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Info about the brain

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Your gateway to responsible information about the brain

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Charlie Rose

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Collections - The Brain Series - Charlie Rose

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Hand-picked, featured collections of interviews on CharlieRose.com

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The Human Memory - what it is, how it works and how it can go wrong

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The Human Memory - what is memory, how does memory work, how can memory can go wrong

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5 Part Series

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Infographic

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Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

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Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predicto…

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What happens in your brain when you pay attention

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What happens in your brain when you pay attention

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Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar: What happens in your brain when you pay attention?

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Attention isn't just about what we focus on -- it's also about what our brains filter out. By investigating patterns in the brain as people try to focus, computational neuroscientist Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar hopes to build computer models that can be used to treat ADHD and help those who have lost the ability to communicate.

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Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness

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Every morning we wake up and regain consciousness -- that is a marvelous fact -- but what exactly is it that we regain? Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio uses this simple question to give us a glimpse into how our brains create our sense of self.

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Memory, Attention, and Distraction [Internet]. Salt Lake City (UT): Genetic Science Learning Center; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 11] Available from https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/memory/

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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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Learning and Memory - Queensland Brain Institute - University of Queensland

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Queensland Brain Institute Queensland Brain Institute

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Who Are We?

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My stroke of insight | Jill Bolte Taylor

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After Watching this Video, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same

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After Watching this Video, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same

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Neuroplasticity and Learning

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After watching this, your brain will not be the same | Lara Boyd | TEDxVancouver

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The Impact of Mindfulness Training on Brain Plasticity and Cognition

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The Impact of Mindfulness Training on Brain Plasticity and Cognition

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Dr. Sara Lazar: The Impact of Mindfulness Training on Brain Plasticity and Cognition

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Mobile Apps

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Database of educational and workforce mobile apps for all devices, grade levels, college, and careers in over 150 program areas; PreK-Careers

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Kathy Shrock

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Assessment of student mastery of content takes many forms. This pages includes support materials for assessments that work with the Common Core State Standards and rubrics for many different assessment products. It also contains some information on the creation of rubrics and assessment in general.
If you find a link that is not working, please let me know the title and I will fix it. Thank you!

Common Core State Standards rubrics

1. K-5 rubrics for writing standards: K 1 2 3 4 5 (more)

2. Text-based writing rubrics K-12

3. Checklist for critical areas in K-2 math

4. Common Core checklists K-6

5. EQuIP rubric for lessons & units: Math

6. EQuIP rubric for lessons & units: ELA

7. EQuIP rubric for lessons & units: ELA (K-2)

8. Grammar & mechanics self-assessment rubric​

9. Multimedia rubric for projects to inform

10. PARCC analytic and narrative writing (3) (4) (5)

11. PARCC analytic and narrative writing (6) (7) (8)

12. PARCC analytic and narrative writing (9) (10) (11)

13. PARCC PLDs: ELA all grades

14. PARCC PLDs: Math all grades

15. Rubrics for evaluating OER resources 4 | 5

16. Writing: Content rubric, one passage (Gr.3)

17. Writing: Content rubric, two passages (Gr.3)

18. Writing: Content rubric, one passage (Gr.4-8)

19. Writing: Content rubric, two passages (Gr.4-8)

20. Writing: Informative rubric (Grades 3 | 4 | 5)

21. Writing: Narrative rubric (Grades 3 | 4 | 5)

22. Writing: Opinion rubric (Grades 3 | 4 | 5)

23. Writing: Style rubric (Gr. 3-8)

24. Writing: High school style rubric 1 & 2

Presentation rubrics from BIE: CCSS

Student Web page rubrics

1. Group project Web page rubric

2. Personal Web site rubric

3. Rubric for evaluating WebQuests

4. Rubric for classroom Web pages

5. Rubric for student Web pages

6. Student designed Web page rubric

7. Student Web page rubric

Student research self-assessment rubrics & information

1. Research project self-assessment

2. Research project: Student self-assessment

3. Student self-assessment article

4. Self-assessment rubric for research process/project

5. Evaluating the research process article

6. Research paper reflection questionnaire

7. How to write a reflection paper

S ubject-Specific and General Rubrics

Large rubric collections and information

1. Authentic assessment and rubrics

2. Benchmark assessment rubrics (K-12)

3. Rubric to assess a rubric   1 | 2 | 3

4. Rubric gallery

5. Rubric tutorial

6. Rubrics from Read, Write, and Think

7. Teacher-created rubrics for assessment

8. Understanding rubrics

Collaboration rubrics

1. Collaboration rubric

2. Collaboration rubric: Grades 6-12

3. Discussion rubric for an online class

4. K-2 teamwork rubric

5. Online discussion board rubric

6. Primary teamwork self-evaluation rubric: K-2

7. Teamwork self-evaluation rubric: Grades 3-6

General and subject-specific rubrics

1. Artificial intelligence design rubric

2. Arts assessments

3. Autobiographical writing rubric

4. Blended learning course rubric

5. Cause and effect rubric

6. Compare and contract essay rubric

7. Comparison rubric

8. Cooperative learning: Group participation

9. Creative dance rubric (elementary)

10. Creativity rubric

11. Critical thinking rubric K-2

12. Critical thinking rubric 3-5

13. Critical thinking rubric 6-12

14. Data analysis rubric

15. Data and graph rubric

16. Description rubric

17. Diorama rubric

18. Distance learning instruction rubric

19. Electronic portfolio rubric ​

20. ​Electronic scrapbook rubric

21. ePortfolio rubric

22. Evidence-based writing rubric

23. Graphic organizer rubric (Inspiration)

24. Historical fiction story rubric​

25. How-to essay rubric

26. Independent learning skills rubric

27. Infographic design rubric

28. Infographic rubric

29. Information skills rating scale

30. Information summary rubric

31. Instrumental performance rubric

32. Interview paper rubric

33. Kindergarten writing rubric

34. Library media and information literacy rubrics (K)

35. Library media and information literacy rubrics (1)

36. Library media and information literacy rubrics (2)

37. Library media and information literacy rubrics (3)

38. Library media and information literacy rubrics (4)

39. Library media and information literacy rubrics (5)

40. Library media and information literacy rubrics (6)

41. Library media and information literacy rubrics (7)

42. Library media and information literacy rubrics (8)

43. Library media and information literacy rubrics (9-10)

44. Library media and information literacy rubrics (11-12)

45. Literature Search Rubric

46. ​Maker project rubric

47. Math jigsaw rubric

48. Open Educational Resources (OER) rubrics

49. Oral presentation assessment rubric

50. Oral presentation rubric

51. Performance assessment links in science

52. Persuasive essay rubric

53. Physics lab rubric

54. Poster rubric

55. Primary source analysis rubric

56. Professional development rubric

57. Project-based learning checklists

58. Research paper grading rubric

59. Research project rubric: Elementary

60. Research project rubric: Middle

61. Research project rubric: Secondary

62. ​Reflection assessment rubric

63. Reflection paper rubric

64. Reflective writing rubric

65. Response to literature rubric

66. Rigor rubric

67. Science lab rubric

68. Scientific experiment rubric

69. Secondary assessment tools

70. Student technology competencies rubric

71. Student observation rubric

72. Student oral presentations

73. 3D printing challenge rubric

74. 3D printing rubric from Blueprint

75. 3D printing rubric from Canvas

76. 3d printing rubric from iRubric

77. 3d printing rubric 3 from iRubric

78. Timeline assessment rubric.

79. Timeline rubric from Read, Write, Think

80. Timeline rubric for illustrated timeline

81. Visual literacy rubric: Effective presentations

82. Virtual simulations and student learning rubric

83. Web-based learning environments rubric

84. ​WebQuest grading rubric

85. WebQuest rubric

86. ​WebQuest assessment rubric for teachers

87. Writing rubrics (6+1 Trait: K-12)

Copyright: Kathy Schrock. All rights reserved.
Republishing of these lists of links without express and written permission from this site's author is not allowed.
Links to this page  may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kathy Schrock and Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything with appropriate and specific direction (via the URL) to the original compilation of information on this page.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by emailing the creator.

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List of assessment and rubric information

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19 Best Brain Superfoods | LIVESTRONG.COM

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Did you know that your brain is the most expensive real estate in your body? It uses up to 20 to 30 percent of the calories you consume. And, just like your body doesn't benefit from junk food, neither does your brain. One lesser-known fact about obesity is that it negatively impacts cognitive function.

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Success and being a lifelong learner are pretty much joined at the hip--without learning, it's almost impossible to adapt to the new demands of the market or world. But if you're already eating and sleeping right, writing notes longhand, taking time to ponder what you just read and all the other tricks we've figured out for learning and memory, how can you crunch even more information into your brain?

It turns out, one of the best ways to improve learning is to stop flitting about topics. Land on just one you have an interest in or need to know, and then just stay there a while (we're talking months here). According to neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, author of The Distracted Mind, your ability to perceive information, recall it and make choices with it all depends on the brain filtering what's relevant and what's not. The more non-relevant data you send your brain, the more interference there is, and the harder it is to retain what's really important.

To use an analogy, it's a little like a game of baseball or tennis. If there's just one ball coming at you, you can focus on it, make some quick subconscious calculations and smack the crap out of it with your bat or racket. If there are a hundred balls all coming at once, though, forget about hitting anything, and you're lucky to come off the court/field without being stressed out. And in the same way, a bunch of footballs, ping pong balls, dodgeballs, etc., scattered around the field can get in the way as you try to play, and putting each kind of ball away where it fits afterward (i.e., storing information in the brain for recall) is more complex and time consuming than if there were only one ball or a ball of just one type.

Making the concept work in your regular day.

Right now, most business leaders are bombarded with the ideas that they should seize every opportunity and be well-rounded, dabbling in as much as they can. But Gazzaley's assertion means you might be better off turning down or at least postponing opportunities, so there's less on your plate to stretch you too thin. This might mean, for example, taking on just one design or assignment quickly over a few months, rather than working on multiple projects and extending all their deadlines. Alternatively, it could mean trying to group classes from one domain together as you earn a degree.

Note that this doesn't change the amount of time you're putting in to each subject. If you spend 30 hours on something in a month, that's still the same as 30 hours over three months. You're just reorganizing and prioritizing such that nothing is cut into chunks. This is important to grasp, because psychologically, abandoning the multitasking or many-irons-in-the-fire model might make you feel like you're doing less, even if you aren't.

How to keep your focus for the long haul.

Of course, the brain likes distractions to some degree. It's easily sucked in by what's novel. So if you're going to hone in on one thing for a while, you have to find ways to keep yourself motivated and not get bored. To up your mental endurance, you might want to:

Pay attention to and appreciate the process of what you're doing, rather than constantly measuring how close you are to being done.

Remind yourself of the bigger purpose behind whatever it is you're focusing on.

Set up lots of tiny milestones and actionable steps you can reward yourself for so your brain gets plenty of pleasurable hits of dopamine.

Take spontaneous play breaks to let your brain rest and work in a different way for a bit.

Coordinate and communicate well with others so they can help you set and reinforce boundaries.

Make it as easy as possible to work. The more challenges or annoyances there are, the more turned off to continuing you'll be.

Share your information with others. Being a teacher or giving advice can help you feel confident and excited about what you're doing. At the same time, it reinforces the core concepts you're absorbing and guarantees that you've really understood them.

