Clicker Question

What does it mean that "55% is lost to respiration?"
A.  The plant is using that energy to produce ATP for its own cellular processes
B.  The plant is using that energy to produce heat for itself
C.  The plant is using that energy to stay hydrated during increased temperatures

*This question is meant to reinforce the concept energy breakdown and can be used to convey the bigger picturer of differences among C3, C4, and CAM plants
*This question did not get revised at all.  I felt it was straightforward and was explicitly linked to my learning outcomes/goals for this particular unit. 


Does this website provided by the Ecological Footprint provide authentic and reliable information about the IPAT model?
Use the criteria outlined on your assigned reading "Evaluating Web Pages," to make your determination.  Be prepared to discuss your rationale and thought process behind your answer in your groups and as a class

A. Yes
B.  No
C.  I don't know

*This question was designed to probe student evaluation of evidence and to assesss student value and utility in the website as an effective tool
*After consulting with Brea, I revised it to read "Be prepared to discuss your rationale and thought process behind your answer in your groups and as a class."  This question is meant as a formative assessment to see if this website is an adequate tool to improve student understanding and also as a formative assessment for students to evaluate evidence/literature. 

The Technology Pep-Talk!

Walking back to my office after Jeff’s lecture I couldn’t help but have a little Eminem moment.  His “I’m not afraid” song is usually on my gym playlist, but this morning it went straight to my teaching list.  My take home message from this morning’s lecture?  Technology is empowering!  Delicious, Prezi, Scoop, twitter, and Skype are not meant to be feared (guilty), but to be embraced, utilized, and maximized.  I feel like I am shedding my beloved dreams of living off the grid, but I came to the slow realization that technology is advancing with or without me, along with everyone else!  As retarded as Delicious and Prezi sound, they are the new paper, ink, fountain pen, and computer. I would be a reckless and careless instructor if I chose not to take advantage of the tools and mentality that technology showcases.  Thanks Jeff!  My world is no longer flat! 

Technology Questions

1.  Should technology be fully embraced in the classroom?  Or feared since students can easily be distracted (e.g., facebook, email)?

2.  How should a facebook relationship be handled between instructor and student?  Undergraduate and graduate levels?

3.  How do you stay organized electronically as an instructor?  Mulitple classes, hundreds of emails, how do you efficiently and effectively deal with it all?

4.  What are the top three technology tools (ipad, blog, website, etc...) you would recommend for a new instructor? 

Applying Active Learning in the Classroom

I really like the foundation that problem based learning builds while in a small group setting.  I believe these are excellent techniques that mirror the scientific method while incorporating apprenticeships of head, heart and hands.  My targeted learning objective is that students will gain a deeper understanding of the translation of knowledge that must occur between research and the general public (extension).  This is especially useful for natural resource students since they deal with wide arrays of background knowledge and misconceptions (ranchers, government, private sector, environmentalists, etc…).  More specifically, students will be able to assess the value of theories, implications, evidence of research and be able to explicitly convey the importance through a popular venue of information.

I would break students into groups of 2-3 and ask them to pick a topic within ecology (that I approve) that has faced difficulty and controversy transferring knowledge from a science/research perspective to the general public.    Students would choose 6 primary literature articles that best illustrate the science behind their topic and transfer major findings and concepts into a newspaper, which includes news stories, feature stories, and editorials.  Students conduct their research of articles independently and use group meetings to share information, edit articles, proofread, and design the pages.  In the newspaper, students will emphasize noteworthy findings and the potential impact, implications, and effects their particular articles will have on their choice topics.  Students will not be graded on the journalism or style of writing, but whether or not they were able to convey the overall concept and importance of the research to the general public.  Can the students take complicated research and effectively decipher and transfer it to rancher Joe in a respectful manner? 

