e.g., the LMS of the organization), but some procurement is free and simply pulled in for use (e.g., GoogleDocs for collaborative work), or developed internally (e.g., open education resources for online chemistry lab activities), or even selected but the low dollar amount puts them below a purchasing threshold for review (e.g., a $50 history curriculum put out by a professional organization). Making sure accessibility is part of any organizational plan to procure, develop, use, or maintain is vital. The first rule when you want to get yourself out of a hole is to "just stop digging". Continuing to bring inaccessible items into your enterprise for which you have accessibility responsibility creates vulnerability you do not need. It also shifts the responsibility away from the vendor or creator. At the end of the day we all want accessible products we can select to use. NCDAE has an article on the criticality of accessibility in procurement. PEATWorks publishes some great resources on procurement as well. Making sure you have accessibility requirements in all RFPs and all contract language will be critical as you turn this around.

7. Perform a technology audit on accessibility. Certainly, if you want to know where your efforts are taking you, you must first understand where you are now. Performing an audit will give you a sense of how localized or widespread issues of accessibility are for you, and the types of issues you will need to prepare to address. Moreover, the data can be helpful as you create your implementation plans (e.g., you may choose to first fix highly visited public or student-facing pages or large courses). It can also be helpful as you look at how you will fix some issues (e.g. if 5 errors appear in your web template, fixing those will positively affect thousands of pages simultaneously). Audits are typically performed on an annual basis yet some large organizations perform them in smaller units across the enterprise throughout the year with a larger sweep once a year. Be aware, however, that NO automated tool can fully identify accessibility issues. Not all errors can be programmatically determined with today's heuristics. WebAIM and NCDAE share a recommendation that you should consider a blend of human-evaluation along with broader automated samples. The first should give you issues of depth, the second should help you understand issues of breadth. Both are useful.

8. Specifically seek out feedback from those with disabilities. While you have a mechanism for collecting complaints and fielding issues as they come along (i.e., See item 3 above), solicit user feedback. This shows that you are being both proactive as well as appropriately reactive. Make sure to do this across those with different types of disabilities. Find individuals that experience different types of access issues. They will most likely be persons with (1) vision problems including those who are blind, have low vision, or are color blind, (2) hearing problems including those who are deaf or have poor hearing, (3) fine motor problems such that they have a difficult (or impossible time) using a mouse or keyboard, (4) cognitive or learning disabilities, (5) multiple disabilities, such as someone who is deaf-blind, or someone who has cerebral palsy and is deaf, and finally, (6) while you may have individuals with photoepilepsy, you would not want to test blinking or marquee elements on these individuals, as it could cause a seizure.

9. Provide training to individuals consistent with their role as they create digital materials or web pages. Today, training is required well beyond web developers. That is because, quite simply, web content is being created by many. For example, a faculty member who creates a PowerPoint presentation and uploads it into the LMS has created web content. This must be accessible. The staff member who creates a PDF on employment and links it to the HR website has created web content. This must be accessible. In both instances these individuals need to understand their obligation, and be given appropriate training and support to fulfill their new role. Of course, those individuals who have technical jobs are most likely developing or creating web designs, applications, or content as well. Finally, others may require training too. This would need to be consistent with their role and your overall plans for accessibility (e.g., procurement staff, contract staff).

The OCR letters we have seen require the organization to initially complete the issues above in about 18 months once approved. However, if you were to make a decision now to address these common OCR requests, you would create greater control and flexibility over the process. It is worth it in the long run to take this important matter into your own hands as soon as possible.

Cyndi Rowland,
Executive Director, WebAIM
National Center on Disability and Access to Education

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Steps You Can Take Now to Address Accessibility at Your Institution

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This week, WCET and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), in conjunction with the National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), a partner with WebAIM, jointly offer this blog on a topic of national interest to education communities. Thank you to Cyndi Rowland, Executive Director, WebAIM; National Center on Disability and Access to Education,...

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Evaluate effectiveness and identify areas of opportunity at the course-level

A key aspect of successful online programs is the quality of the courses themselves.

The OLC OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard i s a course-level quality rubric for reviewing and improving the instructional design and accessibility of online coursesbased on online best practices. Thanks to a new partnership with the State University of New York, OLC members now have an easy way to review and improve quality in the online classroom.

With 50 instructional design and accessibility standards integrated into the rubric, it can be used to identify and target aspects of online courses for improvement. The rubric includes the following categories: Course Overview and Information, Course Technology and Tools, Design and Layout, Content and Activities, Interaction, Assessment and Feedback. This scorecard was recently updated to meet the evolving needs of instructors, instructional designers, and administrators as they work to showcase the ways they meet Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) standards.