Find some cheerleaders!

Since this way of working is so different than the way most people go through their day, you might get some pushback from those who are used to pinging from one thing to the next. If that's the case, just be kind and clear with them about your rationale. When they see that you get great results from your method, they might warm up to the idea and even convert to it themselves.

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Neuroscience Says This Is the Best Way to Take in Information and Learn More

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Success and being a lifelong learner are pretty much joined at the hip--without learning, it's almost impossible to adapt to the new demands of the market or world. But if you're already eating and sleeping right, writing notes longhand, taking time to ponder what you just read and all the other tricks we've figured out for learning and memory, how can you crunch even more information into your brain?

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Implications of Cognitive Principles

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What Is Working Memory? 4 Key Points To Remember

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Psych Exam Review

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Short-Term Memory and Working Memory (Intro Psych Tutorial #72)

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from Engage the Brain by Posey

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by Allison Posey

Emotions are not just messy toddlers in a china shop, running around breaking and obscuring delicate cognitive glassware. Instead, they are more like the shelves underlying the glassware; without them cognition has less support.

-Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio,

We Feel, Therefore We Learn

The brain actively predicts how to budget energy based on previous experiences.

Brain networks related to emotion are widespread and diffuse, activating the body's physiological and cognitive processes.

Learning needs sufficient activation.

Clarify the intended goal for each part of a lesson.

Ensure learning goals are relevant and meaningful for students.

Design the context in a flexible way, with resources and options for active learning that align with the intended goal.

Educator Dilemma: Drew was in my neuroscience elective, a three-week, intensive class for "gifted and talented" high school students. His motivation to learn the content was insatiable; in fact, we had to make rules for mandatory study breaks so that he would eat, exercise, and socialize. After the first week of class, Drew had read the entire college-level textbook, and it was evident he understood many of the topics from the rich conversations he initiated. He was curious about long-term potentiation and understanding neural changes that occurred during classical conditioning. However, when I collected his first test, it was completely blank. He had not answered a single question. I wondered what had happened. How could he have learned so much information but been unable to share any of it on an assessment? I asked myself, "Why is his test blank? He knows the content, so is this a problem of engagement?" In what ways does this educator dilemma resonate with you?

Emotion: The Activator of Physiology

In every moment of every day, your brain and body are subconsciously working to appraise your current situation. Are you basically OK in this moment? How much energy does your nervous system need to expend to handle the demands of the situation? Consider what is happening in your current surroundings: Is it loud or dark? Is there someone to interact with? Is there food to eat? Do you need to run away? Do you need to learn something? Now reflect on your body's internal state: Are you hot or cold? Do you need to shift your weight to relieve pressure on your back? Is your heart rate sufficient for the oxygen levels in your blood? Are you digesting food? Thankfully you don't need to actively monitor many of these states, but your nervous system does in every moment of every day.

In classic neuroscience, this appraisal of the body has been described as being like a loop. Incoming sensory information from the external environment (and internal body systems) was sent to, processed, and evaluated by the brain, which led to an appropriate motor output response. For example, if there was a buzzing mosquito near your arm, the sensory input was perceived and processed by your brain, which coordinated a response to shoo it away. This process maintains the body in a state of balance, or homeostasis.

Current understanding of the brain shows a much more dynamic process in play than this simple loop. It turns out that your brain is a phenomenal prediction machine. Instead of just waiting for incoming sensory information, it is actively appraising each moment to anticipate what you may need. For example, when I go out into the backyard in the summer, my brain is already predicting that the outdoor environment may include a lot of mosquitos, and it is evaluating the energy that will be required to maintain homeostasis within this context. It may begin to release glucose to my muscles, preparing for a lot of swatting. I may perceive the presence of a mosquito and shoo at it, only to find that there is not one there. My brain directs attention to pertinent stimuli from the environment to help achieve my goals, and it ignores unnecessary information, such as the sound of my neighbor's leaf blower or cars driving by. My nervous system predicts and budgets energy appropriately for that situation based on previous experiences and the goals of the situation.

Shifting to a school context, imagine you enter a classroom and are told, "Today we are going to research and deliver an oral report on spiders." How do you appraise this situation? Based on prior experiences, your brain begins to make predictions. It may evaluate this situation positively: "I have a pet spider and I love talking in front of the class." Others may appraise this situation negatively: "I dislike spiders. I hate talking in this class because kids tease me and this teacher does not like me." Your appraisal is based on your past experiences as well as experiences in this particular context. It is aligned to the targeted goal or task at hand. The appraisal occurs at both a conscious and a subconscious level, and you may identify the emotion in different ways, perhaps as being "excited and ready to go" or "slightly agitated and negative." Your brain predicts the energy demands it may require for this task in this context, and this prediction influences what you pay attention to, how you execute the tasks, and ultimately how you engage and learn in that moment.

Describe the context (environment). What are your students doing?

What previous experiences have students had in this context that may influence how their brains are making predictions about the energy they need to expend to achieve the intended learning goal?

Ultimately, at the core of these appraisals are emotions. Emotion networks are widespread throughout the brain and intricately connect to the body's physiological systems as well as to higher-order cognitive networks. Emotion networks connect with survival centers that influence heart rate, breath rate, and blood pressure. If you are nervous about presenting the spider report in front of peers, you may perceive an increase in activity in these systems and describe the situation by noting, "My palms are sweaty and I feel nervous." The physiological arousal that accompanies emotion also activates attention systems and motivates the body to take action. It recruits motor systems that move muscles and direct actions. Brain networks involved in memory formation, goal setting, planning, reasoning, and problem solving are recruited. These lead to observable behaviors. At the center of this abundance of activity is the emotional appraisal.

Each learner in a classroom will appraise and feel each situation differently based on the goals, the context, and the individual's previous experiences. Each will have unique brain activation and physiological responses, even if behaviors appear consistent. For example, some students may start in on the task and seem to be working in a fairly consistent way, even though their appraisals, internal processes, and predictions vary in a multitude of ways: one student may have just had a fight with a friend and may not be paying any attention to the lesson, another may have never done an oral report before and be overwhelmed, and another may be an experienced actor who is completely comfortable in front of an audience and cannot wait to give the report. For an educator, this variability can be a challenge and seem overwhelming to address in the classroom. How can you possibly be aware of all of the different appraisals and subsequent emotions of each learner in each situation? How can we design to address this range?

Designing for Emotion

Every learning event in our classrooms is appraised in this conscious and unconscious "is this good or bad for me" way. The appraisal causes a shift in physiology-perhaps heart rate and blood pressure increase, pupils dilate, and palms sweat. Individuals may consciously recognize these shifts ("I feel nervous"), or the shifts may be subconscious and manifest in an upset stomach. In addition, higher-order brain systems are activated, such as memory and planning centers. ("Remember that last oral presentation when I used index cards and practiced in front of the mirror? That worked great!" or "Last time I stuttered and no one could hear me. What options can help me this time?") As each learner progresses through the day, the brain predicts and appraises every situation as it relates to previous experiences and the current context. In this way, the brain budgets the body's energy resources to drive perception and prepare for action.

The first step in designing learning experiences for this range of emotional appraisal is to clarify the intended learning goal. For example, the focus of this learning experience may primarily be to deliver an oral report, with less emphasis on learning facts about spiders or learning to compile information into a report. Those other skills may be of focus in other lessons and may actually be a barrier for some to achieve the oral component. Once the target goal is clarified, focus on it! Identify the subskills required to effectively deliver an oral report and share those expectations with students. What does it mean to deliver a superb oral report? What do "expert" presenters do? Clarify the expectations so students know what they are going for. When you zero in on the goal, the brain knows what to focus on and how to predict and direct energy for attention, planning, and action.

Once you have clarified the goal for the task, reflect on the relevancy of the goal. Why does it matter? What is the purpose? Is there a meaningful connection you can make so that students will care? Because emotions are at the core of the brain's appraisals, connecting the goals to authentic and relevant experiences will help students activate their physiology and appraise the situation positively. It will invite curiosity, so they might take notice or want to explore more.

Finally, it is important to offer a few choices related to the identified goal. Because each learner brings unique experiences and backgrounds to each situation, offering even two options can help the nervous system appraise the situation in a more positive way. For example, if the goal is to deliver an effective oral report and meaningful connections are made to how this skill is relevant, then consider how you can offer a few options for students to select as they work to achieve that goal. For example, there may be the option to deliver the presentation to the class or to make a video of their presentation, like a news report. Another option might be to allow them to select any topic for the oral report. You might offer the option to use a graphic organizer and to preview the rubric that will be used to assess the oral delivery. Whatever the options are, the focus of the materials and methods should align with the intended goal, so learners are supported to get to high-level skills and can more positively appraise the context as one that is encouraging them to engage in the learning.

The Physiology of Emotion

When you feel an emotion-any emotion, such as disgust, excitement, or anger-your body goes through a range of physiological changes associated with the sympathetic nervous system, including changes in heart rate, galvanized sweat response, pupil dilation, blood pressure, digestion, and breath rate. Glucose, or sugar, can be triggered to be released from storage to deliver the energy needed for your muscles to move your body, whether it is to avert the oral report and talk with friends or to practice the presentation. A number of chemicals help prepare the body for action. Adrenaline mobilizes the body, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, and enlarging blood vessels-a combination that gives the skin a "blushing," reddish hue. It helps "tag" events for memory, so years later you might recall this spider presentation. Cortisol, a stress hormone, releases blood sugar that mobilizes muscles and helps with metabolism and immune function. It travels throughout the brain and body and therefore has a broad impact. Note that in prolonged amounts, cortisol is the chemical that can be actually become toxic to the hippocampus, the region of the brain fundamental to learning.

This physiology of emotional activation has remained fundamentally the same over thousands of years of evolution: the system that helped us survive on the savannah is the same system that is active today in our classrooms. However, today, instead of responding to an approaching tiger, students respond to events such as taking tests, reading, public speaking, researching, or choosing where to sit for lunch. The physiology of a student in a classroom can be as intense as it would be if he were escaping a tiger. In fact, physiological measures from a group of elementary school students reading a passage aloud to their peers were found to be as extreme as someone running from a tiger: stress hormones were high, galvanized skin responses peaked, and heart rate soared. The teacher, reflecting on this research, was understandably surprised and said, "I never thought of asking students to read aloud to the class as being like tigers in the room for some students."

Similarly, a teacher's physiology will be activated differently throughout the course of a school day, making predictions tied to previous experiences with different students, job responsibilities, or interactions with parents and colleagues. Both real and imagined stimuli spark changes in physiology, initiating changes that prepare the body to achieve the goals. Worrying about the upcoming spider presentation or parent-teacher conference can have similar effects on the physiology as the actual event. We learn to describe these changes in brain and body physiology in these different contexts as emotions, and we engage in the situations accordingly.

1. In what ways do you clarify goals, make them relevant, and offer a few options to support those goals?

2. What events might be "like tigers" for your learners during your lessons or in your context?

An Activation Model

A little activation of physiology is good for learning-in fact, it is necessary to kick-start the body to attention and action. However, as in the so-called Goldilocks syndrome, too little activation can result in apathy and boredom, whereas too much activation can lead to stress and anxiety. Returning to the example of the oral report on spiders, one student may appraise the task as incredibly boring. That student's heart rate and breath rate might be low, and cognitive networks such as attention and memory would be minimally active. Without enough activation, undesired behaviors may result, such as an incomplete draft of the speech, a dearth of research, or a poor delivery.

