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The dos and don'ts of dealing with classroom confrontations.

Fortunately, many educators have developed strategies for dealing with confrontational students. At the top of the list: "Never get into a power struggle," says Mary Barela, a middle school teacher in Fort Collins, Colorado. "You are the adult and know better. If the conversation feels like it is slipping toward a power struggle, find a way to change the course."

That may feel like it is easier said than done, so we asked educators for their advice on defusing tense situations with students. Here's their list of Dos and Don'ts.

Dos

Engage students by providing a "hook" for each lesson at the beginning to keep them thinking and interested.

Dr. Robert Feller from the University of Washington believes these hooks prevent potential disruptions and stimulate students' minds so they focus on the upcoming lesson. Teachers can do anything from a simple science experiment or a game that connects students' lives to the lesson.

"Attention grabbers may be used to provoke thought, facilitate active learning, or just share experiences, says retired teacher LaNelle Holland in Whitesburg, Georgia. "The teacher who asks challenging questions stimulates student interest. Empower your students by encouraging them to participate in activities of the whole group or in smaller groups."

Try to understand the student's background and home life.

Problems at home or a difficult home life are often a reason for disruptive children. If you know where your students are coming from, you are in a better position to relate. Author and education researcher Dr. Elise Trumbull believes that a connection with students creates a level of respect and trust between students and the teachers. If teachers can start to understand students' cultures better, a partnership can be formed between school and the home with the parents.

"Taking the time to learn about a child's background can make the difference between compassion and callousness," says retired teacher Diane Postman of Yorktown, Virginia. "Knowing a child is dealing with family issues or poverty can lead a teacher to make allowances or adaptations to help a struggling child succeed. This can ward off some behavioral problems and help the child to save face."

When a disagreement or confrontation arises, show the student how to deal with it in a dignified manner and maintain the integrity of your classroom. Frank Iannucci, a math and computer science teacher from West Orange, New Jersey, says teachers should immediately stop the confrontation and arrange to discuss it with the student in a mature, adult manner, regardless of the age of the student, after the period. This demonstrates to students that fights can be stopped before they get out of hand.

Amy Van Wormer of St. Petersburg, Florida, agrees. "Respectfully remind them of why there are there, and continue with the lesson. If [the behavior] continues, request to meet [the student] privately outside of the class," she says. "[Ask the student] to make the right choices and ask why they are having trouble doing the right thing."

React in a way that allows the student to save face.

Never engage a student in front of classmates. It embarrasses the student in public, sends a message that you don't care for the student's feelings, and could potentially escalate the situation.

"Maintain control of your own actions and somehow find a way to give the disruptive student an 'out' so that he or she can back down without losing too much face," says Barela. "Another option, if possible, is to remove the student from the learning environment so that the two of you can deal with the issue privately. Even taking a short walk out in the hall can do wonders for both of you."

Don'ts

React to every little distraction unless it is distracting other students.

If you react to everything that goes on in a classroom, you'll lose too much valuable teaching time. If the primary problem is one child's behavior, you can talk to him or her in private, but as long as the student isn't disrupting the class, it's not worth stopping instruction to address a situation.

Linda Marino, a special education teacher in Mexico, New York, has one method to avoid power struggles. "I have certain students who love to instigate and distract each other, so I made distraction tickets. I give students a ticket when they ignore the negative behavior of another and do not let that student distract them. At the end of the day, we have a lottery drawing with the daily distraction tickets and the winner gets a special prize from me."

Keep your composure while dealing with students, because disruptive students will look for any opening to create chaos. You need to be a role model for students and show how to properly deal with an argument.

"Don't get 'in their face' and stay calm!" says Holland. "Also, don't take it personally. Kids run rampant on emotions and if handled correctly, you can usually keep it under control."

Fighting for the last word in an argument only prolongs the argument. Try to understand where the student is coming from, but don't add more fuel to the fire by adding a quick jab at the end.

According to Christopher Perillo, a high school science teacher in Kenosha, Wisconsin, "Teachers who insist on having the last word are bringing themselves down to a juvenile level. Students will remember this and that teacher's value will be diminished."

Use language that will put the student on the defensive.

