Inspiring Exemplary Teaching and Learning: Perspectives on Teaching Academically Talented College Students

INSPIRING EXEMPLARY TEACHING AND LEARNING: PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING ACADEMICALLY TALENTED COLLEGE STUDENTS Larry Clark and John Zubizarreta, Editors A Companion Piece to Teaching and Learning in Honors Jeffrey A. Portnoy Georgia Perimeter College [email protected] General Editor, NCHC Monograph Series Published in 2008 by National Collegiate Honors Council 1100 Neihardt Residence Center University of Nebraska-Lincoln 540 N. 16th Street Lincoln, NE 68588-0627 (402) 472-9150 FAX: (402) 472-9152 Email: [email protected] http://www.NCHChonors.org © Copyright 2008 by National Collegiate Honors Council International Standard Book Number 978-0-9796659-6-7 Managing Editor: Mitch Pruitt Production Editor: Cliff Jefferson Wake Up Graphics, Birmingham, AL Printed by Commercial Printing Company, Birmingham, AL TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction . 5 Part One: Crossing Boundaries, Integration, and Dialogic Learning . 7 Chapter One: Pre-College Experiences and Characteristics of Gifted Students . 9 Anne Rinn Chapter Two: Toward a Model of Integrative Learning: The Place of Science in an Honors Curriculum. 19 Judith Ramaley Chapter Three: Engagement in Learning, Liberal Education, and Honors . 31 Bernice Braid Chapter Four: Dialogue, Politics, and Pedagogy: Lessons from Democracy Lab . 37 Jim Knauer Part Two: Understanding Talented Students and Teachers . 63 Chapter Five: Motivational Issues in the Education of Academically Talented College Students. 65 Larry Clark Chapter Six: Six Habits of Highly Inspiring Honours Teachers . 107 Marca V. C. Wolfensberger Chapter Seven: The Teaching and Learning Fishbowl . 113 John Zubizarreta 3 Part Three: Pedagogy: Practices and Issues . 119 Chapter Eight: The Learning Portfolio for Improvement and Assessment of Significant Student Learning . 121 John Zubizarreta Chapter Nine: Promoting Critical Thinking through Sequenced Activities . 137 Barbara Millis Chapter Ten: The Importance of Class Size in Teaching and Learning for Higher-Level Achievement . 147 John Zubizarreta Part Four: Exemplary Curricula for Significant Learning . 163 Chapter Eleven: Using Sun-Science to Explore Connections between Science and the Humanities . 165 Martin Brock Chapter Twelve: The Science behind the Moon Hoax . 175 Ron Wilhelm Chapter Thirteen: Teaching Disease: Utilizing Interdisciplinary Skills and Experiential Learning in an Honors Class . 183 Tami Carmichael Chapter Fourteen: Honors Curriculum Development in a Real World . 195 Charlie Slavin and Chris Mares Part Five: Resources on Teaching and Learning . 203 About the Authors. 207 NCHC Publications Order Form . 214 4 INTRODUCTION Shakespeare got it wrong! Love’s labor is not lost. Our volume is tes- timony. It is a labor of love born of an unquenched passion for the art and craft of teaching and its powerful, transformative influence on learning. All of the authors in this second in a series of monographs on teaching and learning commissioned by the National Collegiate Honors Council are dedicated to exploring the sometimes magical, sometimes ordinary, sometimes rewarding, sometimes challenging connections between good teaching and deep, lasting learning. We know today, under the influence of questionable pressures of accountability and outcomes assessment on the profession, that teaching and learning are not necessarily linked by causality. We teach, but do our students really learn? How do we know? Our students learn, but have we caused the learning, or have they learned despite us? What courses, what pedagogical strategies, what assignments, what out-of-class activities result in rich, authentic learning, the kind of learning characteristically claimed by honors or other superior academic programs? What distin- guishes advanced learning, exemplary teachers, high-achieving and academically talented students? How do we nurture such teachers and students in stepped-up programs designed for enhanced educational opportunities and outcomes? Such questions and others underlie the issues, approaches, and shared resources of this volume. Traversing the landscape of higher education today, we notice sever- al themes immediately. One is the groundswell of interest in reflective practice and all of its implications: critical thinking, problem solving, and ethical and moral reasoning. A second is the emphasis on faculty development and pedagogical innovation and creativity: the knowledge, tools, and dispositions needed by faculty to motivate students and teach them well. Curricular, program, and institutional reform is a third: how do we change what we have always done to achieve better faculty performance and more engaged student learning? The com- pelling power of integrative learning is another: collaborative