By contrast, another student's appraisal of this assignment may result in stress. He might be uncomfortable thinking about spiders and is nervous at the thought of presenting in front of the class. His heart rate and sweat level may increase; cognitive centers may not function as efficiently as they normally would. Too much activation of physiology diminishes cognitive processes such as attention and memory. This state leads to less conceptual flexibility or creativity; emotions overrule cognition. It may also result in undesirable actions, such as standing speechless during the presentation, or having shaking muscles and a cracking voice, or delivering the speech poorly. Notice that sometimes the observed behavior-in this case, poor delivery-may be similar for the two students, even though their emotional appraisals differ. Most students will fall on a continuum somewhere between these extremes, and the challenge for educators is that each student's activation system will be different in response to events in the classroom.

A "one-size-fits-all" lesson is unlikely to address the range of emotional appraisal and subsequent physiological activation of the students in the class. When we have students do the same task in the same way and at the same time, we are not designing for the range of students we know we have. To overcome this challenge, educators should follow the suggestions mentioned earlier: offer a clear goal, a relevant connection that addresses the question "why does this matter," and a few options within the lesson to support the intended lesson goal. These elements guide the nervous system toward the appropriate sensory and motor actions and support engagement for the learning task. As shown in Figure 1.1, which illustrates the "activation model," finding the right point on the spectrum between low emotional activation (boredom) and high emotional activation (anxiety) by offering relevant options for attaining the goal is the key to student cognition. Having an option to work with a peer, to use a graphic organizer, to see a model example, or to get to choose the animal to research can shift appraisal of the task. However, it is essential to have the learning target (goal, objective) clarified so that you are able to optimize the flexible options that you offer. Rubrics and assessments should focus on and highlight the necessary skills to achieve the goals, and even though learners begin in different places, each can progress toward the same goal. One educator's experience illustrates the potential benefits: "My learning goal was for students to write a comparative essay. I decided to let students choose their topics, instead of using my topics. One student who had not written much all year actually wrote two pages comparing pancakes and waffles."

Figure 1.1. Activation Model

Here is an example of how a 5th grade teacher incorporated a clear goal into her lesson so she could integrate targeted, flexible options to support the range of student activation during the learning event. As she had done before, Ms. McNabb had the local science museum bring a stargazing bubble to her classroom. Having the bubble in the classroom was usually a memorable event, but she started to think about the range of activation of her students and how to incorporate clear goals and purposeful options into the experience to enhance the learning. Many students became very excited when they saw the bubble and eagerly entered, but some were more reluctant to go into the dark, enclosed space with their energized classmates.

First, Ms. McNabb clarified the learning goal and discussed with the students why it mattered: "Have any of you ever told stories about the patterns you see in the stars at night? Today we will find a few different constellations so you can tell what season it is and even find your own zodiac constellation by looking at the stars." Then she realized that not all students necessarily had to enter the bubble; some could choose to watch the lesson through a window in the bubble or quietly use headphones and a video to learn the constellations. She recorded the stargazing session and posted it to her website so students could watch the video on their own, which helped students who were absent during the class period as well as those who missed some of the information during the session. She also invited students to create their own stories about the constellations instead of just learning the ancient tales. She noted that these goal-driven options in the lesson led to deeper levels of observation, discussion, and learning. More students seemed engaged.

These small modifications in lesson design optimized options and relevancy in support of the target goal. Some of these options were already present in the lesson, but the activation model helped Ms. McNabb reflect on why some of her teaching strategies worked (or did not work). She thought more about how the purposeful options for the clear, relevant goal helped students be in an active, focused state for learning. Not all students needed to do the same thing at the same time.

Understanding how the brain is an active predictor helps us understand why we need to set clear, meaningful goals. Thinking about the activation model helps us reflect on why we need to provide a few purposeful options to support the range of learners in our teaching contexts.

Invite learners to use the activation model themselves to reflect and share their thoughts about their learning choices. How do they initially appraise a learning goal? How do options for relevancy and learning choices change their appraisal and engage them more meaningfully in the task? Learners can become more metacognitive about options that work best or that do not work well for them as they pursue the goal.

In summary, based on previous experiences, a learner's brain appraises the energy and resources it may need to expend in a given context. Emotion networks are central to both physiology and cognitive centers; emotion is at the core of learning. Having a clear goal that matters and relevant options in the environment can shift emotional appraisal into a more active, directed state for learning.

1. What previous experiences might students have in your subject area or class that affect how they are predicting and appraising your context?

2. How can you work to clarify goals and to make them relevant?

3. How can you use the activation model and plan a few flexible options for the range of learners?

How Emotions Tie the Knot for Learning

An adult sticks her tongue out at a baby, and the baby mimics the action by sticking out her tongue as well. The adult coos with praise. This interaction between the child and the adult included an emotional response, and we know that learning took place because the next time the baby saw the same adult, she stuck out her tongue again. Learning happened through the interaction of the baby with the adult, and even in such a simple example, it is clear that emotion played a key role.

Learning includes the process of gaining information from the environment or body systems (the child sees the adult stick out her tongue), actively trying out and incorporating the skills or behaviors (the child tries to stick out her tongue), and then applying them in novel circumstances (the child sticks out her tongue again, even without the adult initiating). The child in this example was actively engaged in the new experience, not just passively receiving information. The next time the child was in a similar context, the brain had anticipated and appraised the situation, which led to purposeful actions and behaviors.

For learning to occur, there must be an active interaction between the learner and the learning environment, including the work spaces in the room, the materials and methods of a lesson (e.g., books, technologies, handouts, rubrics, and assessments), and their peers and teachers. The learning environment can include scaffolds or tools and resources that students can use when first learning something but are intended to be gradually released once the learner becomes more proficient at the skill. Like the scaffolding on a building, learning scaffolds are meant to be removed over time. For example, a graphic organizer is a scaffold for writing that may help an individual achieve the writing goal. Over time, the graphic organizer is needed less, but initially it may be important to an individual's appraisal of the writing task. We can apply what we have learned about emotions and learning to this simple scenario, and you can extend it to think about your own classroom. How does designing a simple change in the learning environment-that connects to the intended learning goal, such as a graphic organizer for writing-influence a student's interaction with the environment and appraisal of the situation? How might this encourage more engagement and even risk-taking in the learning?

We learn emotions in much the same way that we learn words and concepts. Take, for example, how we learn the meaning of a dog. We perceive key features of a dog: two ears, four legs, and fur, and it barks. We interact with and share this understanding using language, pictures, and real examples to describe and highlight different kinds of dogs. We learn that a dog can be distinguished from a wolf or cat, which also have two ears, four legs, and fur. We learn best about dogs when we are able to have a contextualized, active experience with them (i.e., petting, smelling, and playing with them). Similarly, when we learn about our emotions, we begin to recognize the changes that take place in our brain and body due to interactions with the environment. We connect these changes to previous experiences we may have had, and we share a deeper meaning and understanding of emotions when we use a common language and share examples and experiences. For example, consider phrases such as "When I read this, I felt sad and there was a lump in my throat," "I was proud of the way she stood up to the bully, and I wanted to cheer," or "The last time I saw that, I laughed and felt happy." Notice how the words for the emotions connect to changes in physiology and are contextualized.

In the classroom, we may hear, "I was nervous when I presented in front of the class. My heart was racing, and I didn't want to talk." When we begin to clarify language for emotion in a learning situation and connect it with a goal, we can then start to design options to support the activation in the context. "Having a friend present with me helped me feel calmer" or "Practicing first with a video camera helped my voice be less shaky." The more we co-construct a language to describe emotions in connection to our body activation in a learning environment, the more effectively we can incorporate "emotional design" for learning.

Chapter Summary

Emotions are essential for learning. The brain's emotion networks connect with basic body survival systems such as heart rate and blood pressure, and they also connect with higher-order cognitive systems such as memory and attention. Perception, action, and behaviors always involve emotion networks. In any situation, the nervous system makes predictions about the energy demands it will have to support and appraises the situation by asking, "Is this good or bad for me?" This appraisal directs perception and action both consciously and subconsciously.

Each learner's system activates in a unique way-too little activation can lead to boredom or apathy, and too much activation can lead to stress or anxiety. The challenge for educators is to support the wide range of activation in a context with a range of learners. To do this, first identify a clear learning target and make it relevant and meaningful for your learners. Then proactively integrate or scaffold a few options into the environment that support learners' progress and achievement of that goal.

Revisiting the Educator Dilemma

Let's return to the anecdote at the start of this chapter, about Drew, a student who demonstrated a high level of comprehension of complex information but did not do well on a written assessment of this material. Using what was discussed in this chapter about the brain's predictive appraisals based on previous experience and the central role of emotion for cognition, there are several ways to reflect on this educator dilemma.

Here is how this teacher thought about some of the strategies from this chapter; how can you make connections from this chapter to your teaching?

Know your learners will have a range of background experiences that influence their appraisal of a situation and engagement in the task. Drew's previous test-taking experiences influenced how his nervous system made predictions and appraised this situation. The testing environment might be "like a tiger" for his physiology, and his body system may be too activated. This can limit memory and cognitive flexibility so he is not able to demonstrate his full understanding in this context.

Clarify the goal. In this case, was the goal to take a written test or to demonstrate knowledge? Depending on the goal, the options available will vary. If the goal were to demonstrate understanding, then it could be through any means. However, the teacher in this example determined the goal to be an understanding of the concepts through writing (a skill that scientists "in the real world" need).

Integrate purposeful options in the learning environment to support the goal. For example, there could be

A practice opportunity, which could be completed and reflected upon collaboratively and with formative feedback before the assessment.

Flexible seating or time allotted.

Headphones made available as an option to reduce distractions from the environment.

An opportunity to use notes, textbooks, and other resources. (After all, when scientists communicate information in writing, they are able to use their resources.)

Make the learning task relevant. Clarify why the task is important. For this example, discuss why it is important to be able to communicate what you know with others in a written form. Have students brainstorm when they may be in this kind of situation in the world outside school.

Note that the options should be available for all learners, not just Drew. Such availability allows all learners to build a repertoire of strategies to become experts about their strengths, challenges, and weaknesses. Ultimately, the educator will determine which options are offered and works with students to select strategies that help achieve the goals. This educator dilemma may be used as a model for thinking about learning and the brain through the lens of emotion.

Teacher Connection: 7th Grade Language Arts

Katie Novak, a 7th grade language arts teacher, thinks of building her lessons as being comparable to building a closet of shoes. She knows there will be a range of student emotions and that at any point students can demonstrate different strengths and challenges. For every lesson, activity, or discussion, she clarifies the goal and makes it authentic. She then shares options and strategies (the "closet of shoes") that are available for all students to use as they work toward the goal. She designs options into the classroom for all students to use ("a closet of shoes available for everyone").

Dr. Novak shares with her students how different shoes are more appropriate depending on the goal. If the goal is to go hiking in the snow, winter boots are a good choice. However, there can be choice within the category of "boots." Some will prefer boots with fuzzy, warm insides, while others might choose boots with a tough waterproof surface. Either boot will help students reach the goal of hiking outside in winter. When the goal changes-for example, if the goal is now to go out for a fancy dinner-different shoes become more relevant, and students are empowered to make choices that help them reach the goal. One of her students remarked, "Don't you like different shoes? Well, kids like different ways of learning. It is the same thing." Dr. Novak fills her classroom and lesson "closets of shoes" with options and lets students choose what works best for them for that particular activity.