It is much better to focus on what you don't understand by using "I statements" and "feeling statements" rather than "you statements." This will allow the student to explain instead of argue their point. It also allows the student to understand that the teacher isn't trying to pin them into a corner or assess blame, but rather understand the student's actions.

"We all can get angry at some point in our lives, but how we deal with it constructively is important," says Patrice Palmer, a second-grade teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada. "Using 'I' messages and not 'you, you, you' messages is important because it doesn't put someone on the defensive."

Following these dos and don'ts should help you run a smoother classroom and allow students to be academically engaged instead of engaging in arguments.
Illustration By Dave Clark

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Fortunately, many educators have developed strategies for dealing with confrontational students. At the top of the list: "Never get into a power struggle," says Mary Barela, a middle school teacher in Fort Collins, Colorado. "You are the adult and know better.

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Hello and welcome to the Blame Game, where parents blame teachers and teachers blame parents for low grades, mischievous behavior, and everything under the sun. I'm your host, and today we have two contestants who will ...
Wait! What? Stop!

While this game show doesn't exist, and may exaggerate what actually happens, it's not too far from the truth. Just look at the comment section of any article or blog post on education. It's not unusual to find comments like, "My son hates school because of his teacher" or "Parents don't care."

"People make assumptions all the time," says Bonnie M. Davis, a retired educator of 30 years from Missouri. "You'll hear, 'The kid doesn't do homework because parents don't care.' But most people do care and they try to do their best."

Most teachers are understanding of parents, too.

In a Reddit thread dubbed, When Parents Blame You, one user commented, "I don't blame the parents. They are usually super stressed out. [I've] had parents go from irate to crying in 20 minutes. As soon as I can identify the underlying fear and address that directly, we can get on the same page and come up with a plan."

"Try not to take it personally," suggests Davis, "and give each other a break."

The trigger, in a lot of cases, is that the communication between the educator and the parent has fallen to the wayside. That's especially true amid the heavy demands of educating students and the weight of raising children. "Everyone is stressed," says Davis, who taught in the Clayton School District in St. Louis.

Take a look at the statements below. Which sentiment belongs to whom? The parent or the teacher?

I'm doing everything I can

I need more hours in the day

I'm so tired

I feel like I work all the time

I'm so stressed

I have no "me" time

If you said a teacher and a parent could have said each one, you're right. The good news is that a lot of parents already have strong relationships with educators.

In 2012, Parenting magazine and NEA surveyed 1,000 public school parents and educators to better understand the roadblocks to effective parent-teacher communication. Parents were asked to "grade" their relationship with their child's teachers. Forty-five percent gave teachers an "A."

But what happens when a relationship turns sour, and what can educators do to turn it around and keep it healthy? Keep reading for some real-world examples of difficult situations and how they were handled. The solutions may already be a part of your repertoire, but it certainly doesn't hurt to keep them in mind as the new school year approaches.
Scenario One: Ally or Enemy
A few years ago, Shafeza Moonab, a middle school teacher in Florida's Broward County School District, tasked her students to research a region of the world. The assignment came with one caveat: Don't pick your own culture. Moonab did allow one student to research his own culture-Judaism-because he wanted to learn more.

On presentation day, things didn't go as planned.

"As he starts to present, I thought, 'That's not the way he talks,'" Moonab recalls. She pulled up a website on Judaism and discovered his presentation was an exact replica of the site. "He didn't even bother changing some of it into his own words. I gave him an 'F.'"

Phone calls between Moonab and the student's parents were initially unsuccessful. Eventually a meeting between the three, plus the school administrators and a social worker, did take place. "We're going on and on about this paper," Moonab recounts today, "and I was showing them the website. Three and a half hours into this meeting I asked them, 'Did you look at what your child wrote?'"

"No, we believe him" was their response. Moonab produced the student's paper, and the father admitted he had never read it.

Conversations after the meeting ensured everyone was in agreement about what was expected of the student, and a healthy relationship was saved. In this case, follow-up conversations were important. But regular communication with parents can help prevent situations like this.

