I must first say that when I initially reviewed the book, My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan, I was excited and interested to read about her experience as a college freshman. Throughout my undergraduate years, I have had professors question students ‘our age’ about lack of responsibilities and lack of concern for receiving a higher education; so when I read what this book was about I thought, “Finally someone is stepping up, or should I say stepping back, to see what a college student goes through these days.” I say this because there seems to be a lot of talk and misunderstanding between professors and students where neither can relate to one another’s reasoning so I was hoping this book would clarify some of the ‘confusion’.
So let’s see, what surprised me? Well, nothing really jumps out at me as surprising. Many of the issues and topics didn’t come as a shock to me because I was just in that position. Just this past spring I was an undergrad so I could relate to many of the situations.
However, there were a couple things that I found interesting throughout the book. The first thing that caught my attention was on page 120 in the chapter ‘the art of college management’. Nathan gave a brief background about a particularly large lecture class that she was currently enrolled in. Her professor provided a booklet of lecture notes that could be purchased for the class rather than having the students write down her every last word. She then went on to say there had been no attendance requirement for the course, which led to roughly 56 percent of the class actually showing up on a regular basis. That’s almost half! Although there are only 22 students in the course I am currently teaching, I don’t know what I would do with only 11 students. It would feel more like a group meeting. How do you even teach a lesson plan with that many students absent? If that number was low already, Nathan explained a particular time that the professor told the students that the material covered in the next class period would not be on the test; that resulted in only 11 percent of the class showing up.
This leads me to the second thing that I found interesting. In the final chapter of My Freshman Year, Nathan recalls a particular situation that she encountered with a study buddy. As many freshmen do to study for a midterm, she met up with a guy named Ray in her dorm around 10 pm the night before the exam. They quizzed each other back and forth on French vocabulary when she found herself ‘caught between her two roles’ as she stated. When they began covering an area that wouldn’t be on the test, Nathan expressed to Ray that they need not cover that material. To her surprise he responded, “Is that the only reason you are learning this material…for the test? Don’t you want to learn to speak French better? Come on, do it.” In her words, she was mortified. Here she found herself thinking as a student.
There were two things that stuck out to me here. The first one was that she had adapted the role of the student and didn’t even realize it. I believe that there are certain things we do without even thinking about it, for they just come naturally, such as skipping over material we don’t need to know to better perfect the material we do.
With that, this situation raises a good question, ‘since when did we stop wanting to learn?’ This example goes to show that many students spend so much time studying or doing homework because they have to, not because they want to. Although I have been in this position before, I never thought about the broader picture, learning because we have to or learning because we want to. Although I do not have an answer for the beginning question, I think it is something that we should all keep in mind next time we have an assignment or exam.
Advice to new instructors
The only real advice that I would give to a new instructor is for them to be understanding. Understanding of schedule conflicts, understanding of grades, understanding of events that happen outside of the classroom. From my experience as an undergrad in correlation with teaching an undergrad course, I can now see both sides to a particular situation. For example, a student had questioned me about missing a class because of his work schedule. He wanted to know how much he would be penelized for missing a day because he didn’t want to leave work just to attend a 50-minute class period. I explained that his work isn’t an excused absence, and we discussed ahead of time what he would be miss if he were not to come to class. Although he ended up coming to class that day, he thanked me for taking the time to go over the material with him. This situation also made me think about the material that I do cover in a class. Each day should be just as important as the next. I wouldn’t let students believe that they don’t need to come to class on a particular day because they ‘ won’t miss anything’. They should always miss something, no matter how big or small.
Did this book change my perspective?
I have to admit that this book did not change how I look at undergraduate students. Not because it wasn’t a good book, but a lot of the information and situations I just experienced for myself. I completed my undergraduate work in 3.5 years, with honors, while working anywhere between twenty to forty hours a week. I do not think that working while going to school is good for everyone, I managed myself quite well most of the time. In fact, it gave me a break from my normal routine course work and allowed me to meet great friends outside of the classroom.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone coming right out of their undergraduate work, but I would recommend it to a new professor who has been out of school for quite some time. After all, things have changed rapidly between teaching styles, internet use, and the economy and it would be best if a professor would be able to at least understand where their students are coming from, even if it doesn’t always work for the best. It is better to know and understand than to THINK you know and not understand.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Entry 10
McKeachie’s reading for this week brought forth a few concepts that I had never really taken too much to think about, in detail that is.
One piece of information that was new to me, as well as helpful, was the background information about how strategic learners. I found it interesting that McKeachie said that strategic learners ‘approach activities and tasks with a high degree of confidence that they can succeed’. I do not know much about this specific concept, but McKeachie was able to identity and describe types of actions that these students have as well as how they become active in the class.
