November 9, 2017

Faculty Matter #27: Helping students take the reins – Providing “feedforward”

In this Teaching Tip, I share a construct articulated by Dr. Manju Banerjee, an internationally-recognized expert in higher education teaching and learning: the notion of “feedforward.” Her point is fairly straightforward: In addition to providing feedback – about the strengths and problems with students’ work as we return it to them once we have graded it, we should also consider ways to help students figure out how to adjust their studying as they go forward with future assignments. What should they do, do more, do differently, or not do, as they manage their time, as they study, as they assess their level of mastery of course material, as they review for tests, as they write and so on?

You might apply this concept in the written comments you provide to students, or in conversation during office hours when students come in to check on their standing in your course.

As you plan how you might provide this guidance for your students, consider two suggestions:

Be concrete: If a student’s writing was unclear, for example, help them identify easy-to-implement strategies to check for clarity next time: “There were a lot of good ideas in your answer, but I also found I lost the thread a few times. Next time, you might want to try reading what you wrote out loud to yourself, and see if it sounds clear and complete to you. That should help you check to see if you are saying what you intended to say.” Simple, easy to do, no special materials or technology required.
Let them “own” the idea: Once you offer your advice, have them think about how they could do what you suggest. “Yeah – I could print my answer out and read it, and I could underline the places where I think it doesn’t make sense, or where I think I should add something or change the wording.”

At your leisure, we invite you to skim through previous Faculty Matter Teaching Tips. Please add your own strategies using the comment link on the Provost’s Academic Spotlight blog under the category “Faculty.

Download a PDF version of this tip: FMTT27

November 7, 2017

College of Business Student Wins Top Award in Competition

Tiana Khong, right, a 2017 business administration graduate, won a student paper competition in September. Photo courtesy of Stanley Olszewski, SOSKIphoto

Recent San Jose State University graduate Tiana Khong, ’17 Business Administration with a management concentration, won first place in the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) student paper competition in September.

For this year’s competition, students were charged with submitting papers that exemplify the theme “The World in 2050.” In her paper, Khong envisioned a future in which international governments and technology companies have created safety-by-design service standards. The ANSI summarizes the main preface of her paper: the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) will lead to innovative intelligence buildings, autonomous vehicles and smart roads – and these systems will increasingly rely on service safety standards to ensure optimal security for consumers and the public.

As a student, Khong worked with Lucas College and Graduate School of Business Associate Professor Nitin Aggarwal and former Associate Dean Stephen Kwan. She was recognized for her paper at an awards banquet Oct. 18 in Washington D.C. and received $2,000 prize from ANSI.

Read Khong’s paper online.

Since graduating in spring 2017, Khong has been working as a product support analyst for a start-up company called TeemWurk that offers software as a service-based solutions for human capital management with a special focus on employee benefits administration.

In her position, she has traveled overseas, including a month-long trip to India. She works with the implementation and support services team and acts as a point of contact between the client teams and the offshore IT team, among other duties.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit organization that is engaged in enhancing U.S. global competitiveness and the American quality of life by promoting, facilitating and safeguarding the integrity of the voluntary standardization and conformity assessment systems.

November 3, 2017

Faculty Matter Tip #26: Helping students to make – and act on – plans for next semester

Yes, the fall semester is still in full swing, but it is also “registration season” for Spring. Many students have a clear idea of the classes they need or want to take, but others could benefit from some guidance.

In some aspects, registering for classes for upcoming semesters is a fairly technical matter: Students need to know what they must take to continue making progress toward their degree, and they must follow the university’s registration processes. In other aspects, registering for classes presents a wonderful opportunity for students to reflect upon what they are learning and what they want to know more about as they prepare for life “after SJSU.”

The purpose of this Tip is to help you identify a few very easy and quick ways you might help in this process, as part of your regular classroom interactions with students.

Read Faculty Matter Tip #26.

October 30, 2017

Passion for Jazz Wins Chemistry Professor 2017 Bobby Jackson Award

By David Goll

Chemistry Professor Bradley Stone has been named the 2017 Bobby Jackson Award for Jazz Programmer of the Year by the weekly online industry publication, JazzWeek. (James Tensuan/San Jose State University)

Even as a toddler, Dr. Bradley Stone had an uncanny ability to choose music to entertain visitors to his parents’ Chicago home.

“When I was one and a half years old, my mother would ask friends and relatives to make a musical request,” Stone said. “They would look at her and say, ‘How can he do that when he’s so young?’ She would just laugh and say, ‘Go ahead. He can do it!'”