We understand that finding the time and resources to complete this important work can be a challenge. The experts at OLC can help with yours.

Here's how it works:

OLC's experts work with your university to complete the initial review using the OLC OSCQR Course Design Review rubric

Your Institution identifies action items for continuous improvement based on the result

Your university can earn an OLC Certification to validate the quality of your online or blended course(s)

These results provide key information that allows for targeted improvements, thus improving the quality and efficacy of your online or blended courses.

This scorecard is available for free. Download it now.
Would you like OLC's help with your review? Please contact us at consulting@onlinelearning-c.org. Become an OLC Member

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OLC Quality Scorecard - Improve the Quality of Online Learning & Teaching

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The OLC OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard is a course-level quality rubric for reviewing and improving the instructional design and accessibility of online courses based on online best practices.

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QUality Matters Specific Review Standards

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QUality Matters Specific Review Standards

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California Community Colleges Course Design Rubric

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California Community Colleges Course Design Rubric

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Conexiones: The Learning Sciences Platform

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Debunking Neuromyths: Transform Your Teaching Practice Today!

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Teaching Elements | Teaching & Learning Services | RIT

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Neurosciences on the Internet contains a searchable and browsable index of neuroscience resources available on the World Wide Web and other parts of the Internet. Neurobiology, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science sites and information on human neurological diseases are covered.

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Test Your Brain: Bust the Myths About Educational Neuroscience

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Educational neuroscience is a new and rapidly changing field, and numerous myths have percolated up through the years, based on unsubstantiated studies, findings taken out of context, and plain old snake-oil salesmen.

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National Center on Disability and Access to Education

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NCDAE works on policy, research, training and technical assistance, and dissemination of information. NCDAE accomplishes its purpose through an affiliate network of over 500 national and international partners in education, business and industry, and government.

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"Cheat sheets" for Word and Pp accesibility

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"Cheat sheets" for Word and Pp accesibility

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NCDAE Blog - New Cheatsheets for Word and PowerPoint 2016

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NCDAE has provided free "Cheatsheets" to accompany training initiatives for almost a decade. These have been developed to provide support to less-technical individuals who want to develop more accessible materials. We have just posted 4 new Cheatsheets on our site for the following tools:

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By emphasizing interpersonal connection in the design process, instructional designers can foster stronger relationships among students and faculty in digital learning environments.

Credit: Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock.com © 2019

As at many colleges and universities across the nation, the teaching and learning landscape at William & Mary, a midsized liberal arts institution, is rapidly evolving. Online and hybrid programs are being woven throughout the William & Mary experience at such a fast pace that we have had to stop and ask ourselves what exactly we want that experience to be.

As a continuation of our work on a contextualized approach to the digital learning environment, William & Mary's University eLearning Initiatives created a new model of faculty development for online course design. The model deliberately cultivates human-centered digital learning by emphasizing connection, which we know to be difficult to foster within digital environments without intentional design. The importance of human connection has been reaffirmed through new university president Katherine Rowe's Thinking Forward campaign, from which the theme "cultivating connections" emerged as a hallmark of the William & Mary experience. We also know from the cognitive sciences that learning is fundamentally social and that social relationships activate neural pathways.

The Human-Centered Student Experience

A human-centered approach to instructional design takes into account the relationships we hope faculty will cultivate with their students online, as well as the relationships we cultivate with instructors as we teach them about online pedagogy. In our online courses, we strive to cultivate faculty-student and student-student relationships that are similarly dynamic as those for which our brick and mortar courses are well known. We know that in a digital context, these relationships require intentional design and implementation to be achieved. As such, we have outlined a list of attributes of effective online instruction that research demonstrates can nurture these relationships and interweave them throughout our hybrid faculty development modules. These include social presence, instructor presence, community building, and respect for students as partners in the learning process.

The Human-Centered Instructor Experience

Throughout our faculty development seminar, we emphasize getting to know instructors as individual learners, and we seek to develop self-efficacy in their ability to teach online. We contextually situate our approach using the four domains highlighted by Palloff and Pratt as key components of faculty development for online teaching: personal, pedagogy, content, and technology. Leveraging our understanding of instructors and their individual relationships to pedagogy, content, and technology helps us more adeptly assess implications for instructional practice. We begin this process of understanding through an intake interview in which we become familiar with instructors, their content, and their beliefs about knowledge construction and teaching practices.

