Spring has sprung and the weather on Long Island is warming up! As we approach the middle of the semester, we would like to remind everyone to take care of themselves and practice self-care. Don’t forget, March 29 – April 2 is SBU’s Spring Brook Staycation so encourage your students (and yourself) to take a break!
Would you find it relaxing to talk to one of our instructional designers? Drop us a line to request a consultation!
Catherine Scott, Asst Dir for Faculty Dev – Testing, Assessment & Evaluation
What do you remember about taking exams? The stress? The anxiety? Trying to decipher which concepts to memorize? Which information the instructor stressed as important? Or maybe you completely blanked out like I did more times than I can count! As a professional, I can remember taking hundreds of exams, but unfortunately, I can not remember all the information I crammed into my brain to pass them. So, what was the objective of these tests? To make me stressed or help me learn? In college, students tend to approach multiple choice exams the same way they did in high school, utilizing the test taking strategies that help to eliminate the wrong answers, instead of knowing the correct one.
Quick story. I have two sons, both bright in various areas. My oldest, teachers claimed, had things come to him easily. However, he always stressed taking tests! He would literally get sick and then perform poorly. If you asked him later about the same material, he knew it all. He was even given resources that later were taken away because he proved he did not really need them. My other son struggled in class but aced the tests. I knew something was going on but found it difficult to get him the resources he needed because he always did so well on the tests. He was later diagnosed with an extreme case of dyslexia and what we found out was he is just a great test taker. In fact, many times he was just utilizing the process of elimination and then guessing. I often use my children as a real-life example to remember when I’m assisting an instructor with H.O.T. exams.
Let’s make those exams H.O.T.
What does H.O.T even mean? Higher Order Thinking. A concept born out of the research of Benjamin Bloom, a Harvard professor who studied three domains: the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Higher order thinking resides in the cognitive domain and can be useful to classify different hierarchical levels of understanding that students can achieve in a course.
Before incorporating Bloom’s into designing your exams, here are some strategies you can take to strengthen your questions. Each question has a stem, which presents the problem; a correct option, which is the right answer; and the distractors, which are the incorrect options used to distract you from the right answer.
Tips for strengthening your stem
Tips for strengthening your correction option and your distractors
After you have incorporated the above suggestions, you’re ready to utilize Bloom’s taxonomy to ensure you are measuring higher learning. Use the chart below to help design some of your exam questions. First, which level of Bloom’s will you be measuring? This will help you determine how students will conceptualize the material, which will help you decide how to ask the questions.
If you have questions or would like to discuss further, please contact us.
Join the library for an Introduction to Copyright for Online Teaching! This is a two-week-long series of asynchronous activities provided by library faculty. The goal is to introduce instructors to the basics of copyright law and how it affects the selection of material for online courses. We also discuss alternative routes for finding content for your courses, specifically Open Educational Resources (OER), library-licensed databases, and Reserves (whether that be items from the libraries’ physical collections or the instructor’s personal copies).
This course will run from Monday, April 12th – Sunday, April 25th
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers. The content and resources provided in this course are meant for informational purposes and should not be considered legal advice.
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Troy Priest, Senior Instructional Designer
As academics, we understand that our professional reputations depend on us properly using and citing scholarly sources in our writing and research. Every so often we hear of academic reputations being ruined by allegations of plagiarism.
As instructors we stress the importance of academic integrity to our students, and we require them to adhere to the codes of conduct laid out by the university including avoiding plagiarism in the writing assignments. But are all instances of plagiarism the same? Should we deal with all examples of plagiarism the same way? How can we use and make them teaching opportunities?
Intentional vs. Unintentional Plagiarism
Not all instances of plagiarism are intentional, but when they are it is usually fairly obvious. The most egregious examples of plagiarism include turning in another student’s paper and claiming it as one’s own work, having someone else write one’s assignment, or copying and pasting sections of text and passing them off as one’s own ideas. These forms of plagiarism are clear-cut examples of academic dishonesty and must be dealt with appropriately.
Unintentional Plagiarism is less nefarious and may provide us with a teaching opportunity. The ability to find and select relevant and reliable scholarly sources; successfully incorporate those sources (including deciding whether to use direct quotations from the source or paraphrase the ideas) to support a coherent and cogent argument; and properly cite those sources according to the style guide of the course discipline can be daunting for students who haven’t practiced these skills. Many students have been ‘taught’ these academic skills, but because they are skills, students need to practice them to be proficient.
