Using Class Discussion to Meet Your Teaching Goals (Part 2)

Using Class Discussion to Meet Your Teaching Goals (Part 2)

Trouble-Shooting

When students are not already heavily invested in a field, even important exercises can lack intrinsic interest. If students' participation is lackluster, it can help to have a basic discussion about what makes your field and its approaches unique. An instructor's enthusiasm for his or her field is probably the single biggest influence on whether students find it equally compelling. By focusing on the big picture, you may be able to interest students in the smaller details. You can also connect what students are doing to the activities of scholars or professionals or those in your field. Students often don't understand how skills learned in introductory, or even advanced, classes relate to the kinds of original scholarship or careers that they are interested in.

Develop Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is an important goal in most fields, whether it is used to analyze the logic of a philosopher or to find the potential problems with a proposed healthcare initiative. Discussion is an excellent tool for developing students' reasoning skills because it gives you access to their thought processes and an opportunity to guide students to a higher level of thinking.

Prompts and Exercises

Critical thinking can be applied to any text, claim, or open-ended question. Choose topics that are likely to provoke student interest but not necessarily topics that students already have strong and passionate opinions about. To teach critical thinking, you need a window of open-mindedness and curiosity.

Stir up controversy.

Provide students with a provocative or controversial quote from some expert in your field (possibly a guest lecturer or the author of a class text). Use the expert's claim as a challenge to students: Is this expert right? How would you decide? What information do you need? What information do you have? Payne and Gainey (2003) have developed a list of controversial claims in many fields, from marketing to medicine, that may be useful for your course.

Provide alternatives.

Give your students two competing claims, conflicting theories, or any set of alternative options. Instead of taking a vote, or asking students to immediately choose a side, start with a question that encourages open thinking. What is the issue here? or What is this really a choice between? can launch a deeper conversation than Which do you agree with? Ask students to describe the perspectives that inform each alternative and critically discuss those perspectives as much as the actual claims.

Guiding Discussion

Make sure students understand that discussion is not simply an invitation to restate their opinions. Remind them: The goal of critical thinking is to examine your own assumptions and evidence, not just to criticize the thinking of others who disagree with you!

Focus your attention on the quality of students' reasoning, not just the content of their reasoning. Instructors need to be able to recognize both common errors in reasoning (such as making unsupported assertions and using anecdotal evidence) and the signs of high-level reasoning (such as focusing on empirical evidence for a theory and the ability to integrate personal values with evidence). Greenlaw and DeLoach (2003) suggest that instructors spend time reflecting on what different levels of reasoning look like in their respective fields. What are the most common forms of uncritical thinking in your field? What is the gold standard for critical thinking applied to your field?

A discussion leader can then focus on guiding students from common reasoning errors or simplistic reasoning to more complex or high-level reasoning. When students make a claim, ask them for their evidence or logic. Then ask the class to evaluate the evidence or logic. Encourage students who disagree on a point to identify the source of the disagreement (i.e., trusting different kinds of evidence or weighing certain values more strongly) rather than simply the point of disagreement.

Encourage students to talk to each other, not just to you. Keep your own contributions content-neutral. Don't take a stance; simply probe students' thinking. If necessary, ask a student to play the devil's advocate role, rather than playing it yourself.

Encouraging Participation

Encourage listening as much as talking. Students often concentrate so hard on what they are going to say, and how to score points, that they fail to really listen to others (Hollander, 2002). To help students develop their listening skills, encourage them to repeat the last important point and then respond directly to it (rather than stating a new opinion). Encourage students to keep building on a particular argument or interpretation. Make sure that you reinforce all forms of helpful contributions such as asking good questions or connecting points that other students have made.

Students rise to the occasion when their peers demonstrate a high level of reasoning (DeLoach and Greenlaw, 2005). When critical thinking is the goal of discussion, it can be helpful to focus first on the "high contributors" in the class, rather than trying to equalize participation among all students. Encourage students who make high-quality contributions and acknowledge what made the contribution useful. Once a norm is established, other students will be more likely to maintain the high standard of discussion. If a few students monopolize the discussion, you can invite others to comment or break the class into smaller discussion groups.

If you have a hard time starting discussions with your class, ask students to rate their agreement with a claim on a scale of 1-5. Then ask them to write down five reasons that they agree or disagree with the claim. A student with a 2 rating writes two reasons that the claim is compelling and three reasons that the claim is not compelling; a student with a 5 rating needs to come up with five reasons that support the claim. This guarantees that students will have something to say and acknowledges thoughtful ambivalence as an appropriate position.

- UO Teaching Effectiveness Program

Civility in the Classroom Part II

Civility (Part II)

Respect Students as Adults

Sometimes teachers unwittingly put down their students by treating them as children, by overlooking them, or by exhibiting impersonal kinds of behavior. We often hear instructors refer to their students as “my kids.” This is especially upsetting to younger students who are just establishing themselves as adults. Another way of showing your students that you think they are important is spending time with them informally. This could be in the cafeteria or in your office. Before and after class you can chat informally with groups. When you meet a student in the hall or on the campus, smiling and giving a personal greeting is very effective. Call the student by name; it makes a great deal of difference. This again shows students that you care.