Another aspect that I found to be useful was the importance of having goals and self-reflection within the classroom. Within my own department, communication, I feel as though we are solely driven on our own goals as a teacher and that there isn’t much time focused on how our students feel about those goals. I’m not saying that we don’t have goals for our students, we do, but I feel as though the only measurement of those goals is through tests. I would like to know on a regular basis how the students are feeling in the classroom and if their goals have or haven’t been met. Although each class period ends with me asking if there are any remaining questions they might have, 9 out of 10 times there aren’t any. However, there is always a student that emails me after class in regards to what we discussed in class. I would like incorporate more ‘goal-orientated’ tasks or activities to help the students reach their own personal goals as well as the ones I hope to meet by the end of each class period.
McKeachie’s reading really brought into perspective the different ways that students learn and some of the qualities they hold. I will be keeping this in mind for how I teach as well as how I design my own course for this class.
Following the same idea, McKeachie discussed how to increase self-awareness among the students. I have noticed that many students are constantly questioning what will be on the test, and then asking why they didn’t know the answer to question. It is automatically assumed that the reason they didn’t know this information is because I, as their teacher, did not cover it during our lecture or that I didn’t tell them that they had to look over it. This makes me laugh most of the time because regardless of what I teach in the class or don’t teach, the students are still assigned to be reading the chapters previous to our class meeting. So many students feel as though they do not have to do any work outside of the classroom and they rely on me for every last piece of information. To encourage students to recognize their own approaches to learning, I liked the list that McKeachie presented.
The list is as follows:
• How any hours do you spend a week studying for this course?
• Are you up-to-date on course assignments and readings?
• How do you take notes or study while reading the textbook?
• How do you take notes in class? Do you review them? When? How?
• Do you stop periodically and check to see if you understand the material?
In the class I am currently teaching, we have our second exam coming up quickly. I plan on incorporating these questions within a lecture before the exam so I can make them aware of their own studying/learning habits.
The link that I found interesting this week is about how one university has encouraged its students to study and attend school.
One piece of information that was new to me, as well as helpful, was the background information about how strategic learners. I found it interesting that McKeachie said that strategic learners ‘approach activities and tasks with a high degree of confidence that they can succeed’. I do not know much about this specific concept, but McKeachie was able to identity and describe types of actions that these students have as well as how they become active in the class.
Another aspect that I found to be useful was the importance of having goals and self-reflection within the classroom. Within my own department, communication, I feel as though we are solely driven on our own goals as a teacher and that there isn’t much time focused on how our students feel about those goals. I’m not saying that we don’t have goals for our students, we do, but I feel as though the only measurement of those goals is through tests. I would like to know on a regular basis how the students are feeling in the classroom and if their goals have or haven’t been met. Although each class period ends with me asking if there are any remaining questions they might have, 9 out of 10 times there aren’t any. However, there is always a student that emails me after class in regards to what we discussed in class. I would like incorporate more ‘goal-orientated’ tasks or activities to help the students reach their own personal goals as well as the ones I hope to meet by the end of each class period.
McKeachie’s reading really brought into perspective the different ways that students learn and some of the qualities they hold. I will be keeping this in mind for how I teach as well as how I design my own course for this class.
Following the same idea, McKeachie discussed how to increase self-awareness among the students. I have noticed that many students are constantly questioning what will be on the test, and then asking why they didn’t know the answer to question. It is automatically assumed that the reason they didn’t know this information is because I, as their teacher, did not cover it during our lecture or that I didn’t tell them that they had to look over it. This makes me laugh most of the time because regardless of what I teach in the class or don’t teach, the students are still assigned to be reading the chapters previous to our class meeting. So many students feel as though they do not have to do any work outside of the classroom and they rely on me for every last piece of information. To encourage students to recognize their own approaches to learning, I liked the list that McKeachie presented.
The list is as follows:
• How any hours do you spend a week studying for this course?
• Are you up-to-date on course assignments and readings?
• How do you take notes or study while reading the textbook?
• How do you take notes in class? Do you review them? When? How?
• Do you stop periodically and check to see if you understand the material?
In the class I am currently teaching, we have our second exam coming up quickly. I plan on incorporating these questions within a lecture before the exam so I can make them aware of their own studying/learning habits.
The link that I found interesting this week is about how one university has encouraged its students to study and attend school.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Entry 9
The reading this week seemed to refresh many of the activities and concepts that have been covered thus far this semester, mainly activities that deal with large lectures and how to shape a course syllabus for a semester.
The first thing that I found to be useful in my own teaching environment came from McKeachie’s chapter on ‘facilitating active learning’. The section first touched back on active learning along with learning cells and student discussion. McKeachie suggested a few different possible techniques that could help promote positive, successful discussions within the classroom. Although he focused mainly on large lecture oriented classrooms, I believe that the techniques could also be used in a smaller classroom, such as my current class size of 22.