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by Allison Posey Emotions are not just messy toddlers in a china shop, running around breaking and obscuring delicate cognitive glassware. Instead, they are more like the shelves underlying the glassware; without them cognition has less support. -Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio, We Feel, Therefore We Learn The brain actively predicts how to budget energy based on previous experiences.

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At a neurological level, how does the brain actually learn, and what's the role of emotion? What's the implication for education and training? From around the globe, members of the Six Seconds community identified key questions they wanted Joshua Freedman to discuss with Dr. Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang about four key themes:

1. Activating the brain for learning.

3. Creating the optimal state for learning.

4. Maintaining a focus on long-term vision.

Much has been made about creating "ideal learning environments" in classrooms around the world. But what about inside the student's mind? In a recent NYT article Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang discusses the biological conditions for learning. She states "it is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don't care about." In conversation with Josh Freedman, she discusses these findings.

https://vimeo.com/218556731

Josh: Mary Helen, you had a New York Times interview recently, and in the article it said, "It is literally neurobiologically impossible to think deeply about things that you don't care about." So, what's the implication for educators?

Mary Helen: I think it has huge implications. Let's back up: That feature of our biology makes perfect evolutionary sense. Why would you waste time spending energy and effort and neurological resources on thinking about random things that don't have any bearing on anything important? That would be a silly use of energy.

This has important implications for the way in which we design assessment, for example. I think a lot of the reason why we have these assessment systems set up on the way they do with all kinds of implications for what happens to you next. This big tests are mainly designed to deal with this attention problem. If the tests weren't there, there'd be no intrinsic reason why the person would bother caring to think about this, right?

Josh: So, in other words, if we say to kids, "The reason you should care about this is because it's on the test."

Mary Helen: Exactly.

Josh: But aren't tests motivating because they are important?

Mary Helen: Well, no. We're activating the brain for learning, but in a very superficial, shallow way. The emotion has to be there to be able to think about stuff. So, if there's no intrinsic interest in the material, no reason that that kid subjectively ought to engage in the information, we resort to things like, "Well, it's going to be on the test." As a way to sort of slap emotion on from the outside. Saying, "Well, there's no reason why this is interesting, so we've got to make it important somehow. So, we're going to give you some external standard by which to measure success."

Josh: [Laughs] So in a way, we're telling learners: "be scared."

Mary Helen: Yeah. Exactly. Be scared and do something about it because I have no other way to motivate you, basically. It's a cop-out on the part of the education system.

Josh: But, isn't fear motivating?

Mary Helen: Well, sure. But, here's the thing. A small amount of it is, but, we rely on it far, far too heavily. I mean, fear is motivating, but fear, like any emotion, has a characteristic, cognitive pattern that is a piece of the emotion itself.

When you feel afraid it shifts your thought patterns and your memory. Fear means keeping yourself safe or to fight, right? And so, you are shaping the very nature of the knowledge construction of the skill construction in any academic domain to be sort of organized around fight and flight and escape strategies.

And those are not conducive to deep engagement with the ideas and their intrinsic interests. Their fear and curiosity are completely opposites in terms of the way in which they engage condition and memory. When you're curious you're open, you're safe, you're in a kind of intellectually playful place in which you're sort of exploring possibilities.

When you're afraid you narrow yourself to a very efficient, focused escape strategy, like, "Get me out of here, quick. I just memorize this, and I'm done? Okay. I'll do that." So, you're directly undermining the development of interest and curiosity and long-term learning when you do that.

Josh: So if a goal of learning is meaning making, we've got to find more effective emotional "hooks" to engage curiosity.

Mary Helen: Right.

Curiosity is an aroused state of the brain that has complex and interconnected processes at play. Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang discusses the neurological state of curiosity for learning. Her groundbreaking research on curiosity will inform educators everywhere.

https://vimeo.com/218555804

Josh: What's the neurological role of curiosity?

Mary Helen: What's happening when we're curious? We know something about this and not enough about this. When you're curious you are engaging in a kind of exploration of an idea, and that exploration is leading you. It's motivating you and it's leading you to engage with and follow things that you notice. So, think about the inherent subjectivity and skillfulness in that process. You have to know what's worth noticing and what isn't worth noticing. And so, you're developing a sort of intellectual intuition.

That is an inherently a nuanced, implicit and emotional process. "I am recognizing that that is important, and potentially useful. But, I don't actually fully understand it." Think about all the metacognitive processes that go into those three calculations. These assessments are experientially-based and also connected to motivation and engagement.

Many of our educational practices in traditional educational environments directly undermine a person's development of a proclivity toward a curious mind state. A curious state is one in which you explore and notice, and follow what you've noticed... and try to play it out... and question yourself about whether or not you fully understand and appreciate it... Then, come back around where you were before and re-examine what you thought you already knew, potentially with a new understanding of something else that might be related or a new connection.

Too much focus on external evaluation or product may reduce curiosity. But there are good pedagogical strategies that are known to increase curiosity and the kind of thought process that are known to support it. An example is really well-designed project-based learning.

That said, sometimes a kid isn't currently interested in a topic because they don't have enough knowledge or experience in that space to develop the sense of curiosity. In these cases, the job of the educational experience is to expose them to the relevance of it. Teach them so it feels important, then they can develop and foster a sense of curiosity in that domain.

Educators wanting to refine their practice may be thinking they can create an optimal environment for brain based learning. Dr. Immordino-Yang helps us refocus by looking at the goals of learning we are trying to pursue. What kind of learning, skill and practices do we want students to be capable of doing? This will inform the kind of teaching environment we should create.

https://vimeo.com/218555825

Josh: I was just in China teaching, and one of the things that was super challenging was that, in Six Seconds' methodology, we focus on the teacher not being the one with the answers. But in the Chinese cultural context, that was seen as, "bad teaching."

Mary Helen: The teacher not having the answers?

Josh: Right. There must've been something wrong with me because I didn't have the answers. Even though I told the students, "In this class I'm not going to give you the answers," it was very uncomfortable for them. And, of course, that discomfort has some benefits and some costs from a learning perspective. So, I'm wondering: how much do you need to kind of go with the cultural norms, even if in some ways those cultural norms are not aligned with how the brain learns best?

Mary Helen: That's a really good question. That's a really deep question. So, I'm going to kind of challenge a couple of the assumptions that are listed in that question, okay?

Josh: Okay.

Mary Helen: The first thing I would say is that, this style of learning where the teacher has the answers and the kids were meant to try to discover them is not how the brain learns best. That's a particular kind of learning. It's the most efficient way to get to a certain kind of learning. What we need to appreciate is that learning is a really broad thing.

Learning is basically how a person organizes their thought processes over time. It's building up resources that they have to call upon to be able to make sense out of what's going on, to make predictions, and solve problems.

So, it really is a value judgement. It depends what you're educating for. What's the purpose of your educational intervention?

Josh: In other words, it depends on what you mean by, "Learning,"?

Mary Helen: Right. What do you mean by, "Learning," so, what kind of learners are you meaning to build?

If you're trying to build excellent, efficient sort of processors, then what you described as the Chinese norm might be a very efficient and effective way to do it.

On the other hand, if you're trying to teach for citizenship, for example, to educate kids who will take action against community problems... or if you're trying to teach for methodological and academic innovation so students are willing to ask difficult questions and then try to answer them... then you need learners to appreciate the open-endedness of certain kinds of problem spaces and be comfortable engaging with that uncertainty in a productive way. In these cases, the "teacher has the answers model" is not the most effective way to teach.

And in fact, in China they're having a lot of problems with students being excellent at academic skills but not great innovators, not highly creative learners. It's a balancing act. You need some of each. You can't just be wandering around following your curiosities with no strategy, no limits or constraints, or no structure, right?

This is my value as someone from an international cultural background, but I think we need students who are capable of becoming aware of their own biases in the learning process and monitoring those. There are times when you really need to learn to efficiently crank out certain kinds of calculations. There are times when you need to be able to notice and say, "Wait. What's the ethical implication of me calculating this thing?" Or me figuring out how to make a nuclear bomb? We need students who can ask themselves, "Is there anything else I should be thinking about here besides the physics?"

Skills such as rote calculating can become building blocks that you need to be able to apply later in the space of broader problems in the world.

If you overly focus on the acquisition of the building blocks, the kids don't have a sense of how to apply those things in the world. If you overly focus on the world, they may notice problems, but have no skills with which to solve the problems. Again, they need to have a balance of both. We need students who are able to steer themselves in an active, strategic, adaptive way depending on the place in which they find themselves, depending on the context and the need of that context.

If they apply certain skills, can they back up and notice when there are ethical implications or there's innovations that are needed? Can they become curious on how to pursue those? Then, once they become curious about something, and they recognize that it's something that's truly interesting and important, can they focus themselves to dig in, pulling up those building block skills?

Ideally learners grow a flexible, adaptive, skilled ability to engage. That also inherently means that there will be individual and cultural variability in what's valued. What people will notice as worthy of or warranting attention and innovation, or what the ethical implications are for certain kinds of problems, is going to be highly cultural and value driven.

So what you want is students who can use their knowledge and their skills to actually prove and examine their own values, their own assumptions, their own world. And to use what they have as building block skills to innovate and make changes and solve problems when they notice that those problems warrant solving.

Josh: So, probably one of the key things is, as educators, as parents, for us to also be able to engage in that kind of agility ourselves.

Mary Helen: Absolutely. The teacher is someone who is highly skilled in the domain in which the students are learning. But, it's not necessarily owning the answers. The teacher is there as a kind of facilitator to support the students being able to construct the answers.

That's a hugely skilled job because it means injecting information when the student needs it. You don't expect them to reinvent calculus necessarily. So, you need to say, "Ah, you know what you need to know about in this problem space? Let me teach you some math that's going to help you." And you go back to it.

Thinking outside of the content - facts, techniques, skills and details - teachers need to be focused on the kind of people they want students to become. Their intention and direction will inform not just the climate of a class, but the actual neurobiological development of their students. Teachers have the potential to influence the future citizens, employees, leaders and thinkers these students will become.

https://vimeo.com/218555867

Josh: What's your advice for those of us who are teaching teachers... and teaching people who teach in the corporate sector... and teaching coaches... and teaching parents? Where do we need to focus to help educators to be able to achieve that vision of learning you described earlier?

Mary Helen: I think what we need is the educators have to have a very clear idea of what their goal is, what they want their students to be able to do. And that doesn't just mean what skills they can produce on cue. But it means what kind of person do you want to facilitate these students becoming? What kind of thinker in this domain?

When you have a very clear vision for what high-level thinking and behaving looks like in the domain, then you can sort of step back and support kind of many paths up the mountain. You engage the students and support the students by providing and orchestrating opportunities for them to construct for themselves skills and experiences that will advance them toward that goal.

You're very clear on what the goal is. You're less prescriptive about what the paths are. Some kids are going to scale the cliff, and some are going to take the fire road that's slow and long and meanders through the scenery. And some kids are going to hike up, you know what I'm saying?

