Insights Into Teaching and Learning, Fall 2018 by TCU Koehler Center

KOEHLER CENTER ForInstruction,Innovation& Engagement

Insights into Teaching and Learning Fall 2018

In this Issue: Open Educational Resources: How You and Your Students Can Use Free Online Textbooks Using TCU Online to Track Hours for Internships, Service Learning, and More Teaching about Islam and the Middle East in the TCU Classroom Effective Campus Partnerships and Resources between Instructors and Student Affairs Enlivening the Humanities and Science Classroom Through the Moksha Game

Open Educational Resources: How You and Your Students Can Use Free Online Textbooks

Open Textbook Library (University of Minnesota) Open Textbook Library contains hundreds of open textbooks on a wide variety of subjects. About 60% of textbooks in the Open Textbook Library have been reviewed.

Jeff Bond

OpenCourseWare (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) OpenCourseWare contains materials from over 2,400 MIT courses, on a wide variety of subjects.

Scholarly Communication Librarian

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Open Educational Resources (OERs) are instructional materials that are available online for free. Types of OERs include textbooks, which are the most common example seen, but also include such items as lesson plans, homework exercises, course readings, and quizzes. For students, these free resources present significant cost savings over traditional textbooks. There have been many studies documenting the skyrocketing costs of college textbooks. One major governmental study shows an 89% increase in the cost of textbooks in just ten years from 2002 to 2012, while consumer prices in general only rose 28% in the same period. A recent study of Florida students showed that the high cost of textbooks adversely affects students learning. Two-thirds of students surveyed chose not to purchase a textbook due to high costs, and 37.6% of students had performed poorly in a class due to an inability to afford a textbook. It is easy for faculty to find OERs for their subject areas. There are many high-quality providers of open textbooks and other educational items. A few are listed here: MERLOT (California State University) MERLOT contains over 40,000 items including open textbooks and other learning materials. Each goes through a peer review process before inclusion in MERLOT.

OpenStax (Rice University) OpenStax is a collection of about 40 online textbooks for college and AP courses that focuses on the most common college courses. All OpenStax books go through a rigorous peer review process. Orange Grove (Florida State-wide Partnership) OrangeGrove is a repository of instructional resources by faculty members at Florida educational institutions, both in K-12 and in higher education. Look at the websites above for information about their respective quality control methods. For example, each OER on the Rice OpenStax site is peer reviewed by other educators. Ultimately, it is up to the faculty member using the resource to determine its quality. The term OER implies more than just being free to use. The “open” in Open Educational Resources also implies that the resource carries legal permissions for re-use, distribution, and adaptation. This means that instructors can modify an OER to suit their own purposes. One possibility is that an instructor could take parts of two different OERs and combine them to make a new one, or simply add a new chapter to an existing OER. This flexibility in modifying OERs allows an instructor to customize it to a particular course’s needs. Then the new OER can be uploaded to a website similar to those above for others to use.

What about copyright? In most cases this is not a concern because the OER has a specific license that gives all users certain legal permissions. It is normally required for the person modifying the work to give credit to the original author of the work. To adopt an OER, such as a textbook for a course, it is a simple matter of sending the link for the resource to the students in the class or adding the link to their TCU Online course. Students can view the resource online or can download it for free to their own devices. Some OER websites also sell print copies of OER textbooks at reduced prices for those students who prefer a print edition. Both the federal government and Texas state government have recently passed legislation to support the use of OERs. The federal government, as part of its Fiscal Year 2018 Omnibus legislation, budgeted $5 million to establish a grant program to assist instructors who want to create their own OERs. The Texas state government has also passed legislation, allocating up to $200,000 for a similar grant program. The state legislation also initiates a feasibility study to consider whether the state should establish a repository of OERs. Would you like to learn more? Please contact me at j.bond@tcu.edu, and I would enjoy discussing OERs and how you can incorporate them into your classroom. Additional Resources about OER Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know

Using TCU Online to Track Hours for Internships, Service Learning, and More Kate Marshall

Director of Distance Learning, Koehler Center

Kerrie Meister

Manager of eLearning, Koehler Center

•••••••••••••••••••• “Help, I need to keep track of my students’ internship hours.” “Our program requires X hours of service learning prior to graduation, but students keep misplacing their paper logs or missing incremental check-ins.” “We have three faculty who can approve participation hours, but we don’t have an easy, shared way for them to do this.” “Our students need a way to see if their individual activities are counting towards the graduation practicum hours requirement.” “I need to track required hours for students during the time they are in the program but separating this into a series of semester course shells doesn’t give a good sense of the running total. Using a Google Doc or posting a list allows students to see a running total, but it doesn’t preserve student privacy. Help!”