Provide Specific Positive Reinforcement

Taking the time to compliment a student on something specific that he or she has done well can have tremendous payoffs for a teacher. The key here is specificity. Students will sense a lack of genuineness if you compliment profusely and generally, but if you can pick out one particular element of their work or one particular aspect of their attitude that you like, your comment will have much more meaning. A student who has written a paper that is not particularly effective but who has used a striking metaphor, for example, can be complimented on that use.

Make Yourself Available

Being available as often as students may need you can be difficult. However, it is important, particularly with students who may be struggling in the course.

You are serving as a role model to these students, and keeping reliable office hours gives them a sense of your commitment. Be on time. Spend as much time in the office as you have promised; if for any reason you won’t be able to be in your office on a given day, give your students advance notice. You have, in essence, made a contract with them and you should keep it.

The easiest way to be available to your students is to get to class early and stay after as possible (move out of the classroom, however, to allow the next teacher time to prepare for class). Email is also a way to increase your contact with students without investing huge amounts of your time. Set up clear guidelines about when you will be able to respond to student emails.

Make Your Class Safe for Your Students

Although you do not intend to humiliate students, you may inadvertently interact with them in ways that are embarrassing or that make them uncomfortable. Even if such embarrassment is subtle, it can discourage a student and make it difficult for him or her to come back to your class. Avoid sarcasm with students, as well as teasing could be interpreted as hurtful. Apologize immediately if you can see that your comment has been taken in a way you did not intend.

Be as Positive as Possible

Being positive is not easy when you are having a hard day, but some techniques can make you and your students feel positive. Voice quality, for instance, is extremely important. Be energetic and bright in your inflection. A monotone or a deep, tired voice will give away your lack of interest. Be willing to laugh in class, and use humor in your teaching if that comes naturally to you. Chatting with students will sometimes be therapeutic for you; if your energy level is running low, a few exchanges with students can energize you.

Read Inattentive Behaviors

We all have observed inattentive behavior in teaching situations. Some behaviors to look for are shuffling or shifting in chairs, persistent coughing by one or more students, glances at other students or watches, and stacking books when there are five minutes left in the class period. These behaviors indicate that you have lost student attention. Also notice posture, attitude, and lack of eye contact. The research on adult attention span tells us that attending to a single type of activity for more than 15-20 minutes can be difficult for many students.

When you notice that some students are drifting away, your response should be immediate and decisive. Changing the pace of the class can be most effective. We call this the “change-up.” For example, switching from lecture to small-group activity can wake up the class. Breaking the rhythm of your usual behavior can break the monotony. Using visuals or asking students to spend a few minutes writing their thoughts down to a provocative question can re-energize your group.

Plan your classes in 15- to 20-minute sections with a change of mode between each section. This will allow you to have the students’ fresh attention several times in each class, rather than just at the beginning. Changing activities can make a big difference in your students’ success.

Individual Conferences with Students

This may or may not be possible or practicial depending on the enrollment in your class. These conferences need not be long when the students do not have significant problems. They may simply be an opportunity to check in with how your students are doing in the course. This kind of conference, again, shows the student that you care. For students with significant problems, however, the conference is crucial. Sometimes you yourself can solve some of the student’s problems, or you can guide the student to someone who can help him or her. Surprisingly, many students are not familiar with the counseling services available at the university.

Telephone Students When High-Risk Patterns Develop

Examples of high-risk patterns are several missed assignments, chronic absences, and perpetual tardiness. Telephoning students can be an effective way of reaching them; students are often impressed that an instructor would take the time to call them.

How can I get Students to Come to Office Hours?

How can I get Students to Come to Office Hours?

Call Them Something Else. By calling it “study table” instead of “office hours,” and holding them in the dorm cafeteria. Identify a problem area where you know many students are struggling and announce that - “Today from 2-3pm we’ll be going over additional examples of….”

Go Someplace Else. Students who may be reluctant to come to an office will come to the student union, dorm lounge or a coffee shop.

Make Them Come. Some instructors only return tests, papers, or drafts of papers during office hours. This gives you the chance to explain their strengths and weaknesses and help them to improve. Or you might just strongly encourage them to come; pass around a sign-up sheet in class, asking students to commit to coming at a specific time. This works especially well just before an exam day or when a paper is due.

See Them in Groups. Either study tables or sign-up sheets will let you see small groups of students at the same time. This is especially important if you teach very large classes.

Tell Them How to use Office Hours. Give them a handout on how to get the most from a visit; write down specific questions in advance, bring the readings with them with passages to discuss marked, etc.

Use Email.

This can be the most convenient way to communicate with your students. If possible, announce that you will be online in the evening once in awhile. This is when students are usually doing their homework and need help. Archive responses to student questions and use this material to develop an FAQ on your website.

