Brown Bag Lunch Series on Teaching

Date: September 14, 2017

Time: 12:00PM - 1:00PM

Location: Blocker 220

Speaker: Jennifer Whitfield, Texas A&M

Title: Show me the Evidence. How do we know students are learning?

Abstract: Instructors oftentimes spend countless hours preparing class lectures. They look for the perfect problems to work in class, create graphs that surpass the standards required by many textbook publishers, and meticulously format outlines of the class notes. The effort instructors put into class preparation is immense, and these efforts do not go unnoticed; students do appreciate them. How much time and effort do instructors spend, however, finding evidence that students learn what they intend for them to learn? When and how do they collect such evidence and what do instructors do with the evidence? This talk will have attendees reflect on these questions and provide a few ideas on techniques instructors can use to collect evidence and then use the evidence to drive their instruction.