learning, cooperative learning, team-based approaches, interdisciplinarity, and synthesis of knowledge bases mirror an ever-increasing call for crossing boundaries in educational practice. Diversity stands out as a chief issue in the academy: accessibility, fairness, support, equality, and other concerns permeate conversations in higher education. Technology and assessment are two more. Of course, one might add to the list, but we believe that while the var- ious contributors to our volume may not address each of the issues 5 Introduction above as a central focus of their pieces, they certainly, in one way or another, directly or indirectly tackle the concerns within the context of honors-level teaching and learning in higher education. Much more work obviously needs to be done. Our hope is that the volume will answer some questions, share some new ideas, reaffirm successful practice, showcase a few admirable approaches to skilled instruction and robust learning, and challenge comfortable and predictable approaches to teaching and learning. More importantly, we wish to raise new issues for us to ponder as we reflect on our calling and seek to improve our impact on student learning. We expect that faculty, students, and administrators from all seg- ments of higher education will find the volume interesting and instruc- tive. We mention “honors” frequently, but the contents of our book have much wider relevance. Teaching and learning in honors, gifted, accelerated, or differentiated classrooms offer models of what teachers should be doing in all classes, all programs, all institutions. In fact, many of the teaching strategies and theories about learning that form undercurrents in the larger conversations of best practice in higher education have been firmly rooted in honors and comparable academic programs for some time already. Such programs have always high- lighted and encouraged, as fundamental to their missions, innovative, creative approaches to teaching and learning, often employing cutting- edge methodologies growing out of student-centered educational philosophies and constructivist principles before such terms were mainstream. Such programs, too, have advocated steadily and passion- ately for the power and inherent worth of liberal learning; intellectual rigor; restless inquiry; and civic responsibility, service, and leadership as opposed to the reductive pressures of disciplinary silos, professional tunnel vision, and lucrative careerism. Educators and students working at all levels in colleges and universities and dedicated to liberal education and exciting ideas for improving teaching and learning will find this book useful. We want our text to stand as a compilation of best practices in teaching and learning, a resource for nudging all faculty, students, administrators, policy makers, and other constituents inside and outside the academy toward a model of outstanding teaching and learning. We see such a model commonly in honors-level programs, but the model should also be the standard that enhances all of higher education. Our work together should be a labor of love for inspiring exemplary teaching and significant learning. 6 Part One: Crossing Boundaries, Integration, and Dialogic Learning Numerous metaphors for learning are based on the idea of exploring new areas. Phrases such as “breaking new ground,” “sailing unchart- ed waters,” and “scaling new heights” carry with them the idea of learning, sometimes learning things that are exotic in relationship to what we knew previously. Even when venturing into areas uninhabited by humans, we have dis- covered fascinating worlds different from the one we inhabit. Our belief that all life on Earth ultimately derives from the sun was dis- proved by the discovery of previously unimagined life forms living around thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. Astronauts who had the opportunity to view the lush Earth from the barren plains of our moon returned home changed people. New places can teach us about variations in domains such as geology, climatology, and ecology. When we mix in the effects of different peoples in different lands, the number of possible variations multiplies. Peoples can vary by lan- guage, by social structure, by faith, by race, by economy, and by art and music. Crossing geological, cultural, and ideological boundaries can generate some of our richest learning experiences. The National Collegiate Honors Council has shown its belief in the idea of learning by crossing boundaries through its support of such programs as the Honors Semesters and City as TextTM. The authors in this section provide a variety of perspectives on how crossing boundaries contributes to the goal of effectively teaching high-ability students. From a developmental perspective, the transition from

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