IDEA Objective 7

IDEA Objective 7: Gaining a broader understanding and appreciation of intellectual/cultural activity

This objective aims at broadening student understanding and appreciation of the diverse disciplines through properly designed survey/ non-major/ general education classes. These classes must be designed and taught in a way that the students will appreciate new and unfamiliar ideas, and develop curiosity for further study.

Include cultivating student motivation as an intentional learning task.
Clearly communicate how learning in your course is relevant to learning other courses, their understanding of the world and potential careers.
Provide frequent feedback and opportunities for self-assessment. This would help the students build students’ confidence in their ability to learn in a new discipline.
Give them opportunities to learn deeply by manipulation, application and analyses of the course material, both in class and in assignments.

Classroom Assessment Techniques like “minute-paper” in which you ask the students to write in one minute the most important concept you learned in a class, would give you an idea of their understanding of the subject. Another relevant CAT can be, drawing of “concept maps”.
Hands-on experiments can also be used to assess their understanding of the concepts.

Praveena Kanchupati, PhD. Candidate & GTA Consultant
Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
Praveena.Kanchupati@sdstate.edu

Shelly Bayer, Ed.D., Assistant Director
Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
Shelly.Bayer@sdstate.edu

Kevin Sackreiter, Ed.D., Director
Center for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning
Kevin.Sackreiter@sdstate.edu