Adelphi University

Committee on Teaching and Advisement

#1 Jan 20, 2007 Using slides, maps or handouts

Brought to you from Harvard University:

When using slides, maps or handouts, ask the students what they see before you tell them what you see. Doing this helps students think about a problem as you introduce it.

#2 Feb 12, 2007 Borrow Your Students Lecture's Notes

Brought to you by the Berkeley Compendium on Teaching.

Periodically try borrowing lecture notes from several students. You can review them for a short time before class begins, or after class.

The best way to select students' notes is at random. Faculty members who have used this technique warn that it can be a very chastening as well as useful experience. "There was an incredible difference between what I thought I had said and the points I thought I had stressed, and what the students heard or felt was important to write down," one faculty member reported.

#3 Feb 26, 2007 Consider Outlining Your Lecture On The Board.

Brought to you by the Berkeley Compendium

An engineering professor says "I prefer to use the outline method from the start, I put up my outline before class begins, I think this emphasizes the importance of major ideas better because they are revealed in the beginning of the lecture, and the students can follow, and know where we are in the lesson."

Whereas a professor in the biological sciences says that she outlines her lectures on the board as she goes along. On a separate section of the blackboard she also writes down any technical terms or names of scientists that the students might not know how to spell.

"The outline serves to reinforce visually what I am saying," she explains. "Furthermore, it makes clear to everyone where we have been and where we are going. An added bonus is that writing the outline on the board as I go along slows down my lecture pace: it serves as an automatic `brake' and keeps me from racing through the material."

#4 April 10, 2007 To encourage a dynamic dialogue try sharing your thought process:

During a lecture, when you are making a particularly challenging  observation or drawing a conclusion based on evidence, pause and share with your students what they should be asking themselves:

• How can I make a claim like this?
• Where could I find alternative or conflicting ideas about this issue?
• What’s another way to make this argument or test this hypothesis?

I combine this method with theatrics. I save a front row seat in my classroom, and after I make a bold statement, I sit down in the seat and "heckle" myself from the audience.

For example, in the last workshop on Active Teaching for faculty, I began by saying "Active teaching engages students and improves teaching". Then I sat down in the classroom seat and said loudly: "No, active teaching wastes time and is not what students come for. They come to hear you teach." From there the faculty could begin a real dialogue about the pros and cons of active teaching.

#5 April 30, 2007 Learn From Your Successes

This week's tip is brought to you by the Faculty Senate on Teaching and Advisement and The Princeton University McGraw Center on Teaching and Learning.

As we near the end of the semester, here is a reflective teaching tip:

Every time we teach a course, we learn something more about how students learn in our disciplines.

Although we may think that we'll remember these insights after the semester ends, it is worth while to write down our thoughts while they're fresh. So after the semester's activities subside but before the memory fades, to take a few moments to compile your insights, successes, and missed opportunities from this semester. Doing this now will help you teach more effectively and efficiently next time. A structured process is to review the syllabus at the end of the semester and note in what lectures the students were fully engaged, and in what lectures did they seem distant. Or you could do it in a free form.

For a more interactive method -- if your course has Lab Instructors or Teaching Assistants, invite them to your office for an end-of-the-year thanks and the chance to find out from them where the students seemed strong and confident, and where they asked for more explanation.

#6 October 9, 2007 One-Minute Evaluations

This week's Teaching Tip is brought to you by the Senate Committee on Teaching and Advisement and the Scholar as Teacher from the McGraw Center at Princeton University.

Whether you try a new approach or not, you may find it helpful to end the class with a one-minute evaluation.

The "one-minute paper" is an exercise in which you ask students to take a moment at the end of class to write down a key point from the lecture or the discussion or identify a question they still have. Perusing these comments can help you determine if students are where you want them to be at that point in the class. Start the next class with responds to students comments or questions briefly during the next class.

The "one-sentence summary" exercise asks students to summarize a key concept, method, or reading in one sentence by responding to a question, such as, "What is the author arguing?" "What is the cause/result of this process?" These short writing exercises may reveal students misconceptions or struggles with the material.

Students can hand these in anonymously, or with their names.

#7 December 17, 2007 Slam Poetry

This teaching tip is from teacher and award-winning Slam Poet--Taylor Maki. He speaks about his experience teaching in the lower grades, but his message resonates for all of us who teach.

