How do I reach theese keeds? (First-year architecture students edition)
January 15, 2024 1:58 PM Subscribe
I will be teaching a college class on ‘academic skills’ to a very large group of first-year architecture students and am looking for ideas.
I am an academic philosopher teaching part-time in the architecture program at my (non-US, non-anglophone) university. I have been asked to teach a class on ‘academic skills’ for first-year students. This is a new class and the rationale for its creation is that students need more training in (basic) research, reading, reasoning and writing skills. Think first-year composition, but with a broader focus (for example, I plan to include a guest lecture on procrastination). This class should ideally prepare them for the papers they will have to write for courses further along in their curriculum. That’s it in terms of guidelines; I have almost full autonomy to design the class.
I have pretty extensive experience teaching classes like this to philosophy students. However, while there are 30 first-year philosophy students, there are more than 200 freshman architecture students enrolled this year. The class activities and assessments I typically use, aren’t easily up-scaled to such a large group. I will be teaching this class alone, with some (but limited) help from TA’s for grading.
While I have many plans and ideas, I am looking for more inspiration on how to make this class as worthwhile for the students as can be, given these constraints. Looking for advice from fellow teachers and (former architecture) students about one or more of these questions:
- How can I make the most of class time?
- What are valuable and accessible resources? (can be in English)
- What type of exercises and assessments could be feasible?
I would be happy to hear from anyone who had a good experience as a teacher and/or student in a similar class. Thanks!
I am an academic philosopher teaching part-time in the architecture program at my (non-US, non-anglophone) university. I have been asked to teach a class on ‘academic skills’ for first-year students. This is a new class and the rationale for its creation is that students need more training in (basic) research, reading, reasoning and writing skills. Think first-year composition, but with a broader focus (for example, I plan to include a guest lecture on procrastination). This class should ideally prepare them for the papers they will have to write for courses further along in their curriculum. That’s it in terms of guidelines; I have almost full autonomy to design the class.
I have pretty extensive experience teaching classes like this to philosophy students. However, while there are 30 first-year philosophy students, there are more than 200 freshman architecture students enrolled this year. The class activities and assessments I typically use, aren’t easily up-scaled to such a large group. I will be teaching this class alone, with some (but limited) help from TA’s for grading.
While I have many plans and ideas, I am looking for more inspiration on how to make this class as worthwhile for the students as can be, given these constraints. Looking for advice from fellow teachers and (former architecture) students about one or more of these questions:
- How can I make the most of class time?
- What are valuable and accessible resources? (can be in English)
- What type of exercises and assessments could be feasible?
I would be happy to hear from anyone who had a good experience as a teacher and/or student in a similar class. Thanks!
Talk to the librarians about presenting library-style research, citation, avoiding plagiarism, etc. They may have ideas for a large-scale class.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:23 PM on January 15 [15 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:23 PM on January 15 [15 favorites]
I've heard good things about the MOOC "Learning How to Learn" and would look at it for some inspiration.
posted by A Blue Moon at 2:39 PM on January 15 [4 favorites]
posted by A Blue Moon at 2:39 PM on January 15 [4 favorites]
The Drunkard’s Walk: how randomness rules our lives by Leonard Mlodinow. 2009
A Mathematician Reads the Newspapers. By John Allen Paulos. 1995
Mathsemantics: making numbers talk sense. Edward McNeal. Penguin 1994
Are all about how numbers and numeracy impact on people's real lived experience.
Mathsemantics is based on a quiz given to math-comfortable folks and analysis of their answers. Their confidence comes unglued as the Qs move further from "83 + 22 = ?" to "would it have any effect on the financial viability of a proposed airport if it was built 3 miles further from the nearest urban centre"
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:53 PM on January 15 [3 favorites]
A Mathematician Reads the Newspapers. By John Allen Paulos. 1995
Mathsemantics: making numbers talk sense. Edward McNeal. Penguin 1994
Are all about how numbers and numeracy impact on people's real lived experience.
