IBL Instructor Perspectives: Ron Taylor, Berry College

Ron Taylor is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Berry College.
rtaylor@berry.edu


1. How long have you been teaching and what was your teaching style before you started using IBL?

Including some adjuncting and teaching in grad school, I have been teaching for 18 years.  The last dozen of these years have been spent in a tenure track position at Berry College, a small liberal arts college in northwest Georgia.  Before I started using IBL I would have classified myself as an interactive lecturer.  By this I mean that I would spend a lot of class time doing the talking, but a significant portion of that talking was in the form of asking questions.  I didn't often talk for a whole class period, but I was the one in charge of what was going on.  I did occasionally use group work, or have students come to the front of the class to write solutions, or parts of solutions, on the board, but I always had a standard textbook and a sheaf of notes that laid out the direction that class was going to go each day.  This approach more or less mimicked the classes I had as a student, though there was some contrast.  All but one of my classes all through college and graduate school were lecture style classes, but there wasn't much in the way of group work in class or having students writing on the board.


2. How did you learn about IBL and when did you begin using it in your classes?

I had heard of the Moore method before I started using it, but I can't place my finger on where I first heard about it.  I had one Moore style class in graduate school, a point set topology class, and I think that the professor may have mentioned that he was using the Moore method, but I don't remember him telling us much about how the class was going to go or why he was choosing to do it that way.  So I spent the semester thinking that he "wasn't teaching us anything" and didn't enjoy the class, even though in hindsight I feel like I learned a lot of topology that semester.  Then in the spring of 2003 several students asked me to teach a directed study class in number theory and I thought that this would be a good place to try out this method.  We had a textbook, but we spent class time working through problems and talking our way through the proofs in the book.  It wasn't as much of a Moore method class as it could have been, but it wasn't bad for a first go without really knowing what I was doing.  (In addition to being a rank novice at using IBL I didn't really know a lot of number theory either.)  At the time I don't know that I made the connection between what I was doing in the number theory class and what I had experienced in the topology class, but the students seemed to be engaged every day and so I thought that it was at least a partial success.  During that semester I was invited to the Legacy of RL Moore Conference by virtue of being a Project NExT Fellow.  It sounded interesting and so I went.  I felt like I learned some stuff about teaching while I was there and I decided that I would try to ramp up the use of IBL (as I then envisioned it) in my classes with a concomitant decrease in the amount of time I was lecturing.  I've been back to the Legacy Conference ever since, co-chairing the planning committee for the past three years, and I feel as though it is paying off for my students.  Now my goals with IBL are two-fold.  One is to expand the amount of time I use IBL in class and the second is to improve the IBL stuff I have been doing.  I wish my topology professor had explained what he was doing so that I could have had a better experience that semester and maybe started teaching this way sooner rather than later.  I may also have gone on and taken some more topology.

In addition to the payoff for the students in my classes, there has been payoff for students at Berry in other classes.  In 2005 several of my colleagues and I applied for a startup grant from the Educational Advancement Foundation because we had discovered that several of us were trying to move away from lecturing.  We started with a group of six faculty in 4 departments which has grown to a group of almost twenty in more than half a dozen departments.  Since we started this IBL group on campus, other campuses have tried to replicate this process and several of us have won teaching awards based in part on our use of IBL techniques in our classes.


3. What was one of your best IBL experiences?

The single best hour of class I've ever had was in a real analysis class several years ago.  A student was presenting something that she had started the class before, but had to cut short because we ran out of time.  I suspect that she was happy about this because I don't think she had the full answer the first time.  Anyway, she got up to do her presentation and when she got through she asked if there were any questions and about half of the small class had the same question.  They all seemed to think that her proof wasn't quite right and they were asking about one particular part.  But the other half of the class, including myself and a philosophy professor who was sitting in the class, thought that she was right and we couldn't see where they were finding fault with what she had done.  The rest of the class period was spent with the two groups trying to figure out where the misunderstanding was and in the end it turned out that she, and those of us who were saying that she was right, were all making a jump in our heads that the other students wanted to see explicitly written down.  (I wish I could recall the particular detail, but it is lost to the winds of time.)  In the end it wasn't really a big sticking point in the proof, but some of the students weren't making a connection that others of us were making.  They learned a lot that day about how to ask good questions and I learned a lot about how to get out of the way and let the students make sure that things are right. [Editor's note:  This example is a great one!  Please also consider keeping a teaching diary to write down these gems.]

