Learning and Teaching

Learning and Teaching Essentials

"Teaching is not telling students what we know but showing students how we learn.  Learning is not committing a set of facts to memory, but the ability to use resources to find, evaluate, and apply information" -  HL Lujan and SE Dicarlo, Adv Physiol Educ, 30:17-22, 2006

This section includes various tips for how to develop a syllabus, how to develop learning outcomes, how to assess and evaluate your learning outcomes, and how to teach so everyone learns. The goal is to create a significant learning experience. Students who are actively involved in their learning will, in fact, learn much more than passive students. There are many classroom strategies to get students to be more engaged in their learning. This section also contains some basic information on active learning strategies, how to develop group work, how to get students to read assigned material, and how to ask questions during class.

Planning, designing and running a course can be intimidating and Curriculum Committee in collaboration with the Office of Curriculum & Assessment and the Center for Innovative Instruction in Pharmacy have developed a crash course to course design found here.  One the first pieces of advice in designing instruction is to become familiar with the Seven Principles of Good Practice.  As stated in this link "The Seven Principles are intended as guidelines for faculty members, students, and administrators to improve teaching and learning. These principles seem like good common sense, and they are -- because many teachers and students have experienced them and because research supports them."  The second piece is to establish what are the 'teaching goals". The Teaching Goals Inventory is a self-assessment tool of instructional goals.  One of the purposes of this survey is to help instructors become more aware of what they want to accomplish in their courses.   The final piece is that many of us will be involved in teaching large classes; here is a basic survival guide.