Explaining the familiar using course concepts

Overview:

Have your students write a brief explanation of what causes something familiar in their lives, using concepts they have learned in the course.  For example:

“Why do I feel comfortable at the pool when the temperature is 65 degrees in still air, chilly when the wind is blowing at 65 degrees while I’m at the pool, and downright cold when I come out of the water when the air is 65 degrees and the wind is blowing?”

Teaching and Learning Implications:

This technique requires students to “transfer” their learning to a new, novel situation.  Relating the course material to everyday events helps make it more meaningful, more likely to be applied successfully in other areas, and more likely to be remembered.

Source:  “Are there Any Questions?” - Promoting ‘Inclusiveness’ and the Learning Focus through Questioning Techniques.”  Curt Hughes, U.S. Air Force Academy, in The USAFA Educator 14(2), Fall 2006.

 

Book-of-the-Week
Busy, Noisy and Powerfully Effective
By Idahlynn Karre

College Faculty are genuinely interested in becoming more effective teachers. As we transition to more active learning in the college classroom we are in search of specific, practical, usable strategies to energize our classrooms. Cooperative learning offers an opportunity for college classrooms to transition to active learning. Busy, Noisy and Powerfully Effective provides for highly structured team learning opportunities within the college classroom. -from book flap

 Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Importance of Students’ Prior Knowledge

The Research:
“. . . the contemporary view of learning is that people construct new knowledge and understandings based on what they already know and believe . . ..”
Teaching/Learning Implications
“A logical extension of the view that new knowledge must be constructed from existing knowledge is that teachers need to pay attention to the incomplete understandings, the false beliefs, and the naive renditions of concepts that learners bring with them to a given subject. Teachers then need to build on these ideas in ways that help each student achieve a more mature understanding. If students' initial ideas and beliefs are ignored, the understandings that they develop can be very different from what the teacher intends.”
To determine if your students understand, and to possibly uncover misconceptions, use the following strategies:
(1)  Have students put in their own words a key concept.  You might even identify a particular audience. (Examples:  Explain the concept of “corporation” to high school students; Explain an “irrevocable trust” to a group of retirees.)
(2)  Have students offer their own applications and/or examples for a key concept (Examples: Stephen Covey recommends “Win-win performance agreements”: give two specific applications, one related to current news and one related to your own life. Give a concrete example of the concept “due process.”
(3)  Have students formulate ways to show relationships (Example:  concept maps)
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R. (ed.). (1999). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning &Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council.  Washington, D. C.: National Academy Press.  http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/notice.html

 

Book-of-the-Week
Coping with the Disruptive Student: A Practical Model
By Gerald Amada

Here's concise, quick-to-read, but comprehensive answers to your questions regarding key factors in a difficult and growing campus-wide problem.
Written by a highly-qualified practitioner, and illustrated largely by first-hand experiences, this book offers guidance and information that college administrators need if they are involved in: due process for disruptive students; dealing with disruptive students; disruption in residence halls; college mental health programs; student conduct codes; or staff training.
This book includes:
    * an explanation of the need for a well-defined code of student conduct;
    * an outline of disciplinary sanctions for dealing with disruptive behavior;
    * recommendations for documenting and reporting incidents of disruption;
    * a discussion of the common aversions that are displayed toward administering discipline;
    * a discussion of the differences between predicting dangerousness and predicting disruptiveness;
    * a description of both the therapeutic and consultative role of a college mental health program;
    * how to deal with highly self-disruptive students;
    * guidelines for dealing with various relatively unusual incidents of disruption;
    * dealing with disturbed students who are adverse to using psychiatric medications and dealing with students who have been suspended or expelled and wish to re-enroll. -college administration publications

 Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Retention During a Learning Episode

Overview:

During a typical 50-minute lecture, students are far more likely to remember and retain material, information, and concepts that are presented during the first fifteen minutes of class (or, “Prime Time 1”) and during the last ten minutes of class (“Prime Time 2”).  They are least attentive during the middle of the lecture period.

Teaching and Learning Implications:

Don’t squander the first fifteen minutes of class with announcements, roll-taking, etc.  This critical period is a good time to introduce important new course concepts and to reinforce previous material.

