This document summarizes a meeting about improving student learning experiences in college classrooms. It discusses how a passive classroom environment can occur when there is a lack of community between the professor and students. It also emphasizes recognizing the impact of student diversity on learning and designing courses to minimize negative responses to diversity. The document suggests that creating a more positive classroom culture through approaches like fostering more discussion and dissent could help propagate learning.

1. CIRTL – The College Classroom Meeting 7:
They’re not dumb, they’re different
March 10, 2016
Unless otherwise noted, content is licensed under
a Creative CommonsAttribution- 3.0 License.
Peter Newbury
Center for EngagedTeaching, UC San Diego
pnewbury@ucsd.edu
Tom Holme
Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University
taholme@iastate.edu
collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu

2. Eric:
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The lack of community, together with the lack of interchange
between the professor and the students combines to produce a
totally passive classroom experience. (p. 25)

3. Eric:
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To prevent this from happening,what would you consider first?
A) how people learn
B) learning outcomes
C) assessment
D) choice of instructional strategies
E) fixed/growth mindset
The lack of community, together with the lack of interchange
between the professor and the students combines to produce a
totally passive classroom experience. (p. 25)

4. collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu4
build on
students’ diversity
to enhance learning
do something
about negative impacts
when they occur
recognize the impact of
student diversity on students’
learning experiences and success
design and deliver
the course to minimize
negative impacts of diversity
Note: This is the slide I used in our
meeting. I am very grateful to
Derria B. who pointed out my
poor choice of the phrase
“negative impacts”. It’s not
diversity that’s negative –
it’s our responses to
diversity that can be
negative.With
Derria’s help, I
revised this
pyramid.

5. collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu5
recognize the impact of
student diversity on students’
learning experiences and success

6. collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu6
do something about
negative responses to diversity
when they occur
recognize the impact of
student diversity on students’
learning experiences and success

7. collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu7
do something about
negative responses to diversity
when they occur
recognize the impact of
student diversity on students’
learning experiences and success
design and deliver
the course to minimize
negative responses to diversity

8. collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu8
take
advantage of
students’ diversity
to enhance learning
do something about
negative responses to diversity
when they occur
recognize the impact of
student diversity on students’
learning experiences and success
design and deliver
the course to minimize
negative responses to diversity

9. collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu9
teaching assistant who, while
well-meaning, has problems
communicating in English, only
around certain days of the week
physics professor extremely muscular “frat boy
type” who always mutters the
right answer several seconds
before anyone else
Hispanic woman who needs to
get an “A” to receive an ROTC
scholarship for next year
student impatient with Eric’s
“why” questions
student who “sticks with it”
confused student sitting quietly
and not asking questions
student who dropped out or is
just not attending anymore
student happy to get a “B” or
“C,” and will very soon forget
anything pertaining to physics
student who spends six or seven
hours a day to do the work

10. Recognizing students’ diversity
collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu10
These cards represent 10 people in Eric’s physics class.
Sort the cards into groups according to the
attitudes, motivations, needs, etc.
these people bring to the class.
Use the tools to sort and label/annotate your groups.
Guidelines:
1) there must be more than one group of cards
2) there must be fewer than ten groups
Please remember your breakout room number – you’ll go back to that room again

11. Sort the cards into groups according to the attitudes, motivations, needs, etc.
these people bring to the class.

12. Eric:
12
[My classmates] will have had no training in working collectively.
In fact, their experience will have taught them to fear cooperation,
and that another person’s intellectual achievement will be
detrimental their own.
(p. 24)
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 How People Learn  Learning Outcomes Assessment
 instructional strategies  Fixed/Growth Mindset  Other

13. Building on students’ diversity
collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu13
Sort the cards into groups according to choices and
actions you will make to create a positive learning
experience for these people.
Use the tools to sort and label/annotate your groups
Guidelines:
1) there must be more than
one group of cards
2) there must be fewer than
ten groups
Or use aVenn diagram

14. Sort the cards into groups according to choices and actions you will make to
create a positive learning experience for these people.

15. Tobias’ conclusions:
collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu15
But as least as important as content…will be changes in
the “classroom culture”
 more attention to an intellectual overview
 more context (even history) in the presentation of
physical models
 less condescending pedagogy
 differently challenging examinations
 more discussion, more “dissent” (even if artificially
constructed)
 more community in the classroom
(p. 31)

16. Eric:
16
I still get the feeling that unlike a humanities course, here the
professor is the keeper of the information, the one who knows all
the answers.This does little to propagate discussion or dissent.
(p. 21)
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* *

17. References
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1. Tobias, S. (1990). They’re Not Dumb,They’re Different:Stalking the SecondTier.
Tuscon,AZ: Research Corporation.