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Planning for next round of teaching - What big picture ideas do you want your students to gain?
Before you immerse yourself in the day to day thinking of your courses, make a list of the big picture
concepts that you want your students to gain in this course. In ten years when they have forgotten all of the
details and most of the content, what do you want them to remember about this discipline? In addition, do
you want them to acquire better thinking skills, be able to see connections, have a new set of skills, obtain
new values, etc.?
Once you have thought about these broader picture issues for some time, then you can revise your courses
to be more consistent with these ideas.
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*Planning Process
When you get to planning for your next round of teaching use this planning process:
1. First consider the situational factors - who are your students, how does this course fit into
the large education program?
2. Then consider your learning goals for the course. What do you want your students to
achieve at the end of the course?
3. Next plan how you will assess your students and give them feedback. Assessment should
be consistent with the goals of the course.
4. Finally plan your teaching and learning activities to help the students reach these
objectives.
It may sound backwards, but it is more consistent and leads to a better course.
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1. What situational factors plan an important role in this course? Situational factors include the
general context of the learning situation (e.g., the university, the profession, etc), the nature of the
subject, the characteristics of the learners, and the characteristics of the teachers.
2. What should the full set of learning goals be for the course to meet the expectations of the
courses that come afterward, the profession, higher education in general, etc?
4. What kinds of teaching and learning activities will foster the achievement of the complete
set of learning goals that have been set?
3. Design the instruction, teaching and learning activities and the student assessment tolls to
match these goals
Don't forget to incorporate the feedback loop into your thoughts and revisions. Feedback can come from
many sources including your students directly, student evaluations, your own experience with the course,
faculty who teach your students afterwards the changing demands of the field or profession, peer
evaluation, etc.
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2. What are the course objectives? Where do they lead the student intellectually and
practically?
3. What are the prerequisites for the course? This includes not just previously taken courses
but major concepts that the students are assumed to know and be able to use in the course. How
will students acquire necessary, but missing skills or concepts?
4. Why do the parts of the course come in the order they do?
5. What instructional formats (lectures, labs, discussions, student presentations, group work,
etc.) will be used, when?
6. What does the faculty member expect from the students in day to day classes, in
assignments, on tests, etc.?
9. Why have the books been chosen? What is their relative importance in the course and in
the discipline?
10. What other resources should the students obtain/access. e.g., calculator, lab materials,
professional attire, access to the Web, etc.
11. Include a detailed schedule of events, classes, assignments, exams, date due and your
expectations regarding them.
12. Include your policies on lateness (both personal and for assignments), make-ups, absence,
class participation, etc.
13. How will the final grade be determined - Will you curve the grades, allow students who are
getting an A to be excused from the final, etc.? What weight does each assignment, exam, class
participation, presentation, etc. have?
14. Who the instructors will be if more than one is used, and how the students can contact
them.
Take time to plan and develop detailed course syllabi, it will save you time later.
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Content Coverage
As you plan your courses, ask yourself the following questions about content coverage:
1. How much content are you expecting the students to learn? Is this reasonable?
2. Is the content covered in a context that will help the students to learn the material?
3. Am I assuming that content coverage (by the instructor in a lecture or in the readings)=
student learning, mastery?
4. What can the faculty member do to promote students learning the material?
It is better to thoroughly learn less material, than to superficially learn, but not understand more material.
A quote from a very well respected educators says it very well, "The greatest enemy of understanding is
coverage. If you're determined to cover a lot of things, you are guaranteeing that most kids will not
understand, because they haven't had time enough to go into depth, to figure out what they requisite
understanding, is, and be able to perform that understanding in different situations" (Gardner, 1993)
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Consistency in expectations
Are you writing low level objectives, yet expecting high level learning? Or are you writing high level
objectives, and only examining for lower level learning? When you develop your materials for a course, be
internally consistent. If you are expecting higher levels of learning, then make sure the students see that
they will be examined/evaluated in a manner that is consistent with higher level learning. Higher level
evaluations might include multiple choice questions involving problem solving based upon a scenario,
student reports presentations asking student to graphically or pictorially represent a concept or develop a
schema for organizing the major topics of the semester, essay questions, critique primary literature in the
field, etc. Many of these techniques can be streamlined in the time required for correcting. The way you
present material can also encourage higher level learning. Do you go over all the material, or expect the
students to come prepared to class and ask questions? Give the students assignments or projects to do in
class that encourage higher level learning.