Josh: I want to double-click on this thing about vision. A lot of times when people are in this space of learning, they think about the goal of learning, they're kind of caught up in the short term, the test score. I recently had a group of school principals in Japan, and I said to them, "If you're wildly successful, what's going to be happening for your students in 30 years?"

In education, that kind of thinking might be something you do over a beer... but maybe not a formal part of what it means to be an educator.

Mary Helen: It should be a formal part of what it means to be an educator. I mean, I think you've touched on something there. We need to really think seriously - we're in a changing world. Education is an institution that is here to serve our citizens in order to facilitate them and support them in becoming productive members of society.

As society changes, education has to move with it and be a supportive force towards a new kind of world. Towards advancing people toward a new kind of citizenship, a new kind of global connectedness, a new way of productivity. And we have to think what the aims of education are so that we're supporting that high level goal.

What kind of people are you going to be supporting these students into developing into? That has to be always present in the conversation, so that the way in which you're scaffolding, the development of building block skills is at the service of facilitating the development of a particular kind of engaged learner over time. And that goal has to be present in the conversation. But, for so many teachers - and I understand this. I mean, they're so overwhelmed with so little resources and so little support to think this way that they're really narrowed down and focused onto the short-term goal.

Of course you have to support the development of short-term goals. A kid has to learn how to add in first grade or whatever. But it's not just so you know how to add, it's so that you know how to think and manipulate things mentally in a way that's appropriate for a kid of that age. And in a way that sets them up to think creatively and in an engaged way without the role of quantity in predicting and understanding the role looking forward. And so, we have to keep that in mind.

Josh: In some ways what you're saying is the very kind of conversation you want teachers to be having with students about meaning-making is the same conversation we need to be having among educators.

Mary Helen: Maybe they're on a different developmental level, and the content that they're trying to master is different. But, adults and children are both learners. Actually, learning is co-constructed between them. It's not a property of the teacher or of the student. It's a property of the dynamic cultural context they co-construct.

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Learning About Learning & the Brain - Interview with Neuroscientist Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang * Six Seconds

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At a neurological level, how does the brain actually learn, and what's the role of emotion? What's the implication for education and training? From around the globe, members of the Six Seconds community identified key questions they wanted Joshua Freedman to discuss with Dr. Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang about four key themes: 1.

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I love this graphic, via the Better Humans' post Cognitive bias cheat sheet, which breaks down cognitive errors into four quadrants of memory, meaning, information overload, and need for speed:

double click for ginormous graphic

Source: Better Humans

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I love this graphic, via the Better Humans' post Cognitive bias cheat sheet, which breaks down cognitive errors into four quadrants of memory, meaning, information overload, and need for speed: double click for ginormous graphic Source: Better Humans

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20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course

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20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course

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I taught the first online learning course at the University of Washington in 1995. My co‑instructor was Dr. Norm Coombs, at the time a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. We designed the course to be accessible to anyone, including students who were blind, were deaf, had physical disabilities, or had multiple learning preferences. Norm himself is blind. He uses a screen reader and speech synthesizer to read text presented on the screen. We employed the latest technology of the time-email, discussion list, Gopher, file transfer protocol, and telnet (no World Wide Web yet!). All online materials were in a text-based format, and videos, presented in VHS format with captions and audio description, were mailed to the students. When asked if any of our students had disabilities, we were proud to say that we did not know. Why? Because no one needed to disclose a disability since all of the course materials and teaching methods were accessibly designed.

Technology has changed dramatically since I first taught online, but the basic principles that can guide the design of accessible courses have not. The term UD was coined by Ronald Mace, an architect, product designer, and wheelchair user whose work led to the creation of the Center for Universal Design (CUD) at North Carolina State University and its seven principles of UD. UD is defined as "the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design." The UD definition, principles, and guidelines were created to make any application accessible, usable, and inclusive and, thus, are a logical choice to underpin practices that ensure that online courses meet the needs of potential students with a wide variety of characteristics that include those related to gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, marital status, age, abilities, interests, values, learning preferences, socioeconomic status, and religious beliefs.

For a history of UD, the basic principles of UD and those that later evolved to address issues specific to the design of learning activities and IT, consult my book Creating Inclusive Learning Environments in Higher Education: A Universal Design Toolkit and other resources presented in the Center for Universal Design in Education, which is hosted by DO-IT Center at the University of Washington-where DO-IT stands for Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology. For resources specific to applications of UD to online learning, including accessibility checkers, legal issues, technical details, and promising practices, consult .

A statement about how students can request disability-related accommodations should be included in the syllabus. Then instructors can apply the 20 tips I list below, as they begin to work toward making their online courses more inclusive. The complementary video, 20 Tips for Instructors about Making Online Learning Courses Accessible, may be viewed online, along with a for further background and directions for implementing these tips.

Tips

Nine tips for course materials follow. Consult Accessible Technology at uw.edu/accessibility for details on the design, selection, and use of accessible IT as well as accessibility checkers that help you identify accessibility problems in materials you use or create:

1. Use clear, consistent layouts, navigation, and organization schemes to present content. Keep paragraphs short and avoid flashing content.

2. Use descriptive wording for hyperlink text (e.g., "DO-IT website" rather than "click here").

3. Use a text-based format and structure headings, lists, and tables using style and formatting features within your Learning Management System (LMS) and content creation software, such as Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint and Adobe InDesign and Acrobat; use built-in page layouts where applicable.

4. Avoid creating PDF documents. Post most instructor-created content within LMS content pages (i.e., in HTML) and, if a PDF is desired, link to it only as a secondary source of the information.

5. Provide concise text descriptions of content presented within images (text descriptions web resource).

6. Use large, bold, sans serif fonts on uncluttered pages with plain backgrounds.

7. Use color combinations that are high contrast and can be distinguished by those who are colorblind (color contrast web resource). Do not use color alone to convey meaning.

8. Caption videos and transcribe audio content.

9. Don't overburden students with learning to operate a large number of technology products unless they are related to the topic of the course; use asynchronous tools; make sure IT used requires the use of the keyboard alone and otherwise employs accessible design practices.

Eleven tips for inclusive pedagogy follow; many are particularly beneficial for students who are neurodiverse (e.g., those on the autism spectrum or who have learning disabilities). Consult Equal Access: Universal Design of Instruction for more guidance.

1. Recommend videos and written materials to students where they can gain technical skills needed for course participation.

2. Provide multiple ways for students to learn (e.g., use a combination of text, video, audio, and/or image; speak aloud all content presented on slides in synchronous presentations and then record them for later viewing).

3. Provide multiple ways to communicate and collaborate that are accessible to individuals with a variety of disabilities.

4. Provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate what they have learned (e.g., different types of test items, portfolios, presentations, single-topic discussions).

5. Address a wide range of language skills as you write content (e.g., use plain English, spell out acronyms, define terms, avoid or define jargon).

6. Make instructions and expectations clear for activities, projects, discussions and readings.

7. Make examples and assignments relevant to learners with a wide variety of interests and backgrounds.

8. Offer outlines and other scaffolding tools and share tips that might help students learn.

9. Provide adequate opportunities to practice.

10. Allow adequate time for activities, projects, and tests (e.g., give details of all project assignments at the beginning of the course).

11. Provide feedback on project parts and offer corrective opportunities.

These tips apply to both synchronous and asynchronous teaching. Additional tips for synchronous presentations (e.g., speak all content presented visually, turn on the caption feature of your conferencing software, do not require students to have their cameras on) can be found in Equal Access: Universal Design of Your Presentation.

Acknowledgments

DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) serves to increase the success of individuals with disabilities. This publication was partially funded through DO-IT's AccessCyberlearning project that is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant #1550477). Any questions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. More information about DO-IT can be found at uw.edu/doit.

Copyright © 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2015, University of Washington. Permission is granted to copy these materials for educational, noncommercial purposes provided the source is acknowledged.

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20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course

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scald=5808:sdl_editor_representation {"link":"","linkTarget":""}] I taught the first online learning course at the University of Washington in 1995. My co‑instructor was Dr. Norm Coombs, at the time a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

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Useful for organization and development

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We automate all of the most time-consuming parts of building a timeline so that you can focus on what you want to say, not how it's going to look:

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Great to include in a discussion!

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20 cognitive biases that screw up your decisions

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Your decisions may not be as rational as you think.

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Five constructs

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Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) started as the Social Learning Theory (SLT) in the 1960s by Albert Bandura. It developed into the SCT in 1986 and posits that learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior. The unique feature of SCT is the emphasis on social influence and its emphasis on external and internal social reinforcement. SCT considers the unique way in which individuals acquire and maintain behavior, while also considering the social environment in which individuals perform the behavior. The theory takes into account a person's past experiences, which factor into whether behavioral action will occur. These past experiences influences reinforcements, expectations, and expectancies, all of which shape whether a person will engage in a specific behavior and the reasons why a person engages in that behavior.

Many theories of behavior used in health promotion do not consider maintenance of behavior, but rather focus on initiating behavior. This is unfortunate as maintenance of behavior, and not just initiation of behavior, is the true goal in public health. The goal of SCT is to explain how people regulate their behavior through control and reinforcement to achieve goal-directed behavior that can be maintained over time. The first five constructs were developed as part of the SLT; the construct of self-efficacy was added when the theory evolved into SCT.

1. Reciprocal Determinism - This is the central concept of SCT. This refers to the dynamic and reciprocal interaction of person (individual with a set of learned experiences), environment (external social context), and behavior (responses to stimuli to achieve goals).

2. Behavioral Capability - This refers to a person's actual ability to perform a behavior through essential knowledge and skills. In order to successfully perform a behavior, a person must know what to do and how to do it. People learn from the consequences of their behavior, which also affects the environment in which they live.

3. Observational Learning - This asserts that people can witness and observe a behavior conducted by others, and then reproduce those actions. This is often exhibited through "modeling" of behaviors. If individuals see successful demonstration of a behavior, they can also complete the behavior successfully.

4. Reinforcements - This refers to the internal or external responses to a person's behavior that affect the likelihood of continuing or discontinuing the behavior. Reinforcements can be self-initiated or in the environment, and reinforcements can be positive or negative. This is the construct of SCT that most closely ties to the reciprocal relationship between behavior and environment.

5. Expectations - This refers to the anticipated consequences of a person's behavior. Outcome expectations can be health-related or not health-related. People anticipate the consequences of their actions before engaging in the behavior, and these anticipated consequences can influence successful completion of the behavior. Expectations derive largely from previous experience. While expectancies also derive from previous experience, expectancies focus on the value that is placed on the outcome and are subjective to the individual.

6. Self-efficacy - This refers to the level of a person's confidence in his or her ability to successfully perform a behavior. Self-efficacy is unique to SCT although other theories have added this construct at later dates, such as the Theory of Planned Behavior. Self-efficacy is influenced by a person's specific capabilities and other individual factors, as well as by environmental factors (barriers and facilitators).

Limitation of Social Cognitive Theory

There are several limitations of SCT, which should be considered when using this theory in public health. Limitations of the model include the following:

The theory assumes that changes in the environment will automatically lead to changes in the person, when this may not always be true.

The theory is loosely organized, based solely on the dynamic interplay between person, behavior, and environment. It is unclear the extent to which each of these factors into actual behavior and if one is more influential than another.