Taylor Maki on 'What teachers make': http://youtube.com/watch?v=tpog1_NFd2Q&feature=related

What is Slam Poetry?

Slam poetry is a form of performance poetry that occurs within a competitive poetry event, called a "slam", at which poets perform their own poems that are "judged" on a numeric scale by randomly picked members of the audience.

Taylor Mali is considered to be the most successful poetry slam strategist of all time, having led six of his seven national poetry slam teams to the finals stage and winning the championship itself a record four times before anyone had even tied him at three. Mali was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO original series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry." He was also the "golden-tongued, Armani clad villain" of Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film "SlamNation," which chronicled the National Poetry Slam Championship of 1996, the year of Mali's first national team championship.

#8 February 27, 2008 Conduct a mini-lecture on "How to Read."

Most students don't really know how to read a book. It seems like such a simple thing to a faculty member. The sheer volume of our reading forces us to learn how to effectively read and note the main points. Students, on the other hand, tend to approach a book in a linear fashion, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, from beginning to end.

Consider including a mini-lecture on reading various kinds of books. Give instruction on how to: read the chapters, identify the main points, take notes while reading, and how to highlight. You might also include how to skim the beginning and end of chapters, use the sub-headings, or understand tables and illustrations.

Within the first few weeks of classes, have students read a single chapter and bring in the highlighted text and annotated notes they have taken on the reading. Either in small groups or individually, check to see if they are highlighting the entire page (most common student error), or, incorrectly identifying the main points of the reading.

By teaching the students to critically read, class discussions can be richer, and the student is encouraged to really "own" the material they are reading.

#9 March 17, 2008 "Principle of Charity"

This week's teaching tip was submitted by Konstantina Myrianthopoulos of the Department of Psychology here at Adelphi University. The Teaching and Advisement Committee loved her tip and we are proud to share it with the campus community.

"Spend some time with students talking about the "principle of charity." I notice that students are quick to judge and criticize a theory or new idea, without having an adequate understanding of the specific theory. When reading a new theory or idea we should try to suspend our beliefs, tolerate ambiguity, withhold judgement and seek to understand rather than seeking contradictions and difficulties.

Any theory or new idea can be critiqued but we should read and listen as if we had no personal attitudes so that we remain open, receptive and then we will be able to absorb and understand the new information. Once an adequate understanding is achieved, new ideas and theories can be critiqued."

#10 September 29, 2008 Catch the "Buzz"

To kick off the teaching tips Liz Cohn, “tip-mistress” and Assistant
Professor in the School of Nursing, offers the following tip:

Ever find your class suddenly buzzing with students whispering to each other or
asking each other questions? My response to this used to be to require students
to quiet down while I explained further.

But recently I’ve realized that such behavior can be a useful signal that
your students need a moment at that point to discuss what you are teaching.

I learned this when I noticed that such a din erupted in my class each time I
taught a certain complex medical concept. Students always started pointing to
the part of the handout we were covering, in an effort to understand how the
lecture, the concept and the illustration were related.

Instead of telling the class to quiet down -- I decided to “catch the buzz."
Realizing that the students clearly needed to think it through out-loud, I
invited them to turn to their neighbors, explain the concept and work together
to understand the illustration. I asked the class to “buzz” for five
minutes, followed by answering any questions the groups had come up with.

The success of this tactic has prompted me to notice other behaviors of my
class and see if I can recognize what the students are trying to tell me. By
responding creatively to these messages, I hope I am “listening” to my
classes in a way which will help improve the experience for all of us.

#11 October 22, 2008 Encourage Better Papers

When your students hand in papers, do you sometimes find yourself wondering:
“What are they thinking?”

Here’s a simple form for students to use, to “pre-evaluate” their writing assignments. It enables students to look critically at the work and think about how they could improve it. This form can be attached to written assignments when they submit to you for grading.

Course:

Name:

SELF-ASSESSMENT SHEET

Please answer the following questions and attach this sheet to your paper or  draft.

1. In one sentence, what is the main point you are trying to convey?

2. If you had additional time to work on this paper [draft], would you want to change it? Explain.

3. What do you like most about your paper?

4. What do you like least?

5. Please use the space below to ask one question that you would like me to
address in my comments. [Design your question to elicit feedback that would
help you to revise your paper.]

--Teaching tip by: Julia Dubnoff. Courtesy of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching
and Learning, Harvard University.

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