Hear from Social Work Prof. Cassandra Chaney

Transcript

I incorporate C-I teaching and learning into my courses, because I want students to engage with the higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy—in particular analyzing, evaluating and creating. Oftentimes students are asked to remember, understand, or apply, but those higher levels of thinking, in particular analyzing, evaluating, and creating help students to really think more critically about the materials that they are asked to read. It actually forces them to think outside of the box. Because I use a lot of group discussion it generates very, very interesting group discussion. It actually has made them more critical thinkers. They're more critical, not only in terms of their own writing, but even in terms of things that other people write or things that are said on the news. They are more likely to not take at face value, something that they've heard, they're more likely to research it for themselves; they're more likely to evaluate the validity of the statements.

The challenge was admittedly giving thought to how I would use the written and spoken modes to help students reach objectives. So related to that, it actually forced me to become laser focused in terms of what it is that I wanted students to know, by the end of the course. It was definitely, I think, a learning curve. But I can see the benefit of it and the students and it's also could see the benefit of it when they would receive feedback like on their papers. So they could see a clear improvement in their writing from the first paper until the last paper, so I think that actually crystallizes for students—the “so what am I going to get out of this.” They actually can see for themselves the ways in which they have improved.

It challenged me in a lot of ways to get out of my comfort zone so once you are once you are already familiar with creating a course you view it as “Oh, my goodness, I have to do additional work.” But I can honestly say that it was the best decision. I have been at LSU since 2006 and I think it was actually into my second year in 2008 that I actually began transitioning my courses to being C-I intensive, and after doing so and I saw the success of them. I actually begin to wonder, you know, why didn’t I do this when I actually first came to LSU. Once I became aware of it, I found it to be a really natural fit and I think really elevated my teaching in a way that I'm to this day, very, very thankful for.