Group items tagged

This article, by Todd Zakrajsek, offers some great tips for teaching large classes.

"The Problem During lectures, it's hard for every student to let you know if they understand or if they're confused. Especially in large classes, many students are reluctant to express their confusion which limits both their learning and their enjoyment. The Solution Understoodit addresses this issue by allowing students to anonymously, and in real-time, indicate if they understand or are confused. Understoodit runs on devices that you and your students already own: smartphones, tablets, netbooks and notebooks."

"Professors who wish to engage students during large lectures face an uphill battle. Not only is it a logistical impossibility for 200+ students to actively participate in a 90 minute lecture, but the downward sloping cone-shape of a lecture hall induces a one-to-many conversation. This problem is compounded by the recent budget cuts that have squeezed ever more students into each room. Fortunately, educators (including myself) have found that Twitter is an effective way to broaden participation in lecture. Additionally, the ubiquity of laptops and smartphones have made the integration of Twitter a virtually bureaucracy-free endeavor. This post describes the two main benefits professors find when using Twitter in lecture."

I do think that the author's conclusion about it being a great way to deal with growing class sizes due to budget cuts is simplistic and misses the point about it being a great way to engage students, period. Be sure to watch the video.

An excellent resource by Joan Middendorf and Elizabeth Osborn on a variety of fun ways to learn student names.

Ever wanted to try active learning, but felt that it might take too much time away from your lecture? A bookended lecture is one in which short segments of active learning are interspersed or bookended at the beginning and/or ends of the lecture. This resource provides summaries of 36 different ways to include some interactivity in your lectures.

Ever thought about using Google Earth as a learning tool in your teaching? SERC has a variety of Google-Earth inspired examples on their website to get you inspired this term!

Back-of-envelope calculations are a great way to help your students practice completing problems and to break up the lecture. Check out the SERC's examples of back-of-envelope calculations in their Activity Collection.

The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (NCCSTS) has an excellent repository of cases that could be used in teaching in higher education, specific to the sciences. Use their site search to browse the case collection. Educational use is encouraged, according to fair use guidelines, as long as the author of the case is cited along with the source, National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.