- Teaching Effectiveness Program

University of Oregon

Civility in the Classroom

Civility (Part I)

Affective Concerns of Teaching

Students who feel comfortable in a classroom and who have some positive rapport with the teacher are likely to speed up learning processes as the term goes on. In one Indiana University study, students reported that one important condition of their achievement in class is that they feel their instructor “cares about them.” In the long run, you will accomplish more learning by spending some time, especially in the first few classes, on creating a supportive environment.

Learn Student Names

This may seem like a simple suggestion, but it has profound results. All of us respond to being approached individually and personally, and the logical way to begin that process is calling us by our names. The immediate problem is how to learn the names of 100 or more students each term.

You can gather biographical information on students by asking them to fill out index cards or to complete a short survey at the beginning of the semester. This information can be valuable in helping you to assess “where your students are” in terms of their academic backgrounds, and may also alert you to opportunities where course material can be made more meaningful by integrating it into students’ personal experiences. The more you know about your students, the easier it is to remember their names.

Provide Nonverbal Encouragement

Provide a secure, reassuring, positive atmosphere. Several ways of encouraging such an environment do not involve the spoken word. Maintain eye contact with students. Move around the room. Be animated and expressive in your presentation. Try to identify and control nervous mannerisms (getting videotaped is an excellent way to become aware of this). Students may interpret fiddling with a tie or with a lock of hair to mean that you are not self-confident. Students react most positively to teachers who appear comfortable and confident about their role in the classroom

Avoid Judging Students

Without realizing it, teachers can exhibit judgmental behaviors that discourage students by making them feel even more inadequate than they already may feel. Do not judge students on the basis of appearance or dress. Do not allow yourself to be turned off by a student who is unkempt or who is wearing nontraditional clothing. You should also avoid gender stereotyping. Ask yourself if you unconsciously assume that females have a certain set of interests and males have another. Age stereotyping is another judgment trap. Do you unknowingly expect certain behaviors from people in certain age groups? For example, do you assume that older students are automatically more self-assured or serious about their work than are 18-year-olds?

Even though you may believe you are not prejudiced, racial or ethnic considerations can cause you to react subconsciously in ways that students find disturbing. Do you expect different attendance patterns from certain groups of students? Do you find yourself avoiding certain subjects in the classroom because you fear offending somebody? Do you tend to target your examples towards certain groups in your class? Do you assume that students have certain expertise based on racial or ethnic characteristics? Becoming aware of this type of judgmental behavior can help you avoid it.

Personalize Relationships

For some students, this is unnecessary, but other students find an “unapproachable” instructor difficult to learn from and intimidating. This strategy requires some effort and energy on the part of the teacher. Learning how many children a student has, what his or her personal interests and hobbies are, or what kinds of books he or she likes to read can help you establish fairly quickly a warm relationship with that student. Whatever your discipline, you should try to find ways to bring out students’ personal interests.

If you expect students to share with you, it is important for you to be willing to share parts of yourself and of your personal life with your students. You can accomplish this in easy ways. In classroom presentation, you can speak occasionally from personal experience. This will encourage students to respond to you not only as an authority figure, but as a person. However, make good choices about what personal information is appropriate to share with students.

- Teaching Effectiveness Program
University of Oregon

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative Learning

No one strategy so profoundly changes the dynamic in the classroom as much as cooperative work does. When students work in groups, their learning is active and personalized. Collaborative work reflects the workplace, and it is refreshing for both students and teacher.

Collaborative learning gives students an chance to develop many skills:

• negotiation and debate
• responsibility and time management
• teamwork and leadership
• creative and critical thinking

Although not specifically linked to course content, these skills support lifelong learning in both personal and career situations. That's especially important in technical fields, such as computer science and nanotechnology, in which information quickly becomes obsolete.

When considering group work, you might feel more comfortable starting small. Start by asking students to chat with a neighbor after a short lecture to come up with what they consider to be the most important points covered in the lecture, or to formulate questions they still have.

From there, try using established cooperative learning strategies such as:

Think-Pair-Share

Students first think about or write answers to a question separately, then pair with a partner to discuss their answers, and share answers when called upon.

Jigsaw

This is a learning process that can replace lecture. Working in groups of four or more, assign two or more articles, but have each person on a team responsible for only one article. Each article should have a different content focus. The students then teach the content to their team members and try to analyze a case or solve a problem using the shared information.

Create Academic Controversies

Assign a topic with powerful pro or con positions, giving opposite positions to pairs of team members. After research and planning, students must convince their opposites of their positions. Then the pairs take the opposite position and argue that.

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Starting the Term the Right Way

STARTED IN THE RIGHT WAY

Adapted from the Center for Teaching and Learning, Indiana State University
Good teachers use the normal patterns of social interactions to draw students into academic work. Classroom anthropologists have identified patterns in social interaction that create expectations about how to work in the classroom. The tips for this week offer ideas that use these patterns to draw students into effective working relations.

Entering the Lesson Social encounters usually begin with some action that acknowledges everyone and establishes a welcoming tone. Learning interactions are no exception. Teachers can use the moments when students are entering the classroom to build a commitment to the class. Greet your students and set the tone for what will be happening in class today.