It was an early indication of what would become a lifelong passion and avocation. This past August, a very grown-up Stone observed the 32nd anniversary of his hire date at SJSU. But he is not a professor in the School of Music and Dance or even the Department of TV, Radio, Film and Theatre. He has been professor of Chemistry at SJSU since the 1985-86 academic year and served a stint as department’s chair between 2003 and 2012.

Along with all of his accomplishments in his chosen academic field, Stone takes great pride in winning the 2017 Bobby Jackson Award for Jazz Programmer of the Year by the weekly online industry publication, JazzWeek. It’s the third time the San Jose State professor has won the honor (tenth time overall as Jazz Programmer of the Year), this time for his weekly jazz music program titled “The Creative Source” available through the SoulandJazz.com website, based in the United Kingdom. Stone records the show, surrounded by his extensive collection including tens of thousands of CDs, in the radio studio he built in his Gilroy home. Nominations for the award come from jazz artists, record label executives, promoters, publicists and other programmers.

“It’s extremely gratifying to win this award,” said Stone, who received his award in the Internet and Non-Terrestrial category during an August ceremony at San Jose’s Hotel De Anza. “It’s wonderful to be recognized for your work by other members of the jazz music family. I like to think I’m recognized as a good programmer in the industry, and that others look to me for my playlists.”

Jackson, legendary Cleveland-based jazz programmer, became a good friend of Stone’s after the pair met years ago at industry gatherings. Jackson introduced Stone to Brian Hurst of SoulandJazz.com via a phone call just days before he died suddenly at age 57 in December 2013.

“I felt it was meant to be,” Stone said of the collaboration with Hurst at SoulandJazz.com.

Hurst, CEO of SoulandJazz.com, said Stone’s weekly selection of music — emphasizing jazz fusion and progressive jazz — is marked by his devotion to providing a platform for new artists, premiering music that would otherwise “fall between the cracks.”

“His accolades over the years suggest he’s a man to be both respected and trusted and in that word trust, you can begin to understand why people would consider his music selection to become the starting point to discover new artists, new styles, new sounds,” Hurst said.

It is motivated not only by Stone’s love of this American-born musical genre but of a variety of musical styles, including rock. He played in a rock band during his undergraduate college days at the University of Illinois, Chicago in the 1970s, then had his first disc jockeying job at campus radio station WQAX while pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical physics at Indiana University, Bloomington in the 1980s. He later became jazz music director at radio station KUCI while a postdoctoral research associate at the University of California, Irvine.

“I’ve been a music head my entire life,” Stone said.

He further honed his radio skills and expanded his knowledge of jazz and other musical styles just a week after arriving at San Jose State. That was when he launched a Saturday deejay gig at campus radio station KSJS that lasted from 1985 to 1997, then again from 2001 to 2012. He served as the station’s jazz music director for virtually that entire time, as well as a faculty adviser to students in the university’s Department of TV, Radio, Film and Theatre, before stepping down in early 2013.

“I have mentored literally thousands of students at KSJS,” Stone said of the job he did teaching on-air and behind-the-scenes skills, as well as radio station management.

William Reckmeyer, professor of Anthropology who retired earlier this year after 40 years at San Jose State, met Stone through yet another activity that has become a passion for the chemistry professor. Stone was named a Fellow in SJSU’s Salzburg Program, a global education program that sends several students and faculty members to study in Austria or Germany since 2005. Reckmeyer, instrumental in designing and implementing the European program, said he has become a big fan of Stone’s enthusiasm for the Salzburg program and his impressive record of accomplishments in academia and jazz music programming.

“He was instrumental in helping KSJS win national awards for being the best collegiate jazz station, besides all of the individual awards he won for programming,” Reckmeyer said. “I’m a rock ‘n roll guy, and I know a bit about jazz, but when you have a good friend, you take an interest in what they love. Brad is so knowledgeable and passionate about jazz.”

As Stone is, too, about chemistry. He developed an interest in the sciences at age 6, becoming fascinated by chemistry, physics, astronomy, entomology and geology as a youngster. Though focusing his academic career on the interdisciplinary field of chemical physics, Stone has also worked in molecular astrophysics, astrochemistry, biomedical engineering, computational fluid dynamics, forensic chemistry, non-linear optics and spectroscopy.

When asked if there is much connection between the world of hard scientific disciplines and the fluid, improvisational, creative nature of jazz, Stone draws strong parallels.

“I would say there is the mathematical connection,” he said. “Music theory definitely has a mathematical basis. The mathematical relationship between frequencies of notes is the basis for harmony. So, I don’t think it is particularly surprising that a large percentage of scientists are also musicians, at least on some level.”