Lecturing
Quick-thinks: The Interactive Lecture
Submitted by Teaching Academy on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 09:25Tags:
A study by Ruhl, Hughes and Schloss (1987) compared lectures presented without pauses with lectures where, every 12-18 minutes students paused for two minutes and discussed and reworked their notes (without interaction with the teacher). Students in the latter group performed better on free-recall quizzes and on a comprehension test. In fact, the differences were so large that they would have raised the performance of the experimental students' one-two letter grades (depending on grading scales used).
This is from Tomorrow's Professor and presents a particularly interesting and practical incorporation of active learning in large lecture classes. It is by Susan Johnston, Ed.D. and Jim Cooper, Ph.D., and is adopted from the Cooperative Learning and College Teaching newsletter Vol. 8, no. 1 (Fall 1997).
Making the First-Year Classroom Conducive to Learning
Submitted by Jeff Henriques on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 10:48Tags:
"What once appeared as the most effective and efficient way to teach and
learn-the research university model of faculty who create knowledge and
deliver it to students through lectures-falters under today's learning
demands and with today's students. "
This posting from the Tomorrow's Professor Listserve looks at some important approaches to improved learning in large class settings. It is from Chapter 14, Inside the First-Year Classroom - Challenges and Constraints, by Bette LaSere Erickson and Diane W. Strommer in the book Challenging and supporting the First-Year Student - A Handbook for Improving the First Year of College, by M. Lee Upcraft, John N. Gardner, and Betsy O. Barefoot.
The “Backward Design” Process
Submitted by Erica Halverson on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 15:22Tags:
This is from a presentation at the 2005 Teaching Academy Summer Institute by Mitchell Nathan & Erica Halverson
Adapted from Understanding by design and Understanding by design: Professional development workbook (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998, 2004).
We chose this framework for presenting course redesign because it embodies the principles of what we know about how people learn.
Why is this called “backward design”? As novice designers, our instinct is often to start with a great learning activity that we know that really highlights a specific topic or skill.
Am I reaching the students in my large lectures?
Submitted by Judith Kornblatt on Tue, 10/21/2008 - 13:59Tags:
A two-question ungraded quiz at the beginning of each week helps check which students are attending a large lecture class and, even more, provides ongoing feedback to the lecturer about how the students are absorbing the material presented. A quick review of the responses allows the lecturer another chance to make her/his point in the next class, and generally to fine tune the lectures.
When you look out over a sea of faces in the lecture hall, you can never know when or even if the students are "getting it." In fact, you can't even know which students are there at all. Taking attendance would consume the entire 50-minute period, and question and answer would engage only a small handful of students. Waiting for midterms to discover whether you are making sense to the students, much less opening any intellectual doors, is potentially wasting precious weeks of teaching.
Remember what the students bring with them, and where they are right now
Submitted by Bob Wilson on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 09:26Tags:
Even in a large lecture I think it is critical to remember that students are not blank slates we can just write whatever we want onto.
Even in a large lecture I think it is critical to remember that students are not blank slates we can just write whatever we want onto. A recent article in Science showed that the (frequently erroneous) ideas a student brings into the class have much more weight than all of our wonderfully enlightening presentations, be they lectures or high technology shows or whatever.
