academics_anon, posts by tag: teaching-tools - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

| I was wondering how many of you use clickers in the classroom either as an instructor or a student. I'm seriously considering using them for my large lecture class I will be teaching next semester. What are some of the positives or negatives you have experienced, either as instructor or as a student, using clickers? Did you like teaching with the clickers or would you rather not deal with it ever again? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!Just a little background information about my class: its a World Regional Geography course (100 level) and is a requirement for liberal studies majors. This semester I taught it and only had 30 students in the class but next semester I will have about 130 and there's a possibility that I will have a GA assigned to me for 90 hours (we're still working out, there was some "confusion" about this at the last faculty meeting apparently).ETA: I should mention I went to a clicker workshop put on by the ITS dept and received a free clicker and receiver. Also, I would probably only use it for is participation points, attendance and possibly quizzes.Tags:teaching, teaching-tools I'm teaching the lab for a 4th year embryology course this semester.I spent a good deal of time expressing to the students that this laboratory would not be a walk in the park and that, while my expectations are well within the bounds of reasonable, I will not hold their hand. This week I was assaulted with request after pouty request that I post my prelab slides online. Apparently taking notes while listening to a 15 minute prelab lecture "is so passé", and "how dare I threaten their learning by not allowing them to access that material outside the lab time". I've given these current students the same access to the material that my students had when I taught this lab two years ago: during the remaining 2.75 hours of the lab they may, at their leisure, consult the laptop/projector cart where the powerpoint file remains open for viewing on the laptop screen. During the prelab talk I even give strong hints about specific material will be on the quiz the next week (e.g. "Wow, this would make a great test question!") to try and guide their study a little.My reasoning for keeping my prelab files in my own hands only is more than just the usual 'you no longer have control over the material once it's out there' blather. I firmly believe that in this course, which has a lot of structure-recognition learning goals, handing my students a very limited learning tool like this will actually reduce the diversity of resources they consult while studying for quizzes and exams (...when they choose to study...), and consequently rob them of their ability to deal with natural variation we see in these structures (and I've explained to them this much). This course has relevant and reliable images and study material available all over the web from a wide variety of universities, and I point out a great weblink or two every lab, so I'm not leaving them google-groping in the dark, either.So, community members, lay your judgement on me. Am I being a dick, or do I have ground to stand on?ETA: Thank you all for your feedback and perspective. Tags:class handouts, resources, teaching-toolsMood:morose I've noticed a strange trend with a lot of professors, and I'm not too sure why this is happening so perhaps you can comment on a) whether you've done this in the classes you teach and b) if you can provide some kind of explanation as to the reason .Basically this trend is the professor will bring in a nice big bowl or basket filled with bite-size candy. She will then pass it around the room during class discussions or on days when a big assignment is due she'll start the class by something like "As a reward for your hard work, please pass around the candy bowl and treat yourself to one or two".I find it weird and almost like they're trying to bribe students into liking them or something. I recently had a discussion about this with a friend who told me nowadays professors are paranoid with ratemyprofessors.com reviews so they do everything they can do to make students like them, hence the candy. True? False?Please clarify, comment, discuss....Thank youTags:etiquette-and-ethics, name-changing in academia, penis issues, student-evaluations, teaching-tools Hello everyone. I have been asked to teach the Women's Studies Senior Seminar/Capstone class in spring 2009 at my university, and I am trying to come up with some ways to have the students more actively participate in the learning process, as is required in feminist pedagogy. I want to give my students a creative outlet to reexamine some of the ideas they have learned in four semesters as undergraduates. So far, I am considering using blogs or having them create a `zine, but I think `zines may have had their day.My question is: have any of you used blogs and/or `zines as learning tools? Did they work? Do you have any advice for how to successfully utilize these tools in a classroom environment? Do you have any other suggestions? It is my first time teaching this class, so I am researching several options. Thank you in advance.Tags:blogging, teaching-tools