Project #: F05KK
Proposal Title: Active Learning/Communications
Stipend Level: 1
In the space below, present a statement of your
proposed research project (approximately 500-1000 words), including a
general description of the scope and nature of your project, the design
or the outline to be followed. Describe your planned activities and
timelines.
The goal of this project is to ascertain the extent to which active
learning teaching techniques [1] enable students to understand course
content more effectively, and [2] improves student retention of course
content. The research project will be carried out in next Fall 2005 in
the course COMS 260: Communication & Gender. Over the
semester I will teach four specific units of the course using at least
one active learning technique. These units will be: Gender
and Family; Gender and Verbal Communication; Gender and Non-Verbal
Communication; and Gender and the Mass Media. All of the
techniques I will use will require that the concept or principle I am
focusing on actually "happen" inside the classroom. I will also
choose four units for which I will use no active learning teaching
techniques. At the conclusion of each unit in the class, I will
give students index cards and approximately five minutes to answer the
following question: "What concept from this last unit do you feel
you understand most clearly?" In addition, I will ask students at
the very end of the semester to respond to the following question: "In
what way [if any] did the four active learning techniques used in class
[I will remind them of these experiences] improve my teaching
effectiveness and your ability to learn the concepts of Gender and
Communication?"
What are the objectives of your project?
Describe the relevance of your project to student learning.
My objectives are twofold: First I am interested in getting
concrete information about the effectiveness of active learning
techniques generally. I put a lot of credence in these methods; I
am not, however, sure of their ability to create better learning.
This assessment will provide me with a beginning measure of my work in
the classroom. Second I would like to get specific information on
how students learn generally. In this way, I might be able to
contribute some very valuable new content as an instructor to the
Institute of Teaching & Learning--not to mention my own classroom labor.
What evaluation methodology will you use to
provide progress measures for your project? Include a description of
your benchmarks.
The benchmarks will be, as I have suggested above, individual feedback
written
What teaching strategies/learning
concepts/pedagogical theories/technology skills did you gain knowledge
of through the Institute of Teaching and Learning courses that you will
apply to your classroom research?
I first began doing extra research on active learning --specifically
Kolb's model of experience and learning--when I was asked to be a part
of the team teaching EDU 082: Teaching in the Community College in
the Fall of 2003. Prior to that time, I was a part of several
interdisciplinary teaching teams of 6-8 people that regularly engaged in
teaching that was experiential and collaborative by design.The 082
course enabled me to recognize the value of the theory behind the
praxis, and also provided me with the research to understand why, in
theory, this type of teaching actually worked.
How many students (approximately) will
participate in the research project? 30
What do you (as an instructor) hope to learn
from your research? Describe any instructional development or
improvement you hope to glean from this project.
I hope to find out if the active learning techniques I am using are as
powerful as I believe them to be. I have taught using a number of
them for quite sometime, but I have never used any specific assessment
measures--besides exams and quiz questions--to find out how effective
they actually are. This information would be invaluable to me as a
means to fine tuning my teaching style.
Anticipated Research Costs (if any)? $ 0