Our team then considers the level of online experience an instructor brings to the table. This helps establish the instructor's perceived comfort level with using digital tools, as well as which technological and pedagogical skills they may need to further develop. Individuals may reside in any one of the five phases of online faculty development, as outlined by Palloff and Pratt:

1. Visitor: occasionally uses digital tools in face-to-face courses

2. Novice: consistently uses digital tools to enhance face-to-face courses

3. Apprentice: has taught online for one or two terms

4. Insider: has taught more than two semesters online

5. Master: has taught online for multiple terms and designed several online courses

Faculty development for online learning is both an individual and iterative process where one-size-fits-all approaches aren't likely to work. We don't expect mastery in an instructor's first year teaching a course, nor do we impose novice content and training upon faculty who have progressed to another phase in development (see figure 1).

Figure 1. The four domains and five phases of online faculty development, as highlighted by Palloff and Pratt

In addition to considering faculty experience, we rely heavily on adult learning theory throughout our design process to drive many of our instructional decisions for development modules. When planning faculty development experiences, we take into account the following major principles:

1. Adults learn by building new knowledge upon a foundation of previous knowledge and experience, learning best when their experience is acknowledged.

2. Adults prefer active over passive learning and are most satisfied when they are able to directly apply what they are learning.

3. Adults value autonomy and self-directed learning.

4. Adults aren't likely to fully participate in learning experiences that are not meaningful to them.

How does this translate to faculty development for online instructors? We honor the unique experience of each person by offering individual choice in learning content as well as one-on-one support. Additionally, we use cycles of learn, do, reflect so that faculty first have the opportunity to acquire new content and skills within a hybrid environment; then can try to apply them in our face-to-face sessions; and finally reflect in order to further direct their own learning.

Faculty Development in Situ: ReVISION Bootcamp 2019

Our ReVISION Bootcamp is aimed at revising current online/hybrid offerings and is geared toward instructors in the apprentice, insider, and mastery phases of faculty development. This means they have taught at least one online course with us the previous summer. This year, we began the week by asking faculty to reflect on their online courses from the previous summer, specifically considering the following:

What about the course worked well? Which of those things would you want to maintain throughout this next iteration?

How might the course be improved? Are there elements that frustrated you or that you noticed could have worked better for your students?

What are some ways in which you can "level-up" your course to make it even more engaging, effective, rigorous, etc.?

From this reflection, we asked instructors to create a 50-word "vision statement" to serve as an impetus for driving the changes they hoped to make to their courses heading into summer 2019. We then presented instructors with the Quality Matters assessments for their courses, a rubric our team uses to ensure high standards for online courses. Using the newly created vision statement alongside the QM review that we had already discussed with instructors, we then asked faculty to articulate and prioritize six to nine attainable goals they thought they could achieve within the three-day bootcamp.

Learn

Using these goals as guideposts, we directed faculty members to brief instructional videos we created for the bootcamp based on the most common concerns observed from our online course assessments and asked individual instructors to choose which modules of instruction they found most beneficial to help achieve their workshop goals. Videos covered topics including course organization, articulating alignment of learning objectives, and simple accessibility strategies such as captioning and including alt text.

Do

As instructors learned from the modules they chose and revised their courses in face-to-face workshop sessions, we were available to help in a variety of capacities, whether that meant assisting with alignment of course objectives to module objectives, offering suggestions for creating a greater sense of presence in the course, creating captions for accessible videos, or recording new instructional content in the studio.

Reflect

Before lunch and at the end of each day, instructors reflected on their goals and achievements, setting new goals for the following day. They also had the opportunity to engage in a peer feedback protocol, where they navigated a colleague's course in order to offer suggestions and/or congenially steal ideas.

This structure afforded us the ability to meet the instructors' needs with various levels of experience while connecting them to colleagues, resources, and support to achieve their goals. In this way, we centered the learning experience around the individual rather than the group, maximizing our interactions and the growth of each faculty member throughout the bootcamp.

This post is part of the 2019 ELI Key Issues series, which focuses on the top five teaching and learning issues as cited in the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's recent community survey.

Katalin Wargo is an Instructional Design Manager at University eLearning Initiatives and a doctoral student in the School of Education at William & Mary.

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a human-centered approach to empowering faculty for excellence in online course design

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A Human-Centered Approach to Empowering Faculty for Excellence in Online Course Design

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By emphasizing interpersonal connection in the design process, instructional designers can foster stronger relationships among students and faculty in digital learning environments. As at many colleges and universities across the nation, the teaching and learning landscape at William & Mary, a midsized liberal arts institution, is rapidly evolving.