Start the Learning The transition from everyday social life to learning encounters requires a shift. Students may not be ready to start work when the teacher is. Use the following tips to shift their attention to the common work of learning your lessons.

Content Ice Breakers. Short activities can be used to introduce course content. For example, list several terms from an essay and have students get a signature next to each term that a classmate knows. Or, handout a set of index cards, each containing instructions for one step in a process– such as solving a math problem. Have students form a team with those whose cards contain the other steps. Give teams a problem to solve with each student responsible for the steps listed on his or her card. Debrief results.

Critical Reading Guide. Bob Votaw, a geologist from IU-NW, gives students a page for writing answers to key questions about the required reading. These are due as students enter the next class. By quickly reviewing a sample, he identifies common understandings and frequent mistakes. He adjusts his lecture to their responses.

Quick Quizzes. Give students a short quiz. The material will be fresh in their minds as you start your lesson. It is not necessary to collect and grade the quiz, but explain how their responses relate to success in learning the material.

Pre-Test. You can use a formal pre-test over the material to be covered. Informal methods are less intimidating but equally effective in connecting student to material. Have students write their own definitions of a term, ask them to write down their idea of a process or historical sequence, or make some guesses about statistical facts or likely outcomes.

Attention Grabber. Use a problem or a demonstration to capture students’ imaginations about what is to come. Often, an intriguing example will provide a guiding context for the material that follows.

Final Comments
Student participation is not simply a question of motivation but one of social relations too. People work better when they are noticed and guided into the working part of the lesson smoothly. Abrupt switches will inevitably leave some students behind. Build a welcome phase and a settling down phase into the first few minutes of your lessons and you will find more students are ready to engage in the learning activities you have planned.

Get To Know Your Students

Getting to Know Your Students

Adapted from UC Berkeley (August, 2006)

One of the most important things you can do early in the term is to get a sense of who these people are who are sitting in front of you. What experience do they have in your field, what interest? Are you teaching a required course? An elective? Are there students from other majors in the course? A variety of levels? Information like this helps you to figure out not only how to present your material, but often what material to present.

Many faculty hand out a questionnaire or a quiz on the first day or second day of class. These can be used in various ways, the primary one being to find out students' background in or knowledge of the material. These surveys range from the very simple to the complex, from finding out what students know about the topic of the class to what outside interests they have.

Some faculty bring a digital camera to class and take pictures of all of their students or ask their GTFs to do this in section. One faculty member then puts the name on the back, and keeps a stack of them on the podium. He uses that stack to randomly call on students by name

In her large introduction to the English major class, Professor Kevis Goodman asks every student to come to her office and recite the first eighteen lines of the Canterbury Tales. Goodman says, "I know that it will make their own silent reading of Chaucer's fourteenth-century English less alienating in the coming weeks, but if that fails (it usually doesn't), then at least I know that by the next class I may seem less alien."

In addition to your getting to know your students, you should find ways to encourage them to get to know each other (Professor Marian Diamond asks them to introduce themselves and to chat for a few minutes with those sitting around them), to form study groups and, in general, to have someone to talk to about the ideas in your course.

You may also wish to find out what learning styles are preferred by your students.

Catherine Jester of Diablo Valley College developed a learning style survey for use with college students:

http://www.metamath.com/multiple/multiple_choice_questions.html

She also developed learning strategies for the four types of learning styles identified by her survey:

http://www.metamath.com/lsweb/fourls.htm

Improving Class Interaction

Any Questions?
(Richard Felder, Chemical Engineering Education, 1994)

If I ask the whole class a question and wait for someone to volunteer an answer, the students remain silent and nervously avoid eye contact with me until one of them (usually the same one) pipes up with an answer. On the other hand, if I call on individual students with questions, I am likely to provoke more fear than thought.

No matter how kindly my manner and how many eloquent speeches I make about the value of wrong answers, most students consider being questioned in class as a setup for them to look ignorant in public—and if the questions require real thought, their fear may be justified.

I find that a better way to get the students thinking actively in class is to ask a question, have the students work in groups of two to four people to generate answers, and then call on several of the groups to share their results. I vary the procedure occasionally by having the students formulate answers individually, then work in pairs to reach consensus. For more complex problems, I might then have pairs get together to synthesize team-of-four solutions.

Following are some different things we can ask our students to do that can get them thinking in ways that "Given this fact, calculate that" never can.

Define a concept in your own words

Using terms a bright high school senior or your grandmother could understand, briefly explain the concept of vapor pressure (viscosity, heat transfer coefficient, ideal solution, etc.).

Explain familiar phenomena in terms of course concepts

Why do I feel comfortable in 65-degree still air, cool when a 65-degree wind is blowing, freezing in 65-degree water, and even colder when I step out of the water unless the relative humidity is close to 100%?

Predict system behavior before calculating it

Without using your calculator, estimate the time it will take for half of the methanol in the vessel to drain out (for all the water in the kettle to boil off, for half of the reactant to be converted).