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o What are you doing to help your students reach these important goals?
If you find that you are not concentrating on these answers, what can you let go of to help achieve what you
really want to achieve?
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1. To meet the goal of an intentional learner, we need to help our students to become
integrative thinkers and see connections among disciplines, reflect on their acquired knowledge and
their learning to learn skills.
3. Enabled learners can use their knowledge and skills to communicate their ideas, solve
complex problems and manage practical situations.
As you review, revise and plan your courses for next semester ask yourself how well or how much are you
fostering these skills on our students. This thought process may allow you to incorporate these desirable
outcome indicators without making huge changes to your course structure.
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1. Are you showing how interesting the subject is and how much you still enjoy learning about
it?
2. Have you made it clear that you will still be accessible to the students as they continue to
learn?
4. Have you helped students to develop these learning to learn skills in this discipline:
If we can get our students to achieve this lifelong learning in a subject, we and they will have
succeeded.
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3. learning to take responsibility for their own learning and professional development
Thanks to Lois Peck and Diane Morel for making these student success goals so clear.
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Textbook selection
When you are considering textbooks to use in connection with your courses, first consider what and how the
content is taught. If you find several textbooks that are consistent with what you plan to teach, then look at
the additional instructional materials that you and the students can use that go along with this textbook.
Publishers of large sellers are developing excellent electronic cartridges that have many presentation
software for the figures in the book, self-instructional materials, self-assessments, web links, 3rd
demonstrations, etc. Some of these cartridges can also get you started with Blackboard very easily.
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Learn how to restrict the content we expect our students to learn and provide the scaffolding to allow for
further learning
Help our students keep on learning the subject after the course is over.
The is the only real chance we have to go beyond the basics with the students.
Have to find ways to make this subject interesting and inspiring so they will want to keep on learning
Thanks to Dee and Arletta Fink for helping with this tip.
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Faculty can share power with students to determine how individual classes are conducted, how material is
learned (not what material is learned).
What opinions are expressed, etc. Yet we cannot give up power as to how an entire course is run.
Faculty power comes from the authority our university has given us as the instructor.
We can share power but we can never share authority.
The idea of the distinction between power and authority comes from D. Fink's book, Teaching with your
mouth shut, 2000 Heinemann Publishers.
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you might ask the students to create a 20 item crossword puzzle, with the answer provided, on the
terms used in a chapter
ask five intelligent questions pertaining to the class material during a class
find a website that is accurate about a concept discussed in the textbook etc.
Distribute the bingo card at the beginning of the semester and let the students know that this is an optional
assignment.
When a student shows proof that he completed the activity the instructor marks the box. Prizes are given
when people complete a line or several lines. Prizes can be to drop the lowest quiz grade, can bring a study
sheet with information to the final exam or adding 5 points to the final exam score. The irony is that
students who get the most lines probably will not need the prizes because the extra work they did helped
them to master the material. However, the motivation to earn the prize may have helped them to engage in
the content more and to decrease their procrastination.
This tip was adapted from Amy Jo Sutterluety, Bingo Games Decreases Procrastination, Increase Interaction
with Content. The Teaching Professor, Nov. 2002: 16 (9) 5-6.
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*Maximizing student learning
As you are preparing or revising syllabi, prioritize what you do, what you ask students to do and especially
what you do while with the students (i.e., in the classroom) to maximize student learning. Here are a few
things to consider:
Information can be disseminated many ways beside through a lecture, consider posting material to
read, giving students access to websites or course auxiliary materials to illustrate concepts
While students are in the classroom, have them engage in the material by solving problems, asking
you questions, or answering questions. You can use the time to check on their mastery of the material, to
help them to learn better or clarify misconceptions
Ask students to check each other's homework, discuss their differences and then have an
opportunity to redo their improved/corrected solutions (have them hand in both versions). This might be
done out of class.
Use blackboard to give self-assessment quizzes with the answers explained after the deadline for
doing it
Give students assignments that prepare them to come to class ready to engage in the material. Use
class to reinforce or apply content not to go over what was covered in the assignment
Give students explicit criteria on how you will grade papers, projects, etc. in advance of when they
complete the assignment.
o Give students opportunities to give each other formative feedback either prior to or instead
of you reviewing every product (especially homework problems).
o Allow students to give feedback using your criteria on drafts and then you will receive
better papers
If you incorporate some of these ideas, you might need to adjust the balance in your syllabus or consider
the total picture of what you are doing in the course.
