Chickering and Gamson

Roll the dice!

Snakes and ladders

Instructions

Challenge

A student complains that they do not understand why they have been awarded a score of 50% when the feedback on similar formative assessments was positive. What do you think has happened and how can you support the student?

Suggestions to ensure students spend time on task include: 1. Emphasising deadlines in the syllabus and provide students with reminders about upcoming deadlines. Utilize social network platforms or LMS announcements to send brief reminders or bits of information to students. 2. Giving consistent and frequent deadlines to distance students such as weekly discussion requirements by the same day/time each week, low-stakes quizzes on the same day/time each week, and weekly reminders to continue work on long-term projects. 3. Breaking large projects into smaller, more manageable pieces and require students to hit benchmarks during the duration of the project. For example, require students to present a brainstorming list, an outline, resources, a rough draft, and a final draft to a paper or project.

Principle 4: Provide effective and prompt feedback

'Effective feedback is specific, timely, and actionable, focusing on strengths and areas for improvement. Feedback empowers students to become active participants in their learning process and supports their continuous improvement' (Quinlan and Pitt, 2023). Share how you support students in recognising and understanding gaps in their knowledge and skills in your feedback processes. How do you ensure students ACT on the feedback they receive to improve their performance?

Suggestions to encourage active learning include: 1. Providing opportunities for students to interact with content during presentations or lectures utilizing tools such as live polls or quizzes. 2. Allowing students to relate the material to their own interests through reflections and presentations. 3. Encouraging self-evaluation and peer-review. Provide students with rubrics for evaluation and have multiple students evaluate the same project by using the collaboration tools, chats, or discussion boards. 4. Introducing a playful of competive element to learning materials.

Challenge

A student submits a summative assessment late and does not have mitigating circumstances - what do you do?

Challenge

You have set students a groupwork task. One student has not contributed and the others in the group have complained to you as they are concerned about the impact on their grade. What do you do?

Principle 2: Develop reciprocity and cooperation amongst students

“Students’ academic performance and satisfaction at college are tied closely to involvement with faculty and other students around substantive work.” (Light,1992, p. 18) Share one way in which you or your department promotes opportunities for students to collaborate.

Principle 1: Encourage contact between staff and students

“Frequent interaction with faculty members is more strongly related to satisfaction with college than any other type of involvement, or, indeed, any other student or institutional characteristic.” (Astin, 1985, pp. 133-151) Share one way in which you or your department ensure students are able to contact your outside of class time.

Suggestions to collaboration between students include: 1. Providing opportunities for collaboration such as discussion, group projects and assignments, and peer evaluation. 2. Providing some structured social time: build in opportunities for students to get to know each other in an informal setting, such as in course induction, time at the start of seminars or 'mixer' events where students can network and socialise. 3. Utilizing the tools in an LMS to provide students with a discussion and collaboration space. 4. Providing students with a communal space for studying and relaxing on campus.

Principle 7: Respect diverse talents and ways of learning

'Many roads lead to learning. Students need opportunities to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learn in new ways that do not come so easily' (University of Florida, ND). Share how you ensure students can showcase their skills and knowledge in a range of different ways. How do you make sure your learning materials and assessments are accessible to all?

Suggestions to ensure feedback is effective and timely include: 1. Using low-stakes assessments to provide students with frequent assessments of their learning and provide frequent feedback on progress. 2. Recognising that students also learn from each other - encourage students to peer assess and provide feedback to each other based on a rubric or checklist you provide. 3. Making sure feedback is not overwhelming or demotivating - for some assessments, include feedback in the form of 'one thing you did well, one thing you could do to improve'. 4. Offering students a range of ways to receive feedback to cater for different learner preferences - this may be orally, recorded voice notes, or written. 5. Trying the Phil Race approach: ask students to mark their own work using a provided rubric when they submit. When you mark the work, accept the higher score if it is within 5%. Only provide feedback to students who scored their own work as 10% higher or lower than the mark you awarded.

