Lucy Phillips

Section 1:

A. As I read these sections, I realized I had not considered what went into creating a class before. I loved the time line that Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) provided; this seems like it would be so useful in terms of designing a course well and intentionally, rather than putting a class together that would be less helpful to students because less thought had gone into its design. I also found Cox’s (2013) instructions in creating a syllabus informative, especially the following advice: explain to students the reason they are being given the assignments, tell students how the course is organized, explaining the professor’s expectations of students (and vice versa), try to anticipate students’ questions, and get feedback from colleagues on your syllabus.

B. The end of West’s ch 2 discussed students doing the learning versus professors filling students with information. This seems like a balance that will differ for each class. As a new professor, how would I know how to balance the students doing their own learning versus me giving them the information?

Cox, J. A. (2013). Creating a syllabus and course anticipation: Early engagement of students. In J. D. West, D. L. Bubenzer, J. A. Cox, & J. M. McGlothlin (Eds.) Teaching in counselor education: Engaging students in learning (pp. 13-24). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Svinicki, M. D., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Section 2:

A. For the chapters from West et al. (2013), a big part of this section seemed to be about the intentionality of what professors are doing through their teaching. I had not considered the importance of selecting the right type of class (e.g., lecture, seminar, experiential class) for the type of learning that is desired in the class. Also, the homework and in-class exercises need to be intentionally linked to the desired learning outcomes, and then this needs to be explained to the students. 

B. Are there any rules of thumb for when you would not want to use a certain class format? For example, it seemed like seminars would be most useful with students further along in a program, but would it be contraindicated to use a seminar with students early in their program?

Also, Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) briefly covered discussions in classes with a lot of students in chapter 5. What would a professor do differently when there are more students? How would the professor’s role change with a larger class size?

Another question I had was about the “learning communities” discussed (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014, p. 198). What would this look like?

Svinicki, M. D., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

West, J. D., Bubenzer, D. L., Cox, J. A., & McGlothlin, J. M. (2013). Teaching in counselor education: Engaging students in learning. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Section 3:

A. Day-Vines and Holcomb-McCoy (2013) discussed five types of counselors-in-training in terms of how they broach multicultural issues, followed by the specific aspects of multicultural issues and how to teach students multicultural broaching. I thought this was probably the biggest take-away message for me to learn how to teach this because I have never seen multicultural counseling broken down that way. I thought it was helpful to conceptualize students’ ability and comfort in broaching multicultural discussion as a spectrum or continuum.

B. Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) talked about how to handle when students are disrespectful or argumentative with the professor. The author did not talk about what to do when students are rude or argumentative with each other. I am wondering how to handle this? Would it differ based on the class size or the developmental level of the students?

Another question I had was about the Garzon & Hall (2012) article. What did they mean by the two continuums of the professor’s personality (p. 156)? This paragraph did not make sense to me.

Day-Vines, N. A., & Holcomb-McCoy, C. (2013). Broaching the subjects of race, ethnicity, and culture as a tool for addressing diversity in counselor education classes. In J. D. West, D. L. Bubenzer, J. A. Cox, & J. M. McGlothlin (Eds.) Teaching in counselor education: Engaging students in learning (pp. 151-165). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Garzon, F. & Hall, M. (2012). Teaching Christian integration in psychology and counseling: Current status and future directions. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 40 (2), 155-159.

Svinicki, M. D., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Section 4:

A. After taking the evidence-based treatments for adults class a few weeks ago, the work of Malott and colleagues (2014) really stood out to me, especially the part about what counseling professors can do to promote good learning experiences in their students. It makes sense that as a field that values clinical practices supported by research, that we would want to bring this into teaching as well. Assessing what students already know, then challenging them to question what they know while exploring new concepts seems useful. I also liked the emphasis on Bloom’s taxonomy and having teaching strategies match up with the higher levels of this taxonomy. Before this program, I had never heard of Bloom’s taxonomy; yet I am finding it fascinating to think about it in the context of the way students learn.

B. I liked how Lee, Na, and Pebdani (2013) emphasized the importance of getting counselors in training to become involved in ACA or other professional counseling activities during their graduate program. This really does seem like an important part of counselor identity to me. I was wondering if there is any research on or best practices to ensure that student stay involved after they graduate? In other words, how would professors impress on students the importance of continuing to engage in these activities after the students are fully licensed?

Lee, C. C., Na, G., & Pebdani, R. N. (2013). Teaching to encourage professional involvement. In J. D. West, D. L. Bubenzer, J. A. Cox, & J. M. McGlothlin (Eds.) Teaching in counselor education: Engaging students in learning (pp. 115-124). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Malott, K., Hall, K.H., Sheely-Moore, A., Krell, M., & Cardaciotto, L. (2014).  Evidence-

based teaching in higher education: Application to counselor education. 

Counselor Education and Supervision, 53, 294-305.

Section 5:

A. McGlothlin, Vanwinkle, & George (2013) discussed homework and other out of class exercises and emphasized the selection of meaningful homework assignments and assessing their effectiveness. I love how intentionality comes into play in creating homework assignments and ensuring that they are meaningful to students. I also liked how Bradley, Froeschle, Parr, & Hendricks (2013) explained using solution-focused counseling techniques in teaching. I had never considered how counseling techniques would be applied to teaching, so it was an eye-opener to learn how complements, exceptions, scaling (use of Likert-type scale to assess performance or progress), coping questions, and feedback (using the complement, bridge, task format) can all be incorporated into teaching. It is also refreshing to think about a strengths-based evaluation (Bradley et al., 2013, p. 142) rather than the conceptualization of professors needing to ensure that students are competent counselors or viewing supervisors as gatekeepers who would need to be focused on skills deficits to ensure clients’ welfare.

B. Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) mentioned how the frequency of testing varies according to student development and where they are in their program. These authors also seem to suggest that the type of assessment (e.g., multiple choice, essay) should be selected based on the goals and student development. I am wondering what this would look like in a master’s program for example. Would the first few classes have many tests or quizzes and then fewer as students advance through the program? I am also wondering how this would apply to teaching online classes, since maintaining the integrity of the test seems important (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014).

Bradley, L. J., Froeschle, J., Parr, G., & Hendricks, B. (2013). Using solution focused evaluation to engage students in the learning process. In J. D. West, D. L. Bubenzer, J. A. Cox, & J. M. McGlothlin (Eds.) Teaching in counselor education: Engaging students in learning (pp. 139-150). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

McGlothlin, J., Vanwinkle, D. L., & George, K. (2013). Using out-of-class learning activities. In J. D. West, D. L. Bubenzer, J. A. Cox, & J. M. McGlothlin (Eds.) Teaching in counselor education: Engaging students in learning (pp. 67-79). Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Svinicki, M. D., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.