Useful Practices

One of the goals of the Remaking the Future Framework is to increase the level of communication and reflection that occurs within a class. Reflective and sharing practices have been shown to be beneficial to learning.

As such, it is necessary to purposefully create moments of sharing and reflection into the work that students are doing. These moments can occur among the students within a class, and with students in other classes running the framework. As such, it is necessary to purposefully create moments of sharing and reflection into the work that students are doing. Below is some advice on how to accomplish this.

There are several types of activities that occur in a course that lend themselves to reflection and sharing. The main ones that we will discuss are Skill Building and Project Based. Within both of these general categories, we will also explore ways that you can create intentional moments of reflection and sharing.

Skill Building

Part, or even all, of your course may be dedicated to building up students skills in specific areas, so that they can tackle challenges in later courses, or in their careers. Some examples of this could be interpreting graphs, basic programming exercise or diagramming sentences.

Skill Reflection

It is important though to ask students to reflect on the skill they are learning, why they think it is useful, and what ways they found to help them learn it. In addition to the skill-building exercise, you could also ask:

What did you find challenging about this activity?
How does the skill connect to other things you are learning in the course?
Why do you think this skill is useful?
Does this remind you of anything else you have learned how to do?
What are the applications of this skill?
Why do you think learning this is important?
What do you think this skill is building towards?
What future things do you wish to do that this skill will assist you in?
What is something you are still unsure of regarding this skill?

Here is a list of 40 questions you can draw on

Skill Sharing

You may also wish to incorporate a group or class sharing element into skill building activities. This will allow students to share their struggles (which will help you anticipate problems in future assignments/courses), and provide a means for students who understand the skill, to share what helped them with other students. It is important though, to set this up as a safe environment. It is difficult for most people to admit when they are struggling with a topic, so provide context by sharing what issues people have had in the past, or even what you struggled with when you were first learning the skill.

This reflection and sharing activity could be incorporated into the assignment, or designed as a separate assignment. If it is incorporated into a current assignment, then simply include the reflective questions you would like answered in the assignment. If you would like it to be a separate assignment, then you can use one of these active learning techniques as a way to incorporate it into your class.

Think-Pair-Share/Write-Pair-Share

(10 minutes of class time)

Present a question to answer or a statement/quote for reflection.
Give students a minute or two to think about or write their responses.
Have students then share their answers or responses with a neighbor.
After two minutes, signal for students to stop.
Debrief by calling on a few pairs to share their thoughts or answers with the class.
Reflect on students’ answers to gauge student progress and relate their responses to the next part of your class.

Minute Paper

(2-10 minutes of class time)

Think about the class learning outcomes. What should students in your class know or be able to do?
Design a prompt based on your learning outcomes. (For example, what are the most important points of today’s lecture? What are two ways you could you apply [concept] to a real-world situation?).
Check the effectiveness of your question and anticipate various responses.
Give students enough time to respond (2-10 minutes depending on the prompt).
Collect all responses for review or select a sample for larger class sizes.
If checking individual student comprehension/writing, ask students to write their names on the papers. If checking general comprehension of the class, make it anonymous.
Review the responses for themes or commonly made errors.
Provide feedback in the next class. Comment on papers directly or summarize main themes to the whole class.

Active Learning Techniques from Cornell University

Turn and Talk

In a turn and talk, a question is posed to the class and students simply turn to the person next to them to discuss. This can serve as a comfortable way for students to share their ideas with others and set the stage for them sharing with the larger group. The instructor doesn't’t need to hear all (or any) of the ideas shared– the important aspect of this strategy is for the peers to share and for individuals to access their prior knowledge about a topic. Example prompt: Ask students to turn to someone next to them and discuss their responses to the following question. Tell them to take two minutes to discuss this with their partner with each person getting some time to talk.