"You as an educator need to put forth that effort to ensure the lines of communication are open with parents. Otherwise, you're putting yourself in jeopardy," Moonab says.
Solution: Set the Tone
Moonab sets the tone for positive communication at the start of the school year and hosts a beginning-of-the-year meeting. These gatherings can produce great results, like creating a welcoming environment and establishing connections with parents and guardians. They also help Moonab to learn parents' preferred method of communication, which is vital.

Contact doesn't begin and end at the meetings. Moonab, a middle school teacher with 13 years experience also calls parents every quarter to inform them of her upcoming plans and to listen to their questions. She also gets in touch with good news-a student who was the only one to earn a 100 percent on a test or assignment or someone who did something nice for a classmate.

"Parents at times don't feel like they're a part of the process and it's incumbent upon the educator to [change that] because they are a part of the process," she says. "And, the most important thing for teachers-because sometimes they are so overwhelmed-is not to wait to the last moment to contact parents with bad news." She adds, "At that point it's too late, and parents are going to play the blame game."
Scenario Two: Not Every Story has a Happy Ending
It was like a scene from the 1999 movie Superstar, where Mary Katherine Gallagher, played by Molly Shannon, screamed at Grandma Gallagher, "You're horrible. You're horrible...(slams door, opens door)... horrible! "

A Midwest educator (who prefers to remain anonymous, because she lives in a town with fewer than 1,000 people) tells the story of a parent who came rushing into the building one morning to tell the principal that a book needed to be removed from the teacher's book shelf. The book contained a word the parent was not comfortable having her son read.

The teacher refused, asserting the book was age-appropriate, and the principal agreed.

Unhappy with the outcome, the teacher says the parent "called me personally and told me I was a 'horrible' person. It was intense." The teacher remained calm on the phone, even offering ideas on how to prevent this incident in the future. Nothing sufficed and the relationship went sour.

"She won't look at me or make eye contact with me," says the teacher, who has taught English for more than a decade. "If she looks at me I'll say 'Hi,' but she usually ignores me and I leave it at that." The teacher says eventually she would like to reinitiate a conversation and come up with a plan to make the parent feel at ease about what her son is reading.

"I would hope we could talk once again and listen to each other-both sides-and say, 'if this happens again this is what we would do,'" the teacher says.
Solution: Keep Calm
This educator tells educators to remain calm when relationships don't go as planned. "When this lady was calling me a 'horrible' person I wanted to cry and yell, but you have to just breathe and stay calm because it's your job. You're working with their children."

Another tip is to have someone with you. Emotional conversations can easily be misconstrued. At the Midwest teacher's school, educators have the support of administrators. Teachers can invite a parent in for a talk, and also request a meeting with the superintendent. "It's a support system that we can fall back on," she says.

Overall, this teacher has great relationships with her students' parents. "I see parents all the time," says the educator, whose school district has fewer than 400 students. "If something is bothering me and I see a parent, I let them know that I'm going to email them later." This way, a parent isn't caught off guard.

Parents also agree that communication matters. In 2012, an NEA/ Parenting magazine survey indicated that 70 percent of teachers felt they held a sufficient number of conferences with parents. (Most held them twice per school year.) By contrast, only 48 percent of parents agreed that there were enough conferences.

The Midwest teacher says parent involvement is key. She asks students to discuss an assignment with their parents. Afterward, she thanks parents for participating, and will ask them a question designed to elicit a back and forth exchange between the two.

Educators' Advice for Repairing a Relationship

The key to getting back on track is human contact and connection through phone and in-person conferencing. Email emboldens aggressiveness, is subject to misrepresentation, and is not immediate in its exchange. Furthermore, online grading systems have done more harm than good in that they lessen teacher-parent dialogue, and if there is interaction, it is immediately about the grade and not the learning.
-Joseph Bossio, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Plainsboro, N.J.I don't blame parents and have found that they don't blame me. But being willing to be honest and vulnerable and ask them for help really makes a difference. I also ask questions like, "What works at home?" and "What are some things teachers have done in the past that worked?" And then, of course, it helps to actually listen to and try out the responses.
- Lisa Hendricks, Pine Ridge Elementary School, Grand Rapids, Mich. In all honesty, sometimes you can't. In such circumstances, you need to concentrate on the positive parent relationship you do have. There is no need to pacify a parent you know you will truly never be able to please.
-Patty Corwin, Retired educator, Illinois

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Getting Derailed Parent-Teacher Relationships Back on Track

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Hello and welcome to the Blame Game, where parents blame teachers and teachers blame parents for low grades, mischievous behavior, and everything under the sun. I'm your host, and today we have two contestants who will ... Wait! What? Stop! While this game show doesn't exist, and may exaggerate what actually happens, it's not too far from the truth.