Mathsemantics is based on a quiz given to math-comfortable folks and analysis of their answers. Their confidence comes unglued as the Qs move further from "83 + 22 = ?" to "would it have any effect on the financial viability of a proposed airport if it was built 3 miles further from the nearest urban centre"
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:53 PM on January 15 [3 favorites]
I don't know how doable this is, especially with respect to examples, but I think the question of "what is a good paper?" (and "what is an excellent paper?") is really important. Most kids come in from high school having written five-paragraph essays and some longer research papers, often graded to standards that are very different from what they'll encounter at a university. Having multiple guest professors from multiple disciplines come in and say "These are the things I'm looking for, and here are some specific examples of what that means. And here are some examples of actual excellent papers and why I thought they were excellent, actual middling papers and why I didn't think they were better than middling, and actual not so good papers and why I thought they were not good." (Again, tricky but maybe possible?)
A lot of paper-writing is an exercise in trying to guess what's expected of you, and for too many students they really don't know and don't come in familiar at all with the many conventions (too often unspoken) that exist in academia (and are often specific to particular fields). Usually the only feedback they get is a grade and a few comments that don't usually clear things up much. It's a weird setup, pedagogically speaking: for almost any other thing you're expected to learn you're given plentiful examples and commentary on the examples, but not for paper writing. Ideally office hours and so on would be a solution, but that's often not the case for one reason or another.
In terms of in-class exercises, you might have those professors interactively create content outlines for papers on some topic, and critique what's good, what's not, and what would make a decent outline excellent. This could also be tricky though, because if you want to get beyond vague generalities I think you'd need a topic on which everyone has a fair amount of domain knowledge.
posted by trig at 2:55 PM on January 15 [12 favorites]
A lot of paper-writing is an exercise in trying to guess what's expected of you, and for too many students they really don't know and don't come in familiar at all with the many conventions (too often unspoken) that exist in academia (and are often specific to particular fields). Usually the only feedback they get is a grade and a few comments that don't usually clear things up much. It's a weird setup, pedagogically speaking: for almost any other thing you're expected to learn you're given plentiful examples and commentary on the examples, but not for paper writing. Ideally office hours and so on would be a solution, but that's often not the case for one reason or another.
In terms of in-class exercises, you might have those professors interactively create content outlines for papers on some topic, and critique what's good, what's not, and what would make a decent outline excellent. This could also be tricky though, because if you want to get beyond vague generalities I think you'd need a topic on which everyone has a fair amount of domain knowledge.
posted by trig at 2:55 PM on January 15 [12 favorites]
Nights survival. Architecture students will do nights, for days on ends. It is not a matter of procrastination, that is how it is set up.
Teach them to know when they have hit their limits and what are reasonable expectations from themselves and the professors. This is a useful skill later in life.
Conflict resolution in a design team?
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 2:56 PM on January 15 [7 favorites]
Teach them to know when they have hit their limits and what are reasonable expectations from themselves and the professors. This is a useful skill later in life.
Conflict resolution in a design team?
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 2:56 PM on January 15 [7 favorites]
I'm teaching 3rd-year science students, but have been doing something in a similar spirit during the first couple of minutes of each lecture. I call them my "metacognitive minutes" ("metacognition" being one of the latest higher-education buzzword trends; it just means thinking about how you think). I started out in the first lecture by basically telling the class about this plan, and how a lot of the "metacognitive" stuff is generally only conveyed implicitly, which doesn't work for all students. This seemed to work well because it answered the question of "why is she going off on a seemingly-random tangent during the first couple minutes of each lecture".
I started out with a bit of philosophy on the purpose of homework assignments (to teach *skills* through practice, as opposed to teaching knowledge which is stuff one can look up if one needs to). The second one was about accessibility and academic accommodations, at the start of which I also disclosed my own disability. The third one was about psychological safety (I have a very simple nested-circles conceptualization that I came up with of the "safety zone" within which is the smaller "comfort zone"; learning takes place when you're outside your "comfort zone" but still inside your "safety zone"; when you're outside your "safety zone" you're in fight-or-flight and your prefrontal cortex goes off-line, making learning impossible). After this I switched over to some basic math skills refreshers for a few lectures. Around the time that I returned their first midterm I did a mini how-to on how to evaluate how you're doing in a course.
