New GTA session at CTE Top three teaching book recommendations: Effective Grading by Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson, Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis, and Engaging Students by John C. Bean
--Judy Eddy, KU Center for Teaching Excellence
Discussions
Try a Tic-Tac-Toe review:
Students—in pairs or small groups--have an 8 X 11 tic-tac-toe grid.
The teacher uses a large area such as an overhead, computer screen, flip chart, or chalkboard to project questions, one at a time, that correspond to the tic-tac-toe grid.
When a group gets three correct responses in a row, they win that round.
Group work:
Each time you use groups, require one person to be responsible for being:
A leader (keeping the group on task and accomplishing the assignment)
A recorder (writing down the proceedings/filling out the required paperwork)
A reporter (reporting the group’s findings to the rest of the class)
Valuable contributor (contributing on-task ideas)
Labs or studios:
Use "Listening Teams" to help students focus on material presented. Divide the class into teams. Each team is responsible for one of the following assignments:
Questioners. Ask at least two questions about the material covered.
Agreers. Tell which points they agreed with or found helpful and explain why.
Nay-sayers. Comment on what point they disagreed with or did not find helpful and explain why
Example givers. Give specific examples or applications of the material.
Other team choices. Summarize the presentation; develop questions to test students’ understanding of the material.
Adapted from Silberman, M. Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996.
Large classes
Once a week, invite students to write questions on index cards that they give you ten minutes before class is over.
Go over as many as you can in class; collate the others and respond via group email.
Term papers
Order free bookmarks from the KU Writing Center and pass these out to your class. Freshman and sophomores may not be aware of the Writing Center and its resources, so help them tap into it now. (Week # 9 of the Web Calendar will have more information about writing.)
You can contact the Writing Center by phone at 864-2399 or by e-mail at writing@ku.edu.
Quizzes
Once a week, give a short quiz (three to eight questions) that’s no-penalty: students get participation points just for taking it.
Use the same type of questions you will include in a longer exam.
Students get an opportunity to deal with your style of questioning.
Both you and the students become aware of the learning that’s going on.
In-class writing
Create a new prompt for a short writing assignment. Keep this for days when you’ve run out of material before you run out of class time:
Use ideas that have perplexed the class, but keep the prompt focused narrowly.
Aim for a one or two paragraph response that pushes students into detailed thinking.
Compare/contrast ideas work well.
Addressing students' needs
To encourage your best students:
Prepare supplementary materials.
Use office hours for advanced exploration of a topic.
To encourage students having difficulties:
Hold review sessions during office hours.
Hand out copies of good papers/reports for models.