We often hear requests similar to this. In some instances, the issue is that the students need a greater ability to reflect or attach other artifacts (such as signed site logs, reflections, images of site projects, or observation notes). In other cases, perhaps a departmental committee needs to review the student reflections to verify that time in the field is meeting the program’s learning outcomes. Last, if students are working toward a particular hours-requirement, it makes sense that students should be able to track their own progress toward this goal. An ideal solution to this problem would integrate with existing information systems on campus and reflect best practices for teaching and learning, including the provision of rapid feedback, the warehousing of student learning artifacts, and the ability for students to view only their own results on an ongoing basis. With a few adjustments to the term parameters and some initial set-up steps, a dedicated TCU Online course shell provides an efficient and easy way to track student internship, clinical, observation, service learning, or volunteer hours. A single course shell can be configured to allow submissions over multiple semesters, providing an easy way for faculty to give feedback and award credit or hours while letting the students view only their own incremental progress toward the stated goal. The challenge is to find a tool within the course shell that allows students to privately share work or evidence of their progress with the faculty supervisor or committee, let this entity approve hours, and track this progress toward a set goal (the “out of” score). Rather than using the Assignments tool, our preferred solution relies on the Discussions tool. In particular, the discussion is set up with single-user groups, thereby keeping the students’ threads and associated submissions private. The discussion is then

configured to allow the assessment of individual posts, permitting the faculty supervisor or committee to award differing increments of hours to each student’s attempt. A gradebook item is used to track the running total; the “out of” score is the total number of hours required. To petition for hours, students will start a thread: they can attach a standardized form you have created, write a reflection in the text area, upload an image that represents the work done in the field (examples might include: a lesson plan, a materials list, the supervisor’s signature, or photograph of the student doing the work, or the completed or in-progress project), or use the audio/video note option to post a short 3-minute commentary on the experience. In their submission, students should clearly identify the number of hours for which they are requesting credit. The faculty supervisor or committee member should access the student work in the Discussions tool rather than Grades because discussion viewing statistics are only gathered by TCU Online when discussion posts are read via the Discussions tool. Within Discussions, a chat bubble icon displays beside each student name if a student has responded and a blue star is added to this icon if there are new posts by a student. When grading, the grade details window for each student shows the post and any student attachments, as well as offering the reviewer the opportunity to add their own attachments or submit an audio or video note. Each of the student’s posts has a dedicated scoring box, with the sum of post scores calculating at the top of the window. To review student progress, both the student and the faculty member can view the running total in Grades. This provides a quick check-in regarding progress toward the goal. Students and faculty can also review the hours awarded

to each submission (post) and see any feedback files the faculty member attached—such as a signed verification, suggestions for follow-up work, or revisions required to receive full credit—by going to Class Progress. This view provides the scoring details for each post, thereby creating an artifact of incremental progress and avoiding concerns that certain submissions were not scored or may have been scored twice by two different reviewers.

Dr. Kenneth Lowrance writes:

\.ssess Topic - Hour Tracking > Individual Hour Tracking Group Discussion

Marie Curie

§um of Post Scores : 18 / 1,000

4 threads , O replies

All posts are scored

Publish score on save

ieneral Feedback .. ~ormat

•

==·

• 4apJ,lroved 2/13117 tor MarieCune Q_t_QLl..Z..dog • ~roved

2113/17for MarieCurie 01 02 17.docx

• 1ll.J>oproyed 2113117 forMarieCurje llU!Ul.slgg • 3hoursapproved

2/13117 forMarieCurie

Feedback files added to General Feedback by clicking Insert Stuff, then uploading the approved file.

01 04 17.docx

• Apprgved pn Feb27 - 3 hgyrs

" " <t>e9! :: Sort

By: Post Date

20 Post

Score

My First submission-F

eb 8, 20171 :17 PM

Requesting4 hours. ~ MarieCurie

Take 2 -

per page

Q1_Q1_17.docx (15.95 KB)

Add a score for each individual post. The sum appears in the top right of this grade window

Feb B. 2017 1:18PM

1 hour

Qliii:1-JiM Sav e

Cance l

It works in theory, but does it work in practice? The case study below showcases how this solution is being adopted in TCU’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program.