This is particularly true of students who are non-native speakers of English. Many second language learners may struggle with paraphrasing scholarly sources or understanding how citations and sources function within the formation of an academic argument. Therefore, successful integration of sources into their writing may be more challenging.
Strategies to Prevent Plagiarism
As a former writing instructor, I have learned it’s important not to make assumptions about what students are able to do with regards to using scholarly sources. Just because they were ‘taught’ how to use sources and citations before doesn’t mean they are necessarily proficient at it. It is a skill that has to be practiced. For those of us who have spent many years in university, both as students and teachers, citing sources has become so integral to what we do that we often take it for granted. For our students, this may not be the case. Providing students with resources and opportunities to practice is important.
Some specific strategies and resources to help students are:
If you have questions or would like to discuss with one of our instructional designers ways to incorporate these strategies in your course(s), please contact us at celt@stonybrook.edu.
Did you attend our Inclusive Teaching Panel: Antiracist Pedagogy in Action, on Monday, February 22? If not, you can watch the recording or the recording of any of our past Inclusive Teaching panels on our Inclusive Teaching website. It was a great discussion and as our panelists shared, college is an opportune time for students, faculty, and staff to have these types of paradigm-shifting conversations!
Some other takeaways presented at the panel:
Join us for our next CELT Panel discussion coming up on Tuesday, March 16 at noon ET: A Case Study in Organizational Change: SB School of Health Technology Management Addresses DEI.
Please register prior to the event.
A huge thank you to Carol Hernandez and Catherine Scott who have made these events possible!
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part blog series on choosing the right technology for your teaching needs. Read part 1, Engaging Students in an Online Math Course During the Pandemic, by Associate Professor of Mathematics, Moira Chas.
Jennifer Jaiswal, Instructional Designer & Sr Instructional Technologist
When considering the use of a new technology in your class, it is important to consider how it supports your course alignment. Alignment is the connection between learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment. An aligned course means that your learning objectives, activities, and assessments match up so students learn what you intend and you accurately assess what students are learning.
To ensure that your chosen technology supports the alignment of your course, you should ask the following questions:
Does my content, activities, and assessments align to my learning objectives?
Looking at the image below, go through each step starting with your learning objectives, assessments, and activities, and make sure they all work together to support each other.
Does the technology support or enhance learning more effectively than a previous method?
The technology should support the activities, assessments, and therefore, the learning objectives that you have identified. Below are examples for each step of the course alignment process:
By focusing on your learning objectives, you will see what types of technologies are needed in your class to help you make decisions. For this example, you would look for tools to aid in the discussion and the presentation. It is helpful to list out what technologies you need for your entire course so you and your students know what will be used so they will be better prepared.
Looking through your course you may see opportunities to incorporate technology into your class. Using technology for technology’s sake may not support the students’ achievement of the learning outcomes. In fact, it may lead them to a different learning objective then you intended. If technology has the potential to drastically change your class and its outcomes, you may want to consider revising your learning outcomes and realign the related activities and assessments.
What skills and resources do my students need to use this new technology?
Now that you have decided which technologies to use, it is time to start thinking about what resources to provide to your students. Some recommendations are:
Providing additional resources gives your students the best opportunity to complete the assignment successfully and meet the learning outcomes. Preparing detailed instructions and support documentation in advance can also help reduce your workload as the course progresses.
There are many useful resources available internally and on the web. Be sure to search for them before creating anything from scratch.
Reflection
At the end of the semester, it is important to reflect on the major takeaways from the experience. Think about what worked well and what didn’t, and what you could change to make improvements. This helps you close the loop and decide what will be needed the next time you teach, and decide if the new technology was a success or a hindrance to your class experience. Ask your students questions about the experience. This can help you assess engagement with not just the tool but the tool and the content together.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss further, do not hesitate to reach out!
All seminars are Wednesday 3:30-5:00pm
Join using this Zoom link
2/17- How Selected Learning Theories Inform Pedagogy (rescheduled from 2/3)
In this session we will discuss a selection of current learning theories and strategies/considerations for your teaching. Learning Theory elements discussed include Constructivism, Metacognition, and Growth Mindset and how to implement them in your classes.
