Experiential Learning Lunch on 21 Oct 2015

Abstract: We highlight a few of the innovative teaching techniques that were presented in October's Experiential Learning Lunch.

On Wednesday, October 21, 2015, twenty-eight members of the Queens College community assembled for a lunch discussion devoted to Experiential Learning. (Learn more about our group.) I had asked participants to prepare a 2-3 minute discourse about something that they tried recently and a self-evaluation of what went well and what could be improved in the future.

In this post I would like to highlight some of the discussions we had.

Zahra Zakeri (Biology) shared the idea of the "experimental essays" that her students are required to write on various topics throughout the semester. The students must develop an experiment that would test certain hypotheses, such as "How would we know whether two twins are monozygotic?", and justify why their experiment is a valid way to test their hypotheses. By having to design this experiment the students have to gain a deeper understanding of the material in her classes instead of simply memorizing facts.

Elena Mancini (German Language and Literature) highlighted how she is taking ideas she is learning in the theater techniques workshop and integrating them into her class. She asks groups of students to analyze a text passage for tone, emotions, believability, and perspective. The gropu takes this information to create a play about the passage using props. This live reinactment of the passage infuses energy into the classroom and is widely regarded as a fun and engaging assignment. This discussion initiated a more general conversation about creative writing, which I feel merits its own blog post. So keep tuned for that!

Keren Dali (Library and Information Science) was happy to share how most of the courses in their department are experiential. For example, if the students are learning cataloging, they need hands-on experience in learning how to catalog. Keren was especially proud of how she helps to take experiential education to the next level—into the community. Her class partners with libraries in the community; each student group spends time with a librarian to find challenging areas for which the libraries don't have the staff or resources to address. The students work out a solution to the problem in a group and present it to the librarian by the end of the semester. Many of these solutions are then implemented by the community libraries. The students get real-world experience and the libraries have made strides toward improving their services. It sounds like a great program!

Lightning round! One-sentence summary of some other presenters:

Joe Pastore (Mathematics) uses the software GeoGebra to exhibit mathematical concepts dynamically in class, which allows his high-school-teaching students to integrate this technology directly into their own classes.

Adam Kapelner (Mathematics) has programmed software called Gradesly which integrates directly into Google Sheets to provide students and instructors with up-to-date information about course grades.

Eva Fernandez (Provost's Office and CTL) talked about the Queens Memory Project, which collects an audio and visual history similar to Story Corps.

Jack Zevin (Education) talked about this simulation game in which students play city council members and gain first-hand experience with the legislative process.

It is always great to hear the ideas others are trying on campus. In many of these situations, students are initially reluctant to participate in these "non-standard" assignments but by the end of the semester these assignments are what the students rave about on their teaching evaluations.

The topic that generated the most amount of buzz was about technology in the classroom. Should students be allowed to use their phones in the classroom? How can we integrate technology into the classroom in a thoughtful and educationally beneficial way? What works well in different size classes? I think we have found the topic of December's Experiential Learning Lunch!

I was especially pleased and proud that three of my math department colleagues came and participated. It's nice to be building a local network supporting innovation in mathematics instruction!

This blog post is part of the Queens College Teaching Circle blog; it is cross-posted on my personal teaching blog, Math Razzle.

The Experiential Learning Group at Queens College

Abstract: This post is a quick introduction to our college's experiential learning group. What is experiential learning? What happens in a group meeting?

I've been participating in a teaching and learning group at Queens College focused on Experiential Learning since it was founded in 2012 when Grace Davie (QC History) was taking the lead. This group of like-minded educators spans many disciplines and provides a refreshing sense of community on a commuter campus where people in different departments rarely interact. While the faculty members participating in the various events changes each time, the value of attending the group is always very high since the self-selecting members inevitably care about teaching.

What is experiential learning? "Excellent question!" We spent many of our first meetings trying to determine a good working definition for our group. Should the focus be on social justice work of our students that happens off campus? Should the focus be on college-sponsored internships where students learn skills ``on the job''? Should the focus be on active learning activities that happen in the classroom where students engage with and experience the material instead of passive non-participation? We ended up deciding to not decide. We wanted our group to be an umbrella group that allowed people with disparate interests to come together and share their innovative teaching practices.

At the beginning our group met in multi-day workshops to which were invited outside speakers to discuss teaching pedagogy and mindfulness. More recently I have been carrying the torch of our Experiential Learning group by organizing and serving as the moderator of lunchtime discussion sessions, sponsored by the Queens College Center for Teaching and Learning. I tend to favor round-table discussions where we each get to bring in ideas from our teaching, and that is the focus of today's lunch, where I have asked participants to prepare a 2-3 minute discourse about something that they tried recently and a self-evaluation of what went well and what could be improved in the future.

The most positive aspect about this format is that we are exposed to many different ideas and we get to see the diversity of techniques that are available and in practice at Queens College. This helps to give a sense that we are a college where good teaching by our peers is happening and is valued. The most negative part about this format is that for everyone to talk, people get at most five minutes, so it is impossible to get into the nitty gritty details about the module's implementation or give constructive feedback to the presenter, or have a deeper philosophical discussion about the module. These points were better addressed under the multi-day workshop format, which takes much more preparation by the organizers.

Today's session has an additional undercurrent of supporting the administration's need to collect information about experiential learning that happens through Queens College to comply with the City University of New York's task force, required by a new New York State law to increase experiential or applied learning opportunities for undergraduates. One personal goal of mine will be to have people contribute their experiential learning modules to the collection effort.

I'm sure that today will be as invigorating as always! We have another lunch scheduled for December 2, 2015. If you are around and would like to participate, make sure to join us! You can email me at chanusa@qc.cuny.edu to be added to my email distribution list about Experiential Learning at Queens College.

This is the third blog post that I am writing as part of the Queens College Teaching Circle blog; it is cross-posted on my personal teaching blog, Math Razzle.