Part of the challenge of communicating climate change with the public is that there is disparity between what scientists and the non-scientist public think and know about climate change.
Why do you think there is such a disparity

Active Learning Strategies from the University of California - Berkeley

Project Based

Project Based Learning is one of the main components of the Remaking the Future Framework. While every component of the Framework is optional, it is highly suggested that you include some kind of project based assessment into your course. If you are unfamiliar, project based learning is defined as:

“a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.” (PBLworks)

The big challenge we focus on is, in a world with an increasing Human population, how do we address the following issues:

Energy Production
Human Migration
Disease proliferation
Food Production
Water Usage

These are huge issues, and lend themselves to a variety of projects. Not just on the technical aspects of how to solve these problems, but also the human reaction to these issues. In natural science courses, you could look at solutions for increasing food production, and making energy and water usages more efficient. For Humanities and Social Sciences, you could look at the ways that Humans interpret and react to these issues, using historical and modern examples.

Here are a few articles that Discuss Project Based Learning:

According to the Buck Institute for Education, there are 7 key elements to Project Based learning, they are:

Challenging Problem or Question
Sustained Inquire
Authenticity
Student Voice and Choice
Reflection
Critique and Revision
Public Product

(PBLworks)

As you create the project assignments, think how you can incorporate these aspects into the project. We have some suggestions through the reflection activities, and the use of the Cross- Curriculum and the narrative themes. However, you will need to tailor these aspects to needs and goals of your course.

Here are a few examples of Projects that you could adapt or remix. While these are for Secondary education, they still provide good examples of what could be developed.

Sciences/Engineering

Humanities

Prompts for Students to Create their own Projects

If you are looking for further assistance, here is a list of prompts that you and your students can use to create their own projects: 42 Project Design Prompt

Project Reflection

It is important to incorporate moments of reflection into any project. This allows students to see how they have grown, how the project has changed and discuss ways that they could make improvements to future versions of the project. You can use the same reflective prompts from the Skills building section. We have made a worksheet template to facilitate project reflection: Project Reflection Worksheet

Project Sharing

Cooperative Groups in Class

Pose a question to be worked on in each co-operative group and then circulate around the room answering questions, asking further questions, keeping the groups on task, and so forth. After an appropriate time for group discussion, students are asked to share their discussion points with the rest of the class.

Source (Group and Team Based Learning - University of Connecticut)

Panel Discussions

Panel discussions are especially useful when students are asked to give class presentations or reports as a way of including the entire class in the presentation. Student groups are assigned a topic to research and asked to prepare presentations (note that this may readily be combined with the jigsaw method outlined above). Each panelist is then expected to make a very short presentation, before the floor is opened to questions from “the audience.” The key to success is to choose topics carefully and to give students sufficient direction to ensure that they are well-prepared for their presentations. You might also want to prepare the “audience,” by assigning them various roles. For example, if students are presenting the results of their research into several forms of energy, you might have some of the other students role play as concerned environmentalists, transportation officials, commuters, and so forth.

Source (Group and Team Based Learning - University of Connecticut)

Fishbowl Discussion

The Fishbowl Discussion is a teaching strategy that encourages full student participation, reflection and depth of knowledge. Students take turns "in the bowl" and "out of the bowl". Students in the bowl participate in a lively discussion, often about opposing views or controversial topics, Students outside of the bowl listen and reflect on the alternative viewpoints. And then...they switch!

Source (Fishbowl - Facing History and Ourselves)

Cross-Curriculum Sharing

A component of the Remaking the Future Framework is cross-disciplinary sharing and communication. We will be maintaining a spreadsheet of links to class projects so that students from a variety of courses can see the types of projects their peers have created. It is one of the main reasons that we encourage incorporating projects into your course. You can use the spreadsheet in conjunction with the project reflection worksheet to ask student to reflect on their own work, and the work of other students. Keep in mind, since this may be shared outside of the class, students should refrain from mentioning which course the project was made for.

Cross Course Spreadsheet