Think about what you've calculated

Find two different ways to verify that the results you have calculated are accurate or that the formula you have chosen to solve the problem is the correct one. The computer output says that we need a tank volume of 3,657,924 cubic meters. Any problems with this solution?

Brainstorm

What are possible safety (environmental, quality control) problems we might encounter with the process unit we just designed? Once a list of problems has been generated, you might follow up by asking the students to prioritize the problems in terms of their potential impact and to suggest ways to minimize or eliminate them.

Formulate questions

Write on an index card two questions you could ask a classmate to verify that he or she read and understood the assigned material for today's class.

Envisioning Course Outcomes

One of the biggest changes to occur in contemporary teaching is a shift in planning. Previously, teachers planned their activities, and then thought about what the goals of the course would be. We now know that effective planning starts with the course outcome. That is what the students should be able to do outside the classroom with the information that they have learned. Once the outcome has been determined, the teacher then selects appropriate activities.

When thinking about planning for outcomes, you need to consider:

• The current demands of industry and any certification standards
• How you can link your course goals with the larger program goals
• How you can plan your course based on the intended outcomes
• How you can create lessons that will lead the students toward the desired outcome

If learning means engaging in a task that builds personal capacity for the rest of life, then curriculum design doesn't begin in the classroom at all. Curriculum design begins outside the classroom with one important question: "What do my students need to be able to DO 'out there' (in the rest of life) that we are responsible for in this classroom?" It's a simple question; seeing the answer is more difficult.

If I am creating a course in information technology, I begin by envisioning what my students will DO differently in the community, the workplace, or the family as a result of this course. It is only after I am able to articulate this in a few clear and agreed-upon outcome statements that I can decide what content is necessary and how competence will be assessed. (Stiehl and Lewchuk. "Envisioning Outcomes Intended and Unintended." The OUTCOMES Primer)

Effective learning outcomes can take many forms, but each must:

• Describe what the student will DO differently as a result of your course
• Describe meaningful learning
• Be measured/verified; i.e., you can measure students' ability to achieve them
• Represent high levels of thinking, rather than trivial tasks
• Be written in plain language students can understand

Here are two samples:

• Demonstrate the addition of sine waves using physical devices, instrumentation, and graphs.
• Use physical and chemical properties to determine the quality of paper samples and make recommendations based on specific requirements.

Types of Questions Which Keep a Discussion Lively (Part 1)

From Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms, by Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill

Questions That Ask for More Evidence

These questions are asked when participants state an opinion that seems unconnected to what's already been said or that someone else in the group thinks is erroneous, unsupported, or unjustified. The question should be asked as a simple request for more information, not as a challenge to the speaker's intelligence.

How do you know that?

What data is that claim based on?

What does the author say that supports your argument?

Where did you find that view expressed in text?

What evidence would you give to someone who doubted your interpretation?

Questions That Ask for Clarification

Clarifying questions give speakers the chance to expand on their ideas so that they are understood by others in the group. They should be an invitation to convey one's meaning in the most complete sense possible.

Can you put that another way?

What's a good example of what you are talking about?

What do you mean by that?

Can you explain the term you just used?

Could you give a different illustration of your point?

Open Questions

Questions that are open-ended

Questions that are open-ended, particularly those beginning with how and why, are more likely to provoke the students; thinking and problem-solving abilities and make the fullest use of discussion's potential for expanding intellectual and emotional horizons. Of course, using open questions obliges the teacher to take such responses seriously and to keep the discussion genuinely unrestricted. It is neither fair nor appropriate to ask an open-ended question and then to hold students accountable for failing to furnish one's preferred response. As Van Ments (1990) says, "The experienced teacher will accept the answer given to an open questions and build on it" (p.78). That is, as we all know, easier said than done.

Sauvage says that when facing moral crises, people who agonize don't act, and people who act don't agonize. What does he mean by this? (Follow-up question: Can you think of an example that is consistent with Sauvage's maxim and another that conflicts with it?)

Racism pervaded American society throughout the twentieth century. What are some signs that things are as bad as ever? What are other signs that racism has abated significantly?

Why do you think many people devoted their lives to education despite the often low pay and poor working conditions?

Ending Courses With A Bang!

Better Endings:
What to Do in the Last Day of Class

Most Courses end for students with the final exam. (We leave it to you to determine if that is, for your students, a high note or a low one). However, an ending is not the same as closure, and teachers and students often leave courses with unanswered questions and unchecked emotions. Most of us have seen a number of tips on what to do on the first day of class, but we don't think about the importance of the last day as an opportunity for students to reflect on and fully synthesize their learning.

Here are some suggestions that might make the closing of your course as memorable as the opening:

* Use the syllabus as a tool for course review.

* Ask students to create a flow chart to graph relationships between/among concepts learned.

* Ask students to revisit the goals they set for themselves at he start of the course. This works best if, at the beginning of the semester, you have students write goals on a note card or send you a memo describing their goals.. Return the card/memo on t he last day and ask students to assess how ell they accomplished their goals, what means they used to do so, and the apparent outcome. They can discuss their accomplishments in small groups or an write their observations in a memo to you. Reflect aloud on what students may not have fully understood-explain the benefits and costs of NOT understanding something.

