On Thursday, February 15, 2018, James Lang, professor of English and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College, conducted a workshop on “small teaching.” A large contingent of Kenyon faculty attended the session, which focused on material from three chapters of Lang’s book, "Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning" (Amazon link).
Acceding that a total course redesign is a daunting task, Lang firmly believes that small proactive changes can yield big results and greatly benefit students. Furthermore, Lang stressed, faculty can incorporate said changes a few at a time and still bring about significant impact; changes in course design, assessment structure, or communication methodology totaling 5-15 minutes of class time three or four times per semester may be all it takes.
That said, Lang spent most of his time advocating for changes of even shorter duration (1-5 minute intervals) at the beginning or the end of class sessions, which he holds to be prime opportunities for effective small teaching. He began by presenting a number of short-term practices to improve the long-term retrieval of knowledge from students’ memories. One simple and time-efficient example for the end of a lesson is the “Minute Test” in which students are asked to write down (A) the most important thing they learned that day and (B) a question that you still have about the material. Next Lang shared techniques to help students make deeper connections to the material, including assigning one of four quick writing tasks at the end of a lesson:(1) make connections between the lesson’s material and their lives; (2) identify a book, TV show, or movie that somehow illustrates a concept from the day’s material; (3) connect past material in the course to current material; or (4) relate material learned that day to something learned in another of their courses. Additional techniques for making deeper connections involved concept maps and interactive in-class activities. The workshop ended with a discussion of practices to motivate students to want to learn the material. These ran the gamut from simple syllabus tweaks to major pedagogical challenges such as incorporating community-based service learning. Lists of online resources based on Lang’s work and writings are available. A Teaching in Higher Education podcast on small teaching is available as well as a transcript. A compendium of CHE articles on small teaching in education is available. The workshop slides are also available.
The response to the workshop prompted the CIP to offer a summer reading group on Lang’s "Small Teaching" book. More programming based on his procedures and how they are being deployed in courses may follow.