The theory heavily focuses on processes of learning and in doing so disregards biological and hormonal predispositions that may influence behaviors, regardless of past experience and expectations.

The theory does not focus on emotion or motivation, other than through reference to past experience. There is minimal attention on these factors.

The theory can be broad-reaching, so can be difficult to operationalize in entirety.

Social Cognitive Theory considers many levels of the social ecological model in addressing behavior change of individuals. SCT has been widely used in health promotion given the emphasis on the individual and the environment, the latter of which has become a major point of focus in recent years for health promotion activities. As with other theories, applicability of all the constructs of SCT to one public health problem may be difficult especially in developing focused public health programs.

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Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) started as the Social Learning Theory (SLT) in the 1960s by Albert Bandura. It developed into the SCT in 1986 and posits that learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior.

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IUPUI Center for Teaching and Learning: Writing a Teaching Philosophy or a Teaching Statement

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Writing a Teaching Philosophy or a Teaching Statement
Strictly speaking, your teaching philosophy is a written description of your values, goals, and beliefs regarding both teaching and learning. By contrast, your teaching statement develops from your teaching philosophy and uses evidence from your teaching to make the case that you have excelled as a teacher. (In practice, of course, these terms are often used interchangeably.) As a general expression of your beliefs and practices, your teaching philosophy can shape your syllabi or introduce your course website. As an argument for excellence, your teaching statement is more appropriate for your dossier or a job application. Regardless of whether you are on the market or preparing your dossier for promotion, or whether you simply want to help your students better understand who you are as a teacher, the following resources will help get you started on the process of articulating your beliefs about and goals for teaching. Consult our companion bibliography Resources for Teaching Portfolios for additional readings.

Identify what is important to you as an instructor.
Before you begin writing, or even if you are in the process of editing, it is a good idea to find out what you value and believe as an educator and how you demonstrate those values and beliefs while you teach. Utilize the following tools to help you accomplish this admittedly daunting task.

Write a general teaching philosophy.
Review what you have learned about yourself using the above tools and write an explanation of your beliefs as an instructor. Do not worry about length at this point. The purpose here is to articulate your ideas about teaching and learning and to describe how these ideas inform your actual teaching. Focus on your beliefs, and avoid writing a narrative about how or why you became a college instructor. The multiple resources listed below or in the sidebar will help you with this stage of the process.

Adapt your general philosophy to the intended purpose and audience (i.e., create a teaching statement).
Much like your curriculum vitae, teaching philosophies are designed to be adapted and developed for various purposes, including but not limited to promotion and tenure dossiers, job applications, and your course website. Study the sample teaching statements in the links provided in the sidebar to generate ideas and help refine your own text.

Statements for promotion and tenure dossiers often have to follow a particular format, so it is wise to review institutional guidelines and published sample dossiers. You can find examples from IUPUI faculty at the Office of Academic Affairs website.

Statements for job applications may not only be limited in terms of word count or page number, but should be tailored according to the job description. For example, if you are applying for a job that involves working with a specific student population, be sure to address your experience with that sort of population in your statement. Similarly, if you will be expected to teach a certain course or set of courses, your statement should reflect your beliefs regarding learning in those courses or types of courses.

Your teaching philosophy itself is appropriate for course websites; however, it should not only be tailored to the course in question, but also to the audience--i.e., the prospective and current students for that course. The philosophy should convey not only your general beliefs and practices, but your personality as well. Consider creating a bullet-list of the most important aspects of your philosophy and what your beliefs mean for students (i.e., what should students expect from you as a result of your beliefs?). You may even want to record a video of yourself explaining your philosophy.

Evaluate your statement.
Ask colleagues, both inside and outside of your discipline, to review your statement. If you are using the statement for a job application, be sure to provide your colleague a copy of the job description. You can also utilize one of the following rubrics to evaluate what you have written. Note that depending on the purposes of your statement, some of these items may not apply.

A Word about Structure
Following a clear rhetorical structure can make the task of composing and revising your teaching statement much less difficult. Consider using, for instance, Nancy Chism's Key Components model to organize your thoughts on a macro level and then create a topic sentence outline as you revise to focus your ideas on the paragraph level. The Chism model, the topic sentence outline, and some other helpful tips are explained below.

The Key Components Model
Developed by Nancy Chism, this model structures a teaching philosophy or teaching statement around five key component areas. These component areas consist of the answers to a number of important questions related to learning, teaching, goals, assessment, and professional development. The component areas and the questions related to them are all listed below. For more information, you can also read Dr. Chism's paper on the Key Components model. For another, different model for teaching philosophies and teaching statements, see Goodyear & Allchin (1998).

Conceptualization of Learning

How does learning take place?

Based on my observation and experience, what do I think happens during a learning episode?

Conceptualization of Teaching

How do I facilitate learning?

What are my assumptions about teaching?

Why do I teach the way I do?

How do I motivate, challenge, or support students?

How do I deal with students who struggle?

How do I vary my approach?

Goals for Students

As a result of learning, what do I expect my students to know, do, or value (in their careers and future lives)? Why?

What does my teaching philosophy mean for my students?

Implementation and Assessment

How are my conceptions of teaching and learning transformed into instructional strategies?

What are the consequences of my instructional strategies?

How do I know my teaching is effective?

What data do I use to gauge my effectiveness?

Your Future as a Successful University Teacher (Personal Growth Plan)

What goals have I set for myself as teacher?

How will I accomplish these goals?

What are some present challenges to overcome in order to achieve my goals?

How have I developed?

What evidence do I have that can demonstrate my development?

What has changed over time in my assumptions and actions?

How have I met goals that I set in the past?

The Topic Sentence Outline
After you have drafted your philosophy or statement, use the following steps to sharpen the focus of your paragraphs, which in turn will improve the coherence (i.e., flow) of your entire document. This approach can work for any sort of scholarly writing, and you can read more about it in this article by George Gopen and Judith Swan. For other writing and revision techniques, see Tara Gray's book,Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar (2005).

Cut and paste your thesis statement and the first sentence of each paragraph (i.e., your topic or key sentences) into a new document. Read through the outline you've created.

The outline should convey your main point and highlight your subordinate points in a logical, if brief, manner. Ideally the outline should also hint at your evidence and highlight your concluding thought.

If your outline does not clearly convey your main point, or if the flow of your subordinate points seems too disjointed, then revisit and revise your paragraphs. Begin by trying to locate the sentences that do contain each paragraph's central message (i.e., your subordinate points). As you then revise your paragraphs, move those sentences to the top of each paragraph (i.e., the topic sentence position). Next, make a new outline to see if the flow of your subordinate points has become clearer or more cogent.

Some General Tips

Know your audiences and their needs or interests.

Use specific, personal examples.

Avoid buzzwords and jargon.

Avoid statements of absolute fact.

I.e., "Small group activities are the only way to build community in a freshman class."

Write in the first-person and the active voice.

E.g., "I engage students with active learning techniques." NOT "Students are engaged with active learning techniques."

Write more than you need and revise down. Be concise!

Resources and References

Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). The teaching goals inventory. Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. (2 nd Ed.). (pp. 13-24). San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Online inventory retrieved from: http://fm.iowa.uiowa.edu/fmi/xsl/tgi/data_entry.xsl?-db=tgi_data&-lay=Layout01&-view

Chism, N.V.N. (1997-98). Developing a philosophy of teaching statement. Essays on teaching excellence: Toward the best in the academy 9 (3). Retrieved from: http://podnetwork.org/content/uploads/V9-N3-Chism.pdf

Faculty Focus. (2009). Philosophy of teaching statements: Examples and tips on how to write a teaching philosophy statement. Retrieved from: http://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/philosophy-of-teaching-statements-examples-and-tips-on-how-to-write-a-teaching-philosophy-statement/

Goodyear, G. E. & Allchin, D. (1998) Statement of teaching philosophy. To Improve the Academy 17, 103-22. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Gopen, G. and J. Swan. (1990). The science of scientific writing. American scientist 78, 550-558. Retrieved from: https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-science-of-scientific-writing/1

Gray, Tara. (2005). Publish & flourish: Become a prolific scholar. Las Cruces, NM: Teaching Academy.

Kearns, K. D., Subino Sullivan, C., O'Loughlin, V. D., & Braun, M. (2010). A scoring rubric for teaching statements: a tool for inquiry into graduate student writing about teaching and learning. Journal for Excellence in College Teaching, 21, 73-96. Rubric retrieved from: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/6804/final teaching statement rubric.pdf?sequence=1

O'Neal, C., Meizlish, D., & Kaplan, M. (2007). Writing a statement of teaching philosophy for the academic job search. CRLT Occasional Papers No. 23. Retrieved from: http://www.crlt.umich.edu/publinks/CRLT_no23.pdf

Pratt, D. D. & Collins, J. B. (2001). Teaching Perspectives Inventory. Retrieved from: http://www.teachingperspectives.com/drupal/

The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University. (n.d.). Statement of teaching philosophy: Questions to consider. Retrieved from: https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/1496

Updated by James Gregory (November, 2016)
Updated by James Gregory (October, 2015)
Authored by Sarah Lang (April, 2012)

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IUPUI Center for Teaching and Learning: Writing a Teaching Philosophy or a Teaching Statement

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Strictly speaking, your teaching philosophy is a written description of your values, goals, and beliefs regarding both teaching and learning. By contrast, your teaching statement develops from your teaching philosophy and uses evidence from your teaching to make the case that you have excelled as a teacher.

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Includes memory

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

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Small Tools & Gadgets

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Database of educational and workforce mobile apps for all devices, grade levels, college, and careers in over 150 program areas; PreK-Careers

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These one-page accessibility resources, or "cheatsheets," have been developed to assist anyone who is creating accessible content. These free resources are catered to less-technical individuals, such as faculty and staff.

Microsoft Office

Adobe

Other Accessibility Topics

These cheatsheets are meant to be used as part of a larger training plan, as mentioned in our blog post on How to Use our Accessibility Cheatsheets. For more complete and technical information about these topics, visit our partner WebAIM. If you would like to be notified when additional resources are created, subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
To use these cheatsheets at your institution, reference our Terms of Use.
Microsoft Office

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is currently the most common word processor on the market. Word files can also be the starting point for other files, such as PDF and HTML. Having the correct tools to create accessible Word documents is imperative to improving your institution's accessible content.

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is presentation software typically used to display slides during face-to-face meetings. However, PowerPoint is also often used on the web and with distance education technologies so files must be accessible to users with disabilities.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is spreadsheet software that allows users to perform calculations and organize data by creating tables and graphs. These complex documents require further steps to ensure the content is accessible.

Adobe

Adobe Acrobat

PDF files can be created in an assortment of programs, with varied results. Adobe Acrobat is a valuable tool to ensure your PDF documents are accessible to everyone, regardless of how they were created.

Adobe InDesign

Many designers use InDesign to develop print and web documents. This handout reviews the steps needed to create accessible PDF documents in Adobe InDesign.

Other Accessibility Topics

Accessible Web Content

A general understanding of web accessibility principles can drastically improve the accessibility of a website. There are many accessibility problems that can be quickly and easily identified without the need for a highly technical background. Online accessibility tools can help you identify common web accessibility problems as well.

YouTube Captioning

Learn how to easily upload or create captions and transcripts for your YouTube videos, and how to edit YouTube's automatically-generated captions.

