Long Live the Lecture?

With all the buzz about "active learning," has the lecture gone the way of the rotary dial telephone? 

The Atlantic explores this issue in "Should Colleges Really Eliminate the College Lecture?" 

Apparently, The Atlantic has a history of defending the lecture. Here's 2013's "Don't Give Up On The Lecture."

"Teachers who stand in front of their classes and deliver instruction are not "out-of-touch experts"—they're role models."

Teaching Students How To Learn

Saundra McGuire's Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation is now available for checkout in the Office of Professional Development.

Image from Amazon.com

"An electrifying book! McGuire demonstrates how learning strategies can improve learning―and then charges faculty to teach them, complete with the slides for doing so in your class. . . A must read―and must do―for every teacher who struggles with students who don’t learn as much as they could or should!" (Tara Gray, Ph.D., Director)

Teaching Transparency

In "One Easy Way Faculty Can Improve Student Success," Cook and Fusch discuss the notion of teaching transparency and the empirical evidence suggesting it particularly helps underrepresented, first-generation, and low-income students.

Image courtesy of khunaspix at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Takeaway quote:

When students don't understand how a particular assignment will help them learn course material, they often perceive the assignment as "busy work" -- and fail to complete it successfully. Teaching transparently — explaining why the activity is important and what skills and knowledge students will learn — changes that dynamic, because faculty address the assignment's relevance as soon as they introduce an activity.

What Doesn't Work

In this November 2015 post we discussed Make It Stick, a book on the science of successful learning. Looking for the Cliff's Notes version? Here's an article by the same authors: "Classroom Practice – Effortless Learning Is A Dangerous Illusion."*

An overview:

Illusion 1

Repeated exposure burns new knowledge into memory.

Illusion 2

Single-focus, rapid-fire practice hones new skills.

Illusion 3

If learning feels easy, it is a sign you are mastering it.

Illusion 4

We are good judges of what we know and don't know.


*Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, Mark McDaniel.

Small Changes in Teaching: The Minutes Before Class

The Chronicle recently published an article of the same title. Its subtitle: 3 Simple Ways You Can Set Up the Day's Learning Before the Metaphorical Bell Rings.

In the spirit of seizing those valuable minutes before class, our own Laura Power briefly presented at Big Faculty Council the following classroom warm-up:

In Laura's words, it's "kind of cheesy," but who among us is opposed to a little cheese if it's effective?

So how does author James Lange propose that we make an opportunity of those usually-wasted minutes before class?

1. Mingle with students. At an individual level, ask students how they are doing. Strike up a conversation. Lay the foundations for the beginning of trust-filled student teacher relationship.

2. Provide the big picture. According to Lange, "Novice learners tend to see facts, concepts, and skills as discrete, isolated pieces of knowledge, without any awareness of the connections that join them all together." In those minutes before class, we can help students fit those pieces into a broader, coherent whole. Write the day's agenda on the board or an outline of the day's material. Once class begins, refer back to the outline or agenda, explicitly pointing out how the material hangs together in the larger framework.

3. Spark wonder. Display something interesting for students to observe as they enter the classroom, focusing their informal conversation and providing a launching point for discussion as class begins. Says Lange, "[It can be ] a great sentence in a writing class; a newspaper headline in a political science class; an audio clip for a music class; an artifact in an archeology class."

What other small changes can we make in those pre-class minutes to enhance our students' learning? For related reading, consider "You don't Have to Wait for the Clock to Strike to Start Teaching."

Three Ideas for Breaking the Ice on the First Day of Class (Reposted)

When I first started teaching, I struggled with how to start the first day of class. I used to dive right into the syllabus, but then I realized that my students had a hard time engaging with me when I spent the first thirty minutes of our first-ever class talking about my attendance and plagiarism policies. (snoooooooze)

I still had to cover that important information, but I decided that I'd warm up my audience first so they'd feel more comfortable and engage with the syllabus material (and hopefully read it and ask questions about it), and so I could get a sense of who my students were.

So now, I spend the first thirty minutes of all of my first days of class with some sort of "introduction" activity. Hopefully one of these will work for you!

Ask Students to Draw a Self-portrait
Ask the students to draw a little picture of themselves doing something they love to do. The students don't have to show their portraits to anyone else but you, but when they explain their portraits and their hobbies to the class, it gives everyone a quick introduction, and the personal detail helps you remember each student's name. (make sure to tell them that artistic ability is not important, and make sure to draw your own portrait [mine is always an awful, square-headed stick-woman]).

This is one of the better portraits I received last semester

A student draws himself throwing dice for a table-top role playing game

A common portrait: a student playing a video game

I ask my students to write their names and "majors" on the other side of their portraits and I collect them at the end of our first day. I flip through them after class and then before we meet again, and I can remember all of their names by the first week.

Have Students Interact
Use a Getting to Know You Bingo card like the one below. You can make sure that each item on the card is something that you can sign off on, and see how many students approach you. Once you reveal to them that all spots apply to you, too, they've gotten a glimpse at their instructor as well. The "prizes" can be candy, extra credit points, or a "pass" on the first pop quiz--whatever you want!

You could also ask students to form small groups to interview one another. Provide the questions to get them started--questions related to your subject matter, or general first-day questions--or have them come up with something on their own. Once everyone has talked to each other, ask for volunteers to share something interesting they learned about someone in their group.

Groups of three are better than pairs; if you ask students to get into groups of two, you run the risk of having an "odd man out" and a student feeling awkward about not having a partner. If students get into groups of three, there's a bit less pressure.

Use a PollEverywhere Poll
PollEverywhere a free and easy to use service to get students answering low-stakes questions anonymously. You can ask silly questions based on the syllabus (like the sample below), or you can ask them questions about their expectations of the class.

After I covered my syllabus on day one of my class summer, my students typed in questions they still had so we could go through them anonymously. This worked well because they came up with questions about things I don't normally cover (bringing food into the class [I don't have a formal policy for this because I've never had a problem], if they should call me "Mrs./Ms./Professor" or by my first name [I never bring this up on my own because I never really have a clear answer].

Be careful, though, because you might get questions that are not classroom-related (e.g.: how many tattoos do you have? what is your dog's name?). I told my students that I'd answer all of those questions if they came to see me during my office hours. None of them did.


So what works in your classroom?