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Congratulations to Janet Casagrand!

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 19:42:18 +0000

Congratulations to Janet Casagrand! Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/04/2018 - 12:42

Miguel Garcia , ASSETT Student Fellow

Each year, ASSETT awards the Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award to a faculty member who has been nominated by their peers and students for their commitment to teaching with technology. The 2018 recipient, Dr. Janet Casagrand (IPHY), was recognized for her ongoing pursuit of incorporating technology into the classroom and for her tireless work to improve student learning.

Janet has participated in a number of professional development opportunities including ASSETT’s Hybrid Course Design workshops and Flipped Classroom workshop, and she presented her work at the Teaching with Technology Symposium. She applies the knowledge gained through these professional development activities at the department level and at the campus level. She is the Education Specialist for the Department of Integrated Physiology, where she promotes digital learning through applications like D2L, Canvas, and screencasting. She also serves on a number of campus committees where she advocates for the use of academic technologies.

Janet Casagrand lecturing on the human reproductive system to IPHY students. (Photo by Austin Chau, ASSETT Student Fellow)

Janet’s approach to teaching is “very much student-centered” and reflects her desire to continually improve. Through her involvement with a variety of faculty development groups, she “learned that there are better ways to teach and that focusing more on student learning as opposed to teaching, per se, is a much more effective way to help students learn.” She realizes that with teaching, one size does not fit all. She says that her approach to choosing any particular tool “depends on the level of the course and what the need is... what can best assist me in getting students to where I’d like them to get.”The first technology that she adopted was iClickers. From there, she says her interest in trying new technologies “sort of snowballed.” Janet doesn't believe in using technology for the sake of simply using it. She credits her scientific background with assessing the efficacy of each tool by doing a pre- and post-assessment. She says that, if she determines that the technology “is not accomplishing the goal then [she] would either rethink it, or try something else.”

All of this work takes a lot of time, but it is definitely worth the effort. Janet says she is willing to do whatever she can to be the most effective teacher that she can be, which and that “sometimes means going above and beyond what might be expected.” Her enthusiasm is infectious, as reflected in her nomination letter: “[Janet’s] dedication and leadership in the use of teaching technologies has enriched not only her own classes, but also those of many others.” Her innovative practices, and leadership have inspired others to pursue student success through the incorporation of technology. If you have the pleasure of talking to Janet, please join us in congratulating her for all of her hard work and effort and for receiving the 2018 ASSETT Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award!

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Low Stakes Assessments Encourage Heisler's Human Anatomy Students

Anonymous — Wed, 06 May 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Low Stakes Assessments Encourage Heisler's Human Anatomy Students Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/06/2015 - 00:00

Low stakes assessments encourage students in Integrative Physiology Senior Instructor Ruth Heisler’s Human Anatomy class. Heisler created the assessments through support from the ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar. Watch her explain her tactic in her video below.

[video:https://youtu.be/Pu3KTaoH_Mc]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

Human Anatomy is historically viewed as a memorization course that requires little in the way of critical thinking. However, the repeating patterns and tissue organization of the body is actually very intuitive if one takes the time to ponder why our tissues are arranged the way they are. One of the biggest challenges I continue to encounter is moving students away from just memorization of the material, and instead developing their reasoning skill to help them deduce why a specific tissue type would be found associated with a particular organ.

Students who have generally managed to get through courses by memorizing and regurgitating information often have the most trouble in anatomy. They become frustrated that their tried and true method of studying no longer works in a course with so much content. We (myself and other instructors in the course) have tried multiple things to try and encourage students to move away from pure memorization. Some of these approaches have included weekly homeworks with questions that promote integration of concepts; in class activities; surveys on their study habits; and starting each lecture with a study tip. I have had limited success.

The big problem is how to create a learning environment that promotes understanding rather than memorization in a large course. Human Anatomy is full of terminology, organization of cells and tissues, and organ functions. The general content that we cover has been well established by faculty in our department, and is pertinent to what students are expected to know in upper division classes. Assessments have been designed to reinforce the key concepts. But the students who thrive in the course are those who recognize that memorization is not the best way to learn the material. Convincing students that there is a more effective and efficient way to learn the material is my challenge. I am looking for an intervention of study and learning habits.

Plans for Implementation

My study skills intervention will involve low-tech in-class activities designed to engage students in a more interactive study approach that I want them to develop; combined with a slightly higher tech requirement that they must upload the final product of the activity to the course D2L page.