One idea that I would like to incorporate into my own teaching would be ‘buzz groups’. This activity suggests breaking the students into smaller groups to discuss relative readings or material that is currently being presented. The reason I like this tactic is because students in my classroom tend to have a hard time answering questions when asked in front of the class, leading the questions into a discussion, and really just talking in general. I also like the idea of comparing notes with one another in hopes that someone would ask another a question. With a few in class activities I have done earlier on in the semester, I found that the majority feel more comfortable speaking when there are less people listening and less pressure. Although the discussion groups I have done in the past didn’t revolve so much around the exact material presented, it is something that I will like to incorporate in future group activities.
Another subject that McKeachie presented was the roles that a teacher plays. Although some of them may come across as obvious, others were new to me such as ‘socializing agent’ and ‘ego ideal’. The one that I would like to focus on is the ‘socializing agent’. Before reading this I had never really applied the term to any of my previous or current professors, but now the term has become clearer through the examples McKeachie presented.
Looking back on some of my previous professors, the ones I seemed to understand the most and enjoy the class were those who implemented their own personal experience in the field to the classroom.; not only through discussion and examples, but through numerous assignments and large projects.
In the current class I teaching, most of the assignments (speeches) they will be able to take with them forever whether it be in school, work, or personally. However, I will be adapting this idea to the course I am designing for our final project. The class I am working on will have many components that the students will be able to take with them after they graduate and even to interviews to show their real-world project. Students, including myself, seem to adapt best when they can actually see their work being applied outside of a classroom setting. Looking back, I still keep in contact with a few professors because they were there to help me adapt new skills and take the ones I already had and make them stronger through assignments, projects, and their personal knowledge of the subject.
The last thing I will take with me from the reading is the tips and suggestions for sketching out the shape of a course. I find this useful because I am currently struggling with particular aspects of the course I am designing for our final project. There were examples that McKeachie used that I had never really thought about. For example, I would have never thought to chart out what I should be producing for 90 hours of class time and fitting that into a 15-week course. The weekly schedule has a great layout and could be very useful in any field. It has an interesting design along with various distribution categories. Categories that I wouldn’t have thought about, even as simple as study guide hours. The chapter also presented a lot of detail about how to set up assignments and distribute such time for each specific assignment or reading.
Toward the end of the reading, McKeachie listed a few things that I found very useful when trying to figure out what students can or can’t handle:
1. Choosing the familiar rather than the strange
2. Work with the concrete rather than the abstract
3. Keeping the topic simple
4. Using everyday language as much as possible
I would like to make an attempt to this for my final project in this class, however I do see how it could be quite time consuming and it looks as though you will need a lot of prior knowledge and be aware of text choices. I think I’m going to try anyway.
The additional reading that I found for this entry deals with course planning and tips for writing a syllabus.
http://ctlt.jhsph.edu/resources/index.cfm?event=topic.view&topicID=2
The first thing that I found to be useful in my own teaching environment came from McKeachie’s chapter on ‘facilitating active learning’. The section first touched back on active learning along with learning cells and student discussion. McKeachie suggested a few different possible techniques that could help promote positive, successful discussions within the classroom. Although he focused mainly on large lecture oriented classrooms, I believe that the techniques could also be used in a smaller classroom, such as my current class size of 22.
One idea that I would like to incorporate into my own teaching would be ‘buzz groups’. This activity suggests breaking the students into smaller groups to discuss relative readings or material that is currently being presented. The reason I like this tactic is because students in my classroom tend to have a hard time answering questions when asked in front of the class, leading the questions into a discussion, and really just talking in general. I also like the idea of comparing notes with one another in hopes that someone would ask another a question. With a few in class activities I have done earlier on in the semester, I found that the majority feel more comfortable speaking when there are less people listening and less pressure. Although the discussion groups I have done in the past didn’t revolve so much around the exact material presented, it is something that I will like to incorporate in future group activities.
Another subject that McKeachie presented was the roles that a teacher plays. Although some of them may come across as obvious, others were new to me such as ‘socializing agent’ and ‘ego ideal’. The one that I would like to focus on is the ‘socializing agent’. Before reading this I had never really applied the term to any of my previous or current professors, but now the term has become clearer through the examples McKeachie presented.
Looking back on some of my previous professors, the ones I seemed to understand the most and enjoy the class were those who implemented their own personal experience in the field to the classroom.; not only through discussion and examples, but through numerous assignments and large projects.
