Reminders

The following notes are things that are useful for me to remember or experiment with while teaching.

Performance

• Emote and use dynamic tone!

Motivation

• provide bonus “merit” points, as nominated by peers (e.g., for Class Tasks). (Did not work well; students tried to game/weasel.)
• experiment: provide other bonus opportunities for meaningful activities, such as getting an Op/Ed published.

Course Organization

• always check syllabus for next 2 weeks
• maintain ongoing list of upcoming milestones in class notes
• at the start of the term, provide prompts for readings with key questions and concepts in the syllabus
• stress I have specific expectations that are documented and part of their task is to read, comprehend, and apply them.
  • do an assignment checklist before major assignment
• if I’m stuck with a required text that is lacking, rather than lament this fact, be more precise in readings, highlight the good, and supplement.

Class Organization

Class book-ends

• review previous class with a quiz or activity
• start current class with learning objectives and motivating question
  • tell students what they will know by end of the class
• End of class exercises (e.g., write to learn)
• provide enough time for activity debrief
• keep a running list of concepts; that are reviewed in subsequent classes (i.e., spaced repetition) and the basis for exam reviews.
• time management: declare time limit for module; ask students to remind me (e.g., “okay, let’s talk about this until 11, let me know if we go over”)
• before leaving unit, don’t ask if there are any questions, require two questions before proceeding

Class content

• ask students to divide into teams to document concepts and questions
• present images, comics, and video clips and ask how them might relate to the topic; ask a student to document with a mindmap on the white board
• ask **at least 3 open-ended **or higher-order questions
  • go meta, how would we even answer this question?
  • challenge students: move up Bloom’s Taxonomy: why, how do you know, always?
• instead of prompting student anxiety about transcribing my slides; ask for a volunteer to read aloud and highlight the relevant material in the text; this will help with the pacing.
• if on the same topic, ask student N-1 what she thinks of student N’s thought

Class culture

• ask students who haven’t spoken yet to raise their hands.
• don’t review syllabus on first day, rather get discussion and argument going; make provocative claims germane to or that preview the class content.
• set my expectations clearly at the beginning of course; touch on them in subsequent classes.
  • complement with student created ground rules
  • give provisional participation grade early
• encourage students to learn one another’s names
  • on first day do a name mnemonic (and interesting fact) exercise (e.g., “Joseph the Jedi” because I like sci-fi)
  • use interesting facts as pre-class warm-up/schmoozing.
• encourage students to contribute events in the press that are relevant to the course.
• ask a student who is packing early to consult their syllabus and remind the class what is coming up next in terms of readings and due dates.

Accountability

• quiz: ask students to identify main question/purpose, key concepts and cases/examples.
  • “The purpose of a quiz is to prompt and test the acquisition and mastery of critical reading skills, including your ability to identify key argument(s), concepts, cases/examples, and interesting factoids that support the argument.”
  • note: if quizzes are intended to make sure students did the reading, if they did the reading and do poorly, they will be upset.
• experiment: ask a selection of students to front of class as a panel to facilitate discussion
• ask students who ask about material that is in the syllabus to read the syllabus and make a checklist which I will give feedback on.

Assignments

Exams

• give rationale for exam: endowment, acquired, knowledge, attention, acquired skill
• use student generated exams to review

Reading responses

• wean them off reading prompts, ask them what do they think was important?

Essays

• ask students to include an appendix listing who provided feedback according to my assessment rubric
  • ask students to reflect on how it was useful?
• permit students to elevate grade by revising and documenting changes they made for improvement.
• experiment: include composition and concision exercises on a quiz?
• have students create checklist based on rubric and specification

Self Assessment

• ask students to reflect upon their performance (i.e., writing, participation, exam) and how they hope to do well in the future

Course evaluation

• “What can students do to improve the class” - ProfHacker
• experiment: in addition to small surveys focused on specific issues (e.g., preferred platform for discussion or class formats) administer occasional survey replicating questions from final teacher evaluations.