2/24- Effective Teaching Online (rescheduled from 2/17)
Effective teaching online has become critical with the ongoing pandemic, and will continue to be a valued skill. In this seminar, we will discuss strategies and tools for student engagement in both asynchronous, synchronous, and blended classes.
3/3- Panel Discussion with CIE/IRACDA Postdocs
In this panel discussion you will hear from IRACDA Postdocs who have taught in local institutions – Suffolk County Community College, SUNY Old Westbury, and Brooklyn College.
3/17- Different Student Populations and Institution Types
We will discuss the ins and outs of applying the teaching strategies you have developed. This will focus on the different types of institutions you may teach at and their varied student populations.
Do you have any questions? Send us an email!
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part blog series on choosing the right technology for your teaching needs. In this blog post, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Moira Chas, discusses her experience with finding a way to engage her students during synchronous online lectures. Look for the second blog post by CELT Instructional Designer and Technologist, Jennifer Jaiswal, who will describe how to select the appropriate technology. Email CELT@stonybroook.edu to get a consultation with an instructional designer who can work with you to choose the right tools for your teaching goals.
Moira Chas, Associate Professor, Mathematics
Image courtesy of Moira Chas, who is seen in her office with some of the crocheted models she has created to illustrate ideas in topology.
Before the terrible pandemic that turned our worlds upside-down and inside-out, (or better said, outside-in), I used to teach by walking incessantly around the classroom, asking many questions and trying to read in the faces of the students whether they had arrived at the answers. I peeked at the pages they were writing, and if I found cell phones on desks I would point out how unproductive these gadgets can make us. I often brought to the classroom as many “math toys” as possible to make mathematical ideas tangible.
I remember the last class I taught in person in March 2020: It was about Mathematics in Ancient China. (I was teaching a course in History of Mathematics.) I distributed a few abaci and advised the students not to share them. (It felt terrible to have to recommend such a thing. Normally, I would have them working in groups with all hands on the abacus). The week after, we entered the Zoom-universe. It was hard to lecture there, but at least I was talking to students with whom I had established a connection before becoming a face on their screens.
The next semester, for reasons that I will spare you, I decided to be a virtual instructor. A significant challenge I experienced was in replicating the immediate interaction of physically being in the same room with my students as they solved problems. I needed a tool that would allow me to conduct polls and to pose open-ended questions in real time while I conducted synchronous online lectures for my courses, which typically have an enrollment of 35 students.
I investigated several platforms, including Slido, Mentimeter, TurningPoint, and Poll Everywhere. In all these platforms, students can type written answers to questions through a web browser. Instructors can see the answers and share them, if they so desire, with the whole class during a synchronous online meeting.
Stony Brook University supports the use of TurningPoint, where each student pays a fee for a license. Currently, the cost is about $10 for a five-month term. One benefit of using TurningPoint is that the student responses can be connected to the Grade Center in Blackboard. For options that result in no extra cost to students, Stony Brook instructors can use Google Forms, but I found this a bit “less interactive.” Google Docs and Google Slides are platforms where students write in a “live” document (In Slides, the instructor can prepare a set of identical slides and assign a group of students to each slide for a problem-solving activity in real time). Zoom also has a polling tool that instructors can use for real time interaction during a meeting. Lastly, Zoom has the chat tool, which also allows for immediate interactivity during a synchronous meeting.
After exploring all the options, I decided to pay for my own subscription to Poll Everywhere. This tool helped me simulate the real time human interaction of being in the same physical space with students. In fact, this tool proved so valuable that I am planning to keep using it after the pandemic is behind us.
This is how I used it. When teaching during a synchronous meeting, I started a typical lesson with a greeting and a word cloud that was generated by the students’ answers to a question like, “write down a word that describes how you feel”, or “tell us something you gained and something you lost because of COVID” I tried to acknowledge the hardship of the moment and, to remind us of hope.
During the rest of the lecture I would never talk for more than 10 minutes without having the students participate in some way. For instance, when we studied how Ancient Egyptians measured geometric figures, I asked students to answer one of the following questions: “What does measuring a segment mean?” or “How do you measure a segment?” At that point in the course, Egyptians were discovering mathematical concepts and I wanted my student to put themselves in the experience of discovery. After reading some answers, I gave my own, or shared some of the students’ responses. I explained why certain answers were inappropriate. Then I asked, “What does it mean to find the area of a plane shape?” Finally, I gave concrete examples of Ancient Egyptian problems where shapes are measured.