This is all probably not directly useful to you, but starting off each lecture with a big-picture but explicit "why we're doing this" could help you motivate it to the students. And I think the personal connection, and my willingness to talk about what's essentially "trauma-informed pedagogy", was really appreciated by the students; a few of them thanked me directly for talking about that, and I had a dramatically higher fraction of them come to my office hours for help later in the term than I'd ever had before.
posted by heatherlogan at 3:00 PM on January 15 [6 favorites]
I started out with a bit of philosophy on the purpose of homework assignments (to teach *skills* through practice, as opposed to teaching knowledge which is stuff one can look up if one needs to). The second one was about accessibility and academic accommodations, at the start of which I also disclosed my own disability. The third one was about psychological safety (I have a very simple nested-circles conceptualization that I came up with of the "safety zone" within which is the smaller "comfort zone"; learning takes place when you're outside your "comfort zone" but still inside your "safety zone"; when you're outside your "safety zone" you're in fight-or-flight and your prefrontal cortex goes off-line, making learning impossible). After this I switched over to some basic math skills refreshers for a few lectures. Around the time that I returned their first midterm I did a mini how-to on how to evaluate how you're doing in a course.
This is all probably not directly useful to you, but starting off each lecture with a big-picture but explicit "why we're doing this" could help you motivate it to the students. And I think the personal connection, and my willingness to talk about what's essentially "trauma-informed pedagogy", was really appreciated by the students; a few of them thanked me directly for talking about that, and I had a dramatically higher fraction of them come to my office hours for help later in the term than I'd ever had before.
posted by heatherlogan at 3:00 PM on January 15 [6 favorites]
I went to college in my 50s and finished several years ago. I am not sure whether this is what you are asking for, but I think what would have benefitted many of my classmates was to learn about publications and presentations. I expect you or other professors to cover various aspects of academic papers.
But these days, there are many more types of media in students’ world (both as sources for students to use and for the students have their work produced in). I think students need to learn about the basics of aspects such as copyright, fair use, and privacy (many issues with this).
Further, many classes will require some amount of public speaking, with little related training for the students. Many people (both students and others) are overly dependent on PowerPoint and the like. They put up a wall of text and read it. Instead, they should generally use any slides as old-fashioned visual aids, for added visual interest or to show what can’t be easily stated in words. The spoken material should be mostly learned by heart, with a bit of notes for guidance.
As far as how this is relevant to architecture students, as professionals, they would likely need to make presentations to clients.
posted by NotLost at 4:17 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]
But these days, there are many more types of media in students’ world (both as sources for students to use and for the students have their work produced in). I think students need to learn about the basics of aspects such as copyright, fair use, and privacy (many issues with this).
Further, many classes will require some amount of public speaking, with little related training for the students. Many people (both students and others) are overly dependent on PowerPoint and the like. They put up a wall of text and read it. Instead, they should generally use any slides as old-fashioned visual aids, for added visual interest or to show what can’t be easily stated in words. The spoken material should be mostly learned by heart, with a bit of notes for guidance.
As far as how this is relevant to architecture students, as professionals, they would likely need to make presentations to clients.
posted by NotLost at 4:17 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]
Here are some high-quality, free, short courses that you could use with your students. You can assign them the Open & Free versions (entirely free) or you can sign up for a free instructor account and create your own section (which may be $10 per student though you can request a fee waiver for your pilot semester) including some or all of the materials, then have your students enroll so you can see their progress and scored activities. Learning to Learn and Student Cognition Toolbox would be most similar to the learning objectives you describe though academic integrity is never a bad topic to include. Collaboration and managing conflict in groups and good meeting practices may or may not be useful to your purposes.
Academic Integrity: no open & free version but full version is free for instructor accounts
CollaborativeU:https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/collaborativeu/
ConflictU: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/conflictu/
MeetingU: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/meetingu/
Learning to Learn: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/learning-to-learn-online/
Student Cognition Toolbox: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/student-cognition-toolbox-open-free/
You can request an instructor account here: https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/webui/signup/educator.do
posted by RoadScholar at 4:54 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]
Academic Integrity: no open & free version but full version is free for instructor accounts
CollaborativeU:https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/collaborativeu/
ConflictU: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/conflictu/
MeetingU: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/meetingu/
Learning to Learn: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/learning-to-learn-online/
Student Cognition Toolbox: https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/student-cognition-toolbox-open-free/
You can request an instructor account here: https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/webui/signup/educator.do
posted by RoadScholar at 4:54 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]
"metacognition" being one of the latest higher-education buzzword trends; it just means thinking about how you think
To be fair, academics in education have been studying metacognition for a least a few decades, but this is a great segue to suggest seeing if your institution has a unit or office devoted to supporting faculty with effective teaching practices (e.g., a Center for Teaching and Learning, Pedagogical Support Services, etc.) because if you do, those learning specialists and/or instructional designers should have good ideas about the relevant common foundational academic skill issues at your institution, help you think through leveraging your philosophy-focused course for the new context, and how to design effective, engaging instruction at a 200-seat scale. In some places, they will even help you develop the course itself.
