Practicing and Researching Pedagogical Metacognition: Benefits for Graduate Instructors during the First Year of Instruction

While reading this chapter, graduate student instructors will be able to: Define, identify, and explain the benefits of pedagogical metacognition. Understand a graduate student instructor’s experience with pedagogical metacognition in a learning community and how it enhanced her reflective and reflexive practices. Learn strategies to implement pedagogical metacognition in instruction

Evaluating the Impact of a Certificate In College Teaching Program on Graduate Students’ Pedagogical Metacognition And Teaching Knowledge

Graduate student professional development initiatives aim to prepare future faculty for college-level teaching. One such program is the Certificate in College Teaching (CCT). CCT programs provide graduate students with foundational knowledge and authentic teaching experiences to prepare them to design and deliver instruction at the college level. Participants report positive perceptions of these programs during and after completion, but evidence of concrete program outcomes is limited. Two potential outcomes of graduate student professional development are the use of pedagogical metacognition (reflection on and action upon teaching) and knowledge of teaching and learning (identification of research-based teaching strategies and application to one’s teaching). As such, this dissertation explored the impact of an asynchronous CCT curriculum on participants’ pedagogical metacognition and knowledge of teaching and learning. Before the CCT began, 22 participants completed a written knowledge check in which they read three scenarios describing a hypothetical instructor’s pedagogy, identified apparent issues, and provided suggestions for improvement. Throughout the curriculum, participants engaged with each teaching scenario a second time after learning about specific research-based teaching strategies relevant in higher education (e.g., alternative assessments, Universal Design for Learning, backward design) through readings and video recordings. Several participants volunteered to expand on their experiences in virtual focus group discussions. Rigorous qualitative thematic analysis of all data sources together revealed that participants implemented pedagogical metacognition throughout the asynchronous curriculum, while deepening and increasing the specificity of their teaching knowledge. These findings suggest that the CCT program may provide graduate students with practice using pedagogical metacognition and deeper teaching knowledge. Both skills are essential to successful college-level teaching and resultant student learning. Educational developers, centers for teaching and learning, and graduate program coordinators may find these results particularly useful in planning or revising graduate student teaching development initiatives

How does motion impact visual attention and learning?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of motion on visual attention when engaged in an educational multimedia presentation. Participants will be presented with a sequence of images illustrating lightning formation. Some participants will be shown static images, while others will be given images that contain motion, such as arrows moving across the computer screen. In addition to motion, descriptions of lightning formation will be presented in text or auditory format. When auditory stimuli are implemented, they will mimic the text presented on the images. Following the presentation, participants will be assessed on their knowledge of lightning formation gained from the presentation, as well as their prior knowledge of meteorology. While participants view the presentation, we will track their eye movements and analyze characteristics of viewing behavior such as: fixation sequences, duration, and locations within and between regions of interest. Using the information we gain from this study, we are interested in exploring how information presented in educational multimedia presentations impacts learner’s viewing behaviors and subsequent knowledge. It is hypothesized that the addition of motion will be beneficial to learning when presented with auditory information, but will hinder learning when images include text. Eye movement data will demonstrate that participants trying to read text and follow motion cues will exhibit shorter fixation times and more transitions between regions of interest. Conclusions drawn from this study will aim to improve instructional methods for complex topics

Exploring How We Teach: Lived Experiences, Lessons, and Research about Graduate Instructors by Graduate Instructors

This book combines the knowledge of 30 graduate student instructors sharing about how they teach and how they’ve learned how to teach