Month: May 2020

Intrepid TA Development Consultants are Certain to be Needed in Uncertain Times

Celia Ann Evans on

in·trep·id      /inˈtrepəd/     adjective

  1. fearless; adventurous. (Origin:  late 17th century: from French intrépide or Latin intrepidus, from in- ‘not’ + trepidus ‘alarmed’. Source: Online Oxford dictionary)

ELI TA Development Consultants are Cornell Engineering’s academic leaders of the future. Always intrepid, they are passionate about the craft of teaching and excited to become leaders and peer educators to improve teaching and learning. Eight engineering PhD students become part of the ELI team each year to do the challenging work of providing intensive TA training workshops for Graduate and Undergraduate TAs in the College of Engineering in the early weeks of each semester. At the beginning of this past spring semester (2020) TA training workshops began with approximately 100 TAs in an auditorium, after some delicious self-served bagels and continental breakfast foods.  Trainers introduced and over-viewed the day’s agenda in the lecture hall, and TAs heard from multiple University representatives and discussed policy issues in the large group session. This was followed by concurrent sessions, led by ELI TA Training Consultants, in several smaller rooms, then back to a group session in the auditorium again with self-serve lunch, back to concurrent sessions… etc.  You see the picture:  a large number of people, face-to-face, sharing food, shaking hands, heads bent together in group work or ‘think, pair share’ activities.

In the coming Fall semester of 2020, as University leadership makes the best decisions possible for education practices during the COVID 19 pandemic, this model will likely be different. But the quality and collaborative nature of teaching and learning must be maintained, whatever the temporary new model.  The work of TA Training consultants will never be more challenging or more critical!

The young professionals who applied and interviewed to be leaders in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, during the chaos brought on by the COVID -19 pandemic, deserve this descriptor in bold, uppercase: INTREPID.  In a typical cycle, the summer includes nearly 30 hours of team building, learning from the literature and from each other, developing best practices, presentation and active workshops – all in-person, on campus.  This prepares trainers for organizing, implementing, and assessing the face-to-face training of all the TAs in the College come the start of the academic year. But for Fall 2020, at least, all bets are off. These dedicated engineering graduate students came to their online interviews with the knowledge that TA training may be a ‘whole different animal’ this round. They will train online, as long as is necessary, and become experts in creating inclusive engaging pedagogy in every possible delivery venue. They put their best forward at a time when the only thing that was certain was how much they would be needed in this uncertain time.

Introducing this year’s INTREPID TA Training Consultants: top left – Sanjuna Stalin (CBE), top right – Katie Adler (TA Fellow, CEE), middle row left-to-right: Vivienne Liu (Systems), Kyle Wellmerling (MAE), Doga Yucalan (MAE), bottom row left-to-right: Arnaldo Rodriguez-Gonzalez (MAE), Prayag Biswal (CBE), Doga Yucalan (MAE), Andrew Kang (MAE).

At the first online training of this season, just before the end of one of most difficult teaching semesters in the history of the College due to a mid-semester online shift, the smiling faces, thoughtful comments and engaged intelligent suggestions, made it clear that these Engineers were “not alarmed,” but ready and willing to be nimble and prepared for whatever was to come.  In addition to engaging students in the classroom face-to-face, these educators will to be ready to train their peers about online engagement, diversity and inclusion, discussion forum best practices – not to mention being sure that their own presentations were ADA-compliant and incorporating those best practices in the information for course TAs.

This group knew from the beginning that they would have to be prepared for all/any possible scenarios for Fall 2020 TA trainings.  As we add ‘online’, ‘hybrid’ and ‘ADA compliant’ to our list of adjectives for TA training that already includes ‘accessible’, ‘student-centered’, ‘engaging’, these Engineering Grad Students have signaled to ELI and to the College that they are ready for the growth and the challenge.  INTREPID indeed.

 

 

 

Putting the ‘Jigsaw’ Online: AEW facilitators implement the jigsaw on Zoom, create collaboration, and share ideas for adaptations

Celia Ann Evans on

Practitioners of student-centered learning will be familiar with the ‘jigsaw’. Jigsaws combine powerful collaborative strategies to increase retention and encourage construction of processes and concepts through critical thinking: 1) focused group discussion, and 2) teaching others. In the face-to-face environment, groups of 3 to 5 work together to solve a problem, explain a concept, or explore some idea or theory – together.

After the group (Expert group) has come to conclusions regarding the problem at hand, the groups are re-organized into mixed groups (Sharing group) – one member of each of the original groups, now work together.  These new mixed groups are tasked with explaining their definition or solution to the rest of the group – effectively teaching the members of the mixed group. The jigsaw works well with groups between 9 and 25 but can be adapted in many ways to accommodate larger classes.

As Cornell University transitioned to emergency remote teaching, AEW facilitators immediately began training to continue supporting engineering student-learning in weekly student-centered online sessions. Emily Care and Juan Berrio, a pair of co-facilitators for CS 1112, decided they wanted to attempt this valuable teaching strategy to create engagement in their synchronous Zoom session. Here’s how they did it.