In the current class I teaching, most of the assignments (speeches) they will be able to take with them forever whether it be in school, work, or personally. However, I will be adapting this idea to the course I am designing for our final project. The class I am working on will have many components that the students will be able to take with them after they graduate and even to interviews to show their real-world project. Students, including myself, seem to adapt best when they can actually see their work being applied outside of a classroom setting. Looking back, I still keep in contact with a few professors because they were there to help me adapt new skills and take the ones I already had and make them stronger through assignments, projects, and their personal knowledge of the subject.
The last thing I will take with me from the reading is the tips and suggestions for sketching out the shape of a course. I find this useful because I am currently struggling with particular aspects of the course I am designing for our final project. There were examples that McKeachie used that I had never really thought about. For example, I would have never thought to chart out what I should be producing for 90 hours of class time and fitting that into a 15-week course. The weekly schedule has a great layout and could be very useful in any field. It has an interesting design along with various distribution categories. Categories that I wouldn’t have thought about, even as simple as study guide hours. The chapter also presented a lot of detail about how to set up assignments and distribute such time for each specific assignment or reading.
Toward the end of the reading, McKeachie listed a few things that I found very useful when trying to figure out what students can or can’t handle:
1. Choosing the familiar rather than the strange
2. Work with the concrete rather than the abstract
3. Keeping the topic simple
4. Using everyday language as much as possible
I would like to make an attempt to this for my final project in this class, however I do see how it could be quite time consuming and it looks as though you will need a lot of prior knowledge and be aware of text choices. I think I’m going to try anyway.
The additional reading that I found for this entry deals with course planning and tips for writing a syllabus.
http://ctlt.jhsph.edu/resources/index.cfm?event=topic.view&topicID=2
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Entry 8
The course that I will be designing for this class is an advanced public relations course. It will be a senior-level course taken only by students that have a public relations major. This course will be two semesters long and require a heavy amount of work to be done outside of class. The purpose of this course will be to design a campaign for a local business that is in need of some extra help.
The first activity that I found useful from the reading was having the students write a journal. The book suggested that this activity be done outside of class, but I think it would be more useful to have it done in class. Journaling in class will provide more benefits by allowing the students time to write and then discussing it directly after with the class, a group, or a partner. The journal will reflect on how the students feel about their current project or case study they are working on. It will allow them to express their struggles as well as their strengths and hopefully find that others are having common attitudes. This assignment would not be graded, but as it states in McKeachie, “This is graded. You get 100 if you do it; 0 if you don’t.” I believe that students will be more comfortable expressing such feelings and attitudes knowing that their writing isn’t graded which will, I hope, encourage more truth and voice within each entry.
My second activity, active learning, would be correlation with the journal articles the students will be writing. Each class meeting, the student will be expected to write briefly in their journal about the projects they have currently been working on (what is working for them and what isn’t working for them). They could also write about a recent case study they found interesting or an ideas and examples they have or want to use for generated their own public relations campaign. When the students are done, they will meet for a short period of time to discuss everything they had written. They will share with others ways to overcome their problem areas and work together to make each individual feel more comfortable and stronger in their weaker points. Individually the students will be expected to keep their journal entries in an organized portfolio throughout both of the semesters so they can reflect on their work and how they have progressed. This will also enable the student to demonstrate signs of improvement each week, or writing, and learn from their past entries what worked or didn’t work for them.
This course will be focused on creating a public relations campaign for a company chosen by the instructor and evaluated for a semester by the students. With this, the course will offer a variety of case studies to be evaluated by the students to learn how to put together a campaign along with the positive and negative effects of good/bad campaigns. Each one these case studies will require steps of problem-solving and applying these steps to their individual projects. Those case studies that have shown poor public relations work will be examined in detail then re-worked, in groups, to make it into a successful campaign.
The activities after the lecture seem to be the most common way to go about it, but there was one time we had the activity before the lecture and it really made a difference. Getting students involved right at the beginning of class seems to help motivate them to learn more about the topic after the activity is performed. Students seem to engage themselves better in hopes to justify the knowledge with the activity. Performing the activity at the beginning can also make students more curious about the subject and therefore leading them to gain a better understanding by the end of the lecture. I thought this worked really well for the lecture we listened to, however, I do not know that this would work best in all situations.
Another thing that works well for me when participating in a group project is having the instructions either on the board or on a PowerPoint slide. This makes it easier for the group to grasp a common understanding and we can report back to that slide if the teacher is not available to answer questions. Having the directions presented in front of us also provides for a strong structure on answers.
The link I found helpful this week covers writing journals.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Entry 7
Learner-Centered Teaching [LCT}
The reading for this week was focused on Learner-Centered Teaching [LCT] in which I read about from an excerpt along with a chapter from McKeachie.
The excerpt summarized the ways to make a classroom learner-centered as well as giving a list of ways that it is not. There is a type of power or control that a teacher has over his/her students. Although many might believe that this is the way it should be and that there has to be some type of power role in the classroom, it can inhibit the way students learn along with their motivation to do so. The best way to become learner-centered is to brush away the level of power a teacher has over the students.
