More Quick Hits

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Stocking, S. Holly, Bender, Eileen T., Cookman, Claude H., Peterson, J. Vincent, and Votaw, Robert B. (1998).  More Quick Hits:  Successful Strategies by Award-Winning Teachers.  Bloomington, IN:  Indiana University Press.

Here are some sample techniques from the book.

Collaborative Syllabus: students get list of possible topics and rank-order them.  The instructor compiles the data and prepares histograms to show the highest-ranking topics and the instructor’s suggested class schedule.  After discussion, the class topics and schedule are set.

Facilitating Discussion Through Review:  at the beginning of each class, students take out their notes, a pen,and a highlighter.  The instructor asks questions from the last lecture:  if students notes are good, the answer is already there and they use the highlighter on it; if not, they use the pen to jot notes.

Agenda for the Classroom:  How come we use detailed agendas for meetings but not for classes?  Microsoft Word 97 offers an “Agenda Wizard” that can walk you through the process of creating detailed agendas.  Bob’s Note: The Agenda Wizard isn't installed in a Typical setup and is available only on the CD-ROM version of Microsoft Office 97. To install it, copy it and the other bonus templates from the ValuPack\Templates folder to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\Other Documents folder on your hard drive.

Top Ten Lists:  a David Letterman show standard, every class can include one:  just mix in humorous items with real items.

Checking In/Checking Out:  for small classes, begin by circling chairs.  Everyone responds to the question “How are you doing?”  While most will say “Fine”, encourage them to briefly mention any course-related or life-related problems they’re having.  Everyone goes, then they get a few minutes to ask questions, express sympathy, or give suggestions.  As the name suggests, you could also end class with this technique.

It’s Her Idea, Not Mine!  A professor who gave two-minute breaks in large classes for students to discuss topics with neighbors was disappointed at the lack of reporting afterwards.  But now that the students report on the good ideas of other people around them, participation rose!  The instructor believes the reason is that it allows students to save face. 

Autobiographical Collage:  The first day, distribute pieces of poster board, old magazines, scissors, and glue.  Give them 15 minutes or so to construct a collage that says something about them.  Then pair them off, have them interview each other, and then present the other’s poster while they introduce them.

A Piece of the Learning Puzzle: when lists have to be in sequence, reproduce them using large fonts (making as many copies as you’ll have groups), glue them to card stock, then cut them up.  Divide students into teams and give them time to sequence the list.  Then call on each group in turn: the first group gives the first list item, the second group the next, and so on.

How to Be New Yorkers: many students shy away from argumentative discussion.  To depersonalize it, you can tell them a  “Opinionated New Yorker” anecdote and tell them you’ll play a game: give a topic (e.g., “Romeo & Juliet:  Just a Couple of Dumb Kids?” and say in the next class, you’ll deliver an argument to support that interpretation---BUT they will have to come up with at least one alternative interpretation.

Dig Into Primary Sources:  if your library has back issues spanning decades, use them—imagine the view of family contained in 1950s “Ladies Home Journals”!  In addition, many of the ads will be hilarious today (e.g., new car ads from the seventies!) and lighten the mood of the class.

Is it Just Me or is That Guy Crazy?  If clinical teams are used in your discipline , you can have some students role-play “patients” while others role-play members of clinical teams on “rounds”.  Have the team members write objective descriptions of all the behavior or symptoms they see, then prioritize the items and write one question they’d like to ask a real clinician about the disorder. 

A Question of Understanding: instead of stopping lecture to ask if students understand a concept, say “Now if you understand what I have just been going over, you should be able to answer this question” and place a transparency of a question similar to one that might be asked on the exam on the overhead projector.   If they can’t answer the question, don’t answer it—say they’ll have to find the answer by the next class period (start the next lecture with it) or “advertise” an out-of-class study session where you’ll give all the answers.

Option to Rewrite (a modification of a technique presented in the book): if you give a term paper assignment, often students will not take advantage of offers to turn in rough drafts for correction.  But if after returning graded papers you give the option of submitting a revised paper for re-grading, many more students will take you up on it!

Professional Journal Scan: in upper-division classes, give each student a month and year from a professional journal that they will be responsible for, then send them to the library for half the class period.     They must make notes on the journal’s content, format, and articles and select an abstract to present to the class.  Students reconvene in the classroom (or, better yet, in a library conference room where the materials can be taken) for the second half of class and discuss their findings.   Besides familiarizing them with the journals in the field and the differences among them, this also helps students with research assignments later in the term.

The Five Habits of Successful Students: early in a lower-level class, mention a book like “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” and say we’ll construct a list of five habits of successful students.  First everyone makes their own list, then they meet in groups to narrow it down to a group list of five, then post the groups’ lists and discuss to construct one final list of five items.

Learning From Exam Results:  after giving back exams, give a survey asking questions like:

a)       What was your score? 

b)       Does it please you, upset you, or is there no reaction?

c)       Was your score what you expected (not what you hoped for, but what you expected)?

d)       Was the content of the test what you expected?  What topics that you expected weren’t on the test?  What topics that you didn’t expect were on the test?

e)       Was the difficulty of the test about what you expected?  Explain.

f)         How much time did you spend studying (not including usual class preparation)?

g)       How did you study for the exam? 

h)       What factors other than your study might have affected your performance?  Were these one-time events or are they likely to affect your exam performance in the future?

i)         How many days have you been absent?  How did you make up for missed classes?

j)         What is your goal for the next exam?  How do you plan to reach it?
A wealth of feedback can be provided by tallying these results in different ways: feedback for students to see the relationships between grades and study time/techniques/attendance, and feedback for you to help revise lectures and tests.

Teaching to Learn: students must pick a concept from the chapter and teach it to someone else.  Each writes a short paper about his or her experience and the class discusses the exercise.

Practice, Practice, Practice:  bring a tape recorder to class and play a familiar old song.  Sing along loudly, inviting them to do the same.  Then turn the recorder off and urge them to continue.  Most won’t have the words memorized.  Point out that studying by reading the book is like singing along with the radio—how many could sing all the songs if the radio wasn’t helping?  So why should they be surprised if they seem to know the material following along with the book but falter on exams?

Self-Graded Student Participation:  students grade themselves at the end of each class period on a four-point scale:  0= absent, 1=Present but did not verbally participate, 3=verbally participated more than once, or 4=contributed my “fair share” to discussion in terms of both quality and quantity.  If students inflate grades, try defining the scale degrees with examples before overriding them, and reserve the right to assign “5s” for rare participation “above and beyond the call of duty”.

In Lieu of the Practice Exam:  a professor who used to give practice exams but found little student interest now re-gives the first exam during part of the class following return of the scores for the first attempt.  He found that 90% of the students retake the exam and tend to do 10% better.  

No Whining---the Value of One-Page Appeals: giving feedback for grades often degenerates into appeals for a change of grade. To prevent this, students must present their case in a one-page essay.

Mini-Journals:  at the end of class, pass out index cards and have students write (a) 2-3 sentences about a concept they really understood and (b) 2-3 sentences about a concept or concepts they’re still unclear about.  If a given topic was unclear to a sizeable portion of the class, open the next class by re-addressing it.

Instant Feedback:  following an exam, students turn in the answer sheets but keep (or are given) their tests.  The instructor goes over the test and students receive two extra points for making corrections on the tests themselves and turning them in.  Students get immediate feedback, and the instructor maintains test security.

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