* Describe what YOU learned about teaching and about the subject of the course.

* Ask students to write you a letter three months hence, telling you one thing they learned that they have actually used.

* Ask students to write a letter to someone who will take the course next semester, providing a general introduction to the course, describing strategies that were worthwhile and those that caused problems, and offering advice for succeeding in the course. Seal the letters and deliver them randomly to students at the start of the next semester.

* Use a team game format (Family Feud, College Bowl, Jeopardy) as an exam review tool. Give prizes (like candy).

* Ask students to work in groups to construct a crossword puzzle using key concepts from the course. Exchange puzzles among groups for solving.

* Ask students to bring on the last day of class several magazines (that they are willing to cut up), scissors and glue. Instruct them to work in groups to create collages of pictures that summarize the ideas presented during the preceding weeks of the cou rse. Display the collages and ask each group of students to explain the one they created.

* Require the students to come to the last class prepared to present (either graphically or verbally) a metaphor for the subject of the course.

* Ask students to work in pairs or trios to write a concise and complete response to the question: What is (the name of your discipline)?

Compiled from suggestions found in:

Maier, Mark H., and Ted Panitz. 1996. "End on a High Note: Better Endings for Classes and Courses." College Teaching, Vol. 44, No. 4.

"How to End Courses With a Bang." 1995. The Teaching Professor, Vol. 9, No. 5. Source: Teaching at UNL, Vol. 19, No. 3, November 1997.

Instructional Style

Your instructional style

It is important to remember that everyone tends to teach in the style in which they learn best. An instructor who has studied with a great lecturer may feel lecturing is the only way to teach. However, this might not be the best instructional style for all of your students. Be aware that individuals vary greatly in their learning styles, and your goal is to take them from wherever they are to the next level of development. Learn to teach the students you have rather than the students you want to have. All students can succeed when their learning needs are addressed. The following differences represent a continua along which different people have learning preferences. Some people:

*think symbolically, in words and numbers, while others are spatial, thinking in pictures and images

*are analytic, preferring to focus on details, while others are synthetic, preferring the “big picture”

*are intra-personal, preferring to work alone while others are interpersonal, preferring to collaborate

*are reflective, preferring to think about new information, while others are active, preferring to do something

There is no one “best way” to learn, no one right or wrong preference on the continua. Try to include activities that allow students to learn in a variety of modes. The more active involvement students have in the learning process (through discussions, question and answer sessions, group projects, problem sets, presentations, etc.), the more information they will retain and the more enjoyable they will find their learning experience in your course. Using an interactive teaching style may result in the following benefits for students:

-students become active rather than passive participants in the learning process

-students retain information longer

-interactive techniques are democratic processes and thereby give students experience in collaborating and cooperating with others

-problem-solving and critical-thinking skills are enhanced in discussion settings

-some students may learn better in a group situation

-self-esteem is enhanced by class participation

-students are given the opportunity to clarify their beliefs and values

-student motivation for future learning is increased

In general, considerable evidence indicates that teaching techniques that maximize interaction between students and teachers (and among students themselves) tend to emphasize cognitive tasks at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objectives. In selecting an instructional style for your lecture, discussion, lab, or course, keep in mind what it is you think is most important for your students to learn. The ways in which your objectives are carried out will either facilitate or hinder what you are trying to accomplish with students. This is why it is important to “fit” your teaching style to both your course objectives and to your students’ varied learning styles.

The following are some interactive teaching techniques to help do this:

-have students write a question on a 3 X 5 card (or send an email) and turn it in for you to answer in a “press conference” format

-put students into pairs to quiz each other about the subject matter

-have students apply subject matter by solving real problems together in class as well as doing homework

-give students red, yellow, and green cards (made of poster board) and periodically call for a vote on an issue by asking for a simultaneous showing of cards. With larger classes consider using a personal response system (Contact Media Services for more info on this (6-3091)

-roam the aisles of large classrooms and carry on running conversations with students as they work on problems (a portable microphone helps in a large hall)

-ask a question directed to one student and wait for an answer (at least 7 seconds or more)

-do oral, show-of-hands, multiple-choice tests for summary, review, and instant feedback

-grade quizzes and exercises in class as a learning tool

-give students plenty of opportunity for practice before a major test

-give a quiz or test early in the semester, grade it, and return it at the next class meeting. Students need to clearly understand your assessment format and the level of knowledge you expect in their responses.