Before reading this I have only thought briefly about the power role a teacher can play within a classroom, but the excerpt laid out all of the possible aspects that a teach may have power over. Such things included: the timeline of the course and in what order the material is covered, how the assignments and tests and written and administered, any type of policy from attendance to late work, and most importantly- the grading scheme of the course. The excerpt made it clear that such structure, as I listed a few above, can lead to a lack of interest from the students and set forth a standardized method of learning excepted from his/her students.
The excerpt described that learner-center teaching is a way to connect with ones’ students’ and share ‘the power’. This can be done by giving students options about assignments and ways of studying, giving them a variety of things to chose from rather than a specific set of obligations and no room for adjustments. It is also important that teachers focus on how their students are learning, not just how they are teaching. Maybe the teaching method isn’t working for a majority of the students- how can one change that to reach a broader audience at a stronger level?? It could also simply be just letting your students interact in the classroom and open the floor up to discussion and let them ask questions or contradict a topic they might not understand or disagree with.
On a similar note, but not as extent, McKeachie focused learner-centered teaching around the motivation a student has to learn. What does the teacher do to help his/her students become active in the classroom and have a desire to achieve ones’ goals and not just slide by.
Some things McKeachie included as methods of becoming more learner-centered are:
-Interpret how your students are feeling about a lecture. What are their verbal as well as non-verbal language expressing about their interest and understanding of the material?
-Engage your students directly with the lecture by asking questions and getting the involved with a discussion about the material.
-Increase motivation individualistically.
Incorporating learner-centered teaching into my own teaching
After reading both the article and the chapter from McKeachie, I would love to plan a class that focuses a lot on learner-centered teaching. I think that it is important to give students options because they will be more motivated to accomplish an assignment or task if they are able to pick and choose what will work best for them.
I also believe that if students have the ability choose such things, they make take more interest in the class which will result that student being able to achieve higher goals knowing they can correlate what they want to learn, with what they actually get to learn. Allowing students to have just ‘freedom’ may allow them to feel as though they have the chance to actually express themselves along with their interests on a variety of levels and with other students.
In the class I am currently teaching, public speaking, the course is set on a strict timeline as to what needs to be done each class period and when items are due. When it comes to points for the course, there really isn’t too many offered besides the speeches and exams. I find this such an unfair way to grade a course because a simple exam or a speech could really make or break a student’s grade. I would like to incorporate more assignments, that my students would feel necessary to the class, to help them earn a higher grade and to me that they understand the material by being able to represent it in a different format. Although public speaking is a speech-driven course, I feel as though there are so many aspects that make a person good at speaking that get looked over. I want to incorporate my students level of understanding of subject matter and give them the opportunity to explore new ways of learned the material and not just rely on me to have a set list of things that need to be covered, when they’re going to be covered, and how they’re going to be covered.
Why incorporating learner-centered teaching could be difficult
The main idea here is that the power should be shared between the teacher and the students, however it was also mentioned the teacher must still have some power. When first trying to develop such a way of teaching, I think there would be a fine-line between giving your students too much opportunities as well as not enough, depending on what you’re goal might be. It is possible that there would be a lot of diverse opinions, questions, concerns and learning strategies within a classroom which could easily cause chaos and more work for the teacher than expected.
Touching a bit on what the readings covered about allowing students to decide a timeline for assignments; this would be tricky. What might seem as an understandable deadline for one person may not even be near the next person. With only 22 students in my current class, I believe there could be some common ground, but for those who are teaching classes of 40 or more students could end up a complete headache.
Learner-centered teaching can also depend on the age level/maturity of your students. Not all of them are on the same intelligence level as one another and this good inhibit some from learning as many of their peers do. Public speaking is a course that consists mainly of freshman or sophomore level students. At that maturity, I wouldn’t expect many of them to understand time-management quite yet and just how long it could take to get an assignment completed. By this I mean they would be more prone to extend a speech as long as possible. In comparison, those students who are juniors or seniors, may have adapted time-management skills and understand what is or isn’t appropriate for a speech timeline. They take the assignments more seriously as many of them are now in a class where it involves an interest of theirs, such as a class more their major (if it was another course besides public speaking seeing as it is a freshman-level required course).
Trying to incorporate every student’s learning strategies using a variety of techniques could not only be chaos, but a mess for the professor. It could get out of hand if the professor tries too hard to please every student in different ways rather than focusing on the basics. Students may even feel the need to debate a teacher on specific issues; ones’ that they feel are appropriate for the course but the teacher may not find relevant.