Source: Todd Zakrajsek, ETP workshop, October 6, 2006, “Responding to Critical Classroom Events”

 

Book-of-the-Week
Teaching College in an Age of Acocuntability
By Richard E. Lyons, Meggin McIntosh, and Marcella L. Kysilka

This book provides professors with the insights and tools necessary to achieve higher levels on accountability assessment outcomes while preparing students for enhancing their own career success in a more complex future. In recent years, many initiatives have been implemented by a number of state legislatures and boards of trustees to increase “institutional effectiveness.” These measures have made colleges and universities aware that practices once accepted as sacrosanct within the culture will, from this time forward, be assessed regularly for their contribution to achieving more accountable outcomes. This book equips professors to address outcome goals in a proactive manner. -amazon.com

 Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Characteristics of Outstanding Teachers

Overview:
A student panel listed these characteristics of outstanding teachers:

• Teachers should be guides, not directors.
• Keep students interested.
• Use the Socratic Method rather than merely teaching facts. 
• Help students see other perspectives: push their limits, perhaps playing devil’s advocate.
• Show respect for students’ opinions.
• Engage students.
• Add humor.
• Have a clear grading policy that includes feedback.
• Go beyond monotonous lectures.
• Be intellectually stimulating: virtually anything can be made boring.
• Exhibit passion!

Teaching and Learning Implications:
“Just do it [all]!”

Source:  “Teaching and Learning Student Fishbowl at 41st Annual Conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council.

Book-of-the-Week
Coping with the Disruptive College Student: A Practical Model
By Gerald Amada

Here's concise, quick-to-read, but comprehensive answers to your questions regarding key factors in a difficult and growing campus-wide problem. Written by a highly-qualified practitioner, and illustrated largely by first-hand experiences, this book offers guidance and information that college administrators need if they are involved in: due process for disruptive students; dealing with disruptive students; disruption in residence halls; college mental health programs; student conduct codes; or staff training.
This book includes:

• an explanation of the need for a well-defined code of student conduct;
• an outline of disciplinary sanctions for dealing with disruptive behavior;
• recommendations for documenting and reporting incidents of disruption;
• a discussion of the common aversions that are displayed toward administering discipline;
• a discussion of the differences between predicting dangerousness and predicting disruptiveness;
• a description of both the therapeutic and consultative role of a college mental health program;
• how to deal with highly self-disruptive students;
• guidelines for dealing with various relatively unusual incidents of disruption;
• dealing with disturbed students who are adverse to using psychiatric medications and dealing with students who have been suspended or expelled and wish to re-enroll.

- College Administration Publications

 Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Notetakers
[Effective in small and large classes and easily adapted to online teaching]

 

Purpose:  (a) present concepts;  (b) promote higher-order thinking;  (c) assess knowledge & mastery;  (d) make information relevant; 
(e) link content to previous material; (f) engage students in learning content. 

Process:  A notetaker is a handout given to students before class by which they receive and interact with an organized (but incomplete) body of information intended to promote learning.  By deliberately building in learning activities, students engage with the content and become active agents in their own learning.  Notetakers emphasize the structure and connections between your content.  To use the notetaker as the class progresses, have students work individually or in small groups to complete the activities.  Out-of-class, have students complete the notetaker and bring it to class.  Here are some typical learning tasks that might appear in a notetaker:

• Check which attributes of … are correct (excellent assessment)
• Label the diagram, which direction will forces act on this…
• Select, pick out, identify, classify or categorize
• Mark the line on the graph that represents…
• Circle parts of the mathematical formula
• Mark on the map/diagram…
• List factors that inhibit/promote…
• Make a scale drawing (great to assess misconceptions/preconceptions)
• Balance the chemical equation
• Provide words that link these 2 concepts
• Predict what will happen if…

Potential Learning Benefits to Student

• reinforces recall of lesson content
• promotes higher-order thinking skills
• assists students in learning how to learn
• models selecting and organizing information
• provides a product for later review

Potential Teaching-Learning Benefits

• reinforces student preparation
• introduces concepts & their connections
• focuses student attention on a learning task
• injects your personality into the lesson
• telegraphs what is important
• allows teachers to show students what they will learn

Potential Teaching Benefits to Instructor

• prevents you from inadvertently skipping information or objectives
• allows you to inject humor into the lesson
• creates a time-flexible lesson
• produces clear, easy-to-follow lesson plan
• puts effective questions into lesson
• allows both direct and indirect questioning
• assesses student understanding
• builds variety of learning tasks into lesson
• allows for individual to group learning
• helps students make up work when absent
• makes productive use of class time
• facilitates transition from one concept to the next
• builds closure into lesson
• helps new instructors become better teachers

Examples from various disciplines:  See the ETP web page (http://teaching.unr.edu/etp/) for examples of notetakers in botany and engineering.