Suggestions to encourage contact between staff and students include: 1. Demonstrating respect by learning names, recalling interesting points the student has made in sessions, inviting and valuing student input. 2. Requesting regular feedback from students on how they think their learning is going and what they would like more or less of in sessions, and signposting how you are responding to their feedback. 3. Holding office hours (virtual and in person), make opportunities for review sessions and study groups using a virtual classroom, and/or utilize the chat feature of your Learning Management System (LMS).

Challenge

A student is persistently late to classes and frequently misses lectures - what action do you take?

Suggestions to ensure diverse learning preferences are respected include: 1. Developing and implementing the course using proven learning theories. 2. Incorporating a variety of activities into the course including collaboration, group and individual projects, papers, low stakes assessments, and discussions to reach a variety of learning preferences. 3. Presenting course materials in a variety of methods to reach the most modalities possible. 4. Designing in optionality in assessment: provide guidance on how students can submit assessed work in a variety of forms (presentation or essay, for example).

Challenge

Your student does not appear interested in your sessions and is distracting others. What do you do?

Challenge

Your student is struggling to engage with their course because they have child care issues. How do you support the student?

Suggestions to communicate high expectations include: 1. Providing students with a clear assessment brief outlining how the assessment will be marked, providing extracts or examples of strong submission to highlight what good looks like. 2. Offering early formative feedback on parts or drafts of work so students are guided on how to improve in a manageable way. 3. Encouraging students to identify the links between the assessed work and the wider world. Discuss why an assignment matters in the context of students’ goals or real world requirements can help students recognise what is needed to be successful.

Box 55

Challenge

A student in one of your groups is makes an offensive comment in class. Another student is visibly distressed. What do you do?

Challenge

One of your students works at night and is frequently tired in class. It is clear they are struggling to manage work and study. What do you do?

Challenge

A student does badly on an assessment. You can see they have accessed their grade, but have not collected or read their feedback. What do you do?

Challenge

A student hands in a piece of summative assessment which is far stronger than you would expect based on previous work and performance in class. What do you do?

Principle 3: Encourage active learning

"Learning is not a spectator sport. To internalize learning students must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives." (University of Florida, ND) Share an example of a activity you use to promote active learning into your teaching.

SNAKES

Ladders

Ladders

SNAKES

If the player lands on a square where the tail of a snake starts, they go down to a lower square where the headis located.

If the player lands on the bottom of a ladder, they move up to the top square where the ladder ends.

INSTRUCTIONS

Each player has a token. Roll the die and move the token to the appropriate square. If the player lands on a square with a yellow 'challenge' button, they must share how they would respond to the challenge. Once the player has provided their response, team mates click on the ! button and discuss the prompt which is revealed. If the player lands on a square with a red ? button, they must share how they embed Chickering and Gamson's principle in their teaching practice. Once the player has provided their response, team mates click the black eye button to reveal suggested approaches. If the player has included one or more of the suggestions in their answer, they stay on the square. If they have not, they go back to the square they have just come from. If a player lands on a square where a ladder begins, they move up it to the square where it ends. If, on the other hand, they land on a square where a snake's tail begins, they move down it to the square where its head ends. The player who reaches the final square first is the winner.

Challenge

One of your students is struggling due to poor language skills. What support can you offer the student?

Challenge

In a recent module feedback survey, a significant number of students have scored the timing of feedback on assessments as 'unsatisfactory' in student survey. What action do you take?

Principle 4: Emphasise time on task

'Time plus energy equals learning. Learning to use one’s time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty' (University of Florida, ND). Share one way in which you ensure students focus and effectively complete learning activities and assessments.

Principle 5: Communicate high expectations

'Student learning is promoted when educators set high expectations and support students in reaching them. Just as physical scaffolding helps construction workers function at heights they could not without it, educational scaffolding helps students work at higher levels' (Quinlan and Pitt, 2023). Share an example of how you support students to reach higher levels of achievement by breaking tasks into smaller chunks, or making clear the requirements for a task for your students.

Challenge

It is clear that students in one of the modules you teach are feeling overwhelmed with assessments. On checking the assessment schedule, you realise the students have assessments for multiple modules very close together. What do you do?