I said earlier I’d post notes from Lilly South… here they come!
How to Wake-Up Your Students
Ed Neal, PhD
- This session aimed at beginner for instructor looking at incorporating active learning
- Wanted everyone to come away with one or two things we could incorporate to facilitate active learning.
- Average wait time for instructors waiting for students to answer questions is ONE second! Study showed waiting 20 increases answers.
- Studies show students are the most sleep deprived.
- Humans use all five senses, evolutionary, sit in class and think “no threat, no food? time to sleep!”
- Preconditions: Preparation
- students have to read the questions to answer the questions
- we have lots of carrots and sticks, but we don’t necessarily use them all
- largely worried about time to grade
- are ways to save time
- The first day of class students come in with expectations, if you want to do active learning, you have to start on the first day
- case study, discussion, etc.
- can’t tell them it’s going to be active, you have to show them
- what if we asked them why we structured the class the way we did? ask if they see anything missing? anything irrelevant?
- but once you’ve set up expectations for active learning, you have to deliver for the rest of the semester
- want to start from the beginning encourage and reward risk-taking
- if we’re ever asked a hard/provockative question: Stop, Think, Inquire, Respond (most important is the S)
- Low Risk Techniques
- 1. questioning
- strategize questions to motivate content through session
- ask questions that are relevant to students’ experience
- ask what might explain something rather than what does explain it
- use Bloom’s Taxonomy as a model
- use Basic Thinking Skills as a model
- must initially write down questions
- have a strategy to keep students engaged (where is s/he going with this?)
- if you can get faculty to use some of these strategies we can get them committed to the model, they would then be interested in learning more about why
- wrong answer? reward for attempt, ask “why did you respond that way?” and clarify the answer or reward and then ask other class members for their perspective
- create the feeling the whole class is there together working on learning the material
- 2. In class writing
- this engages activity, one cannot write without thinking
- gives people a foundation for when you call on them
- this lets you act a harder more systemic questions
- can ask for 3 to read & have class compare
- let pairs of people discuss with is right, then can call on pair (so they have support)
- 3. Classroom assessment techniques
- non graded ways of assessing what people are learning
- http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/assess.htm
- doesn’t have to be turned in, can just reinforce
- 4. Cases
- allow students to practice thinking in a safe environment
- can spend 10 minutes thinking and arguing and can commit to an answer that they’d feel comfortable sharing group conclusion with the class
- 5. Pair work
- big supporter of cooperative learning
- Interactive lecturing with talking and different types of activities
- INTEGRATED and reinforce learning outcomes (entertainment if just to break up lecture)
- reading papers for each class
- collect 5 times over semester, worth 25 percent of grade
- others save them as review for final exam
- Start with a quiz (not necessarily graded):
- Starting with a quiz is a good way to start b/c students always want to know why something is false.
- Good idea to let people share answers first, gets people thinking about what’s right and commit to the subject.
- William Sparke: “Teaching consists of causing people to go into situations from which they cannot escape except by thinking.”
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