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Maurice J. Elias

Prof. of Psychology, Director, Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab (www.secdlab.org), Director, the Collaborative Center for Community-Based Research and Service (engage.rutgers.edu)

We are more aware than ever that student motivation and engagement is essential for lasting learning. But there is less discussion of how and why intrinsic motivation works. In fact, when we talk about "motivating students," we lose sight of the fact that they are already motivated -- just often not to do what educators want them to do!

That's why understanding intrinsic motivation is so important. We need to work with students' motivational systems more than impose motivation from the outside (i.e. extrinsically).

Deci and Ryan on Intrinsic Motivation

There is an intrinsic need for personal autonomy, self-determination, and to feel that one is choosing one's behavior, vs. being controlled externally. The work of Edward Deci and William Ryan, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, has been the exemplar in elaborating on the importance of what has come to be called "intrinsic motivation."

Choice is an essential element in feeling a sense of control. But when choices are offered, individuals need to have the information necessary for making a meaningful decision, not simply choosing between unclear options. Children also don't benefit much from choice when there likely are constraints after a choice is made. Notice the difference between #1 and 2, and #3 and 4.

1. What kind of book would you like to read?

2. What would you like to do at recess?

3. Do you want to focus on the Battle of Vicksburg or what happened at Antietam?

4. Do you want to show what you learned by writing an essay, writing out an interview script, or writing the script for a video documentary?

To generate more visible enthusiasm, as well as compliance under less monitoring, try to give instructions in autonomy-supportive ways, vs. conventional, controlling ways:

Example: Cleanup by young children after an art project

Controlling: "Keep the materials neat; don't mix up the colors; don't get any paint on the floor; be sure your smocks stay on."

Supportive: "I know sometimes it's fun to slop the paint around, but we need to keep the materials and the room nice for the other children who will use them."

This, of course, may seem familiar as Diana Baumrind's empirically supported "authoritative" approach to parents speaking with children. That approach includes a rationale they can understand for why a limit is being set.

Giving Corrective Feedback: It's All in How It's Done

For those who believe that intrinsic motivation is incompatible with negative feedback, and will ignore poor performance, the answer is that it's all in how it is done. The operative concept is constructive feedback.

The basic approach is to respect the child's dignity and competence. First, ask students to reflect on their own performance, what they did in a particular situation, how they approached a test, etc. That authentic conversation, where there is a trusting environment, will often lead to an understanding of the problem that can then be supported or refined as needed.

Next, follow with the open-ended question: What can you/we do next time so that this will not happen the same way again?

Giving students the first pass at corrective action deeply respects dignity and competence, and does not prevent friendly and constructive adult amendment of the student's plans, along with a check-in for accountability.

Keep Experimenting

If the open-ended question does not work, the next approach is to give some choices about what the student thinks might have been going on. That also respects dignity and also the possibility that students are not used to being asked to self-evaluate or do not trust the open-ended approach. Those choices can be followed by the statement, "Or, do you think there is something else going on?"

If neither of these work, feedback can be provided in an electronic message format. Often, I have found it useful to say, "Well, I would like you to think more about what we have discussed, and we will meet to talk more about it later/tomorrow/another time period as appropriate." But if this does not work, then the e-message is, "It looks to me as if x, y, z happened. When that happens, there are a, b, c consequences for you and others. What do you think? Am I understanding this correctly?"

The commitment to preserve the child's dignity and turn negative feedback situations into constructive feedback situations comes from the belief that it is a developmental right and necessity to nurture at least some areas of children's competence and possibility.

This is beyond the task of each individual teacher to accomplish effectively in isolation. Have conversations with your colleagues about each individual student's "day at school," and help each student have an affirming experience in school each day; this is no less important in grade 12 than it is at pre-K, or any time in between.

