Just in Time Teaching: Across the Disciplines, and Across the Academy (New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education)

213 Pages·2009·1.17 MB·English

by  Scott Simkins

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Just-in-Time Teaching
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New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education series
In the same series:
Blended Learning
Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy
Edited by Francine S. Glazer
Cooperative Learning in Higher Education
Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy
Edited by Barbara J. Millis
Published in Association with The National Teaching and Learning Forum
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Just-in-Time Teaching
Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy
Edited by Scott P. SimkinsandMark H. Maier
Foreword By James Rhem
Published in Association with The National Teaching and Learning Forum
STERLING, VIRGINIA
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COPYRIGHT © 2010 BY
STYLUS PUBLISHING, LLC.
Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC
22883 Quicksilver Drive
Sterling, Virginia 20166-2102
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying, recording
and information storage and retrieval, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data
Just-in-time teaching : across the disciplines, across the
academy / edited by Scott Simkins and Mark H. Maier ;
foreword by James Rhem.
p. cm. — (New pedagogies and practices for
teaching in higher education)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-57922-292-5 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-57922-293-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. College teaching.
LB2331.J78 2010
378.1'25—dc22 2009026411
13-digit ISBN: 978-1-57922-292-5 (cloth)
13-digit ISBN: 978-1-57922-293-2 (paper)
Printed in the United States of America
All first editions printed on acid free paper
that meets the American National Standards Institute
Z39-48 Standard.
Bulk Purchases
Quantity discounts are available for use in
workshops and for staff development.
Call 1-800-232-0223
First Edition, 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to be given the opportunity to bring together such a talented
group of authors to share the benefits of Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) across
the disciplines and across the academy. For that opportunity we thank James
Rhem and Susan Slesinger, who guided the development not only of this book,
but also the “New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education”
series. This series will be a valuable addition for instructors looking for ideas
on how to improve student learning in their classes.
In addition, we are indebted to the original developers of JiTT, who over
a decade ago began thinking carefully about how to more effectively engage
physics students in the learning process. Little did they know that this peda-
gogy would be adopted and adapted by instructors not only in the physical
and natural sciences, but also in the social sciences and the humanities. Our
chapter authors represent this entire spectrum and are leaders in extending
the use of this pedagogical innovation. We’re excited to showcase the fruits of
their many years of pedagogical research and practice.
Much of the work developing Just-in-Time Teaching has been supported
by the National Science Foundation, in particular through its Course, Cur-
riculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Program. We thank the NSF
for its ongoing support not only of JiTT, but also a growing collection of effec-
tive pedagogical innovations originally developed for the science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Many of these innovations have had an
important impact on teaching and learning outside of the disciplines in which
they originated.
Finally, we have to say a special thank you to our wives, Jan Simkins and
Anne Schiller, for their ongoing support of our work. Their patience, love, and
encouragement are important sources of inspiration and joy for us. We couldn’t
do this work without them.
S. P. S. and M. H. M.
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Contents
Foreword ix
James Rhem
Editors’ Preface xiii
Scott P. Simkins and Mark H. Maier
PART ONE Getting Started With Just-in-Time Teaching 1
1 An Introduction to Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) 3
Gregor Novak and Evelyn Patterson
2 Using Just-in-Time Teaching to Motivate Student Learning 25
Mary Elizabeth Camp, Joan Middendorf, and
Carol Subiño Sullivan
3 Just-in-Time Teaching and Peer Instruction 39
Jessica Watkins and Eric Mazur
4 Just-in-Time Teaching in Combination With Other
Pedagogical Innovations 63
Mark H. Maier and Scott P. Simkins
PART TWO Implementing Just-in-Time Teaching 79
in the Disciplines
5 Using Just-in-Time Teaching in the Biological Sciences 81
Kathleen A. Marrs
6 Using Just-in-Time Teaching in the Geosciences 101
Laura A. Guertin
7 Using Just-in-Time Teaching in the Physical Sciences 117
Andrew D. Gavrin
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viii Contents
8 Using Just-in-Time Teaching in Economics 129
Mark H. Maier and Scott P. Simkins
9 Using Just-in-Time Teaching in History 153
David Pace and Joan Middendorf
10 Using Just-in-Time Teaching to Foster Critical Thinking
in a Humanities Course 163
Claude Cookman
Contributors 179
Index 181
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Foreword
James Rhem
Not that long ago, the word “pedagogy” didn’t occur very often in fac-
ulty conversations about teaching. Today, one hears it frequently.
Without putting too much weight on the prominence of a single word, sub-
tle shifts in discourse, in vocabulary, often do mark significant shifts in
thinking, and faculty thinking about teaching has changed over the last
several decades. Faculty have always wanted to teach well, wanted their stu-
dents to learn and succeed, but for a very long time faculty have taught as
they were taught; for the students who were like them in temperament and
intelligence, the approach worked well enough. When only a highly filtered
population of students sought higher education, the need to look beyond
those approaches to teaching lay dormant. When a much larger and more
diverse population began enrolling, the limits of traditional teaching
emerged more sharply.
At the same time, intelligence itself became a more deeply understood
phenomenon. Recognition of multiple kinds of intelligence—visual, audi-
tory, kinesthetic, etc.—found wide acceptance, as did different styles of learn-
ing even within those different kinds of intelligence (as measured, for
example, by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) developed by
Katharine Cooks Briggs and Isabel Myers Briggs). Efforts to build ever more
effective “thinking machines,” that is to say, computers, through artificial
intelligence sharpened understanding of how information needed to be
processed in order for it to be assembled and utilized effectively. The seminal
article, “Cognitive Apprenticeship: Teaching the Craft of Reading, Writing
and Mathematics” was one by-product of this research, and one instructive
aspect of this work lay in how it looked back to accumulated wisdom to lay
its foundations for moving forward. Public schools had long dealt with large,
diverse populations rather than highly filtered ones. Teachers there under-
stood “scaffolding,” “wait time,” and “chunking” in conscious ways that were
new to teachers at more advanced levels in education. Now, many of these
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