Turning Undergraduate Research (Original Scholarship) into a Model of Reflective High Impact Practices Dr. Ed Nuhfer

Backward Design Worth being familiar with Important to know and do Essential to do Wiggins and McTighe (1998)

What do you most want your graduates to be able to do when they leave your institution? Turn to your neighbor and exchange what you most hope your students will achieve from completing their undergraduate degree.

Turning Undergraduate Research (Original Scholarship) into a Model of Reflective High Impact Practices

What does it mean to be a reflective scholar?

Reflective Mindfulness “In an intuitive or mindful state, new information, like new melodies, is allowed into awareness.”

Turning Undergraduate Research (Original Scholarship) into a Model of Reflective High Impact Practices

How does doing research/original scholarship support what you most want your graduates to attain in achieving their degree? Spend half a minute and reflect by yourself on how having such an experience supports the education represented by their degree.

Consider such scholarship… Done without reflective mindfulness… Done with reflective mindfulness (metacognitively)

Expert versus Novice Learners Expert learners notice when they are not learning and thus are likely to seek a strategic remedy when faced with learning difficulties. By being consciously aware of themselves as problem solvers and by monitoring and controlling their thought processes, these learners are able to perform at a more expert level, regardless of the amount of specific domain knowledge possessed. Novice learners, on the other hand, rarely reflect on their own performances and seldom evaluate or adjust their cognitive functioning to meet changing task demands or to correct unsuccessful performances (Paris &Newman 1990).

On the topic of what we want students to learn from an undergraduate research experience… Elevated critical/creative thinking capacities Independent learning Information literacy skills Possibly, undo some damage we may have produced by more conventional instruction?

Two Joys of Independent Scholarship Creation – The satisfaction of seeing one’s own product take form Discovery – The excitement of pursuing question after question

Bloom cognitive taxonomies – old and new What version is “best” likely depends on what drives our framework of reasoning.

Bloom cognitive taxonomies – old and new What version is “best” likely depends on what drives our framework of reasoning.

Ken Robinson RSA Animate 2010

Mindful Reflection “Many, if not all, of the qualities that make up a mindful attitude are characteristic of creative people.” …. “Those who can…focus on process rather than outcome are likely to be creative, whether they are scientists, artists, or cooks.”

Metadisciplines Groups of disciplines that hold in common an overarching framework of reasoning/way of knowing that unites them. – Example: anthropology, biology, chemistry, environmental science, geology, physics hold in common the overarching way of reasoning of science.

Major Academic Metadisciplines 1.Arts 2.Humanities 3.Mathematics 4.Physical/Life/Natural Science (or “Science”) 5.Social Science 6.Technology

DRAFT: Metadisciplinary Outcomes for the Arts Students should be able to… 1.Explain the significance of creative expression and art to the human experience. 2.Discern objective vs. subjective scholarship, criticism and analysis of the arts. 3.Articulate in his/her own words a definition for what constitutes the arts. 4.Communicate ideas and emotions through the practice and study of the arts. 5.Recognize and value creative expression from various cultural and historical perspectives. 6.Explain in his/her own words reasons why critical thinking and problem solving have value in the arts. 7.Describe, using at least two specific examples, how art literacy is important in everyday life.

Traditions of Critical Thinking (Brookfield, 2012) Logic and philosophy Science Pragmatism Psychoanalysis Critical theory

Traditions of Critical Thinking* Metadisciplines Where Concentrated Some realms of Inquiry** Logic and philosophy HumanitiesWhat is truthful/ethical? ScienceScience and quantitative reasoning What is testable/probable? PragmatismAll metadisciplines including technology What is consequential? Psychodynamic transformation Social science, humanities, arts What is authentic/valued? Critical theoryHumanitiesWhat is privileged? * From Brookfield, 2012 **Modified from Carole Huston, San Diego University “Critical Thinking” and Metadisciplinary Reasoning

Where are Evaluative Reasoning and Creativity Concentrated? MetadisciplineParagon is Evaluative Thinking Paragon is Creativity ArtsX HumanitiesXX MathematicsX ScienceX Social ScienceX TechnologyX

Metacognitive readings for students enrolled in a research project

Metacognitive reading for students enrolled in a creative scholarship project

Metacognitive readings for students enrolled in any endeavor in which they clearly own their learning.

Metacognitive Reflections What kind of problem is this? What seems the best strategy for solving it? What kind of reasoning is most appropriate? How will I know if I solved it correctly? What additional information/help do I need? How can I use my new understanding to solve other kinds of problems?

Expert Learners Modified from Ertmer and Newby (1996) EvaluateMonitor Plan Reflection Metacognitive Control (self-regulation) Metacognitive Knowledge (declarative, procedural, conditional) Personal Resources Prior Knowledge Available Strategies Task Requirements Type of Learning Appropriate Strategies Goals Beliefs Attitudes Motivation Reflection

The brain learns by building and stabilizing neural connections. (see Leamnson, 1999) What is “Learning?”

