Collaborating in context: Crafting signature assignments for teaching and learning

Collaborating in Context: Crafting Signature Assignments for Teaching and Learning

Gaelan Benway, Professor of Sociology, QCC, Matt Bejune, Information Literacy Librarian, and Charlotte Haller, Associate Professor of History, WSU

assignments

Signature Assignment?

signature common

sharedanchor

benchmarkkey

from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/signature?s=t

Google image search results with search word “signature.”

Context 1: The Professions

Shulman, Lee S. "Signature Pedagogies in the Professions." Daedalus 134.3 (2005): 52-59.

Signature Pedagogies

“are types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions. In these signature pedagogies, the novices are instructed in critical aspects of the three fundamental dimensions of professional work -- to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (52).

Signature Pedagogy Dimensions

1. surface structure - concrete, operational actions of

teaching and learning, of showing and demonstrating, of

questioning and answering, of interacting and

withholding, of approaching and withdrawing

2. deep structure - a set of assumptions about how best

to impart a certain body of knowledge and know-how

3. implicit structure - a moral dimension that comprises a

set of beliefs about professional attitudes, values, and

dispositions (Shulman 54-55)

Context 2: The Disciplines

Gurung, Regan A. R., Nancy L. Chick, and Aeron Haynie. Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub., 2009. Print.

Chick, Nancy L., Aeron Haynie, and Regan A. R. Gurung. Exploring More Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub., 2012. Print.

Gurung, Chick, and Haynie (2009) recognized that academic

disciplines also have distinctive habits of mind that characterize

disciplinary pedagogies (i.e., signature pedagogies are not unique to

certain professions). These “signature pedagogies” reflect the deep

structures of the discipline or profession and attempt to answer

questions such as: “What does our pedagogy reveal, intentionally or

otherwise, about the habits of head, hand, and heart as we purport

to foster through our disciplines?” “Is there, or should there be, a

consistent connection between a way a discipline creates or

discovers new knowledge and the way it apprentices new learners?

(Ciccone, 2009, p. xii). Building upon the Scholarship of Teaching

and Learning (SoTL), Gurung, Chick, and Haynie (2009) and Chick,

Haynie, and Gurung (2012) explore how 29 distinct and

interdisciplinary fields foster deep learning and help students think

like disciplinary experts.

Mary Ann Danielson, Associate Vice President for Academic Excellence and Assessment, Creighton University http://www.creighton.edu/sites/www.creighton.edu/files/TL-Signature%20Pedagogies.pdf

Context 3: Assessment

from http://www.callutheran.edu/assessment/student_learning_outcomes/SignatureAssignments.php

Information Literacy Assessment

“New technologies of teaching via the Internet; Web-based information seeking; computer- mediated dialogues; collaborations and critiques in the design studio; powerful representations of complex and often unavailable examples of professional reasoning, judgement, and action -- all create an opportunity for reexamining the fundamental signatures we have so long taken for granted” (Shulman 59).

Information Literacy is:

a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."

American Library Association. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. Final Report.(Chicago: American Library Association, 1989.)

WSU and QCC Learning Outcomes

Breakout Questions

1. Do you have experience with SA?2. How might you use a SA?3. Are there problems (course, department,

discipline, college, profession, etc.) that might be addressed with SA?

4. Are there any other contexts for SA?

Assignment Workshop