Source:  UNR Workshop on 17 Oct 2005, A Simple and Effective Way to Drive Content, Promote Thinking, & Assess Mastery by Dr. Robert Noyd, U. S. Air Force Academy.

 

Book-of-the-Week
How People Learn
By John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, Rodney R. Cocking, M. Suzanne Donovan, James W. Pellgrino (editors)

This popular trade book, originally released in hardcover in the Spring of 1999, has been newly expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This paperback edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning.
Like the original hardcover edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods--to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb.
How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system.
Topics include:
    * How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain.
    * How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn.
    * What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach.
    * The amazing learning potential of infants.
    * The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace.
    * Learning needs and opportunities for teachers.
    * A realistic look at the role of technology in education. -national academies press

 Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Teaching for Diversity, Part 3

 

The University community possesses a diverse range of cultural perspectives.  Each class, regardless of format or subject, offers the opportunity to increase diversity and multicultural awareness.  Here is the final installment in our three-part series of ideas to help you address diversity:

(Source: Susan L. Josephs, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University)

 

Book-of-the-Week
How Am I Teaching?
By Maryellen Weimer, Joan L. Parrett, Mary-Margaret Kerns

 

If you're like most instructors, this is a question that you've asked yourself many times. That's why Weimer, Parrett, and Kerns have compiled this guide-so it's easier to get the answers that you need to this crucial question.
How Am I Teaching? contains nine forms and activities that allow you to gather information about what you're doing and how well you're doing it. The authors begin with a simple diagnostic matrix to guide you to the form or activity which best suits your needs. Then they summarize each of the nine tools, highlighting the value and limitations. Make copies of whichever tool(s) you've selected and you're on your way to better teaching! -amazon.com

 Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Teaching for Diversity, Part 2

 

The University community possesses a diverse range of cultural perspectives.  Each class, regardless of format or subject, offers the opportunity to increase diversity and multicultural awareness.  Here are some more suggestions to help you address diversity issues in the classroom:

(Source: Susan L. Josephs, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University)

 

Book-of-the-Week
The Missing Professor
By Thomas B. Jones

Fresh out of graduate school and desperate to pay off her student loans, Nicole Adams joins the faculty at Higher State U, a small university with a dubious past located in the middle of the Midwest.
On her second day of classes as a new assistant professor of philosophy, still flustered and disoriented, Nicole is plunged into a campus-wide mystery. Someone has ransacked the office she shares with the ill-tempered R. Reynolds Raskin, the department's senior professor, and he has since disappeared.
Two weeks later, with Raskin still missing, Nicole receives a threatening phone call . . .
Read one way, this is an entertaining parody of an academic mystery and a humorous take on academic life. Turning the book upside down reveals another purpose. Each chapter is constructed as an informal case study/discussion story, as is made manifest by a series of discussion questions intended for faculty development, new faculty orientation, and conversations among faculty, administrators, and academic staff.
As the mystery unfolds, each chapter finds Nicole encountering challenging situations—such as, the first day of class, student incivility, teaching evaluations, peer observation, academic assessment, the scholarship of teaching and learning, faculty and student rights and responsibilities, core curricula, and tenure standards.
This little book can be read and used both ways: as pure entertainment and as a series of informal case studies, spiced with humor, to help break down academic barriers and promote spirited discussions

Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Teaching for Diversity, Part 1

The University community possesses a diverse range of cultural perspectives.  Each class, regardless of format or subject, offers the opportunity to increase diversity and multicultural awareness.  You can address diversity issues by trying some of these ideas:

(Source: Susan L. Josephs, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University)

 

Book-of-the-Week
Engaging Ideas
By John C. Bean

A practical nuts and bolts guide for teachers from any discipline who want to design interest-provoking writing and critical thinking activities. Engaging Ideas:
    * Shows how teachers can encourage inquiry, exploration, discussion, and debate in their courses.
    * Presents a wide variety of strategies for stimulating active learning and for coaching writing and critical thinking.
    * Offers teachers concrete advice on how to design courses, structure assignment, use class time, critique student performance, and model critical thinking activities.
    * Demonstrates how writing can easily be integrated with such other critical thinking activities and inquiry discussions, simulation games, classroom debates, and interactive lectures.

Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

 

Semantic Mapping

Try semantic mapping as a way to reinforce new concepts.  You can use semantic mapping when introducing new concept or for reviewing a textbook chapter.

• Select a chapter and makes notes on the major topics and points, including vocabulary terms.