The brain learns by building and stabilizing neural connections. (see Leamnson, 1999) What is “Learning?” WHAT are we trying to “wire in by building such neural networks?”

We are trying to wire in… Knowledge Skills Reasoning Making distinctions for ourselves between these different kinds of learning challenges takes some thought. We should guide students to do the same. Ideally, a curricula should help students become mindful of how to distinguish the three and how to learn all three effectively.

Common terms can produce common misunderstandings Knowledge Skills Reasoning Memorized factual content? Introspective self-knowledge? Metacognitive knowledge? Psychomotor skills? Writing, speaking, math skills? Critical thinking skills? Inductive, deductive? Metadisciplinary: scientific, quantitative…? Ethical, logical, intuitive, cultural?

Usage in this presentation Knowledge Skills Reasoning Information, mostly disciplinary content, obtained through experience, observation, and study. Largely lower level Bloom – remembered knowledge. Abilities and basic competencies that develop and improve with intentional practice and training. Thinking that employs knowledge for the purpose of gaining understanding or taking informed action. With practice, stages of development bring increased intellectual, affective, and ethical capacities.

Let’s consider three introductory general education courses with three different emphases… and possible benefits & consequences.

Knowledge General Education: – Strives to impart content knowledge that citizens should know – This accords with the type of science literacy tested on certain science literacy tests: All radioactivity is man-made. Radioactive milk can be made safe by boiling it. The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Respond by agree-disagree. (Miller, 1998)

Skills General Education: – Strives to impart an excitement and enthusiasm for science by engaging students in doing science… – This accords with involvement in applied research experiences such as Field studies Laboratory studies ….active development of knowledge and skills in authentic experiences – A successful approach to recruiting science majors. – Serves those who will major in science well. What of the majority: who will major in something else?

Reasoning General/Liberal Education - Citizen Science Literacy – Develops through "… the collaboration and integration of general education and the major.” The content and skills of one discipline usually have little relevance to content and skills of another because they do not enable easy transferability across life challenges or integration across majors. But understanding others’ frameworks of reasoning—How do we understand and explain the physical world?— where understanding comes from, why it is valued and how those with skills developed capacity in these is relevant to the general citizen.

Exercise to try with your students I will know that I have received a good education through the following criteria: … – Ask students to complete the above sentence. – Collect the responses to discover how each of your students sees his/her goal of becoming educated.

G iven each of the three introductory course experiences, consider how these experiences pre-dispose students’ expectations and perceptions of undergraduate research/creative scholarship. Knowledge Skills Reasoning

Knowledge Skill Reasoning On a piece of paper, draw your own circles to the size scales that show the emphases you might wish to give each in an “Ideal Course”

Knowledge Skill Reasoning We wanted something like this

Reasonin g Knowledge Skill But we had built something else.

How we found this out… We employed a science literacy concept inventory consisting of 25 items that looked for an understanding of 12 concepts relevant to “citizen literacy” of science and its framework of reasoning.

Our current GE science courses don’t produce science literacy (N = 12,120 & growing)…

Teaching and Learning…. Show of hands: How many of you have a written teaching philosophy? Show of hands: “How many of you have guided your students to develop a written learning philosophy?”

Beliefs About Intelligence avoid challenges give up easily see effort as fruitless ignore feedback be threatened by success of others embrace challenges persist in face of setbacks see effort as path to mastery Iearn from criticism find lessons and inspiration in success of others Dweck (2006)

Stages of Intellectual Development Level 1 & 2 thinkers believe that all problems have right and wrong answers, that all answers can be furnished by authority (usually the teacher), and that ambiguity is a needless nuisance that obstructs getting at right answers. Level 3 thinkers realize that authority is fallible and doesn't have all answers. They respond by concluding that all opinions are equally valid, that arguments are just about proponents thinking differently. Evidence doesn't change this. Level 4 thinkers recognize that not all challenges have right or wrong answers, but they do not yet recognize frameworks through which to resolve how evidence best supports one among several competing arguments. Level 5 thinkers can use evidence and begin to accept that evaluations that lead to best solutions can be relative to the context in which a problem occurs. Level 6 thinkers appreciate ambiguity as a legitimate quality of many issues, can use evidence well to explore alternative viewpoints. They recognize that the most reasonable answers often depend upon context and value systems. Levels 7, 8 and 9 thinkers incorporate metacognitive reflection in their reasoning, and they increasingly perceive how their personal values act alongside context and evidence to influence chosen decisions and actions. William J. Perry Jr. (1968) Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years

What might a rubric look like… To guide development of a written learning philosophy during an undergraduate research/creative scholarship experience?

Reflective Exercises & Learning Journals…

Consider some of these aspects today, and how you might let your students in on what you learn at this wonderful conference.