Whitney McGowan's Learning Portfolio

The Joy of Genealogy Video

I work for a company called FamilyLink.com, Inc., which includes a family of services such as WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyHistoryLink.com, We're Related and My Family on Facebook, and WebTree.com. We essentially provide innovative tools to connect families.

I'm the Director of Corporate Communications for FamilyLink.com, Inc. At the beginning of this year, I was given the responsibility to put together a video for genealogy. Here is the end product:



The video is currently the number one genealogy video on Google and on YouTube. It's titled, "The Joy of Genealogy."

Contributing Factors to Improved Teaching at Brigham Young University

It's always fun to write the first post on a new blog. In February 2008, I finished writing my master's thesis, which is titled, "The Scholarship of Teaching: Contributing Factors To Improved Teaching Performance Among University Faculty Members." I really enjoyed writing it and learned a lot.

Here is the link to learn more about contributing factors to improved teaching:

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2327.pdf

Here are some of the key points from my thesis:

More than 300 of the 1600 BYU faculty have made significant and sustained improvements in their teaching, based on a recent research study conducted at BYU. These 300 faculty had at least a 1.5 standard deviation increase or higher in their online student ratings. In fact, more than 50 percent of the faculty improved between 1.5-1.99 points, 39 percent improved between 2-2.99 points, 9 percent improved between 3-3.00 points, and two percent improved between 4-4.99 points. Although faculty in this study had a wide range of improvement, 29 percent of the faculty (100 faculty) improved their online student ratings from a 5 to a 7. Fifteen percent improved from a 4 to a 6 and another 15 percent improved from a 6 to an 8.

Typically, when faculty receive online student ratings scores that range from 4 or lower, the majority of the comments are negative. Faculty who receive an overall score of 5 usually receive comments from students in their online student ratings that are positive and negative. The majority of the comments that come from faculty who receive online student ratings scores between 6 and 8 are generally positive.

How did faculty change? Whitney Ransom McGowan, a graduate researcher at BYU conducted 30 interviews from the pool of 300 faculty to better understand what these faculty did to improve their teaching and the process they used to make these changes. Data from the interviews showed faculty were often motivated, humble and willing to change, usually selected one item to improve, along with a date to initiate and evaluate the change, and then put forth efforts to change. They usually had an experience that triggered the change.

Approximately 74 percent of these faculty said they utilized the online student ratings to improve their teaching. Further, comments from the online student ratings were the number one factor to improved teaching performance for 44 percent of the faculty, followed by mid-term surveys and exit interviews (22 percent).

In essence, faculty needed to take advice from the students whom they were teaching to make their classes better. Faculty said the online student ratings were helpful and beneficial, and that overall they had a positive experience with the student rating process. For example,

I take the online student ratings very seriously. It is an incredible opportunity that every 16 weeks I have some very truthful feedback on my job performance. I think a professor would be silly not to read them and take them seriously.

Faculty were asked what they did to improve their teaching performance. The top three contributing factors were (1) Active and Practical Learning, (2) Teacher and Student Interactions, and (3) Learning Outcomes and Expectations. An example of each of the three categories is provided here.

Active and Practical Learning. Faculty engaged their students in real-world experiences, hands-on activities, and in-class discussions. One faculty member said,

Some students would say that I bring real world experience and practical stuff. Even though we cover the theory, I cover it in a hands on, very meaningful, and practical way. The students can take what I teach in class and actually apply it.

Teacher and Student Interactions. Faculty often learned the names of their students, cared about them, believed in them, and were genuinely interested in their lives. One professor demonstrated this aspect of improvement by getting to know his students really well. At the beginning of the semester he invited every student to set up a 15-minute appointment with him. He said,

It helps me because when I see them in class I know their names and a little bit about them. It helps them because they can ask any questions about me, so they get to know me. I hope what that accomplishes is that it breaks the ice….I have had students comment that out of all of their years at BYU, this was the first time a professor has tried to get to know them personally…It is very rewarding for me because my students know that I look at them as a person and not just as a name or a picture on a roster.

Learning Outcomes and Expectations. Faculty often had high and clear expectations for their students. They also emphasized each learning outcome to their students. One faculty member said,

Some of the students felt like some of the work that I was having them do was busy work and that was not my intention. Instead of taking away the assignment, which I feel would have been detrimental to their learning, I had to help them understand that it was beneficial to their learning. I had to help them understand how it fit in to the big picture of what we were trying to achieve. I started adding this statement on my syllabus, “You may find these assignments don’t fit you as a learner or how you learn; therefore if you would like to propose alternatives that fit the learning outcome, I am open to that.”

During the interviews, most of the faculty commented that the effort it took to make these changes was minimal. In essence, the faculty members were fine tuning their teaching and focused primarily on one factor to change. For example, here are some short statements from faculty demonstrating the effort the change in their teaching involved:

• Most of the changes that I have made are simple but they make a big difference to the students.

• It took a little bit of time. Overall the changes reduced a lot of the grading work that I had to do. It reduced some of the load off of me.

• I don’t think it was any more effort than I normally put in. In terms of class preparation my focus changed. In term of energy I put forward, it was probably about the same.

Although the effort to change did not require hours and hours of each faculty member’s time, the results were visible, important, improved online student ratings, and were even life-changing to some faculty members.

Findings also demonstrated that students were not satisfied with the teaching in their classes when there was no alignment between desired learning outcomes, activities, and assessments. For students to give the class an outstanding ranking, however, it was not sufficient for faculty to just align these three areas. It was only when faculty linked learning outcomes, activities, and assessments to the life of the learner, made these areas challenging yet attainable, and were inspiring to the learners that students raved about their classes.

Overall, this study shows that nearly 20 percent of BYU faculty who have different personalities, who teach a variety of disciplines, with various course sizes have succeeded in improving their teaching performance with minimal effort, and with the aid of online student ratings.

A Goal-Driven Approach to Improving Teaching & Learning with Technology

In November, I had the opportunity to present at the AECT Conference in Orlando Florida. This was my first time attending this conference, and I had a great time. Stephanie Allen presented with me at the conference. The title of our presentation was: Making a Significant Difference: A Goal-Driven Approach to Improving Teaching & Learning With Technology. Stephanie and I worked on the paper for this conference with Jon Mott and Larry Seawright from BYU. Jon posted the slides on his blog. Click here if you would like to access these slides. Jon and Larry presented at the Educause Conference, which also took place in Orlando. We hope to publish a paper soon on this topic!