Maybe also ask architecture faculty for a list of the genres of typical writing and work in the field, and then find some important examples (things that they'd probably have to read anyhow as part of their foundational coursework), and have students work together on breaking down the on the structure, noticing conventions, tips for navigating these kinds of texts, etc? US universities often have specialist librarians assigned to different fields/disciplines—if the same is true where you are, this person would be a great resource for you, because they may already have a sense of which texts and media are being used in the department. If academic reading is a challenge for your target population, I like Hypthothesis a lot for social annotation—it looks like it's GDPR compliant, but also check with your institution's IT department.
In your shoes as (mostly) a party of one, I'd be thinking about ways to add interactivity to a large class: live polling (a la Poll Everywhere), paired and/or small group discussion, opportunities for individual flash journaling/reflection/summarizing both in class and online via whatever LMS your institution uses, etc.
Finally, I once took a class on the learning science behind Sesame Street, and one of the researchers gave us a great tidbit if you use humor: always put the laugh on the learning. Make sure the punchline has the content/skill reinforcement!
posted by smirkette at 5:02 PM on January 15 [3 favorites]
To be fair, academics in education have been studying metacognition for a least a few decades, but this is a great segue to suggest seeing if your institution has a unit or office devoted to supporting faculty with effective teaching practices (e.g., a Center for Teaching and Learning, Pedagogical Support Services, etc.) because if you do, those learning specialists and/or instructional designers should have good ideas about the relevant common foundational academic skill issues at your institution, help you think through leveraging your philosophy-focused course for the new context, and how to design effective, engaging instruction at a 200-seat scale. In some places, they will even help you develop the course itself.
Maybe also ask architecture faculty for a list of the genres of typical writing and work in the field, and then find some important examples (things that they'd probably have to read anyhow as part of their foundational coursework), and have students work together on breaking down the on the structure, noticing conventions, tips for navigating these kinds of texts, etc? US universities often have specialist librarians assigned to different fields/disciplines—if the same is true where you are, this person would be a great resource for you, because they may already have a sense of which texts and media are being used in the department. If academic reading is a challenge for your target population, I like Hypthothesis a lot for social annotation—it looks like it's GDPR compliant, but also check with your institution's IT department.
In your shoes as (mostly) a party of one, I'd be thinking about ways to add interactivity to a large class: live polling (a la Poll Everywhere), paired and/or small group discussion, opportunities for individual flash journaling/reflection/summarizing both in class and online via whatever LMS your institution uses, etc.
Finally, I once took a class on the learning science behind Sesame Street, and one of the researchers gave us a great tidbit if you use humor: always put the laugh on the learning. Make sure the punchline has the content/skill reinforcement!
posted by smirkette at 5:02 PM on January 15 [3 favorites]
I would try to solicit advice from more senior students in the department to share with your class. What do they wish they knew when they first started? How can students be successful in this department?
I would suggest making use of certain academic resources "mandatory" for at least one assignment e.g. writing center, working with an academic librarian, etc. Consider providing extra credit or an assignment to attend a department-sponsored event.
Regarding group work, it can be helpful to learn about group contracts (and then require it). In addition, randomly assigned team assignments for low stakes group work is valuable especially at the start of the term. The goal is for everyone to have at least a few phone numbers of their classmates.
Consider discussing what students can do if and when things aren't going according to plan (e.g. got a bad grade, experiencing a personal/(mental) health situation, etc.).
Learning How To Learn
posted by oceano at 2:27 AM on January 16 [3 favorites]
I would suggest making use of certain academic resources "mandatory" for at least one assignment e.g. writing center, working with an academic librarian, etc. Consider providing extra credit or an assignment to attend a department-sponsored event.