-have students write questions, collect them, and answer them at the beginning of the next class period or via e-mail

-allow students to work collaborative to understand new material

-assign written paraphrases and summaries of difficult reading

-have students write something

-have students keep three-week, three-times-a-week journals in which they comment, ask questions about or respond to course topics

-invite students to critique each other’s essays or short answers on tests for readability and content

-give students a take-home problem relating to the day’s lecture

- From the University of Oregon’s Teaching Effectiveness Program

The art of creating auditory content

As podcasting becomes a more wide-spread distribution method for e-learning content, attention to the quality of auditory delivery becomes more important. I found this article offers tips that are helpful to instructors delivering live lectures as well as those who are considering the production of online multimedia presentations:

Excerpted from "Scripting for E-Learning"
by Laura Steinhart

Most e-learning content-- from simple PowerPoint slide shows to customized screens with text and images--is designed for reading. Some content also includes voice-overs, such as user instructions or character voices in a scenario. Occasionally, narration tightly integrated with animation creates engaging explanations of complex processes.

In e-learning that is heavily pictorial rather than textual, the learner’s attention focuses on the visual content and the voice-overs are secondary. This does not mean that the voice-overs or words on screen are less important to the instructional designer. You would typically storyboard all content at the same time. But, it does mean that you need a clear plan for the visuals with the voice-overs in supporting roles, much as you would create a comic strip or animated film.

Storyboarding

The multi-media storyboard typically has three sections: Visual sketches, production notes, and voice scripts. A producer integrates and times the voice-overs or narrations with the visual stills and animations.

Writing for the ear

Writing for the ear, rather than the eye, is fundamentally different and is a much less forgiving task. The ear notices and cringes at awkward shifts, pretentiousness, repetitiveness, and--in technical material--long strings of nouns used as qualifiers.

The beauty of auditory content is that it speaks directly to the mind. As infants, we hear and understand spoken language years before we learn to read. Our ears are perceptive to nuance. We naturally distinguish speech styles as sharply different as TV infomercial patter, voice mail instructions, and corporate promotions.

Writing for e-learning voice-overs also encompasses different styles. You can distinguish characters in a scenario by their speech as much as their appearance. The omniscient voice may give warm, encouraging user instructions or explain how things work in spare, neutral sentences.

Playback and timing

The single most important technique in scripting for e-learning is to record and play back a voice reading the material. If you close your eyes, you will notice abrupt shifts, omissions, repetitions, and other areas needing improvement.

Tips

Pay attention to flow. When scripting narrated explanations, unfold each fact or concept sequentially and naturally into the next with no backtracking and no jumping ahead. Explanations should describe processes stage by stage rather than define terms. The name of a concept may, in fact, follow its description.

Be aware of the strong emotional power of heard speech. The narrator can vary the same text to convey very different messages. Use this to strengthen the motivational effect of your material. Specify the narration purpose, style, and emphasis in the storyboard’s production notes or by adopting typographic standards in the script. For example, all caps might indicate a louder voice and ellipses might indicate a pause.

Unless e-learning chunks are segmented for modularity, transitions can be very helpful. Students appreciate, “In the previous section, you learned . . . In THIS section, we learn . . . Next, . . . ”

Use rhetorical questions, such as, “How does the body break down carbohydrates into sugar?”

Technical material often includes long strings of nouns used as qualifiers. When possible, try to avoid this in both print materials and scripts. Keep sentences simple and declarative. Except for necessary technical terms, use basic language.

Scripting is a very satisfying task. It involves the basic composition skills used for print or online writing, but extends those skills to develop our innate auditory awareness. One integrates the auditory and the visual for a single, powerful message and better retention of learning.

Laura Steinhart (laura@mla.mv.com) is a consultant specializing in the design and development of e-learning materials.

Making Connections with Students in a Large Class

Connection
Michael Palmer, TRC Faculty Consultant, Chemistry
Excerpted from Little Things Matter in Large Course Instruction.

Research indicates that the single biggest complaint by students and faculty about large enrollment courses is the impersonal nature of the teacher-learner interaction (Stanley, 2002; Weimer, 1987). The scene is this: anonymous students hide in a sea of faces, hoping to absorb all of the day’s material; the exposed professor stands before the students hoping they will learn the day’s material. Allowing the scene to play out as scripted leaves both parties unsatisfied; however, taking time to connect with your students in and out of class can turn the sea of faces into individual students and, ultimately, everyone’s hopes of learning into actuality. Why? Research has shown that students who make personal connections with the instructor are more likely to take an interest in the material, become actively engaged in discussions, and take greater responsibility for their own learning (Weimer, 1987). Here are a few suggestions for fostering meaningful connections with your students:

•Learn as many student names as possible and use their names every chance you get. A number of suggestions for name-learning strategies can be found on the TRC website.

•Come to class a few minutes early and talk to your students—about the weather, baseball, or the assignments. Be sure to linger a few minutes after class as well.

•Invite students to meet with you one-on-one to talk about how the course is unfolding from their perspective and how you can help them better learn the subject matter. Your invitations may go unanswered but they won’t go unnoticed.

•Encourage attendance during your office hours and review sessions and consider accommodating special requests for extra help. Make appointments with those students who are struggling with the material to identify reasons for their difficulties and devise a strategy to rectify the situation. Point out additional resources which may be of value, such as tutoring options and University centers (e.g., the Writing Center) that help students with a variety of learning skills.


•Become a participant in small-group activities. Spend a few minutes with each group, not as a teacher but as an active learner.

