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Please check the Faculty Calendar for updated dates and times for the following workshops:
What are the best ways to engage students in focused, time-efficient, worthwhile class discussions? How can we lead an informative discussion without excessively predetermining its course? We'll use a case-discussion format to address these questions and to examine some common pitfalls of class discussions. An analysis of our own discussion will add a metacognitive approach to our topic.
Many lecturers are overly critical of their own performance. Efforts to perfect our lecturing techniques can sometimes lead to a counterproductive focus on what the teacher is doing and inadequate consideration of what the students are doing. Our session focuses on how to be sure that students are "getting" what we are teaching in lectures, and how to help students be active learners in a lecture class. We'll use these and other criteria as we view and discuss videoclips of famous lecturers.
What are the most important kinds of knowledge and skills a student should gain from your course? How can course content and assignments best be arranged in a sequence over the course of an academic quarter? We'll use actual syllabi as examples in this discussion.
For most of us, grading and commenting on students' papers can be a time consuming chore. Yet research shows that a lot of our painstaking comments are counterproductive! Come find out how fewer, briefer comments on papers can help students learn better. Actual student papers will be provided as a jumping off point for this discussion on grading and commenting strategies.
We'll begin this workshop by watching videotaped examples of collaborative learning exercises in undergraduate classrooms. Then participants will engage in a collaborative exercise designed to identify the advantages and drawbacks of collaborative learning. We'll conclude with strategies for designing successful collaborative learning experiences, as well as a consideration of when these exercises are worth the time they take.
Description coming soon
Assignments and exams are a necessary part of undergraduate education that we have come to take for granted, largely because they provide the basis for a student's grade. The best assignments and exams are exercises that promote students' curiosity and learning. This session will examine the characteristics and appropriate sequencing of intellectually stimulating assignments/exams. Sample assignments and exams will be provided for analysis and discussion. Participants will also work on designing an assignment.
Research in the fields of education, neurobiology and psychology informs our understanding of how students learn. Yet there is a gap between what we know about learning and what we do about it when we're teaching. Our discussion will focus on practical implications of the research on students' learning, especially on teaching techniques that address a variety of students.
