January 10, 2012

First things first:  Start lectures and classes with the most important ideas

One of the most robust findings in the psychology of memory is the phenomenon known as the serial position effect, which describes the pattern of recalling the information presented at the beginning of a list and the last few items in a list best.  This phenomenon influences memory in many everyday situations.  You are most likely to recall the names of the first and last people introduced during a meeting.  Jurors are more likely to remember the first and last evidence presented during a trial.   

During a typical 50-minute lecture, students are more likely to remember and retain material, information, and concepts that are presented during the first 15 minutes of class (Prime Time 1) and during the last 10 minutes of class (Prime Time 2). 

Maximize student retention of the most important points of your lecture by discussing them during one or both of these Prime Times for learning.  Resist the temptation to squander these critical times with mundane housekeeping tasks (routine announcements, taking attendance).  Use Prime Time 1 to introduce important new course concepts and reinforce previous material.  Use Prime Time 2 to summarize and reinforce the major content discussed during the day’s lecture.

This tip is based in part on a suggestion from Barbara Millis, Teaching and Learning Center, University of Texas at San Antonio (www.utsa.edu/tlc/).

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January 26, 2010

Encouraging active learning by adding clicker questions to your class

Student response systems (“clickers”) can be used in a variety of ways to engage students with course content and promote deep learning. Clickers can also promote the development of faculty expertise in addressing problems in student learning. For example, Derek Bruff notes that one instructor was shocked when he discovered that students’ performance on a clicker question did not improve after students heard his standard explanation of a confusing concept. He had firmly believed that this explanation was crystal clear, but student performance clearly indicated that this explanation did not improve student understanding. Students were just as confused after hearing the explanation as before. The instructor decided that he needed to find a better way to explain this concept and discovered that he could use clicker questions to determine immediately whether a given explanation improved student understanding.

Want to learn more about strategies for using clickers?

The Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching has a rich supply of resources on the use of clickers, including a list of resources organized by discipline:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/resources/teaching_resources/technology/crs_biblio.htm

You can also find a useful resource page full of technical examples, including some video demonstrations of instructors using clickers on the Vanderbilt site:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/resources/teaching_resources/technology/crs.htm

Derek Bruff also hosts a blog, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems:
http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/

UWF now hosts a Student Response System Users Group as a Google Group.
Click on the Sites option in your UWF GMail to access and join this group.

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October 21, 2008

What Makes a Great Teacher Great?

Ken Bain (2004) argues that the best teachers are not only expert in their discipline but they also know how to engage and challenge students. Evidence from a survey conducted by the University of Montana Center for Teaching Excellence indicates that students have similar criteria when they evaluate their instructors. Student respondents identified the following five behaviors as characteristics of excellent teachers (listed in order of importance):

• Knowledge of the subject matter
• Respect for students
• Prepared for class
• Displays a genuine enthusiasm/interest for the subject
• Creates a positive learning environment for students

Bain identifies a common characteristic of exemplary teachers across multiple disciplines: the best teachers believe that teaching matters and that all students can learn. Bain argues that these two beliefs influence how the best teachers prepare their classes, the kinds of learning activities they create, what they expect from students, how they treat their students, and how they evaluate the impact of their efforts on student learning. Bain defined quality teaching by the changes that occur in students’ thinking processes and future actions rather than by pass rates on exams that evaluate the retention of facts. He argues that the best teachers understand that the process of learning requires multiple opportunities to practice new skills, meaningful feedback about performance, and “plentiful opportunities to revise and improve their work.”

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tip based on a contribution by:
David Durr, Department of Economics and Finance
Murray State University

 

Updated 01/10/12 cdw