Reflective Assessment #2

The student’s role is to gather information, decipher it, filter it, determine relevancy, enabling the assessment to come full circle in relating information back to the professor.  The amount of assessments that a professor allows his/her students are proportionate to the assessments a student allows a professor.  It almost reminds me of a teeter-totter.  In order for an action to occur, a student or instructor has to first perform an action to stimulate a response/motion/progress.  That action is then reciprocated back through feedback.  A professor cannot successfully meet desired learning objectives if a feedback forum does not exist for the students.  Likewise for students – it is important students realize the power of their feedback and that they actively participate in self-assessments and metacognitive thinking in order to facilitate improved learning.  Students should use assessment as personal roadmaps to gauge their learning experience and decision making processes.  Students have everything to gain and nothing to lose from assessment!  Assessment facilitates self-evaluation that is crucial to any level of learning, which stimulates metacognitive approaches to improved expert learning and transfer.  Assessment also gives a student a voice, enabling motivation and confidence in the learning environment. 

Reflection on Building Formative Assessment Unit

Backward design seemed so straightforward as a sound, fundamental, common sense strategy when reading about.   However, today I was caught off guard and a bit alarmed when creating the unit on formative assessment.  Not once did I think of the Backward Design as an established framework that I could use for this activity.  Instead I incorporated it as primary literature or vocabulary that I believed to be crucial to the formative assessment concept.  It wasn’t until our discussion did I realize that I had completely overlooked Backward Design as a reliable framework to design a unit.  Not only did my overall understanding of Backward Design grow , but the usefulness/utility exposed itself in a perfect Ah-ha moment!  Designing courses/units shouldn’t be confusing or overwhelming, but exciting in the revealing sense of transparency, connections, and purposeful design!

Describing the most salient features of formative assessment to a science colleague would revolve primarily on a positive feedback loop between students and teachers characterized by its ongoing, dynamic, and progressive nature.  It is a learning that is always learning by continuous evaluation of a student’s progress toward a desired goal where new information is gathered and added to guide decisions for future teaching and learning. 

Interview Reflection

Chatting it up with Alberto provided great feedback on my interview questions.  Through the hypothetical interview in class, I realized how important and useful a scenario can be.  This can establish a great context and framework to kick start the interview and hopefully put the interviewee at ease.  I really tried to build progressive questions that could easily be regressed, if need be, to a more familiar topic if the student got nervous/anxious.  This was also my game plan for the “I don’t knows”.  The mock interview also revealed the power that these questions can have to expose a student’s struggles with connections and processes.  I was, however, not expecting the difficulty in biting my tongue when it came to explaining or discussing answers.  I definitely struggled with allowing an assessment to occur instead of quizzing the interviewee for the right answer. 
Little packages of information were mentioned in the class discussion as a useful tool and I whole heartedly agree.  The interview, after all, is a conversation with a purpose and these tidbits provide a helpful semi-formal structure, which may encourage the student to open up and reveal his/her thought processes.  Over the weekend I plan on revising my scenario and I would also like to fit in a drawing of a conceptual model in there somewhere as well. 

Interview Questions (First Draft)

Concept:  Combustion Process in a Prescribed Burn Setting

Scenario: You are a range manager in the Northern Great Plains in an area where there is extensive woody shrub encroachment and are interested in restoring native grass species.  What are some of the management options that could restore native prairie and minimize invasive shrub species? 

1. What does a manager need from the environment to mimic a historic wildfire event? 

2. Can you explain to me the processes that first absorb and then release energy during a fire?

3. Why would it be more difficult to burn live, green fuel?

4. How can grasses burn differently from trees?

5. Why might dormant or dead grass burn before a dead tree?

6. Can combustion occur rapidly or slowly? 

7. What is the relationship between combustion and pyrolysis?

8. Do you feel it is important to gauge the potential pyrolysis of plant material prior to ignition?

9. Would you expect grasses to enter into the smoldering phase of combustion before trees? 

10. Between grasses and trees, which would smolder longer? 

11. Could this generate more or less heat?

12. How long would a fire last in a grassland without any shrub encroachment? 

13. How would the combustion process in a coniferous forest differ from this scenario?

What is learning (revisited)?