Creating a Jigsaw in Breakout Rooms:

This scenario was developed for 2 weekly synchronous zoom meetings, rather than one, in order to accommodate different schedules of students now working online.

  1. We briefly explained that students in the synchronous zoom would be placed in breakout room groups to create a solution and then split up into new groups to explain their solution.
  2. We then randomized the breakout rooms into groups of 2-3 students and told each group their assigned question.
  3. We gave them 30 minutes to prepare their solution, check it with us, and work on other questions.
  4. After the 30 minutes, we reshuffled the breakout rooms and let the students present to each other.

***The facilitators were clear to note that leaders must be very active in visiting the breakout rooms on zoom while groups are working to be sure they are on the right track, without giving answers away.

               “The online jigsaw seemed to work well! All the students were able to have the solutions presented to them from different perspectives, to hear different voices, and to work with around 3 more students than they typically would have the opportunity to. They were also more thorough with the solutions they came up with since they knew they were responsible for the learning of their peers”.  Emily Care, AEW Facilitator

Jigsaw Adaptations: The following recommendations come from an asynchronous discussion thread among AEW Facilitators in which they discussed different adaptations to improve jigsaw success for other course materials, other course online structure, and different numbers of students in class:

  • Within each group, we would randomly assign a conversation leader to share a white board screen to encourage all to participate. While checking over the solutions of each group we would also ask some students to explain their reasoning to ensure all members understand the material.
  • … But we would probably have to send the questions out during one of the Slack sessions before the zoom so that the students have a chance to work on them a little beforehand, since our zoom sessions are only one hour a week.
  • …After the jigsaw groups had been redistributed, we could ask the members of each group leading questions concerning the concepts involved in the problem, to ensure every person in each group gets the information to solve future questions.
  • … A good way to use jigsaw would be to use it for conceptual problems and not calculation-heavy ones, since students generally struggle more with concept application and not flushed-out calculations in our class.
  • … Only having one zoom meeting per week, we would have to make sure that the problem was both in-depth enough to have students increase their understanding, but also short enough to be able to do in a manner where students feel confident in their own abilities to present the material.
  • …Encourage the students to use canvas examples or the textbook to help them solve the questions. Then check in with each group, shuffle the groups, and have the students teach others about their solution.

Taking the next step: Following the synchronous Jigsaw with a concept map or an asynchronous discussion thread.

  • Jigsaws can be followed by ‘concept mapping’ activities to bring all the different concepts and ideas back together into a framework, or if the work is problem-solving, then concept maps can bring problems and related series together.

  • They can also be used to develop a challenge activity or problem that can be posted on an asynchronous discussion thread. This would allow students to continue to engage while they’re not online together, and to answer each other’s questions.
  • In discussion threads it is critical that the facilitator is present, ‘listening’, and providing feedback and encouragement (not answers or solutions). After the discussion has run its course, clarifying the answer, approach and structure is important so that everybody knows they’re on the right track.
The ELI Edublog is brought to you by Engineering Learning Initiatives (ELI). Please contact us with any questions about our Blog or education articles or methodologies (cae223@cornell.edu)

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING: A SOCIAL ENDEAVOR

Celia Ann Evans on

Learning isn’t as simple as being ‘provided’ information and then immediately understanding it in all its depth and complexity, at least not for most people. There are tools and practices that can be used to facilitate various levels of understanding.  Using these tools effectively requires an awareness that learning most often occurs in a social context.  In the College of Engineering, the Engineering Learning Initiatives (ELI) team works with several groups of graduate and undergraduate students who are striving to improve learning experiences in many courses each semester.

Academic Excellence Workshop (AEW) facilitators are one such group.  AEW facilitators receive training and work in teams of two to run weekly sessions for their undergraduate peers.  Students enrolled in participating undergraduate courses have the option to enroll in one of the related AEW workshop sections. Facilitators use student-centered teaching and learning strategies to help students engage with course materials and their classmates in a variety of interactive ways to solidify and deepen their understanding.

About halfway through the first AEW training of the spring semester, pairs of undergraduate workshop facilitators are seated next to their new co-facilitators. Before they run their first session they need to learn something about the way in which each of them communicates, and figure out how to negotiate their collaboration. They need to start to develop the social context in which their work together and their work with enrolled students will happen.

After having done a group ‘ice breaker’ and having been introduced to the goals and objectives of the workshop, the teams sit side-by-side with four pieces of yarn attached to a marker and try to cooperatively write the letters ‘A’ ‘E’ and ‘W’ without actually touching the marker. In order to do this, they have to work in concert. They must verbally and non-verbally communicate to create the forces on the markers via the 4 pieces of yarn; thus learning a little bit about how they might work together. Following this good-natured competition over which team could produce the most legible letters, one of the experienced AEW facilitators debriefs the activity with leading questions about what each of the groups did to successfully complete the task. They also discuss how they would apply this to their future teamwork.

Good workshop facilitation means adding social skills to disciplinary expertise.  Moving forward into the semester, these dedicated students will continue to train and hone their skills of communication and group facilitation.

This Edu-blog is brought to you by the ELI TEAM in Rhodes Hall. If you are interested in working with us contact eng-learning@cornell.edu