Another frequent activity was having the students read a paragraph and explain what it means. For instance, it is said that when the ruler Ptolemy asked Euclid whether there was a way of learning geometry faster than reading The Elements, a 13-book mathematical treatise, Euclid answered: “There is no royal road to geometry.” Then I asked students to write what they thought Euclid meant.
Sometimes I asked for educated guesses on topics where students were unlikely to know the answer. After a discussion, I would pose the same question again. I tried to use Zoom breakout rooms for group activities, but I did not manage to do it in a productive way. I would often visit a breakout room and find the students in complete silence. Some students expressed frustration at the lack of participation by their classmates.
Every time a beautiful math idea appeared in front of us (and there are so many!) I would point it out and emphasize how lucky we were to be studying such wonders.
At the end of each lecture, students wrote up a short summary of the lecture and submitted it through the Poll Everywhere tool. However, this could be done with another tool or through Blackboard, which is the learning management system supported by Stony Brook University.
Overall, I think all of us learned about math history and about each other. Reading the students’ answers to my open-ended questions was like visiting their minds, in a way sometimes more effective than my “face reading” during the in-person lectures. Mostly because I could read the answers one by one, (and when reading a whole bunch of faces it is easy to miss a few), and also because all students answered (and words are often more explicit than faces).
Two books have helped, taught, and inspired me during this time of teaching during the pandemic: James M. Lang’s Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning and Dan Levy’s Teaching Effectively with Zoom: A Practical Guide to Engage Your Students and Help Them Learn. Lang has also many useful essays in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
While I write these last words, the students of last semester come to my mind, and I find it hard to believe that I miss them even though I never met most of them in person. This was my first all-virtual teaching semester, and despite all the turmoil of the time we are living in, to my surprise, I enjoyed almost every minute of the experience.
Dr. Chas and Dr. Alan Kim are facilitating the SBU Faculty Writing Group, which meets on Fridays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. starting on Feb. 5 through April 30, 2021. Register at this link. The Faculty Writing Group is sponsored and supported by the CELT’s Faculty Commons.
As we begin the semester, be sure to find out more about the technology setup in your scheduled room. Concerned about engaging all students? Here are some tips:
Contact AV Services or AV Services HSC if you have questions about your room, and contact CELT if you want to discuss teaching strategies! 
One of the frameworks we often use for crafting learning objectives is Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Bloom’s taxonomy is a hierarchy with six levels that are used to categorize educational goals. Each level has different groups of verbs that are associated with the level of knowledge or skill students should have acquired.
The lower levels of the hierarchy (remember, understand) are low level, usually involving simple recall or restatement of content. While these are appropriate in most courses, we also want students to go beyond remembering and understanding to higher order thinking skills, such as apply, analyze, evaluate, create. These higher order thinking skills are often the main focus of upper division and graduate courses, but can be implemented across the curriculum from general, introductory courses to graduate seminars.
Well-crafted objectives are concrete, specific, measurable/observable, achievable, and relevant. Instead of thinking about what the course will do, think what students should be able to do, having taken the course. Try to avoid using passive verbs such as “know,” “appreciate,” or “understand” because these can be too subjective and difficult to measure. Good learning objectives focus on what we want students to be able to learn or to do by the end of our course, and we need to choose what evidence (behavior/performance/artifact) best demonstrates that learning.
For assistance in creating objectives, you can use our homegrown digital tool. Select the best verbs by grabbing the red portion with your mouse pointer and dragging it clockwise. The medium blue in each wedge includes the appropriate verbs, and the lighter blue outside includes related teaching methods. The notes in the left-hand, gray column will change with each new section you uncover; they elaborate and give some examples from various disciplines.
If you have difficulty crafting your learning outcomes, it often helps to work backwards. That is, think about student assessments first. What are you actually measuring? Whatever the graded items measure, that is what you want students to know and be able to do with their knowledge.
If you would like a consultation with one of our instructional designers, please reach out!
Mcdaniel, R. (2020, March 25). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved January 19, 2021, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