First, let me talk about what the activity will look like. Once a week, at the start of lecture, I will ask the class to draw and label (to the best of their ability) an anatomical structure or tissue that was covered in the previous lecture. For instance, I may ask them to draw and label a cross section of the integument. I will give them 510 minutes to complete the task. The students will then have 24 hours to upload that drawing to the Dropbox in D2L. If they choose, they can add to their image after lecture and before submitting. I estimate there will be 14 of these activities throughout the semester, and they can upload any 10 of their drawings. My graduate TA will check the drawings and give a student 1 point if it is satisfactory. They can earn up to 10 points over the course of the semester.

The point per uploaded activity is designed to give them low-stakes encouragement to participate in the activities. A satisfactory drawing will be one that has a minimum number structures labeled. The number will vary depending on the assignment, and will be announced with each activity. The idea is to promote interactive studying and an understanding of how cells and tissues are put together; and hopefully create an “aha!” moment where they realize there are repeating patterns in the tissues and organs of our body. Drawing ability will not be graded; nor will we be able to check every submission for accuracy. (Although I would love to provide feedback to each student, with one TA at 4 hours each week and 250 students I don’t think it is currently feasible. If this proves to be a sticky point, I will try to address it in future semesters.)

The lecture period following each activity will begin with a submission that myself or the TA has deemed to be particularly well done, as a way to assist students who are unsure how to approach the activity. The point of this demonstration will be to both encourage students to add detail and really engage in the activities.

Indicators of Success

The big problem I want to address is one of changing study habits in anatomy. More specifically, how to change the learning approach of students who rely on pure memorization. The obvious indicator of success would be better comprehension of the material with less time allocated to studying. However, that is hard to gauge without knowing more about each individual learner. However, I believe there are other indicators that I can use to determine if an approach is proving successful for students in the course as a whole. Although mostly subjective, I believe observation of each of the following would be strong indications of success:

Positive attitude shift: I often hear from students how much time they spend studying anatomy to the detriment of their other courses. I believe that if they feel their studying is more effective and efficient, that the result will be a more positive view of the material and course as a whole.
Decrease in performance anxiety: The amount of material covered in anatomy often creates anxiety even amongst students who know the material well. If students feel they can more intuitively approach and engage with the material, the overall result should be less anxiety during assessments.
Increased engagement in lecture: Anatomy is very visual, and I rely on color coded graphics to present the majority of the material. Additionally, in a large lecture it is easy for students tune out the barrage of color coded images once they start to feel lost. I believe that if students had a better comprehension and greater comfort level with the material, that there would be a perceivable change in their engagement with the material. Rather than just having the first 2 rows of students ask questions, I would see a greater range of inquiry from the room as a whole.
Self confidence: My ultimate goal is to help students become confident in their ability to learn material, especially if they perceive that material as challenging. With the students I work with oneonone, a big change I see once the student has found a “better” way to study and learn, is a surge in their self confidence. I would love to see this surge happen in the class as a whole.
Higher scores: The ultimate indicator of success would be that students perform better in the class and leave with a stronger knowledge base to help them in their subsequent courses.

As a follow up at the end of the semester, I intend to send out a survey about study habits. Dr. Leif Saul has already prepared a survey that we used last semester after the first lecture exam. The survey was created using Google forms and administered via a Google doc link made available to the class. This worked well and I will start with the existing survey and revise it to better address the use of weekly drawing activities in the lecture. If he agrees, I would like Dr. Saul to administer the same survey to his class so we can have a comparison of attitudes from a course that used the weekly drawing activity and one that did not use it. I believe this could be a very powerful indicator of how effective the activity is in changing attitudes and reducing anxiety.

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Faculty Learn from Teaching with Technology Seminar

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Faculty Learn from Teaching with Technology Seminar Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/20/2014 - 00:00

Faculty members Giorgio Corda, Dave Rickels, Holly Gayley, Janet Casagrand, Elena Kostoglodova, and Jen Lewon participated in both the Teaching with Technology Faculty Seminar and the Hybrid and Online Course Design Seminars this past 2013-2014 academic year. These faculty presented at the Second Annual ASSETT Teaching with Technology Symposium at the UMC Glenn Miller Ballroom in May. Audience members at the Symposium were invited to browse their demonstrations of use of technology in teaching.

Giorgio Corda of the Italian Language Department presented his hybrid and online foreign language course models. He said that he feels that teaching online provides a more fulfilling language learning experience than just in-the-classroom. Corda ascribes to a cooperative learning pedagogy and uses VoiceThread and other programs so that students can comment throughout a video while they watch it. Students' comments on videos are visible to the entire class so that students can help each other. Corda stressed the flexibility that online learning provides makes a more equitable playing field for more students with outside responsibilities to participate. He provides a weekly fifteen minute one-on-one session with students to assess their progress and allow time to answer questions.

Dave Rickels, PhD, uses the Coach's Eye Tablet app that is traditionally used in sports coaching to coach future music teachers with synchronized video feedback. With the app, he can record his own voice over a video of a student giving a sample lesson. He said, "It's very real to the students because they have to watch themselves."