As great as this learner-centered teaching probably is and sounds, I think it would be much for difficult to put into action; at least until a teacher has found a way to work out the kinks and pitfalls.
http://home.earthlink.net/~davidpdiaz/LTS/html_docs/grslss.htm
The reading for this week was focused on Learner-Centered Teaching [LCT] in which I read about from an excerpt along with a chapter from McKeachie.
The excerpt summarized the ways to make a classroom learner-centered as well as giving a list of ways that it is not. There is a type of power or control that a teacher has over his/her students. Although many might believe that this is the way it should be and that there has to be some type of power role in the classroom, it can inhibit the way students learn along with their motivation to do so. The best way to become learner-centered is to brush away the level of power a teacher has over the students.
Before reading this I have only thought briefly about the power role a teacher can play within a classroom, but the excerpt laid out all of the possible aspects that a teach may have power over. Such things included: the timeline of the course and in what order the material is covered, how the assignments and tests and written and administered, any type of policy from attendance to late work, and most importantly- the grading scheme of the course. The excerpt made it clear that such structure, as I listed a few above, can lead to a lack of interest from the students and set forth a standardized method of learning excepted from his/her students.
The excerpt described that learner-center teaching is a way to connect with ones’ students’ and share ‘the power’. This can be done by giving students options about assignments and ways of studying, giving them a variety of things to chose from rather than a specific set of obligations and no room for adjustments. It is also important that teachers focus on how their students are learning, not just how they are teaching. Maybe the teaching method isn’t working for a majority of the students- how can one change that to reach a broader audience at a stronger level?? It could also simply be just letting your students interact in the classroom and open the floor up to discussion and let them ask questions or contradict a topic they might not understand or disagree with.
On a similar note, but not as extent, McKeachie focused learner-centered teaching around the motivation a student has to learn. What does the teacher do to help his/her students become active in the classroom and have a desire to achieve ones’ goals and not just slide by.
Some things McKeachie included as methods of becoming more learner-centered are:
-Interpret how your students are feeling about a lecture. What are their verbal as well as non-verbal language expressing about their interest and understanding of the material?
-Engage your students directly with the lecture by asking questions and getting the involved with a discussion about the material.
-Increase motivation individualistically.
Incorporating learner-centered teaching into my own teaching
After reading both the article and the chapter from McKeachie, I would love to plan a class that focuses a lot on learner-centered teaching. I think that it is important to give students options because they will be more motivated to accomplish an assignment or task if they are able to pick and choose what will work best for them.
I also believe that if students have the ability choose such things, they make take more interest in the class which will result that student being able to achieve higher goals knowing they can correlate what they want to learn, with what they actually get to learn. Allowing students to have just ‘freedom’ may allow them to feel as though they have the chance to actually express themselves along with their interests on a variety of levels and with other students.
In the class I am currently teaching, public speaking, the course is set on a strict timeline as to what needs to be done each class period and when items are due. When it comes to points for the course, there really isn’t too many offered besides the speeches and exams. I find this such an unfair way to grade a course because a simple exam or a speech could really make or break a student’s grade. I would like to incorporate more assignments, that my students would feel necessary to the class, to help them earn a higher grade and to me that they understand the material by being able to represent it in a different format. Although public speaking is a speech-driven course, I feel as though there are so many aspects that make a person good at speaking that get looked over. I want to incorporate my students level of understanding of subject matter and give them the opportunity to explore new ways of learned the material and not just rely on me to have a set list of things that need to be covered, when they’re going to be covered, and how they’re going to be covered.
Why incorporating learner-centered teaching could be difficult
The main idea here is that the power should be shared between the teacher and the students, however it was also mentioned the teacher must still have some power. When first trying to develop such a way of teaching, I think there would be a fine-line between giving your students too much opportunities as well as not enough, depending on what you’re goal might be. It is possible that there would be a lot of diverse opinions, questions, concerns and learning strategies within a classroom which could easily cause chaos and more work for the teacher than expected.
Touching a bit on what the readings covered about allowing students to decide a timeline for assignments; this would be tricky. What might seem as an understandable deadline for one person may not even be near the next person. With only 22 students in my current class, I believe there could be some common ground, but for those who are teaching classes of 40 or more students could end up a complete headache.
Learner-centered teaching can also depend on the age level/maturity of your students. Not all of them are on the same intelligence level as one another and this good inhibit some from learning as many of their peers do. Public speaking is a course that consists mainly of freshman or sophomore level students. At that maturity, I wouldn’t expect many of them to understand time-management quite yet and just how long it could take to get an assignment completed. By this I mean they would be more prone to extend a speech as long as possible. In comparison, those students who are juniors or seniors, may have adapted time-management skills and understand what is or isn’t appropriate for a speech timeline. They take the assignments more seriously as many of them are now in a class where it involves an interest of theirs, such as a class more their major (if it was another course besides public speaking seeing as it is a freshman-level required course).