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What is the most valuable lesson or content you learned from this course?
Is there something that the instructor should be informed about concerning his/her teaching style?
Keep these questions separate from the course evaluation forms that students need to complete. This should
be formative feedback just for you.
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If a professor's grading policy puts a heavy emphasis on class participation, group work, or written
assignments, then that professor probably wants students to be creative, to engage in dialogue, and to
interpret texts freely Students may not realize this unless you tell them. However, some times we can give
the wrong message by our grading policies. for example.
If the grading system is simply an average of two of three test scores, with no emphasis on
participation or interactivity, then some students might assume that the professor would almost rather the
students not show up for class and get the notes from a friend. So we need to be sure we are being
consistent with our messages and our goals.
Justin Everett set me this idea which comes from"If your Syllabus Could Talk," By Monica D'Antonio
in_Chronicle Careers_athttp://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/07/2007071901c/careers.html
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Number of students who felt Number of students who felt Comments for
topic
positive about this topic negative about this topic improvement
Action plan: How I will improve the course the next time I teach it.
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1. Post on your Angel website or describe on the first day of class some personal things about yourself
that you might be willing to share. This could include your hobbies, an interesting vacation you took,
your roles within the university outside of this class, etc.
2. Regardless of the size of your class, ask your students to develop a personal ad about them and
submit it to you alone. This ad should include personal likes, dislikes, interesting things about
themselves, hobbies, goals for the class, strengths and weaknesses as a student and learner. You
could also include more specific questions that you want them to answer.
3. If your class is small ask each student to schedule an 8 minute appointment with you during the
first few weeks of the semester (and strictly enforce the schedule ) by handing out an appointment
sheet that has 10 minute intervals. Send the appointment sheet out several times so students can
confirm or change their appointments.
4. If your class is larger and will be working in groups, try to set up group appointments in the same
way. You might need slightly more time for group appointments.
5. During these appointments, provide a relaxed atmosphere and tell the students this is an
opportunity to get to know each other as human beings and to help students to feel comfortable
talking to you. Review the personal ads and share common interests. Concentrate on learning the
students names in these appointments. Ask the students if they have any questions about the
course.
6. If this is an online class, you can meet with each student virtually.
I was reminded of these ideas by Christy Hawkins at Thomas Nelson Community College.
Best wishes with the beginning of the semester. Setting the right tone early pays dividends throughout the
semester.
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improved student/teacher interactions such as learning their names and having individual meetings
with them
making expectations for learning outcomes clearer while not compromising on standards.
McGowan and Graham (2009). Factors contributing to improved teaching performance. Innovative Higher
Education, 34, 161-171.
Perhaps you might try to incorporate one or more of these changes also.
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What topics or aspects of the course did the students had difficulty with?
Were there questions format that the students had difficulty with?
Did you adequately assess if the students achieved the learning objectives of the course?
Make some notes on your reflections that you can refer to as you plan this course again.
Good luck getting all of the student work graded accurately, objectively and efficienly.
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Once a course is more than half done, or when spring arrives, many students enthusiasm declines. You can
regain their dedication to our course by explicitly establishing relevance. At the beginning of the class you
can get students to think about:
How can the information and skills used in today's class be used in everyday life or in my career?
You can either take a few answers or ask students to hand in their answers.
Jeff Fox of Brigham Young suggested this idea.
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1. Sequence topics so that students have a grounding in the discipline before or during the time they
have rethink their beliefs.
2. Require students to read original source material to help them confront their own biases on what
the author/politician/religious leader said. This reading should be coupled with a self-reflection on
what they critically think now.
3. At the end of the time you will spend on the topic, ask the student to write a short open-ended
paper where they have to integrate what they learned or directly address the common
misconception.
I took these ideas from a very interesting article by Jack Meacham in Peer Review (Spring 2009) called,
"Effective Teaching to Counter Misinformation and Negative Stereotypes.
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List all of the policies for the course including lateness, attendance, handing in assignments late,
make-up , expectation for written assignments, food in class, what they should do if they miss a class, etc.
The bottom line for all of this is that you need to plan your course very carefully before you can finalize your
syllabus.
I am happy to look over your syllabi before classes start.
Let's get off to a good start of the year.
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