Terms of Use

We encourage institutions to use these cheatsheets in their own accessibility efforts. We offer them at no cost but you must maintain the GOALS/ NCDAE branding while distributing them. We also recommend you link directly to our cheatsheets, instead of hosting them locally on your own site, because we are continually updating them and want to ensure you get the most up to date information. For more information visit our Copyright & Terms of Use page.

Made possible by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education. No official endorsement should be inferred.

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These one-page accessibility resources, or "cheatsheets," have been developed to assist anyone who is creating accessible content. These free resources are catered to less-technical individuals, such as faculty and staff. Microsoft Office Adobe Other Accessibility Topics These cheatsheets are meant to be used as part of a larger training plan, as mentioned in our blog post on How to Use our Accessibility Cheatsheets.

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How to Teach an Inductive Learning Lesson

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CSU, Chico

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University of Illinois

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Biology of Learning and Implications for Teaching

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Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash

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Beautiful, free images and photos that you can download and use for any project. Better than any royalty free or stock photos.

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A version of this article appeared in the Winter 2018 issue of strategy+business.

Not too long ago, 62 employees at a major consultancy found themselves getting called into a room in pairs, neither person having any prior relationship to the other, for what they were told was a role-playing exercise. Researchers asked them to sit across from each other. Participants then learned they weren't assigned to be collaborators, but adversaries - opposing sides engaging in a mock negotiation to buy or sell a biotechnology plant. They had six minutes to haggle over the price, and heart-rate monitors would track the ups and downs of the argument.

When the negotiations were finished, each side gave feedback about his or her opponent's performance. Some participants were told to give the feedback unprompted. Others were instructed to ask for feedback. Quietly, the heart-rate monitors listened.

Here's what the researchers found: If you want to put people on edge, tell them they will receive some feedback. Or, just as bad, tell them they'll be giving feedback. Subjects in the study felt equally anxious offering feedback and receiving it, which might explain why so much workplace feedback - particularly in the United States - amounts to a series of polite statements, with few suggestions for improvement.

"There's a strong culture of being very nice to people, and it's hard to be critical of someone in those conditions," says Tessa West, the New York University psychologist and NeuroLeadership Institute senior scientist who led the study, alongside researcher Katherine Thorson, also of NYU. "How good is the feedback going to be if the person feels this strong normative pressure to be nice during the interaction? It might just be overly nice and not constructive because they feel weird about the feedback experience."

Simple as it may seem, feedback - that ubiquitous necessity of organizational life - has proven to be an axis on which organizational culture turns. Research is suggesting that by switching from giving feedback to asking for it, organizations can tilt their culture toward continuous improvement; smarter decision making; and stronger, more resilient teams that can adapt as needed.

Why Feedback Matters

Feedback isn't just a ritual of the modern workplace. It's the means by which organisms, across a variety of life-forms and time periods, have adapted to survive. To University of Sheffield cognitive scientist Tom Stafford, feedback is the essence of intelligence. "Thanks to feedback we can become more than simple programs with simple reflexes, and develop more complex responses to the environment," he writes. "Feedback allows animals like us to follow a purpose."

Research is suggesting that by switching from giving feedback to asking for it, organizations can tilt their culture toward continuous improvement.

It's no coincidence the words organism and organization share a Latin root. Just as feedback enables the former to flourish, so it does for the latter. The single-celled amoeba that relies on feedback from its marine environment can more easily find bacteria to munch on, and the salesman who risks losing his job owing to missed targets - metrics, too, are a form of feedback - knows he must change his approach, finding better leads or making more of the customers he has. The same is true for the underperforming department that faces restructuring and rethinks how it collaborates. In all cases, feedback is what keeps organisms, and organizations, alive and well.

Even within organizations, feedback can take many forms. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and other quantitative data are perhaps the most recognizable kind of feedback, especially during performance reviews, but conversational feedback - for example, a quick chat over coffee - counts too. Indeed, just as leaders should think carefully about the KPIs that guide behavior on their teams, they should consider the patterns of verbal feedback that guide their teams to improve.

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Research has found roughly 87 percent of employees want to "be developed" in their job, but only a third report actually receiving the feedback they need to engage and improve. The reason for the gap is hardly a mystery: Typical feedback conversations are about as pleasant as a root canal. Managers dread them because it's often unclear what kind of feedback the employee wants or needs, and employees dread them because even light criticism can feel like an assault on their status and credibility. Indeed, West and Thorson's new study found that receivers' heart rates jumped enough to indicate moderate or extreme duress in unprompted feedback situations.

Management gurus have devised a range of tactics to repair these broken interactions. Mostly, they restructure how feedback is given, and apply little thought to what the research literature advises. Under the popular sandwich model, a manager carefully slips a criticism in between two compliments, hoping not to threaten the employee while still offering guidance. Other variations include the start, stop, continue method, which encourages employees to start doing one set of behaviors, stop doing another, and continue doing a third. In our own research of 35 such models, no organization was confident its feedback model was effective at creating lasting behavior change. And tellingly, only one gave tools to the feedback giver, not the receiver.

Of course, some organizations forgo these methods entirely, opting to spend large sums of money - US$1,273 per employee, by some estimates - to build and deploy learning initiatives that seek to improve behavior and performance en masse. These initiatives stand partially, if not entirely, in place of feedback conversations because organizations assume it's easier to get everyone up to speed at once than to let it happen organically.

A growing body of research argues against all of these approaches. This research compels organizations to heed the wisdom of West and Thorson's negotiation study: Developing a culture of asking for feedback may be the most cost-effective way to develop healthy, ever-evolving work cultures.

Mock Negotiations, Real Insights

After the participants in West and Thorson's study finished their negotiations, each person was randomly assigned to one of two conditions: Either they would ask for feedback or just give it outright. Afterward, the researchers asked people how they felt during the interaction. Did they feel anxious? How difficult was hearing feedback about their negotiation skills?

When the investigators analyzed the data, they found a curious effect among the people who gave feedback unsolicited: They were rated as being much friendlier than those who were asked to give it. Not only that, the feedback itself was judged to be more positive. It was only when West and Thorson looked at the givers' heart-rate reactivity and saw it was jumping around erratically that they deduced people were actually terribly anxious during the interaction.

"They're looking really friendly," West says, "but they're feeling really uncomfortable."

Psychologists have come to label this phenomenon " brittle smiles." It happens when people try to adhere to a "culture of niceness," as West calls it, even though they really want to speak or act more candidly and critically. So they overcompensate. They smile too much and become overly positive in their speech.

To West's mind, asking for feedback is the best way to avoid brittle smiles and the culture of niceness. "When you ask for feedback, you're licensing people to be critical of you," she says. "It may feel a little more uncomfortable, but you're going to get honest, more constructive feedback."

This permission, it turns out, is hugely important for putting both parties in a psychological state that's ready for negative news. Without it, the brain begins to revert to a state that isn't conducive to growth, and that finds its roots thousands of years in the past.

The Science of Why Feedback Is So Miserable

Though most of us no longer have to fend off predators, our brains are still exquisitely attuned to threats - both physical and social. It's a vestige of how survival has largely depended on appeasing group members. Among our ancestors, eviction from the group led to a dangerous, isolated existence in the wild.

Modern humans base their decisions on many of the same pro-social, consensus-building impulses. We make polite chitchat at work, even in our most antisocial states, so others will see us as friendly. We avoid talking to the attractive stranger at the bar because something deep and ancient in us registers the possibility of rejection as a matter of life and death. When neuroscientists conduct brain scans of people exposed to social threats, such as a nasty look or gesture, the resulting images look just like the scans of people exposed to physical threats. Our bodies react in much the same ways. Our faces flush, our hearts race, and our brains shut down. No matter if we're giving a speech to thousands or coming face-to-face with a jungle cat, our body's response is the same: We want out.

Feedback conversations, as they exist today, activate this social threat response. In West and Thorson's study, participants' heart rates jumped as much as 50 percent during feedback conversations. (Equivalent spikes have been found during some of the most anxiety-producing tasks, such as public speaking.) In their self-assessments, participants reported feelings that mirror what just about everyone has experienced personally: nerves, uncertainty, and anxiety. All this physiological stress has the unfortunate effect of draining a person's mental resources.

"Giving all that negative feedback that wasn't asked for, you might feel like you just told someone a bunch of stuff they care about," West says, "but they just shut down and stop listening to you."

Even if people retain the information, there's no telling if they'll agree with it, because social threats can create cognitive dissonance. People are inclined to flee the actual room or space where they are threatened; similarly, cognitive dissonance motivates them (pdf) to "flee" the threatening idea itself. People have been shown to more often reject disagreeable information, such as criticism, as patently untrue when they are in a threat state. The goal is self-preservation. If they can convince themselves the critique is false - My boss has no idea what he's talking about! - they can also avoid a bruised ego.

Scientific research suggests that feedback conversations, if they are to be productive, must begin with the goal of minimizing threat response.

The Rewards of Asking for Feedback

Asking for feedback is the path to get to minimal threat response, because it appears to offer both the receiver and the giver much more psychological safety than a giver-led approach. This safety is crucial during feedback discussions because our brains will be in a much better state for performing complex cognitive functions.

One of the strongest models for understanding social threat and reward is what psychologists call the SCARF model. The term stands for status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness, each component referring to a domain of social interaction that can create a threat or reward state in participants. If a meeting has no clear end time or there is no well-defined agenda, attendees may feel certainty threats - negative feelings due to a lack of clarity. Alternatively, if the host clearly lays out the structure and schedule of the meeting, people may feel certainty rewards. In another instance, employees whose manager constantly checks in and meddles with every last detail would rightfully feel threats to their autonomy. They might feel more rewarded if the manager appointed people to lead individual projects, giving them a greater sense of control.

When people ask for feedback, they feel greater autonomy and certainty because they are in the driver's seat - they can steer the conversation where it'll be most useful. Givers, in turn, feel more certainty because they have clearer guidelines for the kind of feedback they should give. The information will be more relevant to the team member and less threatening to his or her status, ultimately making the entire discussion feel more equitable and fair. It might be uncomfortable, but manageably so.

"We're not promising it's going to feel good right away," West says. "But it will be better for you in the long term."

Getting to a Culture of Feedback

West believes what she found in that negotiation room should compel all organizations to adopt an asking model of feedback. However, she realizes how threatening it may seem to actively seek out criticism - perhaps even more nerve-racking than just happening to receive it. Unless an organization has an extremely well-oiled growth mind-set, in which employees absolutely relish the chance to get better, people are unlikely to go searching for anything that might reveal room for improvement.

The key is to start small.

"It's like going on a diet," West says. "You don't want to cut out everything that's delicious. You have to gradually replace the unhealthy with the healthy."

At the office, leaders can begin by asking for feedback on low-stakes topics, such as the temperature in the office or how people felt about yesterday's lunch. The point is to get people used to giving feedback that was asked for. When leaders take the first step, they signal to the wider organization that asking is important, and the low-stakes questions help build a sense of trust and agency in their team members. People are given an opportunity to feel heard, which boosts their status, makes them feel more included, and gives them a greater sense of autonomy. West says it also empowers them to give better feedback, replacing brittle smiles with more honest critiques.

