Inviting the Spirit to Help Balance
Uniformity and Flexibility in a Multi-Section Course
by Bonnie Moon, Larry Chilton and Ryan Cromar
Introduction—Building a ship which no one had ever built before. “Thou shalt construct a ship…” (1st Nephi 17:8)
The Introductory Statistics Teaching Team recently re-developed the multi-section introductory statistics course by unifying outcomes, assessments, cadence and curriculum. As we embarked on this journey of course development, we could not see the end from the beginning. The doubts at times threatened to thwart the process. However, the learning model principles and the Spirit led us to solutions that we could never have developed on our own.
At the beginning of this development process doubts and fears threatened to suffocate the hopes and visions we had for our students. In this past October General Conference, President Uchtdorf encouraged listeners, “… doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” He went on to suggest that we never allow doubt to “hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” His counsel pinpoints the turn our team needed to take in order to make progress toward light and understanding.
In this article we first outline four of our significant concerns hampering our ability to construct a unified statistics course that would better serve our students. We then discuss how faith and action diminished these concerns and freed us to create a course where both teachers and students could soar.
First of all, many of us doubted that collaboration could really help us improve what we were doing –especially when we thought all was going well. As we approached teachers to join us in the collaboration process, some hesitated. One teacher mentioned, “My students are doing fine, and I am comfortable with my curriculum for introductory statistics.” Comfort zones often serve as a major roadblock to collaboration. We would need to overcome these as we sought to improve the course.
Secondly, once we established our vision, many of us began to doubt that we actually had the resources to accomplish it. Our vision states, “Our team aims to develop a unified, high-quality, low-cost course which serves our students and is easily accessible to our face to face faculty as well as our online instructors.” Could we really provide a high quality course for little or no cost? Did we have the resources for this? One teacher mentioned, “It might be nice to work with other teachers on this course, but I really don’t have time. Collaboration seems to take more time than just preparing material myself.” How would we ever accomplish our ambitious vision while we were teaching and serving on other committees at the same time?
Next, we were concerned that teachers would lose their individuality and enthusiasm for the subject matter in a unified course. Many thought, “Do I really want to do everything the same? Won’t uniformity promote loss of identity? My students like me because I do things my way. I don’t want to lose that.” Teachers form their own ideas about how to improve student learning, and it is difficult to change. Some teachers expressed a valid concern that we shouldn’t change for a change. We needed to create something better than what we had. Also, it is difficult to see how flexibility could possibly play a role when certain uniformities are built into the course.
Finally, we were concerned whether group work could effectively be used to teach material and develop disciple leadership in our students. How do we make group work worth our students’ time? How do we create meaningful experiences that help both the over-confident and under- confident learners? What checks and balances will we use to ensure students aren’t misled by one another?
Our doubts were real and ever present. How could we move past them and free ourselves to do the Lord’s work? It was time to look to Nephi’s example and create the tools to build the ship. How did all of this come about? We had to believe Nephi knew what he was talking about when he said, “ I will go and do the thing which the Lord hath commanded… he shall prepare a way…” (1st Nephi 3:7)
Two powerful principles guided us through these rough waters. First, we learned that collaboration is a powerful thing—especially if one of the collaborators is the Holy Ghost. We as teachers needed to relinquish ownership of the course before the Spirit could direct our work. It is difficult to let go of the familiar for something that has not taken shape yet. As Nephi began to build the ship, his brothers could not see the end in sight. Therefore, they did not want to join him in this work. Yet, as Nephi turned to the Lord and received revelation, he was able to speak with power, and his brothers did join him in building the ship. Miracles testified of Nephi’s faith. He and his brothers built the ship. It was good. (1st Nephi 17- 18:4).
The Spirit began working with members of the development team long before we even knew each other. One member of our team was inspired many years ago to start collecting data sets. He carefully filed and organized those data sets. He eventually became the main author of our online textbook. It is free to all the students. It is a miracle. We are all grateful he followed those promptings and forged ahead even though he wasn’t sure where he would be led.
Another team member, teaching as adjunct faculty, was inspired to apply to teach online. She taught the first pilot online statistics course here at BYU-Idaho. It was a difficult semester. The course was not ready, and she spent hours each week just fielding student questions. Yet, looking back, she now understands she was being taught. She needed to see the online course through an instructor’s eyes as well as through the perspective of the online students. The insights she gained were invaluable to the development process.
This experience influenced her desire to join the statistics team to develop a quality course that could reach students worldwide and use various delivery modes. At a young age she moved with her family from Chile to the U.S.A. If she had stayed in Chile she would have forfeited opportunities to obtain a college education. She sees the Pathway Program and Online Instruction as avenues for church members world-wide to pursue a quality and affordable education. This hope inspired her to keep moving forward with development even when the team’s direction was unclear.
Second, to create a course that would better serve the students, we needed help. As a small core of us wondered how we could meet our vision with such limited time and resources, colleagues in the department began to step forward. They offered their talents, time and insights to the development process.
“Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.” (1st Nephi: 7: 12) We did not know how we were going to accomplish our task, but we moved forward a step at a time into the dark. Through persistence and faith the team started to assemble and our focus became clear.
Assembling the Team
The assembly of the team was simply miraculous. Once our main author completed the book, we didn’t know how best to deliver the content to our students. We wanted to use an online format, but we struggled with the formatting and the technology. In walked our next miracle. Another colleague joined the team who had the background and tenacity we needed. He helped our team create a wiki book which is interactive and user-friendly. He created the capability for teachers to add content and customize the text to their needs and preferences. Wow. We were getting a well-written text book that we could adjust to meet the needs of our students. Amazing!
Other teachers stepped forward to help as well. Two entered the process just in time to help us improve the quality of the course and the student experience. One colleague took on the challenge of common assessments. He tackled this Goliath -sized job by aligning test questions with course outcomes. He currently works overtime to create a data base full of questions that can eventually be used to create customized exams. His careful eye for details blesses the entire team.
Another member uses her expertise and experience to help us edit the course content. She plays a time consuming role that frees the rest of us to focus on development. She saves us from daunting amounts of student e-mails each week by catching mistakes in the homework quizzes on I-Learn before the students do. Once again this collaboration has blessed us and spared headaches and heartaches.
We also hired two student assistants who have proven invaluable to our team. They helped us run I-Learn and the online textbook as we develop the materials and curriculum. They saved us so much time and resources. How do we ever thank them?
With these people in place, our vision of a free but high quality course was starting to take shape. We wanted us all to succeed. We all continue to keep an eye out for each other as we give feedback about the course, its materials, and how various pieces are working. Quality of the course keeps going up as many pairs of eyes view the material over and over again every semester.
The Course
Now with the team in place, we could focus on creating a high quality course that would be of little cost to the students. Before we developed this course, some of team members took time to study pedagogical research which outlined strategies for biggest learning gains. (Hattie, J. 2009). We decided to focus on spaced instruction and feedback.
We implemented the spaced instruction by keeping the students actively involved in the course a little each day. A student travels through two lessons a week. All lessons follow the same pattern. First, students complete a reading and take guided notes. They then meet together in small groups and complete a problem set. A highly-trained T.A. is present to provide feedback. The group then takes a preparation quiz on I-Learn where they still get to help each other answer the questions. Once they finish the quiz, they receive instant feedback.
The next day, students attend class, where the teacher can give feedback on the preparation and help them prepare to complete the homework. Here the faculty have the flexibility to choose how they want to spend class time. After class the students complete practice homework where a key is provided for instant feedback. Finally, students then take the homework quiz on their own. We repeat this pattern twice each week.
As for feedback, we’ve structured six points of feedback each lesson:
· Feedback on the Guided Notes from group members at the group meeting.
· Feedback on the Problem Set from written solutions, other group members and a T.A.
· Instant Feedback on the Preparation Quiz on I-learn—namely the students see which ones they missed. They may then take the quiz again and after the second take see all the correct answers and which ones they missed.
· Students receive feedback in class from teachers on their preparation work as well as in-class activities.
· Students get feedback on the practice homework.
· Finally, students can see what they missed on the Homework Quiz once it closes.
As the course began to unfold, we found that, rather than feeling tied to the uniform structure, teachers experienced flexibility and room to grow. Since the new course requires students to meet in small groups to cover new material, we found that they were better prepared for classroom experiences. Because of this extensive preparation, faculty have greater flexibility in the classroom to try a variety of learning activities.
We discovered that to improve the classroom experience, student feedback before class is important. This feedback comes from the preparation group quizzes. Qualitative feedback is also received from TAs as they worked with the groups. Based on the feedback, we have a greater capacity to individualize the instruction for each of our sections. Plus, with prayer, it also gave us a greater capacity to receive guidance from the Lord.
Using feedback and personal insight, faculty have a wide range of flexibility in their classroom activities, such as:
1) Summarizing the key points that were covered in the group meeting for a particular lesson to reinforce main ideas.
2) Reviewing problems or concepts that students struggled with during the group meeting.
3) Working in groups on a different set of problems based on the material in the lesson.
4) Using real-world applications during class.
5) Reviewing previously covered topics during the semester
6) Allowing students time to work on semester project and get instant feedback from their teacher.
There is also flexibility that faculty can use outside of the classroom as well. For instance, with the group meeting structure, the amount of preparation students do before they come to class can be adjusted from section to section. For instance, they can allow students to do both Part I and Part II of the preparation assignment, instead of just Part I, before the group meeting. Also, a teacher can decide if the students can take the group quiz only once or at least a couple of times.
Teachers can decide on the amount of homework that needs to be submitted. While all teachers require their students to take the homework quiz, some do not require their students to also turn in the homework assignment. Finally, teachers have the flexibility on how they use their TAs. Teachers can have TAs conduct the group meetings in unique ways, grade student work, or individually tutor their students.