Regarding group work, it can be helpful to learn about group contracts (and then require it). In addition, randomly assigned team assignments for low stakes group work is valuable especially at the start of the term. The goal is for everyone to have at least a few phone numbers of their classmates.
Consider discussing what students can do if and when things aren't going according to plan (e.g. got a bad grade, experiencing a personal/(mental) health situation, etc.).
Learning How To Learn
posted by oceano at 2:27 AM on January 16 [3 favorites]
When I teach anything more frequently-involved than a seminar, I have to have a session on attention and distraction. Not in a punitive way, just to make it clear that the odds are stacked against performance or achievement when these issues are left to students to figure out on their own. This may seem like it's relevant for a younger age group, but I just used it as a framework for a four part CE course for mid-career toxicologists.
If you have time to mention material about meditation/mindfulness, I think younger cohorts are really primed for that kind of material (in my experience in the US/UK, at least). I refer back to the training module linked here, which might be helpful for you to explore. Students so rarely get exposure to these skills, and I very much wish I'd been directed to this kind of material as a serious consideration when I was getting started.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:25 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
If you have time to mention material about meditation/mindfulness, I think younger cohorts are really primed for that kind of material (in my experience in the US/UK, at least). I refer back to the training module linked here, which might be helpful for you to explore. Students so rarely get exposure to these skills, and I very much wish I'd been directed to this kind of material as a serious consideration when I was getting started.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:25 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Another topic -- I have seen a lot of advice previously that students should talk to their professors. I understand that more when the student is having some problem. But how should students talk to their professors more when there is not a problem?
posted by NotLost at 6:22 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
posted by NotLost at 6:22 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
How do you feel about their ability to judge sources?
From there, move on to cotations and note taking, leading to a day on how to write a paper (as suggested above).
Will they be required to do group work? It's a big source of friction!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:56 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
From there, move on to cotations and note taking, leading to a day on how to write a paper (as suggested above).
Will they be required to do group work? It's a big source of friction!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:56 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Oh, and maybe do a "how to use a syllabus for fun and profit to plan your semester" activity if you don't already have one. Many students, particularly if this is their first term in post-secondary, will not immediately realize they should copy due dates, start blocking work time for key projects/papers, etc. across all classes. Use your course syllabus as the basis, and you'll probably have fewer questions from students about things that are addressed by the syllabus. This is also a great opportunity to highlight/reinforce your institution's student support resources: academic support, writing center, disability services, health center, etc.
posted by smirkette at 11:10 AM on January 16 [3 favorites]
posted by smirkette at 11:10 AM on January 16 [3 favorites]
I would suggest making use of certain academic resources "mandatory" for at least one assignment e.g. writing center, working with an academic librarian, etc.
... but please talk to the people in those centres first!
(I'm sure you wouldn't do what one academic did, within the last five years, until they were finally talked down: send the students to the physical library building to find "an article about biology". Not useful to the students in any way, and used up a lot more library staff time than a better designed assignment would have!)
posted by Shark Hat at 2:03 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
... but please talk to the people in those centres first!
(I'm sure you wouldn't do what one academic did, within the last five years, until they were finally talked down: send the students to the physical library building to find "an article about biology". Not useful to the students in any way, and used up a lot more library staff time than a better designed assignment would have!)
posted by Shark Hat at 2:03 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
Speaking of peer collaboration, your course is tasked with doing a lot over a short period of time. I would suggest getting your colleagues’ insight on where students typically are when they start the other first year courses and where your colleagues expect them to be. It can be frustrating as a student to be taught things (twice) at a basic level and then being expected to understand / produce things at an advanced level … when the whole intermediate level was skipped. It’s even worse when the basic level approaches are different and there’s no time to explain why/ how. I think it would be valuable for you to provide example (or mock up) student submissions to an actual course assignment for a course elsewhere in the first year curriculum. Walk through this example with your class. Let students know that to receive a top score on this kind of assignment from an introductory course they will be expected to produce work at the provided example level. Let them know that if they don’t think they are at that level yet, that’s fine, but they need to work hard to get there. If they think they are writing at that level already, they should continue to pay attention because you will provide additional advice on how to take their writing to the next level. (Aka demonstrate growth not fixed mindset).
posted by oceano at 10:07 AM on January 17 [1 favorite]
posted by oceano at 10:07 AM on January 17 [1 favorite]
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