Trying to incorporate every student’s learning strategies using a variety of techniques could not only be chaos, but a mess for the professor. It could get out of hand if the professor tries too hard to please every student in different ways rather than focusing on the basics. Students may even feel the need to debate a teacher on specific issues; ones’ that they feel are appropriate for the course but the teacher may not find relevant.
As great as this learner-centered teaching probably is and sounds, I think it would be much for difficult to put into action; at least until a teacher has found a way to work out the kinks and pitfalls.
http://home.earthlink.net/~davidpdiaz/LTS/html_docs/grslss.htm
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Entry 6
In McKeachie’s chapter about problem students and student problems, I found all of the sub-categories pretty useful seeing as I have been dealing with some of the same situations myself. It was good to know how to handle a variety of problems, rather than just the basic. Each category had good examples and presented some new ideas and problem-solving methods that were all new to me.
I am currently dealing with a few of the problems addressed this chapter. The first one has to do with inattentive students. As the semester progresses, I am finding it much harder to keep the class interested in lectures and activities. Instead they find it necessary to discuss what they did the previous weekend or what they are doing the upcoming one. The problem isn’t just with a few select students, as the book mentioned, but with the majority of the classroom.
One of the examples the book gave is to divide them into small groups to work on an assignment. I made this attempt a few weeks back, but to my surprise it didn’t really work. Although the students were placed at random, out of their ‘normal’ seating, I found the same problem occurring in some of the small groups. It almost seemed unfair to those that wanted to participate and listen because they were put off by everyone else chatting.
Another suggestion that McKeachie proposed was having each student write minute papers and then calling on the inattentive students to present what he/she has written down. I plan to incorporate this into my lecture over the next few weeks to see how it works. Teaching public speaking, this will also allow those students the chance for a short ‘improptu’ speech you could say, by having to present to the rest of the class. If this fails, then I will result to the last suggestion that McKeachie offered by having a general class feedback discussion about the issue.
Along the same lines as problem students, I am finding it interesting the absurd and numerous excuses a student will make to either miss class, turn in an assignment late, or why they didn’t have their assignment done in the first place. I was disappointed that McKeachie didn’t discuss what to do when someone gives you a bad excuse, or give examples. One thing that was proposed however was having students turn in outlines or a bibliography ahead of time to check their progress on an assignment. This is already a part of the curriculum for public speaking so it doesn’t really tell me anything new. I was hoping to learn more about handling situations.
After our class discussion last week about plagiarism and cheating, I found it interesting and useful to read about it in ‘First Day to Final Grade’. I liked the idea of having students write drafts of their own work so that the professor can see first-hand that he/she is doing the work themselves. Spotting plagiarism, I believe, could be tricky. I like that the book listed different ways one can figure out whether or not a students work has been plagiarized. It was also reassuring that the average person will miss most of the plagiarized work itself. When teaching public speaking, the students are required to write out drafts, however it wouldn’t surprise me if one would result to the internet for a speech. I will use the tips that the books suggests to help further my knowledge of catching a plagiarized speech or any assignment for that matter.
My related reading this week is:
I am currently dealing with a few of the problems addressed this chapter. The first one has to do with inattentive students. As the semester progresses, I am finding it much harder to keep the class interested in lectures and activities. Instead they find it necessary to discuss what they did the previous weekend or what they are doing the upcoming one. The problem isn’t just with a few select students, as the book mentioned, but with the majority of the classroom.
One of the examples the book gave is to divide them into small groups to work on an assignment. I made this attempt a few weeks back, but to my surprise it didn’t really work. Although the students were placed at random, out of their ‘normal’ seating, I found the same problem occurring in some of the small groups. It almost seemed unfair to those that wanted to participate and listen because they were put off by everyone else chatting.
Another suggestion that McKeachie proposed was having each student write minute papers and then calling on the inattentive students to present what he/she has written down. I plan to incorporate this into my lecture over the next few weeks to see how it works. Teaching public speaking, this will also allow those students the chance for a short ‘improptu’ speech you could say, by having to present to the rest of the class. If this fails, then I will result to the last suggestion that McKeachie offered by having a general class feedback discussion about the issue.
Along the same lines as problem students, I am finding it interesting the absurd and numerous excuses a student will make to either miss class, turn in an assignment late, or why they didn’t have their assignment done in the first place. I was disappointed that McKeachie didn’t discuss what to do when someone gives you a bad excuse, or give examples. One thing that was proposed however was having students turn in outlines or a bibliography ahead of time to check their progress on an assignment. This is already a part of the curriculum for public speaking so it doesn’t really tell me anything new. I was hoping to learn more about handling situations.