• Place the chapter topic in the central box that begins the map and draw lines to represent the main topics or key concepts. You can also add details about each topic or vocabulary terms as needed.

This technique works well when trying to develop hard concepts, as well as helping your students internalize the knowledge more effectively.
(Source: Teachnology website, http://www.teach-nology.com/ideas/subjects/science/)
 

Book-of-the-Week
Tools for Teaching
By Barbara Gross Davis

A rich compendium of classroom-tested strategies and suggestions designed to improve the teaching practice of beginning, midcareer, and senior faculty members. Forty-nine teaching tools cover both traditional tasks--writing a course syllabus, delivering a lecture--and newer, broader concerns, such as responding to diversity and using technology.

Each tool includes a brief introduction, a set of general strategies, and concise descriptions of practical ideas culled from distinguished teachers, as well as from the literature on teaching and learning.

The tools are designed to be read and used independently and function as a daily reference for faculty who are looking for the best knowledge and practices available on effective teaching. From designing and offering a new course to tackling the problems of burnout or stagnation, Tools for Teaching provides faculty members with the information they need to improve and revitalize their courses.   – back cover, Tools for Teaching

Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

Reading Comprehension Strategies: In-Class and Take-Home Work

In-class consensus groups and take-home exams give students opportunities to actively understand and apply text information.   

• Consensus Groups – Have students get into groups of three or four.  Give them hypothetical problem-solving scenarios based on the reading.  Each group must come to a consensus about the correct solution.  Ask each group to explain their reasoning to the class or collectively write a one-age essay explaining their position.
• Take-Home Exams – Students are more likely to read if they believe they have a better chance of succeeding on a test or assignment.  A good strategy is the take-home exam.  Ideal take-home exam questions require a lot of reading and weighing of one alternative against another.  Answering such questions increases the amount of text students read and re-read, and the degree to which they actively process what they have read.

 (Source: Denise Boyd, adapted from the Association of Psychological Science website, http://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/tips/tips_0603.cfm)

 

Book-of-the-Week

The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning
By John Zubizarreta

The learning portfolio is a rich, flexible document that engages students in continuous, thoughtful analysis of their learning. Developed through a process of reflection, evidence, and collaboration, the portfolio may be paper, electronic, or another creative medium; at its center, the power of writing and reflection are combined with purposeful, selective collection and assessment of learning endeavors and outcomes in order to improve learning.
Straightforward and easy to understand, this book offers readers both an academic understanding of, and rationale for, learning portfolios along with practical information that can be custom tailored to suit many disciplinary, pedagogical, programmatic, and institutional needs.

Organized into four parts, the book includes
    * A foundation for and review of the value of reflective practice in student learning and how learning portfolios support reflection, sound assessment, and collaboration.
    * Diverse contributions by practitioners in two-and four-year institutions in the United States and Canada who implement portfolios in a variety of ways, including the use of digital technology. The array of specific models of how to use portfolios across disciplines, courses, and programs provides many practical ideas that can work on different campuses.
    * Fourteen practical and adaptable examples of actual student-learning portfolios.
    * A wealth of assignment sheets, guidelines, criteria, evaluating rubrics, and other materials used in developing print and electronic learning portfolios from across disciplines, programs, and types of institutions in higher education. -amazon.com

Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

Enhancing Classroom Participation

As everyone knows, 90% of life is just showing up.  You can encourage both class attendance and participation through a few, simple techniques:

• Have your students take five minutes to write down a key point from the day’s class.

• Have your students write a short paragraph explaining a concept from the assigned readings or from material discussed at the previous class meeting.

• Have your students write down three arguments in favor of an idea discussed in class and three against it.

• Have the class write predictions on an empirical question discussed in class.  Compare their predictions to actual data at the next meeting.

• Ask your students to come up with possible test questions.  Consider using one or more for the next exam.

