Lowman's Model Goes Back to the Movies

Paper ID #22911 Lowman’s Model Goes Back to the Movies Dr. Clifton B. Farnsworth, Brigham Young University Clifton Farnsworth received B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Utah. He worked as a geotechnical engineer for eight years with the Utah Department of Transportation, spent three years as an Assistant Professor of civil engineering at The University of Texas at Tyler, and the past six years at Brigham Young University with a current appointment as an Associate Professor of construction management. Dr. Jennifer Retherford P.E., University of Tennessee, Knoxville Dr. Retherford is an alumna of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, and received her graduate degrees from Vanderbilt University. She currently teaches a variety of courses supporting the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee. Among many structural engineering courses, Dr. Retherford manages the Senior Design Project course for all undergraduate seniors. Dr. David A. Saftner, University of Minnesota Duluth David Saftner is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He received a BS in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy and MS and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Michigan. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2018 Lowman’s Model Goes Back to the Movies Abstract Lowman’s Two Dimensional Model of Effective College Teaching identifies traits of successful teachers and presents these traits in a functional framework useful as a tool for improvement. While the model is effective at outlining a mechanism to move towards status as a “Complete Exemplar,” the categories of the model are broad, subjective, and can be difficult to precisely identify. Through development of a rubric, this paper seeks to improve educators’ understanding of Lowman’s model by sharing a series of examples. Teachers in contemporary movies and television are identified to represent several of the nine cells within the two-dimensional model. A previous paper provided an initial assessment of several famous actors portraying teachers. However, the examples in this previous paper are becoming dated and an updated paper with more contemporary examples may be useful for faculty attempting to better understand and apply Lowman’s model. The contents of this paper first introduces the reader to the Lowman Teaching Model and provides support of the model through discussion of related literature. Development of the rubric is explained and the plot thickens as a series of characters are assessed with the rubric. As the curtain falls, a summary of the assessment and recommendations for use of the rubric are shared. Setting the Scene – An Introduction The purpose of this paper is to simplify understanding of Lowman’s Two Dimensional Model of Effective College Teaching1 and provide a method of assessing an instructor’s style of teaching according the model. As evidenced by numerous references on the matter, defining effective teaching is not a straightforward exercise. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop recommends Lowman’s model as a method of assessing effective teaching2. Lowman defines two dimensions to effective teaching: Intellectual Excitement and Interpersonal Rapport1. Intellectual Excitement includes components such as technical knowledge of the subject matter and clarity of presentation. Interpersonal Rapport contains interest in student learning and in students as individuals. Estes and Welch3 used teachers from movies and television shows to ease understanding of Lowman’s model. However, some of the movie and television examples are becoming dated and do not resonate with new faculty. Additionally, determining one’s place in Lowman’s model remains difficult. As evidenced by the authors’ experience writing this paper, debating where an individual sits in a category, while entertaining, is not a simple task. This paper describes development of a rubric to assess teaching in both of Lowman’s dimensions and applies the rubric to contemporary movie and television teachers. In this paper, the authors present a summary of Lowman’s Two Dimensional Model of Effective College Teaching1. Next, development of a rubric to assess which style of instruction best describes an instructor is presented. The rubric is applied to several contemporary teachers from television and movies in order to demonstrate its use. Finally, recommendations are presented for applying the method and tools to self- and peer-assessment. Flashback – Summarizing the Background There is a vast body of literature dedicated to effective teaching, student learning, and teacher improvement. New and experienced faculty alike can benefit by learning and practicing basic teaching skills, interacting effectively with students, and seeking continual development4,5,6,7. Fink et al. have indicated that effective engineering teachers understand both content and pedagogy, and that faculty need a systematic way for continual educational development8. New faculty especially benefit from a formal process of being taught how to effectively teach and then practicing these elements9,10,11. New faculty should further look inward to recognize what improvements they can make to enhance their teaching effectiveness4,6. One specific study that has inspired each of the authors of this paper to become more effective engineering teachers is the Two-Dimensional Model of Effective College Teaching developed by Joseph Lowman1. This model is based on the idea that the most effective teachers focus on creating relationships and emotions that stimulate and motivate students to learn. The remainder of this section provides a brief summary of this model and its development as described by Lowman1. To develop this model, Joseph Lowman analyzed nominations for teaching awards over a three-year period at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Over five hundred nominations, predominantly coming from undergraduate students, were used in the study. All adjectives or descriptive phrases used to describe the nominees were reduced to a single form (e.g. enthusiasm coded as enthusiastic), and all descriptor words appearing at least ten times were selected for further analysis. From there, Lowman concluded that there are two principal components that affect effective college teaching: Intellectual Excitement and Interpersonal Rapport. The first dimension, Intellectual Excitement, is comprised of what the instructor presents (i.e. the clarity of the presentation) and how the material is presented (i.e. generating emotional impact). Instructors with high Intellectual Excitement tend to be extremely clear and exciting, are well organized, able to present material clearly and in an engaging manner, maintain high energy, and appear to love presenting the material. It is important to note that the emphasis is on stimulating emotions associated with intellectual activity. This includes helping students find excitement in considering new ideas, understanding and appreciating abstract concepts and their application in the world around them, and participating in the process of discovery. Lowman notes that this is the more important of the two-dimensions of his model. The second dimension, Interpersonal Rapport, deals with the interpersonal interaction occurring both within the classroom and without between instructors and students. Instructors with high Interpersonal Rapport are warm and open in their interaction with students and highly student centered. Although establishing a solid relationship between the instructor and student is important, there is an equal element of helping the student establish a solid relationship with the material. Both types of relationships can be achieved by encouraging students to be creative and independent in their learning efforts, encouraging students to ask questions, and maintaining a strong interest in the students as individuals and their feelings about the material. Interpersonal Rapport is as much about promoting positive emotion as it is about avoiding the stimulation of negative emotion. As noted previously, although the development of Interpersonal Rapport is one of the two key elements of the model, Lowman indicated that it is not nearly as essential to outstanding teaching as developing Intellectual Excitement. Lowman’s Two-Dimensional Model of Effective College Teaching was developed by combining Intellectual Excitement (IE) and Interpersonal Rapport (IR) into a three-by-three matrix where each element is rated as low, moderate, or high. Figure 1 shows Lowman’s Two-Dimensional Model, and includes each of the corresponding terms used to identify the different teaching styles encountered and a brief description about the teaching capabilities of that teaching style. Although the model seems to compartmentalize these different styles, it should be noted that each axis is really simply a representation of a spectrum for which instructors develop these skillsets. Lowman acknowledges an assumption that it is more likely that teachers actually fall within a normal distribution along each of the axes; in essence then, most experienced teachers fall within the “Competent” range. Low Moderate High Interpersonal Rapport Interpersonal Rapport Interpersonal Rapport 6. Intellectual Authority: 8. Exemplary Lecturer: High 9. Complete Exemplar: outstanding for some especially

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