/1000

Within the last year, I identified a significant logistical issue which adversely affected workflow and efficiency regarding students in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. One of the requirements of the DNP students is that they must acquire 1,000 hours of faculty supervised clinical-type experiences above and beyond their baccalaureate degrees. Depending on the number of verified clinical hours or internship hours acquired in their Master’s programs, DNP students may be awarded up to 500 hours of the required 1,000 hours upon admission to the program. The remaining hours must be acquired through various experiential learning activities that relate to the eight Doctoral Essentials published by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). These activities must be documented, reviewed by faculty for approval, and archived to assure appropriateness for program requirements and accreditation purposes. Tracking of these student-acquired hours was inefficient and labor intensive. Students would acquire hours, document them, and submit to the Program Director for review and approval. Since there was no existing mechanism to archive these hours, once approved, the documentation was signed off and returned to the student to hold until his/her last two semesters in the program at which time the student was to resubmit the alreadyapproved hours to his/her capstone project Chair who then had the responsibility to upload/archive not only the already-approved hours, but also to review and archive any additional hours acquired during the last two semesters. This process was labor intensive for faculty and did not provide realtime status of students regarding their progress

in reaching the 1,000 required hours. Likewise, concerns regarding the accuracy of tracking these hours arose. The process was both cumbersome and burdensome for all involved. I presented the inefficiencies and difficulties of the process to the Koehler Center Staff in hopes that with the new TCU Online platform an innovative solution could be developed. As always, the Koehler Staff met the challenge with enthusiasm and developed an innovative solution that solved the problematic issues. As a result of the new solution, the process has been streamlined and made user-friendly for students and faculty. Students can now upload documentation of their experiential learning activities for review, approval, and archiving by the Program Director within TCU Online, thereby providing a real-time snapshot of student progress. The new process has been extraordinarily well accepted by students and faculty. It is a process that is generalizable to other disciplines where acquisition and tracking of hours is necessary to document successful achievement of program requirements. Kudos to the Koehler Center Staff for their creativity in simplifying a previously complex process. As an aside, this process is not only generalizable to other disciplines where hours tracking is required, but also to assignments or projects for which the total number of points is known, but which also have an unknown number of steps for which students can earn a variable number of points. While most projects or assignments have more clearly defined supporting activities with articulated point values, a course focused on project development or a course set up with gamified elements in which students select challenges

of varied point values within a given assignment might find this grading set-up useful. If you would like to learn more about this efficient, elegant, and error-reducing method of tracking hours, the Koehler Center has knowledge base articles about tracking hours for internships, practicums, or projects, setting up the discussion tool for hours tracking, and grading discussions used for hours tracking. In addition, our office is more than happy to help you get started with tracking hours in this manner.

Teaching about Islam and the Middle East in the TCU Classroom Amina Zarrugh

Assistant Professor, Sociology & Anthropology

•••••••••••••••••••• In his famous and influential analysis of literature about the Middle East and North Africa, the scholar Edward Said (1978) wrote: “No one has ever devised a method for detaching the scholar from the circumstances of life, from the fact of his involvement (conscious or unconscious) with a class, a set of beliefs, a social position, or from the mere activity of being a member of a society” (p. 10). Offering a sociological perspective on scholarly production, Said makes the significant observation that knowledge production must always be recognized as a product of the social location in which the individual who produces it is embedded. By social location, we are referring to the

Pedagogy in Practice:

Contemplative Practices in the Classroom with Mark Dennis and Andrew Fort Come learn about Contemplative Pedagogy, which encourages multiple ways of learning and increased self-knowledge, as well as widespread concerns about alleviating stress and promoting wellness in a culture of digital domination. September 20, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Campus Store, Room 208

perspectives individuals develop due to their gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, citizenship status, and religious beliefs, among other socially determined factors. In this Teaching and Learning Conversation, we took Said’s perspective as a point of departure to think about how not only knowledge production but also knowledge consumption on the part of students must likewise be understood as a reflection of social locations. To teach effectively, one must be acquainted with the social locations from which many of our students interact with the world. We regard this as especially significant as it relates to discussions of Islam and the Middle and North Africa, where misconceptions and misunderstandings often circulate in the classroom. While it is not possible to speak of a single “TCU Classroom” or to specify the numerous social locations in which our students are embedded, it is possible to reflect on the demography of current and incoming TCU students to anticipate how their social locations could inform our pedagogies in the classroom. Important features of current and incoming students to TCU that impact conversations regarding Muslims and the Middle East generally include the racial and ethnic composition and age distribution of our student populations. According to the TCU Fact Book, in the fall of