What are your thoughts and ideas on this post? Please share in the comments section below.

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Maurice J. Elias Prof. of Psychology, Director, Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab (www.secdlab.org), Director, the Collaborative Center for Community-Based Research and Service (engage.rutgers.edu) We are more aware than ever that student motivation and engagement is essential for lasting learning. But there is less discussion of how and why intrinsic motivation works.

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Stiliana Milkova
Center for Research on Learning and Teaching

A lesson plan is the instructor's road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:

Objectives for student learning

Teaching/learning activities

Strategies to check student understanding

Specifying concrete objectives for student learning will help you determine the kinds of teaching and learning activities you will use in class, while those activities will define how you will check whether the learning objectives have been accomplished (see Fig. 1).

Steps for Preparing a Lesson Plan

Below are six steps to guide you when you create your first lesson plans. Each step is accompanied by a set of questions meant to prompt reflection and aid you in designing your teaching and learning activities.

(1) Outline learning objectives

The first step is to determine what you want students to learn and be able to do at the end of class. To help you specify your objectives for student learning, answer the following questions:

What is the topic of the lesson?

What do I want students to learn?

What do I want them to understand and be able to do at the end of class?

What do I want them to take away from this particular lesson?

Once you outline the learning objectives for the class meeting, rank them in terms of their importance. This step will prepare you for managing class time and accomplishing the more important learning objectives in case you are pressed for time. Consider the following questions:

What are the most important concepts, ideas, or skills I want students to be able to grasp and apply?

Why are they important?

If I ran out of time, which ones could not be omitted?

And conversely, which ones could I skip if pressed for time?

(2) Develop the introduction

Now that you have your learning objectives in order of their importance, design the specific activities you will use to get students to understand and apply what they have learned. Because you will have a diverse body of students with different academic and personal experiences, they may already be familiar with the topic. That is why you might start with a question or activity to gauge students' knowledge of the subject or possibly, their preconceived notions about it. For example, you can take a simple poll: "How many of you have heard of X? Raise your hand if you have." You can also gather background information from your students prior to class by sending students an electronic survey or asking them to write comments on index cards. This additional information can help shape your introduction, learning activities, etc. When you have an idea of the students' familiarity with the topic, you will also have a sense of what to focus on.

Develop a creative introduction to the topic to stimulate interest and encourage thinking. You can use a variety of approaches to engage students (e.g., personal anecdote, historical event, thought-provoking dilemma, real-world example, short video clip, practical application, probing question, etc.). Consider the following questions when planning your introduction:

How will I check whether students know anything about the topic or have any preconceived notions about it?

What are some commonly held ideas (or possibly misconceptions) about this topic that students might be familiar with or might espouse?

What will I do to introduce the topic?

(3) Plan the specific learning activities (the main body of the lesson)

Prepare several different ways of explaining the material (real-life examples, analogies, visuals, etc.) to catch the attention of more students and appeal to different learning styles. As you plan your examples and activities, estimate how much time you will spend on each. Build in time for extended explanation or discussion, but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding. These questions would help you design the learning activities you will use:

What will I do to explain the topic?

What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?

How can I engage students in the topic?

What are some relevant real-life examples, analogies, or situations that can help students understand the topic?

What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?

(4) Plan to check for understanding

Now that you have explained the topic and illustrated it with different examples, you need to check for student understanding - how will you know that students are learning? Think about specific questions you can ask students in order to check for understanding, write them down, and then paraphrase them so that you are prepared to ask the questions in different ways. Try to predict the answers your questions will generate. Decide on whether you want students to respond orally or in writing. You can look at Strategies to Extend Student Thinking, http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P4_4.php to help you generate some ideas and you can also ask yourself these questions:

What questions will I ask students to check for understanding?

What will I have students do to demonstrate that they are following?

Going back to my list of learning objectives, what activity can I have students do to check whether each of those has been accomplished?

An important strategy that will also help you with time management is to anticipate students' questions. When planning your lesson, decide what kinds of questions will be productive for discussion and what questions might sidetrack the class. Think about and decide on the balance between covering content (accomplishing your learning objectives) and ensuring that students understand.