Janet Casagrand, PhD, of the Integrated Physiology Department presented her use of "Screencasts for Student Review."

Elena Kostoglodova, PhD, of the German and Slavic Languages and Literatures presented, "Integrated Camtasian and Voicethreads Tutorials for the Hybrid Language Classroom."

Jen Lewon of the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Department presented how she encouraged a student community through social media.

Holly Gayley, PhD of the Religious Studies Department presented, "Documentary Storytelling in the Humanities."

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Reducing Cognitive Overload in the Anatomy Classroom

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Reducing Cognitive Overload in the Anatomy Classroom Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/08/2013 - 00:00

Image of Fiber Tracts from Heisler's PowerPoint slides https://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/aboutUs/index.php

“A lot of students come in thinking that anatomy is all about memorization,” says ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Professor Ruth Heisler as she clicks through a series of animated slides that illustrate the structure of the brain with gradually increasing detail. “But it doesn’t have to be. If you go about it in the right way, you can see patterns in what you’re learning. A lot of what I do is to help students see and understand those patterns.”

Ruth Heisler has been teaching Basic Anatomy since 1996. While many seasoned professors rely on the same presentations year-after-year, Heisler still spends five to six hours preparing for every lecture, obsessively tweaking the wording of a homework assignment or the layout of a slide to better facilitate learning. And her hard work has clearly made an impact on her students: Heisler is one of twelve talented ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ educators to win a 2013 ASSETT Outstanding Teaching Award.

“Professor Heisler is one of the best teachers I’ve had in all my education ever,” said one enthusiastic student. “[She] brought fantastic animations and videos to support her lectures, and made all lecture, pre-homework, and sample questions easily downloadable.” The student praised Heisler’s creative class assignments, her generosity, and her willingness to help students outside of the classroom.

To be clear, Heisler describes herself as “a moderate” who doesn’t always adopt the latest technology trends. She chooses her tools carefully, basing her decisions on the specific needs of her students, and her most successful innovations are often the least complicated. PowerPoint isn’t exactly a new educational tool, but Heisler’s subtly animated slides help her students to digest material step-by-step, focusing on systems within the body instead of overwhelming the students with too many unfamiliar terms all at once.

Image of Fiber Tracts from Heisler's PowerPoint slides https://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/aboutUs/index.php

“My goal is to reduce cognitive overload,” says Heisler, explaining that she uses technology not in an attention-grabbing way, but rather to communicate ideas as clearly as possible. Heisler uses the anatomy texbook program Mastering Anatomy and Physiology to assign interactive homework assignments. She also incorporates videos that she finds on the internet to engage students who are visual learners. Heisler designs her lectures and assignments to simplify concepts and to help her students focus. “I’m continually making changes to my lectures,” she says. “And thinking through the best way to do it based on what worked and what didn’t work in previous years.”

In addition to her lecture classes, Heisler is also working with Human Anatomy Lab coordinator Stephen Hobbs to restructure the lab experience. “The students get to work with real cadavers,” says Heisler. “Which is really great. But most students have very little time in the lab.” In order to help maximize their ability to focus on the dissections during lab time, Heisler has developed a series of online preparatory assignments and quizes.

These assignments are designed so that students can test themselves on the material remotely before coming to class. That way, instead of grappling with brand new information, students can spend their lab time teaching each other and interacting with the physical body. “We’re flipping the lab, really,” says Heisler. “This is our first semester testing the program, and we’ve had a good response from our students already. We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without digital communication.”

If Heisler’s method teaches us a lesson, it is that using student feedback to continuously improve teaching is more important than using the most cutting-edge technological tools. “You need to really find out what works for your students, fine tuning things as you go. I’ve been surprised by things that have worked and things that haven’t worked,” she says. “Students all have different learning styles. For example, I really encourage them to take hand-written notes, but that doesn’t work for everyone. I think it helps with information retention, but the digital learning materials are important too. The students who do best are the ones who take advantage of the digital materials and who take notes.”

Heisler applies the same philosophy of balance to her own teaching. She uses iClickers sparingly and only when they can facilitate discussion. She keeps her presentations simple and creates slides using PowerPoint, but incorporates animation and video to make presentations more visually engaging. She encourages hands-on interaction in the lab, but supplements that experience with digital preparatory assignments.

In the end, it’s the little things that matter most. With sixteen years of teaching experience, Heisler knows that even a small revision to the structure of a slide or the wording of an assignment can make the difference in whether or not a student understands a system, and she isn’t afraid to try something new if she thinks it may help her students learn. Just as the human body has to be continuously assessed, cared for, and exercised in order to remain in top form, so does an educator's teaching approach.