I'm looking for ideas about how to keep all my teaching stuff organized. This fall, I started teaching six classes a week (two per day), and I do all my prep work at home. I have the same classroom for all six classes, but can't leave much in the classroom itself. I have the usual stack of papers to carry around: textbook, attendance lists, course outline & syllabus, lesson plans, photocopied handouts, student assignments, materials I'm working on for future classes... And I need to be able to fit everything in a single backpack or briefcase, because I walk or bike to work (plus, I don't have that much room to work at home, either). Originally, I tried to fit most of it in a single binder, but that binder is going to explode any minute now. Plus, I'm *still* scrambling to find that handout/assignment/set of flashcards in class. I'm trying to figure out a reasonably portable system that will help me stay organized. What I have at the moment is passable, but I want something better. I'm not an adjunct, but I figure that many adjuncts face similar challenges (no office, traveling to multiple classes).So: How do you stay organized? How do you carry your stuff around? How do you find that handout halfway through your class?Tags:class handouts, course development, getting organized, teaching-tools After a suggestion on a_a before, I'm coming back to you with a question:I'm thinking about scanning in articles and making them available online as pdfs rather than printing /assembling articles into a course reader for purchase. Having readings as pdfs will save students money and maybe a few trees. I'm wondering if anyone has uploaded pdfs to a centralized upload/download site (megaupload, box.net, sendspace, etc.). If so, did students react favourably? I can upload readings to webCT but I prefer a central site. I'm experimenting with web 2.0 in class this year anyway (ex. important links in delicious, images on photobucket). Thoughts?Tags:article/site-recommendation, reading-recommendations, teaching-toolsLocation:my living roomMood:optimistic At the University of Western Sydney, a student petition is demanding cuts to course fees to match cuts in face-to-face teaching time. (Article from The Australian, 10 September 2008.)In the course "Texts and Traditions", 6 of 13 lectures are presented as podcasts, a fact that was presented to the students in the first week of the course. Arts dean Wayne McKenna said he believed Texts and Traditions was the only unit in which podcasts replaced face-to-face lecturers."(But) I suspect it could well be the shape of things to come," Professor McKenna said.He said there had been a sector-wide embrace of technology to cater to student demand, and studies by the university's researchers showed today's students often had "quite burdensome work obligations".He said it was a myth that podcasting saved universities money; lectures still had to be prepared and delivered, albeit to a machine, and the technology brought costs.Ms Lawlor [the student who initiated the petition] said she welcomed podcasts as a complement to, but not as a substitute for, traditional scholarly interaction. Do any of you have experience in a university where students have disliked podcasts of lectures? Does this way of presenting lectures help you, and/or the students? Would you have liked this available when you were a student in your own coursework degrees?Tags:teaching-tools **The Free Physics Textbook**Ever heard of it? You can download it online. But my question:Does anybody know, or can anybody think of, a good and cheap way to print out this book? I asked places like Staples and Kinko's, and they would charge a lot of $ to print out every page, especially in color. Any ideas? Is this book available in print anywhere?(I hope this post is suitable for this community. I figured you guys might be knowledgable about acquiring online materials..)Tags:article/site-recommendation, teaching-tools I like having students do work online. It saves me from grading worksheets, saves trees, keeps me from losing journals, and I don't have to carry stacks of paper all the time. The only thing I have students actually turn in are paper copies of their essays.I've been dutifully keeping an online gradebook as well, so students can check their grades online. However, I'm beginning to wonder if this is more trouble than it's worth. Yes, it saves me the "Ms. P, can you tell me what my grade is?" questions, but the grade grubbing is beginning and I'm getting emails like this one: "I WAS LOOKING AT MY ATTENDANCE POINTS AND WANTED TO KNOW WHY I DID NOT RECEIVE ALL OF MY POINTS FOR WEEKS 5 & 12. I HAVE NEVER MISSED A CLASS AND WAS ONLY LATE ONE TIME WHICH WAS 12 MINUTES. COULD YOU PLEASE EMAIL ME BACK EXPLAINING WHY I ONLY RECEIVED PARTIAL POINTS." This is over 11 points out of about 1,100.I'm probably going to keep using online gradebooks because they make entering grades simpler and make the students responsible for answering their own grade questions.Do you keep an online gradebook? Do you keep parts of it hidden? Are they more trouble than their worth or do they just change the kinds of hassles we have to deal with?Tags:teaching, teaching-tools Top of Page | | | 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