Any and all Teaching Tips that are related to pedagogy.
Designing quality discussion prompts can be a challenge whether building an online discussion forum or trying to better engage the classroom learner. As instructors, we’ve all asked questions of our students that failed to lead them to our verdant garden, blossoming with student ideas. Instead, at one time or another, we’ve led students to deserts of superficial or pat answers that lay shriveled in darkness with only the chirping of crickets as adulation.
When the power goes, what happens at traffic intersections? Without the central authority of the automated traffic lighting system, the drivers are forced to slow down and become more aware of their surroundings and fellow travelers in order to pass safely through the crossroads. Traffic continues because people, largely, organize themselves.
When we think about the accepted content in our disciplines, we know that established theories, processes, or standards don’t start out as the perfectly polished final products that we often use as examples for our students. Theories and processes evolve, are reviewed and refined, through trial, error and peer review. Great ideas come from taking risks and accepting that the result may not be what we anticipated or even be successful on the first pass.
Explicit roleplay has a rich history in education. Law students use mock-trials to hone their craft; counselors roleplay client contact sessions, and many disciplines require students give presentations or perform project work while acting in the role of the professional they hope to become. In fact, the dialectical method of Socrates is a form of roleplay, wherein participants adopt an aspect for an argument not necessarily their own.
In our last teaching tip we talked about the power of play and how celebrating successes, while minimizing the consequences of failure, can foster an environment of experimentation and discovery. In short, these are key elements that help make learning more fun. This week, we’re going to look at a practical examples of this principle applied in classrooms here at UAF.
From our earliest stages of cognitive development, we have learned from play. Play urges the player to try over and over again even as she repeatedly fails; play generates its own persistence, encouraging the player to continue caring even after her obligation to do so has ended; play is an active celebration of deeper understanding, such that the great players in any field, from baseball to physics, are remembered and celebrated for how well they played.
We owe it to the students, the institution and the larger community to champion our material and point out the relevance that we know exists. Why else would we teach what we teach and do what we do? What instructors and students both want are courses that frame content in engaging ways.
When I first taught face-to-face composition with the goal to help students understand the academic essay, I had them print out their papers for me to read at my desk next to my beloved mug of pens. I’ve never been comfortable doling out grades without extensive, contextual feedback, so I always wrote a great deal in the margins.
How many teachers have thought “If that student would put as much effort into studying or completing assignments as he does finding ways to cheat, he wouldn’t need to cheat!' But there are a variety of reasons why students cheat in the first place, so being proactive in your exam creation efforts may be better focused in prevention strategies.
How might you effectively respond to discussion, topical events or student performance? In any mode of instruction, teacher presence and guidance are essential for students to learn new concepts. Bland generic feedback is far less motivational than customized personal communication directed at student performance or specific class discussions.
Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and promoting meaningful discussion in the classroom helps create a more dynamic and effective learning community. Get some ideas in this week's Teaching Tip.
The Understanding by Design model teaches us how to create our curriculum backward from big ideas to activities...but what about the benefits of teaching backward? Allowing students to explore larger concepts, while you fill in, here and there, with the details, helps to enliven the experience of the subject.