The best whole semester of class I have had may have been a knot theory class I taught where we used a combination of the Moore method and POGIL worksheets.  We didn't "cover" as much material as I had in the past, but we went much deeper into every topic that came up in the class.  The students, who had been immersed in a culture of active learning since they had been at Berry, were really good about asking lots of questions and generating discussion in class almost every day.  When one of them would get up to present the others weren't shy about asking questions if there was something amiss.  And they had learned to do this in a way so that no one ever felt put down when there was a question, so the presenter was able to go with the flow and worry about the correctness of the mathematics or helping a classmate understand something, rather than worry about being wrong in front of peers.  We did some challenging stuff in that class, and some of them worked harder than they had ever worked in a math class before.  But in the end they all seemed to have a really good time and to learn a lot.

4. What advice do you have for new IBL instructors?

Find something that sounds interesting (Moore method, POGIL, Just-In-Time Teaching, Think-Pair-Share, etc) and give it a try.  If it doesn't work as well as you had hoped, then tweak it and try again.  Listen to feedback from the students about what worked and what didn't wok so well.  Don't let them talk you into abandoning the methodology, but let them help you make the methods and materials you use better.  Above all else, let your students know that you believe in their abilities and give them the chance to rise to the occasions that you present to them.  Of course, you also have to remember that having the chance to rise to an occasion also gives someone the possibility of falling flat, so let students know that it's ok to make mistakes so long as they are willing to learn from them.

Also, try to find like-minded colleagues who will help you navigate through the hard times that you will invariably encounter.  In addition to the mentoring available from AIBL, you may find people at your local institution.  The culture of inquiry we have at Berry wouldn't be nearly the same if it weren't for the diverse group of people who are using strategies from a wide spectrum of active learning techniques.  This has been extremely beneficial to all of us in terms of having people to talk to when things aren't going as well as we would like.

IBL Instructor Perspectives: Jackie Jensen Vallin, Slippery Rock University

Jackie Jensen Vallin is a faculty member at Slippery Rock University in PA.  Jackie has been the co-organizer for the Legacy of R. L. Moore conference, and has been actively involved in mentoring new IBL instructors, the MAA, and Project NExT.

1. How long have you been teaching and what was your teaching style before you started using IBL?

Counting my teaching experiences in graduate school, I have been teaching for 15 years.  In the early days, including when I finished graduate school and had to write my first “Teaching Statement,” I was much more of a lecture-based instructor. I even said in that statement “I am more of a sage on the stage than a guide on the side.”  This was probably a little misleading since I really had a very interactive style with my students – knowing them all by name and calling on them to further the conversation in class. However, it was pretty unusual to do anything in my classroom except lecture and a few group-work style worksheets.


2. How did you learn about IBL and when did you begin using it in your classes?

The spring of my first year of “real teaching” (in a faculty position), I attended the Legacy of RL Moore Conference in Austin, TX.  There were a lot of people talking about the Moore Method (and, appropriately enough) refusing to define that method.  But I met some great educators and was intrigued by the idea of putting the responsibility for learning more firmly on my students by guiding them to the answers without pretending that my lecturing them would be enough to get them to understand.


I began simply after that – introducing more worksheets into my classes, doing more group work, and implementing presentation days during calculus. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I taught a class in which the students were really responsible for presenting almost all of the material. And even then I didn’t do that in all of my classes, but only in upper level courses (intro to proofs and abstract algebra, in particular).  It was another couple of years before I integrated IBL into all of my classes, and now I teach everything (from Math as a Liberal Art to Math for Future Teachers to Intro to Proofs) with as many student-centered activities as I can.



3. What was one of your best IBL experiences?

My best IBL experiences actually happen in lower level courses – students take responsibility for their own learning.  This means that frequently students who thought that they were bad at math get to master that fear, the material, and convince themselves that they are not “bad at math.”  This happened this semester in my Financial Mathematics (for non-majors) courses – students were shown a couple of examples of how to do problems, and then completed problems on their own, in groups, sharing answers at the end of the period.  I walked around the room, checking work, answering questions (by asking more questions) and making sure everyone was on task.  Since this course is based entirely on applying formulas to word problem scenarios, the only way for students to learn to read word problems is by making them *do* word problems.  And they are succeeding!  What a great semester!


4. What advice do you have for new IBL instructors?

Start in a way that you feel comfortable – if that means turning over presentation to students one day per week and lecturing the other days, then do that.  Don’t let anyone else tell you how *you* have to do IBL.  Find your own method.  And ask lots of people for ideas, suggestions about notes or activities, or if you feel stuck. I have gotten great pieces of advice from many different people – I steal the parts that work for me and discard the pieces that don’t to have found my own method of IBL.  Everyone is willing to help and talk about teaching – we all care a great deal about our students, or we wouldn’t spend so much time developing good course notes!