(5) Develop a conclusion and a preview

Go over the material covered in class by summarizing the main points of the lesson. You can do this in a number of ways: you can state the main points yourself ("Today we talked about..."), you can ask a student to help you summarize them, or you can even ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think were the main points of the lesson. You can review the students' answers to gauge their understanding of the topic and then explain anything unclear the following class. Conclude the lesson not only by summarizing the main points, but also by previewing the next lesson. How does the topic relate to the one that's coming? This preview will spur students' interest and help them connect the different ideas within a larger context.

(6) Create a realistic timeline

GSIs know how easy it is to run out of time and not cover all of the many points they had planned to cover. A list of ten learning objectives is not realistic, so narrow down your list to the two or three key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn. Instructors also agree that they often need to adjust their lesson plan during class depending on what the students need. Your list of prioritized learning objectives will help you make decisions on the spot and adjust your lesson plan as needed. Having additional examples or alternative activities will also allow you to be flexible. A realistic timeline will reflect your flexibility and readiness to adapt to the specific classroom environment. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:

Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each

When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take

Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points

Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left

Be flexible - be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students' needs and focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your original plan

Presenting the Lesson Plan

Letting your students know what they will be learning and doing in class will help keep them more engaged and on track. You can share your lesson plan by writing a brief agenda on the board or telling students explicitly what they will be learning and doing in class. You can outline on the board or on a handout the learning objectives for the class. Providing a meaningful organization of the class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the rationale behind in-class activities. Having a clearly visible agenda (e.g., on the board) will also help you and students stay on track.

Reflecting on Your Lesson Plan

A lesson plan may not work as well as you had expected due to a number of extraneous circumstances. You should not get discouraged - it happens to even the most experienced teachers! Take a few minutes after each class to reflect on what worked well and why, and what you could have done differently. Identifying successful and less successful organization of class time and activities would make it easier to adjust to the contingencies of the classroom. For additional feedback on planning and managing class time, you can use the following resources: student feedback, peer observation, viewing a videotape of your teaching, and consultation with a staff member at CRLT (see also, Improving Your Teaching: Obtaining Feedback, http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P9_1.php and Early Feedback Form, http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/earlyfeedback.pdf).

Conclusion

To be effective, the lesson plan does not have to be an exhaustive document that describes each and every possible classroom scenario. Nor does it have to anticipate each and every student's response or question. Instead, it should provide you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them. It is a reminder of what you want to do and how you want to do it. A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and instructors learn from each other.

Additional Resources

Online:

Video clips of GSIs at the University of Michigan actively engaging students in a practice teaching session: https://crlte.engin.umich.edu/engineering-gsi-videos/

Plan the First Day's Session: How to create to a lesson plan for the first day of class: http://gsi.berkeley.edu/gsi-guide-contents/pre-semester-intro/first-day-plan/

References

Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center.
Retrieved from https://www.ideaedu.org/idea_papers/integrated-course-design/

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Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning

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A lesson plan is the instructor's road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting.

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By L. Dee Fink, University of Oklahoma

A systematic, learning-centered approach to course design offers the only chance we have to ensure that the majority of students have a significant learning experience.

Teaching is a complex human activity. But we can think of the many tasks involved as comprising four general components of teaching:

our knowledge of the subject matter we teach

the decisions we make about the purpose and nature of the learning experience

our interactions with students-presenting lectures, leading discussions, holding office hours

our management of the whole instructional event, be it a course, seminar, or whatever.

How well we carry out these tasks directly affects the quality of our students' learning experience. However, my 25 years of working with professors suggests that the ability to make good decisions about instruction is the area in which college teachers are least prepared and also the area that is perhaps most critical in determining whether students have a significant learning experience. So what should teachers learn about designing more effective instruction?

Two ways of creating a course

Teachers should learn to change the way they design courses. The most common way of creating a course-or any form of instruction-is the content-centered approach, sometimes called the "List of Topics" approach. The teacher works up a list of important topics, often using the table of contents from one or more textbooks, decides how much time to allot each topic and how many tests to give-and the "design" is done.

The advantage of this approach is that it is relatively simple. The disadvantage: it pays virtually no attention to what students learn beyond content knowledge, which-if that is all there is-is easily forgotten.