Learning involves the critical confrontation of addressing preconceptions and more importantly, conceptual change.  Minstrell, a physics teacher, described that simply teaching students about abstract principles of physics provided no bridge for changing and realigning their preconceptions.  This realignment is critical, therefore, my definition of learning should include confrontation of preconceived notions and the introduction to new knowledge that can be judged to be intelligible, plausible, and fruitful.  

I firmly believe that experience can be a healthy and engaging teacher.  However, that experience should be followed by intense metacognitive development and fostering.  This perspective is backed by Lin and Lehman (1999) whose research demonstrates that periodic questions promoting reflection and explanation during a scientific experiment improves transfer of overall knowledge and concepts.  

My definition has changed in that greater emphasis and priority is placed on understanding instead of knowledge.  My assessment of a student’s understanding revolves primarily on their ability to effectively and verbally communicate and explain to me their rationale. 

Teaching Philosophy Reflections

Reviewing three of my peers teaching philosophies made me very grateful for such diverse and talented perspectives on teaching!  Well done! 

Paula, Krista, and Carrie provided very thorough, detailed and organized philosophies.  Both Krista’s and Carrie’s philosophies organized their goals, style, and assessment into headings which broke up the monotony.  I failed to consider how important and appealing structure can be when addressing multiple parameters.  Another aspect of the philosophies that I really appreciated was the emphasis on today’s challenges and the diversity of those problems.  Krista described developing ‘strong agricultural ambassadors’ throughout her goals, which inevitably resonates with mission statements at the department, college, and university levels.  Carrie encouraged a warm and welcoming environment, an important area that I seriously underestimated.  Creating a happy and healthy learning atmosphere starts with the energy stemming from the instructor.  This can be extremely important with new freshmen in their first semester and should be emphasized accordingly.  Paula emphasized one of my favorite classroom aspects, respect.  She put it very elegantly when she stated that ‘respect is fostered by the teacher and supported by the student’. 

I can already see myself revamping my philosophy immensely.  Krista, Paula, and Carrie brought to light some amazing insights that I failed to recognize.  Their insights consisting of classroom environment, current problems, and hard work ethics are core areas that deserve more emphasis throughout my teaching philosophy.  Reading philosophies that were broken down into headings was easier to process and remember.  In addition, specific and bluntly stated goals were easy to follow and understand. 

What is learning?

This feels like a trick question.  So, in order to maximize my adaptive learning and metacognitive abilities I'm consulting Webster.  Learning can be formally defined as “the act or experience of one that learns; knowledge of skill acquired by instruction or study; modification of a behavioral tendency by experience."  

Relevant to my experience within ecology, learning is very hands-on, applied, and dirty!  You gotta get your hands a little dirty if you’re going to learn.  Watching students experience this intense form of learning reinforces my belief that students relish in it, thrive off of it, and REMEMBER it!  Learning is 110% doing and ongoing.    

But learning is also so. much. more.  It is complex, it is dynamic, and it is all around us.  From common sense to a PhD, learning encompasses intricate weaves of levels, folds, and shortcuts.  The easiest way for me to define learning is to compare it to ecology.  Patterns, processes, and theories expand and contract to form accumulative relationships, interactions, experiences, applications, and perspectives that are constantly evolving and growing into new areas to...learn about. 

Teaching Philosphy

My top priority revolves around adapting to the student’s needs and adequately addressing those needs.  I believe that to be most effective as an instructor, one must create an environment that is interactive and collaborative and also promotes problem-solving and critical thinking skills.  In my opinion, having active participation and discussion in the classroom is one of the best ways gage student knowledge of the lectures but also an important way for students to learn.  I find that when I can convey my own enthusiasm for ecology, it is often contagious enough that students become engaged and invested in their learning and future.  I encourage students to tackle problems creatively, which helps them learn to think outside conventional boundaries and to seek the deeper meaning of a concept.  These skills have facilitated the greatest advances in science and also foster personal and intellectual fulfillment.  Fulfilled learning involves teaching that extends beyond the classroom.  For many students, the most powerful lessons are learned in informal discussions, working problems during office hours, and encountering science first-hand in a lab setting. Understanding what information is essential for that student’s future success is critical.  Instructors possess unique opportunities to develop agriculture leaders of tomorrow which means that the future of agriculture relies on our ability, as teachers, to develop students into critical and independent thinkers that are conscious of the world around them. 