If organizations keep up this behavior, they should have little trouble amping up feedback to tackle larger challenges, West says. But, she adds, organizations would be wise to roll out the initiative according to three criteria, in an effort to get feedback that is less biased, that promotes a growth mind-set, and that cements the habit as part of the corporate culture. Those three criteria are asking for feedback broadly, explicitly, and often.

In typical feedback conversations, one direct report learns of ways to improve from one manager. Even if the person asks for that feedback, it's bound to be influenced by the manager's unique experiences, assumptions, and mood. Indeed, behavioral economists have found that something as simple as eating or not eating lunch before making decisions can skew them in one direction or the other.

Getting broader feedback from higher- and lower-ranking people across departments can reduce the chances that feedback will be biased. The critiques or compliments will better reflect the person's actual performance rather than the mental state of the person they asked.

The second sign of good feedback is that it is explicit. Our research has found that if people ask for more specific feedback, it's bound to be richer and more informative than if they just ask "How am I doing?" or "What can I do better?" One simple reason, based on West and Thorson's research, is the finding that giving feedback creates much more anxiety than getting feedback. Managers deal with incredible uncertainty about what kind of feedback is appropriate, and also about how to deliver feedback in a way that doesn't create a threat state in their employee.

Here West says it's up to employees to equip their managers with the right kinds of questions - a help-them-help-you approach to feedback, she says. These can include "Could you please give feedback on my presentation skills?" or "Should I have spoken up more in yesterday's meeting?" The tactic helps managers avoid what relationship psychologists call "kitchen sinking."

In kitchen sinking, "You say one thing that sucks, and then you pile everything else on that sucks," West says. When employees ask for explicit feedback, they give their manager clearer boundaries.

An added benefit of asking explicitly is that employees can choose the level of construal at which they'd prefer feedback. Construal level covers the spectrum from abstract to concrete, and research has shown people have individual differences in the levels they prefer. For example, if someone wants to improve their presentation skills, a high-construal question might be "What were the goals I should have considered when presenting?" and a low-construal question could be "Did I talk too fast?" The first deals more with the why, the second with the how or what. If employees can tailor their feedback request to their preferred level of construal, they'll be more likely to process and retain the information.

Finally, employees should ask for feedback often - for two reasons. In the short term, frequent feedback allows people to course-correct more quickly than sporadic talks. They can avoid errant thinking and unnecessary problem solving. Frequent feedback requests also shorten the time between events and feedback, so a manager's memory of recent events is fresher and less tainted by bias.

Making Feedback a Habit

The feedback habit is important for both parties. If employees ask for feedback only every so often, they risk wasting valuable energy and discussion time to gain information that merely collects dust. The conversations might feel good, but learning won't be taking place. With more regular interactions, askers get more comfortable asking, givers get more comfortable giving, and both gain experience in seeing how to fill the opposite role when the time comes.

Of course, there will always be times when managers must give feedback unsolicited, such as when team members make inappropriate comments or act on impulse, hurting others' feelings, or worse. The beauty of regularly asking for feedback is that people become emotionally well-equipped to give and receive their feedback in these cases, too. In West and Thorson's study, only one participant demonstrated this give-and-take ability. When she needed to critique the other person, unprompted, she said, "Can I give you some feedback on your eye contact?"

"She turned it into an ask," West observes.

In work cultures where asking is the norm, she says, givers can ask permission to give explicit feedback; receivers can understand the giver's intent; and both can enjoy more accurate feedback, fewer perceived threats, and stronger learning. It all goes back to West's call for people to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, for the sake of personal and organizational growth.

"If both people have license to be critical, it's actually going to be good," West says. The culture can become one of reciprocity, not niceness, which means people will still feel incentivized to give honest feedback, but do so respectfully, since the roles might be reversed someday. "You might be a little more sensitive in how you deliver critical feedback, because you know it's going to come back to you."

Companies that drag their feet and uphold a culture of niceness may feel better from day to day, in other words, but it's the ones that embrace some creative discomfort that make better decisions, and prevail in the end.

Motivate with "Mental Contrasting"

Mental contrasting, developed by psychologist Gabriele Oettingen, is a visualization technique that involves juxtaposing the present reality with the desired future reality to generate motivation. It is essential for feedback conversations because it gets people thinking about how they might improve, not how they've been messing up. Her research has shown that contrasting can help people cut down on food cravings and the desire to smoke, by simply making the future reality come alive in their minds.

To make use of mental contrasting, people must mentally inhabit both temporal worlds - the present and the future - and reconcile how they've been behaving with how they'd like to behave. They can juxtapose the present against a better future if they stop the behavior, such as living longer in the absence of cigarettes, or they can imagine a negative future - lung disease, medical bills, and so on - if they stay on their current path. What's important is that they make the experience as vivid as possible to create strong emotions that will inspire them to create a change.

Leaders can take advantage of the technique in feedback dialogues with questions that expand the conversation. For instance, a manager can ask a direct report to vocalize a few of her long-term goals, and then follow up with such questions as: What steps are necessary to get there? and What about that future is different from the present? Getting the employee to actively imagine her own growth and create a better future can produce intrinsic motivation that leads to rapid, lasting behavior change.

Author Profiles:

David Rock is cofounder and director of the NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI), a global initiative bringing neuroscientists and leadership experts together.

Beth Jones is a senior consultant at, and leads the performance practice for, NLI.

Chris Weller is a senior science editor at NLI.

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David Rock, Beth Jones, and Chris Weller

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Using Neuroscience to Make Feedback Work and Feel Better

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A version of this article appeared in the Winter 2018 issue of strategy+business. Not too long ago, 62 employees at a major consultancy found themselves getting called into a room in pairs, neither person having any prior relationship to the other, for what they were told was a role-playing exercise.

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Inside Digital Learning asked four authors of books about online education for their expert advice on how instructors and their institutions can excel in virtual course instruction. The authors agreed that the online classroom is different enough from the traditional one that faculty members and adjuncts need to create courses for digital delivery that are substantially different from those they teach on campus. And they said teaching online requires an even keener focus on student engagement than the face-to-face model does.

"Years ago, we used to say the danger of online courses was they were just going to become electronic correspondence courses," said Rita-Marie Conrad, who along with Judith V. Boettcher, wrote The Online Teaching Survival Guide. "That's still a danger. As each new wave of instructors comes into this environment, there's still that misunderstanding that this is a new environment."

However, institutions and professors should be encouraging residential students to take classes online. "[Colleges] don't provide an online experience to every undergraduate student, but we're doing them a disservice," said Elliot King, co-author of Best Practices in Online Program Development and the upcoming Best Practices in Planning Strategically for Online Education.

More and more, employers are offering professional development courses online, he noted. "Learning online is different from face-to-face, and [graduates] won't have any experience. If the college wants students to be lifelong learners, give them the opportunity to" take virtual courses."

In addition to Conrad, Boettcher and Elliott, Inside Digital Learning spoke with Marjorie Vai, author of Essentials of Online Course Design and editor of Routledge's Essentials of Online Learning series.

Here are the authors' top tips for creating engaging and successful online education:
Make It a Group Effort
Even an instructor who has taught the same course dozens of times in an on-campus classroom will spend many extra hours figuring out how to teach it online, said Conrad, a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley. So colleges and universities should offer them some sort of compensation, like a lighter teaching load the first semester or extra pay.

In addition, Conrad added, faculty members need training in how to design and teach an online course. "Too often, faculty try to lay the technology on top of the face-to-face course, and that does not work well," she said. "It doesn't work for the students, and it doesn't work for the faculty."
Focus on 'Active' Learning
Instructors often rely on long lectures to fill the time in a traditional class meeting. But even the most dynamic lecturers cannot get away with that online, Conrad said.

To engage students who are not in the room during a lesson, the course should mix spurts of discussions, collaboration, video and audio clips, and hands-on exercises with text and possibly brief video lectures, Conrad suggested.

"It's not a lecture classroom online," she said. "It's an active learning classroom online." And she said this blend of teaching and learning tools is new to many professors who have not created active learning environments in their face-to-face classrooms.
'Chunk' the Lessons
Long lectures probably aren't the best way to engage a face-to-face class - and are even more ineffective online, said Vai, an e-learning consultant and former chair of the English language studies department at the New School in New York.

"The student should be engaged," she said, "so no pages of text or an hour-long video." She recommended presenting information in 10-minute "chunks" and agreed with Conrad about the importance of varying the format.

Vai also suggested designing lessons with ample white space; breaking up text with photographs so students can see examples of what is in the text; and incorporating color into section titles.
Keep Group Sizes Small
In a traditional classroom or lecture hall, some students never participate in discussions or ask questions, usually because they are either shy or are not engaged. Online, said King, academic director of Loyola University Maryland's master's program in emerging media, that participation is required, but can be equally intimidating if students are expected to engage with dozens of classmates.

King recommended a cap of 20 to 30 students in online classes. And he has advised professors to break those students into groups of no more than 10 for purposes of discussions, collaboration, peer critiques and group activities.

"It's much easier for them to coordinate their time when there are fewer students," King said. "Everyone has to participate, but the barriers go down because they're only participating with 10 students."
Be Present
"No matter where teaching and learning take place, the importance of the faculty member being there and being mentally present with the students is the most important thing they can do," said Boettcher, of Designing for Learning, her Tallahassee, Fla.-based elearning consulting firm.

That doesn't mean simply responding to questions that students post online. Boettcher said instructors should have a "social presence" in their online classrooms, and encourage students to do the same. She suggested faculty members post their bios in the classroom and also do "some cocktail-party sharing" by telling students which books they are reading and the topic of their research. They also can post photos of themselves working on their laptop at a coffee shop or mention something interesting that happened over the weekend.

"Students should have a well-rounded idea of who [their professors are] as people," Boettcher said.
Parse Your Time
All of the authors agreed that instructor presence is critical to student success in a virtual class. Still, noted Conrad: "Online courses can really consume you; I know this from experience."

Responding to every discussion board post by every student in an online class "will crush you," King agreed. "Manage your time in a reasonable way. Don't be available 24/7. Don't turn your class into a one-on-one interaction with 30 students."

Conrad agreed. "Institutions think a faculty member needs to respond to everything" each student posts online. "That's not the way it is."

Conrad, who said she "picks and chooses" what she responds to, noted that if the instructor comments on every post, students tend to write their posts for the instructor, and not for other students. Online discussions, she said, should be between students.

Still, she said, the instructor "cannot simply let a course run itself. You're there as much as you are in a regular classroom. But that doesn't mean you're in the course 24/7. Pick and choose where you insert your voice."
Embrace Multi-media Assignments
Students who enroll in virtual courses usually are at least somewhat facile with technology, King noted, saying professors should leverage that by allowing them to use digital tools for their assignments.

While it's quicker to grade papers than to review student-produced PowerPoint presentations or videos, King said, "a lot of students express themselves better that way."

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7 guidelines for effective teaching online

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Inside Digital Learning asked four authors of books about online education for their expert advice on how instructors and their institutions can excel in virtual course instruction. The authors agreed that the online classroom is different enough from the traditional one that faculty members and adjuncts need to create courses for digital delivery that are substantially different from those they teach on campus.

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Online teaching is increasingly common at many types of higher education institutions, ranging from hybrid courses that offer a combination of in-person and online instruction, to fully online experiences and distance learning. The following resources provide guidelines for creating an online course, best practices for teaching online, and strategies for assessing the quality of online education.

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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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.