2017 69.7% of our student population identified as White whereas only 13% identified as Latinx, 5.5% identified as Black or African American, 3.1 % identified as Asian, 0.8% identified as American Indian/Alaskan Native, 0.7% identified as Multi-ethnic, 4.9% were classified as Nonresidents, and the remaining students did not express a racial or ethnic identification. In addition, approximately 0.42% of the Fall 2017 student body identified as Muslim. White students on our campus are overrepresented compared to the general U.S. racial and ethnic landscape, which presents unique opportunities as well as challenges to fostering discussions about the Middle East and the topic of Islam. One of the limitations of having a student population that does not reflect our country’s more general demography is that the majority of our students will not be exposed to the intellectual exchange or develop life-long friendships with people who may be racially and ethnically different from themselves, including with Muslims or individuals from the Middle East and North Africa. As sociological and psychological research shows, the erosion of stereotypes and misunderstandings through interaction is most likely to occur when we are exposed to other people who are of equal, not subordinate, status (Robinson Jr. and Preston 1976). In light of this challenge, we suggest that faculty require students as part of their coursework to participate in events on campus that compel them to engage with students across a range of racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. For instance, there is a committed Muslim Students Association on campus that hosts events where students can interact as peers and learn from one another. In addition, we propose that faculty include on their syllabi the writings of scholars from broader Middle East and North Africa so that they may be exposed to intellectual production outside of Europe and the United States.

Syllabus construction is a key site where we communicate to our students who should be regarded as a “cognitive authority” (Addelson 1991) which many scholars across disciplines have referred to as a process of “de-colonizing” our scholarship and teaching (Bhambra 2011, 2014). An intuitive but less frequently acknowledged aspect of our TCU classrooms is the age composition of our student body. The average incoming freshman this year was born in 1999, which means that the majority of our students have grown up and been socialized in an almost exclusively post-9/11 social and political landscape. This cohort of students has been profoundly shaped by consistent U.S. military engagement with the region of Middle East and a popular culture that circulates racialized framings of Muslims as terrorists. Consequently, faculty must historicize our contemporary political context and be prepared to challenge existing student assumptions about the regions of the Middle East and North Africa as well as Muslim populations. One constructive approach that I use in my sociology classrooms is to ask students to see their own society from the perspective of someone in the Middle East or North Africa. I regularly assign a chapter from Moroccan sociologist Fatema Mernissi’s book, Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems, called “Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem.” The chapter details Mernissi’s observations about being in the U.S. and experiencing judgements on the basis of size and beauty ideals as she tried to shop for clothes in an upscale U.S. clothing boutique. She challenges the assumption that the social control of gender-segregated space, characteristic of some parts of the Middle East, is worse than the social control she observes in the U.S., which she says limits women’s value to being “young” and “thin.” This reading compels students to see their own society through someone

else’s eyes and to question their assumptions about gender in the Middle East. We also regard it as a pedagogical imperative to provide opportunities for our students to learn about questions of Islam and the Middle East outside of the TCU campus. Dr. Yushau Sodiq, Associate Professor of Religion, regularly takes students to observe prayer at the Islamic Association of Tarrant County masjid, which is only a few minutes from campus. The patrons of this masjid and the space itself have the potential to transform student perceptions about Muslim communities and offer them insight into the everyday experiences of Muslim Americans. By reflecting on the social locations in which our students are embedded, we can more effectively and deliberately design our classes in ways that compel students to question their assumptions and step outside their own experiences, whether that is on the TCU campus or beyond. References Addelson, Kathryn Pyne. 1991. Impure Thoughts: Essays on Philosophy, Feminism, and Ethics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2011. “Historical Sociology, Modernity, and Postcolonial Critique.” The American Historical Review 116 (3): 653662. Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2014. “A sociological dilemma: Race, segregation and US sociology.” Current Sociology Monograph 2: 1-21. Mernissi, Fatema. 2002. Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems. New York: Washington Square Press. Robinson Jr., Jerry W. and James D. Preston. 1976. “Equal-Status Contact and Modification of Racial Prejudice: A Reexamination of the Contact Hypothesis.” Social Forces 54 (4): 911-924. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

Effective Campus Partnerships and Resources between Instructors and Student Affairs Vanessa Roberts Bryan