 

These techniques provide a way for you to take attendance without calling roll, give students the opportunity to practice their writing skills, and help you assess student learnig. 
(Source: Marjorie Randon Hershey, Indiana University)

 

Book-of-the-Week

Teaching at its Best
By Linda Nilson

This best-selling handbook is an essential toolbox—a compilation of hundreds of practical teaching techniques, formats, classroom activities, and exercises—meant to give classroom instructors a go-to guide for help teaching any subject matter. It is for those who teach in traditional contexts as well as those who teach adult and diverse student populations; it is for those who use considerable technology and multimedia resources as well as those who rely on conventional classroom methods. Newly revised and expanded, this edition covers more on the topics relevant to today's classroom such as technology and the Internet, simulations and games, diversity, service learning, and faculty evaluation systems. It also includes entirely new sections on teaching with laptops, course portfolios, three new sections on teaching problem solving, and a new chapter on getting your students to do readings. Other new sections include adult learning, the learning-centered syllabus, the cognitive profile learning styles model, and newly written chapters on classroom management, academic honesty, and grading. Rich with quick tips on a wide range of current issues, this is a guide that all teachers will continuously refer to for development and support of their teaching. Contents include 31 chapters on relevant topics such as * Understanding your students * The complete syllabus * Your first day of class * Making the most of office hours * Motivating your students * Teaching to different learning styles * Getting your students to do the readings * Writing-to-learn activities and assignments * Teaching students to think and write in the disciplines * Science in the laboratory * Assessing students’ learning in progress * Test construction/preparing students for tests * Evaluating and documenting teaching effectiveness -Jossey-Bass.

Call ETP at 784-6591 or email Katy (Schleef@unr.edu) to check out a copy.

The Interactive Lecture

Students often retain course material when the instructor pauses occasionally to allow them to think about what has been said.  Studies have shown that students who were given an opportunity for brief discussions during a lecture performed better on free-recall quizzes and comprehension tests.  

During your lecture, pause every 12-18 minutes.  Have the students discuss the material covered during that segment with their neighbors for about two minutes, sharing and revising their notes.  Allow the students to work among themselves—don’t interfere in the process!

(Source: Tomorrow’s Professor, Stanford University, http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings.html)

“Quick Thinks”

Use a series of prompts, or “Quick thinks,” to enhance classroom comprehension.

Select the Best Response: This task is most similar to the traditional multiple-choice test item.  Give the class a question or scenario and then ask which one of several alternatives best answers it.   

Correct the Error: Present the class with an intentional error based on a concept you’ve just discussed.  Ask the class to correct the mistake.  

Complete a Sentence Starter: Create a sentence stem that needs completion to reflect an accurate statement.   

Compare or Contrast: Identify two important parallel elements from the lesson.  Have the class focus on similarities or differences. This strategy is most effective if you have not already provided a comparison.

Support a Statement: Give your students a statement and have them find support for it in their notes or from the reading.  Have them think about why a statement might or might not be justified.

Re-order the Steps: Present a series of steps in a mixed order and ask your students to re-order the items into the correct sequence.  

Reach a Conclusion: Have your students to make a logical inference about the implications of facts, concepts, or principles they just learned.   

Paraphrase the Idea: Have your students rephrase an idea using their own words.  This forces them to check their own understanding of what they think they just heard.

Review your main topics and list the most essential content to be learned at each class session.  Match each of these content focal points with a Quick-think task that seems to best fit.  Using your lecture notes or outline, mark the places where you could insert a Quick-think.  Create tasks you need using the specific content from your lesson plan.  

(Source: Susan Johnson and Jim Cooper, Tomorrow’s Professor, Stanford University, http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings.html

 

Closing Routines: “Making a Good Exit”

Try to end your classes with routines that help students know what to take from the experience. Finishing on a positive note will reinforce your students’ motivation to learn.  Consider using one or more of these techniques to wind up your class meetings:

• Assignments: Save several minutes to discuss expectations and questions about assignments.

• Q&A:  Open the floor to general questions and answers during the final minutes.  If response is weak, have students write their questions down and hand them in.

• Return: If you don’t intend to review or comment on papers and exams when you return them, give them back at the end of class, leaving a couple minutes for individuals to review and make arrangements to talk with you.

• Honorable Mention:  Take a minute to acknowledge quality student work.  Just mentioning it is enough; a public pat on the back leaves people feeling good about the class.

• Study Groups: Give students a couple minutes to meet their study groups (set these up beforehand) so they can make arrangements to meet or get started on homework.

• Rituals: Just like greeting rituals, you can create a moment for good-bye rituals. Shake hands, have a round of applause for hard group work, or make a simple comment like, “Thank you for a good effort today.  I look forward to our next class.”

 

(Source: Center for Teaching and Learning, Indiana University)

Closing Routines: “Clearing Up”

Try to end your classes with routines that help students know what to take from the experience. You can best use the last few minutes to consolidate ideas and set the stage for the next meeting. Squeezing in additional information isn’t as effective in ensuring retention as reinforcing, summarizing, and reconnecting students to the important material.  Consider using one or more of these techniques to “clear up” the material you covered:

• Minute Paper: Give students one minute to write down the main point of the lesson. Have them briefly discuss their ideas with their neighbors. You can collect and respond to their comments.
  
