Signature Pedagogies in the Disciplines*

1. Signature Pedagogies in the Disciplines* J. Andy Goodman and R. Eric Landrum Center for Teaching and Learning Department of Psychology Great Ideas for Teaching and Learning Symposium Tuesday, January 10, 2012 Boise, ID *Inspired and liberally adapted from R. A. R. Gurung’s work on Signature Pedagogies

2. Welcome / Introductions • Name • Department • What you hope to gain from today’s workshop (i.e., one good idea)

3. Observation • You have 3 minutes to observe and take notes about your cinnamon stick • Use any and all observation techniques known to you

4. What are Signature Pedagogies? • “Types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions” —Shulman (2005) • “Ways of being taught that require [students] to do, think, and value what practitioners in the field are doing, thinking, and valuing” —Calder (2006) • “Introducing students to the culture of thinking in a specific discipline ... level[s] the playing field for those students who don’t come to college ‘preeducated’” —Middendorf and Pace (2004)

5. Overview: Signature Pedagogies • Context: Think about a departmental, disciplined-based perspective rather than course-centered approach. • How do we teach students to think and act like an expert in their respective disciplines? • Are there specific pedagogical techniques that instructors use to help students reach expert levels?

6. Overview: Signature Pedagogies • How can we efficiently teach students those skills and abilities that they • Don’t like to acquire • Struggle with • Have difficulty gaining self-confidence in

7. Overview: Signature Pedagogies • Experts vs. Novices (Coyle, 2009) • Deliberate practice with solvable obstacles is desired • Many metacognitive skills are applicable here • “Every expert in every field is the result of around ten thousand hours of committed practice” (p. 51).

8. Overview: Signature Pedagogies • What's the simplest way to diminish the skills of a superstar talent (short of inflicting an injury)?  The answer: don't practice for a month.  That's why daily practice matters, particularly as we get older.  As Vladimir Horowitz, the virtuoso pianist who kept performing into this eighties, put it, "If I skip practice for one day, I notice.  If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices.  If I skip for three days, the world notices“ (Coyle, 2009, p. 89).

9. A Course Reflection • Pick one course you’re teaching. (If possible, pick a general education, introductory course.) • What frustrates you most about your students’ learning in this course?

10. The Student Experience • What were the course’s routines? • What did you have students doing in the course? • What did you ask them to produceto show their proficiency? • What were they practicing? • What habits were they cultivating?

11. Teaching Scenarios • With respect to signature pedagogies and helping students develop disciplinary expertise and keeping in mind the questions from the previous slide … • What are the strengths in the following scenarios? • How might these ideas be incorporated into your teaching? • What do you do to support learning beyond the classroom? • How might your assignments measure ways of thinking instead of content knowledge?

12. Teaching Scenarios • For each of the following, think about how each scenario might qualify as an example of low/medium/high level of signature pedagogy: LOW MEDIUM HIGH

13. Ultimate Goals • What are the skills and abilities that you want your majors to ultimately acquire? • Grades ≠ Skills • Where do your individual courses match up with these ultimate goals? Where don’t they? • Does your departmental-wide curriculum help students develop disciplinary expertise? • How do you know? How do you measure/assess?

14. Signature Pedagogy Talking Points • Course-based silo approach vs. coordinated departmental effort • Efficiencies and economies of scale • Meeting student and employer needs • Periodic meaningful assessment/accreditation is facilitated • A discipline-based “degree audit”

15. Signature Pedagogies • What would one of your discipline’s signature pedagogies look like? • What would it teach students about your discipline’s ways of thinking, knowing, doing, and valuing?

16. Obstacles & Objections • What are some obstacles or objections for teaching in this way, especially in introductory courses? • What are consequences of not teaching introductory courses in this way?

17. Observation Redux • Can you find your cinnamon stick? • Cinnamon sticks are like…