Assistant Dean of Student Development

Annie Bures

Coordinator for First Year Experience

•••••••••••••••••••• Academic and student affairs partnerships are critical to student success. However, many barriers exist that prevent academic and student affairs professionals from partnering together. These barriers can be categorized into structural and cultural barriers (Kezar, 2003). Structural barriers include organizational fragmentation, division of labor, and specialization among faculty. Cultural barriers include lack of common purpose or language, few shared values, and cultural differences in terms of personality styles. Our Teaching and Learning Conversation focused on identifying ways to breakthrough these barriers and create successful partnerships between academic and student affairs that can positively impact student success. Often times a paradigm exists between academic and student affairs professionals, creating a divide between the two areas. Faculty see their role as attending to students’ intellectual development, while student affairs professionals view their roles as focusing on students’ social and emotional development. This paradigm results in a division between professionals, competition for resources,

misunderstanding, mistrust, informal partnerships, and less focus on student success. When we focus on the things we have in common and some key assumptions for our work, we can begin to breakdown these barriers that separate us and bridge the cognitive affective divide. Academic and student affairs staff can agree that the preeminent goal of partnerships is academic success. We are more likely to achieve student success through partnerships that integrate learning both inside and outside the classroom. It is important for us to recognize that learning takes place anywhere there are students, faculty, and staff members interacting. Bridging the divide between academic and student affairs has many benefits (Peterson, 2015). First, working together can create a seamless connection between in- and outof-the-classroom learning opportunities. This seamless connection can help students successfully navigate the college environment and learn more from their time at TCU. Next, providing students with co-curricular experiences that enhance and compliment the classroom curriculum leads to richer learning. In addition, both faculty and staff contribute to the holistic support and development of the whole student. Therefore, it is critically important for both to be involved in various aspects of students’ growth and development. Finally, working together results in increased resources and support for students. Numerous opportunities for collaboration exist at TCU. These include: • In-class trainings provided by student affairs professionals. The Wellness Center offers a program called Don’t Cancel That Class. If instructors are away for the day or want a complimentary presentation for their course curriculum, the Wellness Center will provide an hour-long presentation that covers a variety of topics

that are designed to increase students’ developmental knowledge and skills. The TCU Leadership Center offers StrengthsQuest workshops for classes. These workshops give students and educators the opportunity to develop strengths by building on their greatest talents. This provides students a way to learn how to utilize their strengths in academics, leadership, career, and beyond. • The Office of Community Engagement provides faculty support in building service-learning into existing courses, developing new courses, or creating communitybased research projects. Community Engagement also provides presentations on service-related topics and assistance with service reflection activities. • The First Year Experience program provides multiple ways for faculty to connect with first-year students. These included serving as a Frog Camp Faculty/Staff Partner, Frogs First Family Dinner Host, or Connections Faculty/ Staff Mentor. Faculty are the frontline of the student experience, interacting with students multiple times per week. Students will often turn to faculty with concerns or share things happening in their lives. Understanding the developmental needs of students and available campus resources can help faculty members support students. Many resources are available on campus to help students who are struggling or need personal or developmental assistance. • The Counseling and Mental Health Center has the TCU Helpline. This Helpline has counselors on call 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. In addition, the Counseling Center provides individual and group counseling, as well as stress-less workshops.

• The Alcohol and Drug Education office provides a recovery peer support group that offers support to students looking for help with substance abuse and addiction problems. • Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL) at TCU offers pastoral and spiritual care for students to explore the questions and challenges in life. RSL also offers grief and loss support groups for students dealing with loss or the death of a loved one. The RSL office is also home to the TCU Student Emergency Fund, which provides shortterm financial assistance to students in catastrophic and emergency situations. Creating strong partnerships between academic affairs and student affairs helps to strengthen students’ academic experiences. Working together to collaborate and create a shared vision for student success, faculty and student affairs staff members can enhance student learning and positively impact the culture of the institution. References Kezar, A. (2003). Achieving student success: Strategies for creating partnerships between academic and student affairs. NASPA Journal, 41(1), 1-22. Pedersen, J. (2015). Bridging the gap between student affairs and academic affairs. The Student Affairs Collective, Retrieved from https://studentaffairscollective.org/bridging-gap-student-affairsacademic-affairs/

What’s new in TCU Online? Some new features have rolled out to TCU Online this year including: the Daylight Experience, updates to rubrics, Assignment Submission Folders without file attachments, and more! Learn about the 2018 Updates to TCU Online.