•Listen to the class, not just with your ears but with your eyes and with that little feeling in your stomach which says something isn’t quite right. In most cases, you can easily adjust to correct a misunderstanding or clear up confusing material. If you can’t put your finger on the problem, though, ask a few students. You might be surprised at the candid, precise feedback you get. Just as important, the students will appreciate your concern for their learning.

Careful planning, prudent communication management, and meaningful student-instructor connections can go a long way toward lowering your stress levels and toward helping the students learn what you are teaching.

References:

Carbone, Elisa. Teaching Large Classes: Tools and Strategies. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications, 1998.

McKeachie, Wilbert J. Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College
and University Teachers, 11th Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Stanley, Christina A. and M. Erin Porter. Engaging Large Classes: Strategies
and Techniques for College Faculty. Boston: Anker Publishing, 2002. Weimer,

Maryellen Gleason. Teaching Large Classes Well. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1987

Lecture Preparation

Preparation

http://teaching.berkeley.edu/tenways.html

You probably can't cover everything you want to in a lecture.

Decide what is essential, what is important, and what is helpful (what would be nice).

• Cover the first; try to cover the second; forget about the third.

• Release a little control over the material and rely on the textbook or a list of supplementary readings for the nonessentials.

Set objectives.

• What do you want to have accomplished at the end of the lecture?

• What do you want the students to know at the end of the lecture?

Plan a lecture to cover less than the entire period.

• It takes some time to get going.

• Questions always take up more time than you expect.

Divide the lecture into discrete segments and follow the standard speech structure.

• Divide it both in terms of time and in terms of material.

• Try for ten or fifteen minute blocks, each one of a topic.

• Briefly summarize the previous lecture; introduce the topic(s) for the day; present the material; summarize briefly; preview any homework and the next lecture.

Lecture from notes or an outline, rather than a complete text.

• It's too tempting to simply read, rather than lecture, from a complete text.

• Reading also creates a barrier between lecturer and audience.

• Writing up an entire lecture is very time consuming.

• A written lecture often becomes a fossil that never gets updated.

From: Ten Ways to Make Your Teaching More Effective

Office of Educational Development, Division of Undergraduate Education

University of California-Berkeley

The Challenge of Coverage

These tips may help you to plan and manage class time so that students can more easily follow, actively process, and understand the material:

Prioritize 2-3 main points that you want students to leave the room remembering.

If you try to cover much more, the key points can get lost in a flood of details.
In prioritizing, be sure that you can explain why learning each main topic is important.
When you can identify up front why students should learn about a topic, students are often better able to follow the goals, structure, and flow of the class.

Plan classes to complement the textbook, not replace it.
It is useful to check with colleagues in your discipline to see how they connect readings with in-class learning.

Focus more on teaching skills and processes, less on summarizing facts.
You can most help your students by using class time to work on central learning, reasoning, and problem-solving processes.

Design classes in 10-15 minute "chunks" to help you manage your time.
Each chunk should address a single main point and may include relevant examples or explanations. Generally, each should end with a brief summary and transition to the next section to provide cohesiveness and reinforce the logical structure of the material.

Remember how and why students take notes.
The most effective visual aids should indicate emphasis and organization, not provide every detail. Profuse boardwork or detailed transparencies can dilute your key messages. Be selective in providing detail so that students are not overly concerned about copying and so that opportunities for questions and interaction are maintained.

Source: Teaching Tips, Wilbert McKeachie and Tools for Teaching, B.G. Davis
From: Enhancing Teaching @ Carnegie Mellon/Teaching Tips

The Syllabus as a Tool, Not a List

From Inside Higher Ed, 2005

The Syllabus as a Tool, Not a List

When he started teaching, said Todd Estes, he was a minimalist about his syllabus, seeing it as a place to list assignments, schedules, etc. But Estes, a professor of history at Oakland University, in Michigan, said that his thinking - and his syllabuses - have evolved. Currently, he has an 11-page syllabus for his introductory American history course.

In a paper for a panel at the AHA meeting, Estes said that his primary goal for his students is to have them act and think like historians, not like students in a history class. In a class of 55 - many of them "skeptical or even hostile to the notion that history has value" - how can you do this? Estes argued that one way is through the syllabus, which isn't just a list, but provides context about the course, so that students are confronted with ideas, not just information, every time they look at the document.

Many students are uncomfortable with the idea that there is not a "single definitive answer" for some historical question. So Estes drives home a point about history, using the syllabus. A section of the syllabus is called "Why Historians Argue All the Time - And Why YOU Will Be, Too, This Semester." In that section, Estes said, students are told why this is the case, and also that they will be required in papers to identify conflicting arguments in historians' writings.

Each book that is read isn't just listed on the syllabus, but is annotated - again with the idea of showing students that there is a broader context to history and to the work of historians, not just a list of correct answers and assignments.

The syllabus also contains the usual information about assignments, work expectations, and plagiarism. Together with the context, Estes said, it tells students not only what they will do, but the kind of thinking they will be asked to try.