After our class discussion last week about plagiarism and cheating, I found it interesting and useful to read about it in ‘First Day to Final Grade’. I liked the idea of having students write drafts of their own work so that the professor can see first-hand that he/she is doing the work themselves. Spotting plagiarism, I believe, could be tricky. I like that the book listed different ways one can figure out whether or not a students work has been plagiarized. It was also reassuring that the average person will miss most of the plagiarized work itself. When teaching public speaking, the students are required to write out drafts, however it wouldn’t surprise me if one would result to the internet for a speech. I will use the tips that the books suggests to help further my knowledge of catching a plagiarized speech or any assignment for that matter.
My related reading this week is:
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The reading for this week was interesting to read about since I never knew so much went on ‘behind the scenes’ of testing. However, being a graduate teaching assistant of public speaking at NDSU doesn’t allow me to apply any of these strategies, or at least not yet.
In the communication department, we do not have the option to set up our own exams. All of our questions are planned ahead of time by a particular group of graduate students and are limited to multiple choice or true and false. I would prefer an exam that involved essay questions because I believe that the test taker has to apply more knowledge to them rather than answering a variety of basic questions that are straight out of the textbook.
Going back to what McKeachie had to say about types of testing though, it was brought to my attention about how many types of testing could possibly be done. I have never heard of ‘graphic representations of concepts’. I am interested to know what field of study this particular type of ‘testing’ would apply to because I do not see how it could be used in the communication field.
I am not disagreeing with what McKeachie had to say about alternate methods of testing, it is that most of them do not work in the field of communication, or at least not that I can see. Maybe someone else would have some good examples.
With that, I do not have any options with administering the exam to my class. Everything is pre-planned from review dates, exam dates, and the format that the exam is to be in. There is also no room for us to have our own grading procedures for the exam.
I found the section on ‘returning test papers’ very useful. McKeachie provided good information as to why handing them back and going over them in class can be useful to the student and help them learn from their mistakes. Looking back at my own experiences with exams, I also preferred covering the material in class afterwards, especially if it was going to be on a final exam. I am hoping that I will have the opportunity to present the students back their exams so they can see for themselves what areas they did well on and which areas they need at.
Another concept that McKeachie focused on was ‘reducing student frustration and aggression’. I enjoyed reading the bit of this that was there because I have never really thought much about it and I believe that professors should use strategies and provide guidance about tests more often. I found it interesting that those who wrote comments on their exam in the extra space provided resulted in those students having higher scores. Taking the time do read through everyones comments as to why they feel what answer is best would be quite time consuming, but I do think that it would be very beneficial and would like to test this out sometime in a class that I teach. I could see this working in public speaking because so many students in my classes right now feel the need to contradict many particular points that I make so it would be interesting to see what they would write on their exams if they felt as though the answer should be different than what has proposed.
In the communication department, we do not have the option to set up our own exams. All of our questions are planned ahead of time by a particular group of graduate students and are limited to multiple choice or true and false. I would prefer an exam that involved essay questions because I believe that the test taker has to apply more knowledge to them rather than answering a variety of basic questions that are straight out of the textbook.
Going back to what McKeachie had to say about types of testing though, it was brought to my attention about how many types of testing could possibly be done. I have never heard of ‘graphic representations of concepts’. I am interested to know what field of study this particular type of ‘testing’ would apply to because I do not see how it could be used in the communication field.
I am not disagreeing with what McKeachie had to say about alternate methods of testing, it is that most of them do not work in the field of communication, or at least not that I can see. Maybe someone else would have some good examples.
With that, I do not have any options with administering the exam to my class. Everything is pre-planned from review dates, exam dates, and the format that the exam is to be in. There is also no room for us to have our own grading procedures for the exam.
I found the section on ‘returning test papers’ very useful. McKeachie provided good information as to why handing them back and going over them in class can be useful to the student and help them learn from their mistakes. Looking back at my own experiences with exams, I also preferred covering the material in class afterwards, especially if it was going to be on a final exam. I am hoping that I will have the opportunity to present the students back their exams so they can see for themselves what areas they did well on and which areas they need at.
Another concept that McKeachie focused on was ‘reducing student frustration and aggression’. I enjoyed reading the bit of this that was there because I have never really thought much about it and I believe that professors should use strategies and provide guidance about tests more often. I found it interesting that those who wrote comments on their exam in the extra space provided resulted in those students having higher scores. Taking the time do read through everyones comments as to why they feel what answer is best would be quite time consuming, but I do think that it would be very beneficial and would like to test this out sometime in a class that I teach. I could see this working in public speaking because so many students in my classes right now feel the need to contradict many particular points that I make so it would be interesting to see what they would write on their exams if they felt as though the answer should be different than what has proposed.
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