Enlivening the Humanities and Science Classroom Through the Moksha Game Mark Dennis

Associate Professor, Religion

Yushau Sodiq

Associate Professor, Relgion & Islamic Studies

Eric Simanek

Professor, Chemistry & Biochemistry

My Teaching and Learning Conversation (TLC) in Spring 2018 addressed Moksha, a karma-based classroom game that I, Mark Dennis, began developing in 2010 for use in my introductory-level World Religions course at TCU. Over time, I adapted it for use in my upper-level courses, including Buddhism, Daoism & Confucianism, and Religion & Violence. I was joined at the TLC by two other faculty: Dr. Eric Simanek from the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry who used the game in his course Whiskey: Science & History and Yushau Sodiq from the Department of Religion, who used the game for his World Religions course. The Moksha game is based on a religious paradigm accepted by Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions of India. That paradigm includes samsara, or the cyclical world of birth, death, and rebirth; karma, or the law of cause and effect; and moksha, a Sanskrit term meaning “liberation”

or “freedom.” Hindus, Buddhists, and their South Asian coreligionists accept some interpretation of this paradigm, although they differ in how they understand its individual components. For instance, while Hindus and Buddhists both accept the notion of samsara, the former describe liberation from this cycle as moksha, while the latter describe it as nirvana. Similarly, we find differences in their interpretations of karma, which is the doctrine that a good action will eventually bring a good result, or delicious “fruit,” while a bad action will bring about a bad result, or a rotten “fruit.” The game is based on this doctrine of karma wherein students who engage in positive actions—such as participating in class, doing well on quizzes and papers, and so on—will be rewarded with good karma points. Likewise, when students engage in distracted or disruptive behavior— for example, coming late, texting, or eating in class—they will receive bad karma points. Those individual points accumulate over the entire semester and their class rank in the Moksha game determines twenty-five percent of their final grade. For instance, the top three or four students would receive 100% multiplied by a factor of .25, the next group would receive 95%, and so on.

Teaching and Learning Conversations Flipping with iSpring: Converting PowerPoints to Interactive Online Lessons with Mark Demarest

Would you like to convert PowerPoint presentations to an interactive format that your students can access any time, anywhere—all that is needed is a web browser? If so, come learn about iSpring, a PowerPoint plugin that enables you to do just that at the push of a button—and so much more! September 27, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, Campus Store, Room 208 Register for this workshop.

But those individual karma points also make up one part of their team’s score—early in the semester I create either eight or ten teams with three or four students per team. Their team score is a combination of each team member’s individual karma points plus the points the team earns from a variety of team games that we play in class over the course of the semester. For instance, each team will debate another team on a resolution concerning religion and free speech. One resolution asks one team to defend the position that it is appropriate to step on the American flag that was draped on the floor as part of an art exhibit in a Chicago museum, while the other team argues against doing so. Each team is graded on their debate performance and receives team points based on their relative position. For instance, the winning team would get 20 team points, the second-place team would receive 18, and so on. The team game not only helps to enliven the classroom but also determines the bonus points each team member will receive on their quiz average based on where their team finishes in the rankings at the end of the semester. The TLC offered an introduction to the genesis of the Moksha game, an outline of the rules, and examples of team games. Each of the three presenters described how he has used the game effectively in class and offered advice for how to adapt it to different learning environments. Key takeaways included starting by making the game low stakes. For instance, instead of making the individual Moksha grade worth twenty-five percent of the final grade, making it five or ten percent instead. It might also be advisable to start with an abbreviated set of rules that would make it easier for students to understand the game and the instructor to administer it. I would be happy to consult with you on how to do so.

Another takeaway was the importance of keeping on top of the scoring. This requires keeping track of points after each class because while some scoring elements, like quiz scores, are easy to reproduce, others, like class comments, are not. It is also important to create a team scoreboard that shows where teams are in the standings. I have teams pick an animal to represent their team, and I select a cartoon image of that animal. Each Monday, I show the updated scoreboard and try to generate excitement by congratulating teams that have moved up. Simanek has used whiskey-related images for the teams in his class. If you are interested in learning more about the game, please email me at: m.dennis@tcu.edu. You can also find an article I wrote about the game for Education About Asia, the teaching journal of the Association for Asian Studies. The article is available by going to the Education About Asia article search website and typing my name (Mark Dennis) in the author field.

Pedagogy in Practice:

Using Embodied Learning to Facilitate Classroom Discussions In this workshop, members of the internationally renowned Dance Exchange will share tools and practices they have developed for cultivating multiple ways to listen to and make connections with what people are saying with their bodies as they speak (or maintain silence), and to use those insights to facilitate conversations within the community of the classroom. Faculty participants will experience these embodied learning techniques in action and practice using them during the workshop. September 27, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, Campus Store, Room 208 Register for this workshop.