A Venn diagram with two circles. One circle is labelled "Active Learning". The other circle is labelled "Inclusive Teaching". The word "structure" is in the overlap between the two circles.The bottom of the graphic gives attribution: CC-BY Peter Newbury peternewbury.org — Structure is the link between active learning and inclusive teaching.

The positive impact of active learning took a giant leap forward in 2014 when Freeman et al. published “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics”. Things to know about this important paper:

There’s a LOT of heavy statistics and honestly, I find it quite difficult to read. I highly recommend this terrific blog post by Aatish Bhattia instead.
The Freeman et al. paper focuses on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. That’s not because active learning isn’t effective in health science, education, social science, humanities,…but rather, because there is $$$ to study education in STEM education (because historically, STEM education has been so terrible!)
The authors say, let’s stop proving active learning works – it does! – and let’s turn our attention to >why< it works. That’s ignited countless “second generation” research projects and articles digging into effective active learning.

One of my favourite “second generation” papers is “Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work?” by Eddy & Hogan (2017). They show that classes with “highly structured” active learning increase the success of all students, with exaggerated impact on historically-disadvantaged groups. Their example of high structure is classes using the flipped learning model (students are guided on how to prepare for each class) and then peer instruction (polling using audience response tools) and/or worksheets in class.

And here’s where it all come together: providing structure and scaffolding and revealing the hidden curriculum about how to learn is at the heart of inclusive teaching. For a great overview of using structure to support inclusion, check out “How to make your teaching more inclusive” by Sathy & Hogan. (This is an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education and might require a subscription.) There was such overwhelming positive response to the Chronicle article, Sathy & Hogan turned it into an entire book, “Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom”.

The part of this story I like the most is this: after effective course design, I believe inclusive teaching practices are the most important component of a course. The research shows inclusive teaching isn’t warm and fuzzy / tokenistic / performative acts injected into your teaching. Instead, it’s careful, thoughtful, intentional design of the lesson and the course. And that’s something concrete we can all work on and practice.

Adding learning technologies to backward design

July 15, 2022

Peter Newbury

When it comes to course design, I’m a big fan and advocate of Wiggins & McTighe-style backward design: identify learning outcomes, create summative and formative assessments, select instructional strategies.

Diagram with three small circles arranged together in a large loop. The three circles are labeled with the components of backward design: learning outcomes, assessment, instructional strategies. There are curved lines between the circles around the loop. The lines are double-ended arrows. — When developing a course using backward design, you identify learning outcomes, create summative and formative assessments, and select instructional strategies. (Diagram: Peter Newbury CC-BY)

I like this diagram because

the loop suggests iteration: you design, teach, assess, redesign, reteach,…
the arrows are double-ended: a novel assessment might allow me to aim for a higher learning outcome and force me choose a new instructional strategy, and so on

The last 2+ years have highlighted the importance of learning management systems and other learning technologies. They don’t just enable assessment and instruction, they can enhance it. Like, say, choosing Slido to run peer instruction (aka clickers) instead of think-pair-share.

So, I want to add “learning technologies” to the design process. A novel technology (like, say, Perusall) might allow me to raise the level of the learning outcome, requiring a different assessment and instructional strategy. Let’s add it to the loop:

Diagram with four small circles arranged in a large loop. The four circles are the three components of backward design -- learning outcomes, assessment, and instructional strategies -- plus a fourth circle labelled learning technologies. The circles are connected together around the loop with curved lines with double-ended arrows. — Add learning technologies to the backward design loop. (Diagram: Peter Newbury CC-BY)

Uh-oh! If I just add another circle to the loop, I loose important connections, like how the learning outcome helps me select the instructional strategy, and how the assessment might rely on the capability of the learning management system. There’s an easy fix, of course.

Adding two missing arrows brings back the message that changing one component has consequences on the other three.

This is the version of backward design plus learning technologies I’ll be using when talking with course instructors. Until I iterate and revise, of course!

