Workshops in a Flash

Are the same students always answering your questions? In this workshop, you will experience the quick 3-5 minute technique that
engages all students. It not only provides a check on student understanding for you, it helps decrease student anxiety related to responding in class. We will also provide you with the keys to success related to Think-Pair-Share, example prompts, and give you time to start designing your own Think-Pair-Share prompts.

Do you want more students to participate? Do you want to know more about what your students understand quickly and
easily? Polling is one way to facilitate attendance recording, engaging students in lectures, ensuring that key points are understood and getting responses to opinion or attitude questions that students might not normally share comfortably. Not only will you experience a variety of polling options, we will discuss what might work best for you and your classroom. Whether you want to increase participation or add another activity that can be graded, tech-based and non-tech-based polling options for both small and large classes will be discussed.

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” ― Phil Collins. This collaborative learning technique helps students deepen student understanding of concepts by discussing them with their peers. You will not only get a chance to experience peer instruction, but also learn about the do’s and don’ts related to its implementation. We will discuss the kinds of questions to ask and how this could increase participation, student confidence, and improve their communication skills.

Want to engage more students during group work and increase individual and group accountability? The Jigsaw technique might be the answer for you. Jigsaw uses cooperative learning to help ensure all students are engaged in the group activity to achieve a common goal. Research has shown improved communication skills, teamwork skills, critical thinking skills, improved student autonomy, learning gains and retention of content. This workshop will help you learn the keys to successful implementation of the Jigsaw technique. 

• Please note that this workshop will only be feasible in spaces where people can easily move around.

In this session, instructors will learn strategies for using the syllabus as an important tool that communicates not only course policies but care and commitment to students and their learning. You will come away with strategies that promote student engagement with the syllabus. 

Group quizzes are one way to use testing simultaneously as a learning experience and a mechanism for evaluation. Students are individually held accountable for their mastery of the concepts but learn with their peers as they continue through the quiz. Studies have shown reduced exam anxiety and both lower and higher achieving students benefiting from this practice. Request this workshop to learn more about how you could structure group quizzes and help students develop interpersonal communication skills and positive relationship with their peers.

This workshop will briefly review what post-exam analysis is, the importance of post-exam analysis and gives you an opportunity to think
about how the concept might work in your course. Point deduction disputes aren’t the only reason for students to review exams! Post-exam analysis includes identifying challenges related to study skills, content errors, and/or test taking skills. This analysis helps students learn from their exam, identify what their challenges were, and make plans to overcome those challenges.

Do you ever wonder if your students came prepared, or took away the main points you’d hoped from a lecture? Admission and exit slips are quick tools you can use in any classroom to check to see what your students came away with whether it is pre-class or during class work. It is also another way to provide feedback to students, increase students’ participation and increase their metacognitive skills. We will discuss the different purposes of these tickets, example prompts you may use, and design some prompts that will work for your classroom. 

Students predict they will do well on an exam after reviewing notes, slides and other materials; everything is memorized – or so they think. By incorporating retrieval practice in your class, you can reap the same benefits as others; significantly improving students’ scores and ability to recall information at a later date. Whether you want your students to understand simple concepts and definitions or complex concepts and applications, retrieval practice can work for them. We will discuss how you can help students help themselves while easily and seamlessly incorporating retrieval practice into your course.

With each new generation of college students, there come new challenges in figuring out how to best reach and teach them. This workshop will briefly discuss some unique characteristics of the post-millennial generation while providing a few teaching strategies that will work across generations. 

Rubrics can help students understand the evaluation criteria while decreasing the amount of time you spend grading. By making criteria for grading explicit, there will be less subjectivity in grading and hopefully more assignments you will enjoy grading. This workshop will discuss not only key elements of rubrics, but how implementation can make or break the effectiveness of the rubric. 

How many times are students required to read but seem to forget what they read or remember something that was minimally important? Guiding questions help focus students during the reading, and help prepare them to make connections between their reading and the upcoming class discussions and activities. They can be written for entry-level topics as well as higher-order thinking like application and evaluation. We will discuss question design, mechanisms for implementation and the necessity (or not) for incentives. 

A key component in critical thinking is metacognition. Research has shown that students who are more metacognitively aware tend to be more successful in their classes. These metacognition prompts are based in “self-questioning” and used while students solve problems. The self questioning process has been shown to improve students’ reasoning skills, deepen discussion and increase confidence in their ability to solve problems.

Before diving deeper or moving on, we want to be sure students are not already falling behind. Readiness assurance quizzes can be used at the beginning of class to assess pre-class readings and video takeaways, or at the beginning of a new unit to assess prior knowledge. Readiness Assurance is a part of team-based learning and combines evidence-based strategies like collaborative learning, group testing and retrieval practice. Readiness Assurance Process checks whether or not students have gained the knowledge you hope so everyone can be more successful.

If there is not a workshop topic listed that attends to your group's interest, you can fill out the Qualtrics request by selecting "other" and typing in your requested topic. We enjoy hearing what other topics you are interested in, doing the research and designing new workshops.