• Journal Entry: Ask students to write a journal response to the lesson for several minutes.

• Complete Grids: Give students an outline or grid that pulls key ideas and information together. Have them spend several minutes completing parts you deliberately left out.

• Application Cards: Have students list 2-3 applications of the material and apply the lesson to everyday settings.

• Exam Questions: Put on the whiteboard or screen one or two questions from your test bank that are related to the lesson.  Give students a couple minutes to discuss possible answers.

• Debriefing: Ask students to think about what worked for them in the lesson (and what didn’t). Have them discuss and write down one suggestion for themselves and one for you.

• Feedback: Gather targeted feedback during the last few minutes of a class. A short survey can tell you how things are going.

 

(Source: Center for Teaching and Learning, Indiana University)

Inductive Teaching

Your students can engage in active problem-solving even before they master theories or equations. “Teaching backwards” is a worthwhile technique to introduce them to complex and realistic problems.  

There is a broad range of inductive teaching methods available to you.  They include:

Inquiry- (or Problem-) based learning: Have your class do a student-driven, inquiry-based learning project.  Your role is to act primarily as a coach, guide, or facilitator helping the students arrive at the “true” questions surrounding a topic. When students choose the questions, they are motivated to learn and they develop a sense of ownership in their learning. 

Project-based learning: Have your students work in teams to explore real-world problems and then have them create presentations to share what they have learned. This approach results in deeper subject matter knowledge, better self-direction, and improved research and problem-solving skills.

Case-based learning: Have your students discuss specific situations, typically real-world examples.  Examples should be recent, telling a story with a conflict requiring a forced decision.  Have students justify their reasoning for arriving at a particular decision or course of action.

“Just-in-time” learning: If available, leverage classroom technology through Web-based tutorials, interactive CD-ROMs, or other tools that give students just the information they need to solve problems, perform specific tasks, or quickly update their skills.

What these methods have in common is that you present your students with a challenge and they then learn what they need to know to address the challenge. The methods differ in nature and scope and in the amount of guidance you give students as they attempt to complete their tasks.

(Adapted from James Trevelyan, University of Western Australia, Richard M. Felder, North Carolina State University, and Michael Prince, Bucknell University.  Related materials are available online at http://www.asee.org/publications/jee/) 

Merlot

Merlot.org is an online resource for faculty that contains over 17,000 peer-reviewed, digital teaching and learning modules covering a wide variety of subjects. Membership is free! A search on any specific discipline provided results in the following areas:

• Peer-reviewed online learning materials
• A search for colleagues in your discipline
• The ability to view personal collections of peers in your field
• Prepared assignments that can be used with your students
• A Virtual Speakers Bureau to find online guest experts in your discipline

A quick search of Mathematics and Statistics yielded 1,454 results with learning modules such as: Graph Theory Lessons, Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics, Sir Isaac Newton, Famous Curves (Math), The Math Forum – Internet Mathematics Library, Interactive Mathematics – Probability, and 146 pages of other math and statistics modules.

If you would like more information about Merlot, there is a workshop being offered on Tuesday, November 13 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the small computer lab in Getchell Library. Space is limited, so please call 784-6591 to register!

Source: MERLOT.org, Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, 2007

Dealing with the Excessive Talker

While active student participation is normally a positive thing, sometimes we hear from certain students more than others.  Here are some ideas for dealing with excessive talkers.

• Talk to the student outside of class. Make it clear that you, like most people, value the student who listens well, who asks good questions of other students, or who is sensitive to the needs of others in the class.

• Silence the excessive talker by putting him or her into the role of discussion recorder: Have him or her simply observe and record.  He or she cannot talk until handing in (or giving) the final report.

• The “bouncing ball”: Pass around a playground or beach ball.  The person talking holds the ball.  When finished, she throws it to the next person to whom she wishes to speak. No one can speak unless holding the ball (including you).  This technique has the added advantage of getting quieter students to participate. 

• Have the class discuss who is talking, who isn’t, what changes they would like, and how they might achieve them.

• If the few students who dominate a discussion are not elbowing others into silence and are making valuable contributions, and if you’re finding other activities to help the rest of the students participate each day in some way, relax. You’re doing what you can; so are your students.

(Adapted from “Resources for Scientists Teaching Science,” Cornell University, http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/taresources/leadisc.html#anchor105188