Innovations in Pedagogy, Improving Understanding

Why Should We Ask Students to Reflect?

Dennis B. Propst — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:30:00 PDT

Reflection is typically thought to be an active and deliberate mental activity, whereby individuals retrieve some past experience, think about it and evaluate it (Jeffs and Smith 2005). John Dewey defined reflection as “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey, 1933: 118). In terms of student learning, reflection creates associations between what one does or did (actions) and what is being taught. Associations become stronger with familiarity; strong associations are necessary for humans to learn (Kotulak, 1996). Reflection can also occur spontaneously without overly taxing us. This type of reflection can be stimulated by non‐taxing, restorative experiences in natural settings (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989). So, in terms of optimum conditions for learning, reflection is one component. If we tie reflection to experiences in nature, learning via reflection should come easier than, say, reflection on one’s commute to work Therefore, those of us in natural resource education foster learning of subject matter in a domain than is inherently fascinating and subject to the learning benefits of reflection. Boud, Keough and Walker (1985) condensed Dewey’s original formulation into threes aspects of reflection with more detail on the role of emotion: Returning to experience, attending to feelings, evaluating experience. This presentation demonstrates learning activities that exemplify these three aspects of reflection and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of learning by reflection. Eight years of student scores (n=150) on traditional exams and reflective essays aimed at assessing similar content are compared. The conclusion is that the benefits outweigh costs, with some caveats, a similar conclusion reached by Chirema (2007). Boud, D., Keough, R., & Walker, D. (eds.) (1985). Reflection: Turning experience into learning. London: Kogan Page. Boud, D., Cressey, P., & Docherty, P. (eds.) (2006). Productive reflection at work: learning for changing organizations. New York: Routledge. Chirema, K.D. (2007). The use of reflective journals in the promotion of reflection and learning in post‐registration nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 27, 192‐202. Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. New York: D.C. Heath. Jeffs, T. & Smith, M. K. (2005). Informal education. conversation, democracy and learning. Nottingham: Educational Heretics Press. Kaplan, R. & Kaplan, S. (1989). The experience of nature: a psychological perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kotulak, R. (1996). Inside the brain: revolutionary discoveries of how the mind works. Kansas City, MO: Andrews and McMeel.

Using Concept Maps for Student Centered Assessment

Jan R. Thompson et al. — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:00:00 PDT

Although most college professors desire students to learn course content deeply and be able to use their learning after emerging from the course, students often choose to learn only “for the test”. The challenge for educators is to create appropriate challenges for students that will require them to make the connections necessary for continuous construction of knowledge and the ability to access what has been learned in the future. For students to generate concept maps describing learning during a semester‐long course, they must demonstrate understanding of the big ideas, the connections between the big ideas, and where details fit into that bigger picture. In addition, students can be challenged to develop narrative descriptions of their maps to provide further evidence of their learning and thinking about course content, and to make it more likely that their learning will be useful in the future. Learners innately tend to organize information, old and new, into schema that allow them to establish connections and hierarchical arrangements of concepts and facts. Concept maps give students the opportunity to create their own patterns that connect topics and information into a scheme that provides for deeper learning and better retention of information. Preparing visual representations of information requires students to process/translate information and emphasize the relationships among “pieces” of information. This process is likely to be more natural for visual learners who may struggle in classrooms with a strong verbal approach. Because of the potential disparity between verbal presentation and visual representation as a means of evaluation (as well as differences in learning styles), classroom practice in developing concept maps should be a prelude to using them for assessment. This session will engage participants in thinking and discussion about assessment in a learning‐ centered context, and further will involve participants in developing initial schema for their own courses that may serve as models for development of assessment tools that emphasize student ownership of knowledge and concepts. Examples of student‐generated maps and rubrics developed for their evaluation will also be shared.

Training Generalist Practitioners in Conservation Leadership for the 21st Century: How Can Universities Contribute?

Peter Newman et al. — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:30:00 PDT

The natural resource conservation field is in need of leaders who can tackle the increasingly complex and multi‐dimensional conservation problems facing society. The U.S. and the world face incredible challenges and opportunities including climate change, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, balancing livelihood goals and conservation, energy security, and environmental justice. How can we be more effective in preparing leaders to tackle these issues? In most cases, University curricula in natural resources are focused on providing deep disciplinary grounding that leads to strong technical skills and understanding. But this may not be the best approach to training leaders that require broad systems‐level thinking and who have a perspective on the interlocking social, biological and physical elements of natural resource issues. In recognition of this situation, we propose an educational approach for training conservation generalist practitioners (CGPs) not technical specialists. CGPs will have a strong foundation in science, leadership, and management. These generalist practitioners will be prepared to engage in cross‐disciplinary problem solving, to work in cross‐cultural and cross‐boundary contexts, and to be comfortable with and skilled at operating in an environment of increasing complexity and uncertainty. To train this next generation of conservation leaders, we are proposing a new approach to education. We propose a pedagogical approach to create systems thinking by teaching disciplines in a problem‐based learning format organized into a conservation‐development practice framework. Students will learn the trans‐disciplinary coordination required to take effective action as they are trained to become generalist practitioners who tackle problems across disciplines and use this knowledge to develop effective real‐world solutions. In this presentation, we describe our framework for training conservation generalist practitioners. We will provide a theoretical methodological and case study justification for our approach which provides (a) transdisciplinary (integrating the breadth and diversity of social and ecological aspects of environmental decision making), (b) problem based, and (c) resilience/systems thinking approaches to learning. The presentation will describe our demonstration of this educational approach that will occur in 2010. In this program, masters students will engage in educational activities and field work in both the US and in Mexico and will be involved with practitioners in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. The presentation will conclude with an overview of how we propose evaluating this program and speculations on how we will evolve over time.

Innovations in Pedagogy, Improving Understanding

Why Should We Ask Students to Reflect?

Using Concept Maps for Student­ Centered Assessment

Training Generalist Practitioners in Conservation Leadership for the 21st Century: How Can Universities Contribute?

Using Concept Maps for Student Centered Assessment