The alternative is to take a systematic, learning-centered approach to designing our courses. The heart of this approach is to first decide what students can and should learn in relation to this subject, and then figure how they can learn it. This approach requires more time but offers our only chance of ensuring that the majority of our students have a significant learning experience.

A model of integrated course design

The diagram in Figure 1 illustrates the basic components of the integrated course design model. In essence, to design any form of instruction, the instructor needs to:

Identify important situational factors and then use this information to make three sets of decisions;

What do I want students to learn? (Learning Goals)

How will students and the teacher know if we are accomplishing these goals? (Feedback and Assessment)

What will the teacher and students do to achieve the learning goals? (Teaching/Learning Activities)

Make sure that the key components are integrated

Learning goals: Significant learning

For half a century, teachers at all levels of instruction have used Bloom's taxonomy to generate learning goals beyond "understand and remember" kinds of learning.

This taxonomy has been extremely helpful, but it does not encompass all the kinds of learning that society and educators today believe is important. So I propose a new taxonomy, one that identifies six different ways in which learning can be significant for students:

1. Foundational Knowledge: students should understand and remember the basic content of the course (e.g., terms, concepts, principles).

2. Application: students should use the content and engage in effective and appropriate kinds of thinking.

3. Integration: students should integrate different disciplines, major ideas, and realms of life.

4. Human Dimension: students should identify the personal and social implications of this knowledge.

5. Caring: students should develop new feelings, interests, and values in relation to the subject.

6. Learning How to Learn: students should keep on learning about the subject after the course is over.

As instructors consider what they want students to learn, they need a framework to help formulate learning goals beyond simply "knowing" a body of content knowledge. The more of these six goals we include the better: Each type of learning reinforces and supports the other kinds of learning.

Feedback and assessment: Educative assessment

Once we decide what students will learn, we must figure out how we will know they are learning it. For each kind of intended learning, we must search for appropriate assessment procedures. For some kinds of learning, the usual multiple-choice or essay question will suffice. Other kinds of learning will require different assessment procedures-papers, group projects, journals, performances.

As we undertake this part of instructional design, the concept of educative assessment is extremely valuable. Wiggins (1998) argues that we should assess in a way that goes beyond "auditing" student learning to actually enhancing that learning as well.

To do this, our assessment procedures must involve authentic problems, have clear criteria and standards, and include opportunities for students to engage in self-assessment.

Teaching and learning activities: Active learning

Once we have identified the learning goals and the feedback and assessment procedures, we must decide how students will achieve that kind of learning. The classic definition of active learning (Bonwell and Eison, 1991) refers to learning in which students "do something and then reflect on the meaning of what they do."

Instructors need to identify a set of learning activities that together include opportunities for students to acquire information and ideas, engage in a doing or observing experience, and reflect on the learning process as well as the subject matter. These activities include group work, discussions, simulations, problem-based learning, case studies, service learning, and many more.

Ultimate goal

The ultimate goal of all teaching is for students to finish the course of learning having had a significant learning experience. Significant learning experiences won't happen unless teachers learn how to design significance into the learning experience itself. When instructors develop the ability to do this, students will learn things that will have a positive, substantial, and lasting influence on their personal and work lives and their ability to contribute to the multiple communities of which they are a part.

What an exciting prospect that is!

References & Resources

Bonwell, C.C. and Eison, J.A. 1991. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 1. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University.

Fink, L.D. 2003. Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Loeb, P. 1999. Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.

Michaelsen, L.K., Knight, A.B., and Fink, L.D. 2002. Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups. Westport, CT: Praeger

Wiggins, G. 1998. Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Zubizarreta, J. [Expected: Summer 2003]. The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning. Boston, MA: Anker.

Additional Resources:

Team-Based Learning Web site: http://www.teambasedlearning.org/

Harper-Marinick, M. & Levine, A. (December 2002). "Problem-based Learning." NEA Higher Education Advocate, 20 (2), pp. 5-8.

Zull, J. 2002. The Art of Changing the Brain. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

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Designing Instruction for Significant Learning

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By L. Dee Fink, University of Oklahoma A systematic, learning-centered approach to course design offers the only chance we have to ensure that the majority of students have a significant learning experience. Teaching is a complex human activity.