Note:  This is great advice -- "find a level that is comfortable for you."  If you want to be "scripted" at the beginning that is also fine, and lets you concentrate on the day-to-day teaching aspects.  Most importantly, if you need help, let me know!

IBL Instructor Perspectives: Professor Dana Ernst

A Q&A session with Professor Dana Ernst, Department of Mathematics, Plymouth State University.  Dana  is an award-winning, highly energetic math professor, who has recently learned to teach using IBL.  In this blog post, we ask him a handful of questions related to his IBL teaching.

1. How long have you been teaching and what was your teaching style before you started using IBL?

I have been teaching college-level mathematics, starting as a graduate student, since the spring of 1998.  My classes have always been interactive, but initially they were predominately lecture-based. Probably like most teachers, I modeled my teaching style after my favorite teachers.  I was aware of the Moore method and IBL, but I had never experienced this paradigm as a student.  By most metrics, my approach in the classroom seemed to be working.  My teaching evaluations have been consistently high and I have received several teaching awards. However, prior to implementing IBL, I was suspicious that I could get so much more out of my teaching.  More precisely, I was suspicious that I could provide my students with the opportunity to get so much more out of my classes.

2. How did you learn about IBL and when did you begin using it in your classes?

It was not until I sat through a Project NExT workshop at the 2008 MathFest led by Carol Schumacher that I began to consider using IBL.  Carol's workshop was about implementing a modified-Moore method approach in an undergraduate real analysis course.  I do not remember the details of the workshop, but by the end, I was inspired to give IBL a shot.  In the spring of 2009, despite having no prior experience or formal training, I decided to teach my very first IBL course.  The course I chose is called Logic, Proof, and Axiomatic Systems, which is meant to be the introduction to proof course at Plymouth State University.  Perhaps surprisingly (since it was my first go), the course was a huge success and I was immediately sold on the potential impact that IBL can have on a student's learning and character development.  I have loved teaching since the day I started, but nothing compared to the joy of watching students truly learn mathematics, and often completely independent of me.  I had taught the same course two semesters in a row using a mostly lecture-based approach, and I had thought that the previous two iterations went very well.  However, the IBL version was a vast improvement.  I have since had students from all three variations in upper-level proof-based courses and the students from the IBL version are much more independent and, in general, better proof-writers.

3. What was one of your best IBL experiences?

There are so many!  Here is one event that illustrates why I am hooked on IBL.  During the Fall 2011 semester, I was chosen for jury duty, which required me to miss six days of classes.  For all but two of these days, I was able to find a faculty member to cover my classes.  For the two days that I did not have faculty coverage, I convinced a graduate student in education to cover my IBL abstract algebra course.  This student had taken my IBL introduction to proof course, so he had some IBL experience, but he had never had an abstract algebra course.  On the days the graduate student covered for me, the class ran as usual and the students were highly productive.  They didn't need me!  The students were so proud of what they achieved while I was gone, they sent me pictures of the work that was presented on the board.  The graduate student that covered for me indicated that all he had to do was jot down who came to the board to present.

4. What advice do you have for new IBL instructors?

In order for IBL to be successful, the students have to buy into it.  To pull this off, instructor need to do some marketing at the beginning of semester.  The right amount of marketing varies from class to class and semester to semester.  For classes filled with students with prior IBL experience, I don't have to convince them of the benefits of IBL.  These students are generally ready to dive in and get started.   For classes consisting of students that are new to IBL, it is important to explicitly spell out the format, expectations, and goals of the course.  One approach I take on the first day is to ask the students what skills a college student, specifically a math major, should have upon graduating and how best to acquire these skills. Through some Socratic questioning, I am able to get them to tell me that we should be doing something like IBL. I'm not trying to trick them, but rather give them some ownership in the philosophy behind the structure of the course.

Even if the students are sold on IBL, you still have to be willing to adapt, overcome, and improvise.  Issues will come up that you couldn't have predicted.  Building a community of trust will make any challenges a lot easier to deal with.  I believe that the two most important qualities of an IBL instructor, heck any instructor, are patience and being "Mr./Mrs. Friggin' Positive." Lastly, I would like to echo something Ed Parker has said.  Sit back, shut up, and "see what they can do".


[Added by Stan Yoshinobu]  Summary: 

1. Go to a workshop if you can.
2. We can all improve our teaching!
3. We are not just teaching facts, we are developing appropriate habits of mind, such as independence
4. Marketing to students (i.e. getting them on board with an IBL class) at the beginning of term is one of the keys to success.
5. Be flexible! Be patient! Be super positive!!

Thanks Dana!