End notes

This post first appeared as a thread on Twitter. Probably a good idea to back it up here, just in case.
Part of my motivation for sharing these diagrams is the opportunity to practice using alternative text (alt txt), the written description that accompanies images posted on the web and Twitter. I’ve been learning a lot about alt txt from Ann Gagné @AnnGagne, Jorts @JortsTheCat (who always includes simple, clear, and wonderfully creative alt txt), and this excellent webinar “What is alternative text? How do I write it for images, charts, and graphs?” by Matthew Deeprose @VLEguru.
I use PowerPoint to create simple diagrams like these. I like the auto-align features, the fine-control over the size of objects (down to 0.01 inches), and the easy “Duplicate slide” tool (I add new elements to copies of the slide so I can go back or try different options.) A new trick for these diagrams: I started with a custom 6″ x 6″ slide. “Save as PNG” pumped out a folder of identically sized (576 x 576 pixel) PNGs so I didn’t have to do any cropping.

What the Best College Teachers Do and Indigenous Pedagogies

April 1, 2022

Peter Newbury

How People Learn Indigenization teaching 1 Comment

In the early 2010’s, I read Ken Bain’s “What the Best College Teachers Do” (2004). One part jumped out at me then and I continue to quote and use it over and over. When describing the best college teachers’ classrooms, Bain writes

More than anything else, the best teachers try to create a natural critical learning environment: natural because students encounter skills, habits, attitudes, and information they are trying to learn embedded in questions and tasks they find fascinating – authentic tasks that arouse curiosity and become intrinsically interesting, critical because students learn to think critically, to reason from evidence, to examine the quality of their reasoning using a variety of intellectual standards, to make improvements while thinking, and to ask probing and insightful questions about the thinking of other people.

(p. 99)

He observes that in these natural, critical learning environments,

students encounter safe yet challenging conditions in which they can try, fail, receive feedback, and try again without facing a summative evaluation.

(p. 108)

The try, fail, receive feedback, try again cycle inspired me to create this graphic (feel free to use it, it’s shared under CC-BY):

In the best college teachers classrooms, “students encounter safe yet challenging conditions in which they can try, fail, receive feedback, and try again without facing a summative evaluation” (Bain, 2004) (Graphic created by Peter Newbury, shared under CC-BY)

I frequently think about this learning cycle and happily encourage instructors and other educational developers to think about it, too, and build it into their courses and support for those who teach. In other words, it’s always active in my head, always ready to leap up and join the conversation.

Imagine my thrill, then, when I read this passage from Pulling Together: A Guide for Indigenization of Post-Secondary Institutions (Curriculum Developers edition) by Asma-na-hi Antoine, Rachel Mason, Roberta Mason, Sophia Palahicky, and Carmen Rodriguez de France (2018):

[L]earning from mistakes is a common aspect of Indigenous pedagogy, as it involves experiential learning and self-development. In this view, mistakes plus correction equals learning. Indigenous communities and families have a cultural process for “fixing” a mistake by creating a safe place to acknowledge your mistake, to fix it, and then learn from it…After the process of acknowledging and fixing a mistake, it’s then time to let go, move forward, and continue to work together.

(p. 34)

? Mind ? Blown ?

Let’s take a close read to compare these Western and Indigenous approaches to teaching:

What the best college teachers do	Pulling Together
students encounter skills, habits, and information they are trying to learn embedded in questions and (authentic) tasks they find fascinating	it involves experiential learning and self-development
students encounter safe yet challenging conditions	creating a safe place to acknowledge your mistake
try, fail, receive feedback, and try again	mistakes plus correction equals learning
try, fail, receive feedback, and try again	acknowledge your mistake, to fix it, and then learn from it
without facing a summative evaluation	it’s then time to let go, move forward, and continue to work together

I’m so happy to continue confronting and correcting my colonial misconception that Indigenizing the curriculum means setting aside my Western knowledge and practices. How people learn is the same, and effective teaching is effective teaching, however we label and categorize it.

Structure is the connection between effective active learning and inclusive teaching

Adding learning technologies to backward design

End notes

What the Best College Teachers Do and Indigenous Pedagogies

Navigation