Article by: Ashley E Williams

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Mike’s Anatomy: A Custom App Study Guide for IPHY 3415 (Human Anatomy Lab)

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Mike’s Anatomy: A Custom App Study Guide for IPHY 3415 (Human Anatomy Lab) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/04/2010 - 00:00

Managing and keeping track of hundreds of note cards can be a challenge for any student. What if note cards were available on your mobile device? Keeping this concept in mind, Mike Pascoe, a Doctoral Candidate studying Integrative Physiology at University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, Boulder, is one of the first from ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder to design a webapp called ‘Mike’s Anatomy’ as a resource for students taking IPHY 3415 (Human Anatomy Lab). This app functions as a study aid for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Rather than relying on traditional note cards, Mike explained, “This app serves as a way to carry the course lab manual content in your pocket.”

This app includes the most current information from the course’s lab manual that students can skim through much like skimming through a set of note cards. Its current contents include the course syllabus and a section dedicated to an important topic of the course: muscles. Students will find that the ‘muscle’ section of the app provides additional information regarding this area of course.

How can you access Mike’s Anatomy?

A good place to access ‘Mike’s Anatomy’ is the webapp profile on the Apple directory. The app will load on your device and you are ready to begin studying anatomy.

To see the app in action, you can watch a demo given by Mike (YouTube), which takes you through accessing and navigating the app. In addition, you will see how to add a shortcut to your home screen.

What are future directions for the app?

Mike’s main concern is making studying for Human Anatomy easy and convenient. He believes that ‘Mike’s Anatomy’ might serve this purpose. With features like the course syllabus and the ‘muscle’ section, Mike also aims to add other sections from the course lab manual. In addition, he also plans to integrate self-testing features and study tips he has found helpful from his many years of teaching anatomy lab.

Mike hopes to use feedback from students to improve future versions of the app.

Managing flash cards and note cards especially during exam time can be time consuming and frustrating. If you think that you are having a hard time managing notes for your IPHY 3415 class, then ‘Mike’s Anatomy’ may be useful for you.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, you can also contact Mike himself. His contact information is as follows:

Mike Pascoe, M.S.
Doctoral Candidate
Integrative Physiology
University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder,

Written by: Manaslu Bista, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ ‘11, ASSETT reporter

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Educational Videos on YouTube

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0000

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Educational Videos on YouTube Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/17/2010 - 00:00

YouTube is notorious for being the Internet’s biggest site for bizarre, creative, heartfelt, and hilarious videos. People from all over the world upload their personal videos for the entertainment of others. Everyone from professional video production studios and television networks to average people use YouTube to share their videos with the world.

Students and professors at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ are making and uploading videos to YouTube for educational purposes. Graduate student Mike Pascoe chose to use the ever-popular YouTube as a medium to help students at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ learn Neurophysiology concepts and procedures with significant success. Pascoe first started creating videos, with the instructor of the course, in order to demonstrate a lab technique for an experiment in a lecture class.

“The idea was that students would watch this video during the first lecture of the course and then be able to understand all of the procedures and concepts underlying the technique; the recording of motor units during a voluntary contraction,” said Pascoe.

At first, the video was great for catching student’s attention. “The main benefit of the video was increased curiosity,” explained Pascoe. Over time, the video became an important classroom resource for the students. Because it was easily accessible from any computer, the students were able to refer to it throughout the semester as their understanding of the concepts increased.

“I was asked several questions throughout the semester about the video,” Pascoe said. “And, throughout the semester, as we covered different topics, I could use the video as a reference point ‘remember that video, how you saw that, well that is what we are seeing/discussing right now."

More and more, popular media sources are being used for educational applications. This approach to providing information is applicable to all sorts of classroom situations and could serve as a tool for any professor.

“It is simple to get started creating and uploading your own YouTube videos,” said Pascoe. “Sit down and outline what you want to convey in your video, grab a camcorder, start filming, dump the footage onto your Mac, edit in iMovie, export as an MP4, and upload to YouTube.”

See this video and examples of other homemade videos done at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ:

Pascoe Experiment

Earthquake Ground Motion Test

Roomba Pac Man Experiment

--Written by Amanda Porter, ASSETT Assistant Director

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IPHY

Congratulations to Janet Casagrand!

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Low Stakes Assessments Encourage Heisler's Human Anatomy Students

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Faculty Learn from Teaching with Technology Seminar

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Reducing Cognitive Overload in the Anatomy Classroom

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Mike’s Anatomy: A Custom App Study Guide for IPHY 3415 (Human Anatomy Lab)

How can you access Mike’s Anatomy?

What are future directions for the app?

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ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Educational Videos on YouTube

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Educational Videos on YouTube