How to get students to do assigned readings-
- McKeachie reiterates to us that students learn more efficiently from reading than from listening, so it is important to make sure students have the textbooks for class and are reading them. I have had classes that all of the material for tests come from lecture and I wasted my money on the textbooks. I have also had classes that I don't think the teacher even opened the textbook. Therefore, I want my students to use the textbook they are paying for!
- Effective use of textbooks can be implemented in the Communication field by having quizzes over the material, asking students to write reflection papers on some main points they found, or discussing topics the students found difficult. The teacher can also write questions that go along with the reading so students can stay on track while reading and make sure they are going through the material well enough to pick out the important parts. Teaching the students how to read their textbooks can also be beneficial, especially in a smaller communication class where discussion and interaction is easier. Teaching students to write in the margins of their textbooks and highlight and underline information might be new for those that are used to the rules of high school where you were often penalized for writing in textbooks.
- Reading of the textbook is very important for COMM 110, since that is where the majority of the material for exams and quizzes comes from. The textbook also gives a good background of public speaking tips, and by taking the class, the students get to execute this information by actually giving speeches. I used to hate as an undergrad when professors would give quizzes to see if anyone in the class read the book, even though I usually had done the reading! The quizzes brought on unnecessary anxiety about going to class and when we would have the quiz. In my class, I would like to use McKeachie's tip of encouraging students to read by frequently saying while lecturing, "as you read in your textbook for today." I think by doing this, students will be able to keep to themselves if they actually read or not and feel prepared or unprepared. Hopefully they will catch on that they need to read so they understand the lecture even more and feel confident to answer questions and participate in discussion. I also plan to have the students take out a sheet of paper and summarize some main points they read about or to write any questions they had about the reading and be required to bring it to class the next day like we do in my graduate classes.
More Helpful Discussion Tips-
- Discussion is something I have taken for granted until I learned that there are actually methods that lead to better discussion. I really liked the link I posted last week that had the "bridges" or ways to get students to elaborate and say more of what they are thinking. Something valuable I learned from McKeachie this week that I think I am guilty of is trying to ask questions to start a discussion, but making it sound as though, "I know something you don't know." I often ask if anyone in the class can name the 5 Canons of Rhetoric or other questions that are found in the readings. This probably is not the best approach because it often does not lead to a discussion like I hope it would. To correct this, McKeachie suggests relating information to other things for students to better understand.
- Relating information you are trying to teach can be easily implemented into the Communication field. Students process information better when they can compare what they are reading to scenarios or experiences they have had. Professors can ask for students to chime in with examples, show Youtube clips, check what was in the news, and other ways of relating information.
- I will implement this in my classroom by not rehearsing my lectures. This is something I am working on. I have been having problems with filling the 50 minutes I have to lecture, while other teachers are complaining of not having enough time. My activities go well and the students participate, but I think I need more interaction and discussion in my class rather than me lecturing quickly, which I will discuss in my next point of interest. Circling the desks is a very common way to encourage participation. I have not tried this yet, but I think Friday's lecture on topic selection will lend itself nicely to a discussion based class of generating potential informative speech topics. It might be difficult to keep some students' attention, so I will need to be on the lookout to keep everyone on task and participating.
How to plan better lectures -
- Even though lecturing is one of the oldest teaching methods, I think it is still very effective. The information you are lecturing on needs to be organized in a way so that it is easy to learn from. I have had professors that read PowerPoints verbatim leaving me with poor notes and others that have very minimal slides that lead me to have a page or two filled by the end of the class.
- Lectures in communication are usually done well I think. Most communication professionals know the rules of presenting and what to do and not to do when it comes to PowerPoints, tone of voice etc.
- Some tips for planning lectures that I will try to implement in my classroom include using signposts and better transitions, having periodic summaries in my lecture, and using remaining time to write summaries. I am waiting for my teaching mentor to evaluate me and tell me exactly where I am going wrong in being that I seem to go through my lectures so fast and have time at the end resulting in the students getting out early. Perhaps this is where I can have students write a small summary of what we covered to show they were paying attention and actually learned something. When writing my lesson plans, I have noticed that I do need to work harder on forming relationships and transitioning from one subject matter to the next. I think I do this well when I am working on academic papers, so now it is time to put that attention into my lesson plans so my students can connect the information better.
My teaching tips for myself continue to grow as the weeks go on. Here are a few links to additional readings I have found that are relevant to the tips I learned this week.
I like this link because it suggests going to friends for help with questions you may have. However, don't go to friends when you haven't done your work! Nonetheless, many find that when they explain material to others, they also learn the material more.
How to read college textbooks
I like these tips for holding discussion forums online because Blackboard's discussion board can be a great tool. I plan to use discussion board for my students to post topics, and respond to each other if they think that topic would be a good fit for our class through audience analysis.
Online Discussion Tips
I found this when searching for more information about transitioning and using signposts in lectures. I also like the idea here of "gapped worksheets" which goes to another link about handouts and how to effectively use worksheets in class.
Lecture Tips
Your blog looks really good, Andrea. I like how you spend a lot of time focusing on how you could go about implementing the various ideas covered in the readings. And you make good use of your own experiences as an undergraduate student. Many of the things that I do as a teacher emerged from difficulties or annoyances that I experienced as a student, so I think it's a valuable source.
ReplyDeleteYou also do a good job providing us with context/information on the links to additional resources. This is very helpful because it gives your blog readers a means for selecting the resources they would be most likely to benefit from (rather than having to click through and assess the relevance of the link for themselves).
Future entries could benefit from taking a slightly more focused approach to what was most useful in the readings. Right now, you are mentioning a lot of different ideas, which doesn't give you much time/space to go into particular ideas in a good amount of detail. You might think about highlighting 4 or 5 of the MOST useful ideas or techniques, then discussing what the book said about them, why you found them useful, and how you would implement them in more depth.