New advances in how to teach and learn
Experiments with teaching and learning during the pandemic reveal new insights for how teachers should teach and how students learn best.
Columbia University’s office of the Provost released a report entitled “Teaching Transformations: Faculty Reflections and Insights on Pandemic Practices”:
I was pleased to be named by the Provost for my work evaluating the role of virtual reality in teaching biochemistry, which I detailed previously:
The report highlights in my view four key mechanisms by which faculty members and students together made advances in teaching and learning during the pandemic:
1. Promote Equity and Inclusion: Actively develop an inclusive classroom where students and faculty feel included, represented, and encouraged to participate. Having both students and faculty reflect on the state of a course as it unfolds is a powerful way to correct mistakes and ensure an optimal experience. Particularly in a remote setting, promoting inclusion became especially important. I’ve been in classrooms where I felt unwelcome or dismissed, and it certainly made it harder to learn.
2. Course Redesign and Active Learning: Make learning an active experience with audience response questions, team problems, discussions, demonstrations, and use of relevant technologies. In my case, this included our exploration of teaching in virtual reality. Remote learning highlighted the need for active learning, but the need is no less acute in a large lecture hall. Plus, it is more fun!
3. Make Learning Collaborative: Have students work in groups inside and outside of class so they engage with each other and assist each other in their learning. Use an absolute grading scale so students are not competing with each other on a curve. Remote learning showed how valuable interactions are among students and with faculty. A great team makes learning easy and fun.
4. Use Partnerships: Get help from an educational expert, such as staff in your Center for Teaching and Learning. Invite experts to come speak to the class. Exposing students to experts was particularly easy to do during remote learning. Who knows, maybe you can get a world expert or leader to come speak at your next class?
My advice to faculty is to think carefully about how you can gradually add these elements to your course over the next few years, making one or two key changes each year. For students, I suggest to seek out classes and institutions that use these formats, as your education will greatly benefit in the long run from such courses.
Have you had experience with classes that had used or didn’t use use these methods? Let me know below!