Utilizing facts, concepts and findings to tell a story has the power to reveal the contagious awe of natural resources.  All students have some direct connection with nature through outdoor recreation and personal experience.  Constructing relevant learning on a personal level allows me to incorporate lecture examples and metaphors of ecological significance.  Paired with an energetic style, I engage and inspire students to examine the impacts of natural resource management on their daily lives.  Hands-on learning through field trips strengthen the fabric of my educational stories and help students from different backgrounds bridge knowledge gaps and construct meaning in a personal context.  Connecting people and places offers a holistic presentation that can transform challenging content into meaningful, memorable schema.  This approach enables personalization of the learning experience with stimulated independent thought and action further promoting diverse applications of knowledge and skills that build environmental literacy and promote passion for the natural world.       

To create a safe learning environment, I encourage students to ask questions and share their views on the material we are covering.  I solicit anonymous feedback in the form of “one-minute papers” from my students about assignments as well as my teaching style. I then implement student suggestions to improve my service delivery and their learning outcomes.  At the end of the day I know I have done my job if my students ask me, “Why, how, what, when and where?”  This curiosity is what drives science, critical thinking, and me.  I encourage my students to reflect on their own beliefs and experience and try to open their minds to new views in natural resource management.  Solutions are rarely straight-forward in ecology as is in the classroom.  Breaking concepts down into milestones enable a student to embrace a multifaceted problem instilling confidence and promoting independent thinking.  I create assignments that mirror real world scenarios as closely as possible, giving students the opportunity to communicate in formats that stimulate professional conditions (e.g., presentations, posters, collaborative projects, etc.).  It is imperative to not only assess the students, but the instructor as well.  For every test I administer, I will ask my students to also evaluate my teaching ability and grade me serving as my assessment of my ability and areas to improve.  Students will be evaluated on their ability to piece together concepts, functions and processes in a combination of short answer, essay, multiple choice, and true/false questions.  Students will also be evaluated on their ability to discuss their overall knowledge of the subject matter in the form of oral tests.  This method will incorporate several concepts into one problem, thereby, necessitating the integration of information into a useful manner to convey their knowledge.  It is very important that students embrace and constantly improve upon their ability to verbally rationalize their decisions as natural resource managers. 

My ideal classroom promotes active learning where students develop and evolve into independent thinkers.  I strive to empower students on fundamental levels that increase their awareness of their own potential as students and stewards of our natural resources. 

 

Jan. 12 ~ Markwell and Courtney (2006) and STR~

Markwell and Courtney (2006) offered a great layman's description of the undergraduate cycle of learning (e.g., dualism, multiplicity, and pluralism).  But, a nagging suspicion came to mind while reading those descriptions, student development can also boil down to..... (wait for it)....respect.  Respect to listen and respect to be heard.  I interpret this cycle of learning to be temporally scaled not only to the entirety of the 4-yr experience, but throughout the semester as well.  At the beginning of a semester, everyone is shy and a bit passive to share thoughts.  As personalities unfold and prof/student gets a feel for one another the dualism chapter closes and more multiplicity and pluralism cognitive developments are revealed.  I believe dualism involves many aspects including respect for a new professor and the initial awkwardness of a new class and environment.  Accepting what the professor says as gospel is an initial phase for all students that stems from both a level of cognitive development and a type of old school respect.  It has been my experience that displaying respect as a student first sets a strong and reliable foundation for the multiplicity and pluralism levels that are to follow.  After that, it is completely up to the prof to reciprocate that respect.  Odds are that the semester ended with candid discussions and a professional mentor relationship was formed.  Students stuck in the dualistic mode at the end of the semester are not lacking authenticy, they are lacking respect and confidence from their professor.