Renton Technical College
Instructional Improvement
May, 2008
Volume 6, No 9.
The second word in our title is faculty and the focus is on items of interest in the technical college classroom. This includes
what faculty are doing well in their programs, timesaving tips, and proven resources. We encourage articles from faculty and
will help you present an idea if writing isn’t your cup of tea. So don’t hide your light under the proverbial bushel, let it shine.
Contact us to share news we can all use.
Multimodal Learning
A new study has found that when visuals are added to textual or auditory instruction, students learn
more. Brian Halpern, LPN/RN instructor suggests that this information might be useful to
help instructors and through them students understand the importance of multimodal learning.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=53243;_hbguid=d03347c4-0c73-48c6-8297991e45695357&d=top-news
Marzano multimodal teaching strategies
This fabulous resource answers the question of how technology can be implemented to improve student learning. The site is
divided into nine "chapters" that correspond to the research-based Marzano strategies. The chapters include Identifying
Similarities and Differences , Summarizing and Note-Taking , Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition , Increasing Value in Homework and
Practice , Using Non-Linguistic Representations , Incorporating Cooperative Learning Effectively , Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback ,
Generating and Testing Hypotheses , and Utilizing Question, Cues, and Advance Organizers . Each chapter includes a brief summary and
then offers targeted and ready to use templates, graphic organizers, and online activities for implementation. The ideas and
examples use tools already in many classrooms: PowerPoint, Inspiration, Word, Excel, Internet, etc. Clicking examples gives
you information on using the technology or provides an interactive application to create your own for class use. Online
Interactive games are also provided. http://www.teachersfirst.com/getsource.cfm?id=9119 More information at
http://www.middleweb.com?MWLresources/marzchat1.html
Additional sources for Multimodal materials
http://www.free-ed.net/free-ed/FreeEdMain01.asp is a source of free tutorials and activities to occupy a student that is
“ahead of the pack” and wants to know more, or to vary instruction for a student who needs more practice. The range of
subjects is wide: from electronics to anatomy and physiology. There just might be something to enhance a lecture or help one
of your students.
Graphic Organizer Templates
Want to use a Venn diagram to have students compare and contrast, but can’t draw round circles? Want to
show your students how to set up a matrix to organize information, but don’t know how to do tables? Here’s
a site which has templates of many common graphic organizers, ready for you to save to your computer and
modify. Or keep a stack of those you’ll use a lot ready to pass out for partner or group work or to summarize
a lesson. http://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/index.shtml#graphicOrganizers
Classroom Management
Larry Ferrazzo, author of the wonderful Website of the Day blog, shares his insight on the ups and downs of classroom
management. http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/04/10/when-a-good-class-goes-bad-and-back-to-good-again/ What do
you do with aggressive students? How do you encourage civility? http://teaching.ucsc.edu/tips-civility.html Many classes use
the peer feedback as part of a writing project. This Guide to Gracious Criticism contains well stated guidelines that will help
students bravely apply your rubric and give their fellow student honest feedback.
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/writingcenter/handouts/eiphand.html Here’s insight on handling grade complaints
http://www.adjunctnation.com/magazine/article/655/
Here are nine actions that an instructor took to regain control of his classroom.
http://inpractice.edublogs.org/2008/04/05/classroom-management/
Finally, (and to add a multi-modal element to this newsletter) this Teaching Tolerance article on the ABC’s of Classroom
Management two U-Tube shorts of instructors sharing their strategies.
http://www.tolerance.org/teach/activities/activity.jsp?&ar=921&ttnewsletter=ttnewsgen-041008
Free Web 2.0 Tutorials
Does your Professional Development Plan include becoming familiar with new classroom technologies? Here are 23 activities
to be completed over a 9 week period Created by the California School Library Association all on Web 2.0 tools and
classroom integration. http://classroomlearning2.blogspot.com
Cheating
Students and workers younger than 31 -- grew up with "helicopter parents" and trophies for every game.
They're bright and tech savvy, but also demand more validation and prefer rules that fit their own style.
Barbara Keats, an associate professor of management at the W.P. Carey School of Business, wonders if their
anything-to-get-ahead attitude also makes them more prone to cheat. Knowledge@W. P. Carey DOC Cop is
a plagiarism detection tool that creates reports displaying the correlation and matches between documents or a
document and the web. http://www.doccop.com Going nuclear (threatening a failing grade) or high tech
(detection software) have failed to stop cheating for many instructors. Read about some other approaches, like
teaching about academic integrity. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/07/plagiarism
Diversity
Unlike the days when one teaching style fit all students, in today's context there is pressure to acknowledge
and accept students with perspectives other than our own, to diversify our syllabi, to be more aware of
classroom dynamics, and to pay more attention to how our students are experiencing the learning process.
Here are some tips from the Bok Center at Harvard on teaching in racially diverse classrooms.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/TFTrace.html
Nine powerful practices to help students living in Poverty
http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653fb85516f762108a0c/?javax.portlet.tpst=d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_ws
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Quote
“The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.” ~ Edward
Bulwer-Lytton