Teaching Tips
Featured Tip - Metacognitive Note-Taking for Better Retention
This approach to note-taking can make your time taking notes more effective because it is based on how you learn.
Read the entire tip.
|
Quick Thinks
Use a series of prompts, or “Quick thinks,” to enhance classroom comprehension.
Read the entire tip.
Asking Better Questions
Nancy Martin in her recent workshop, "Using Multiple-Choice Questions to Assess Critical Thinking," encouraged faculty to move beyond the recall level (knowledge and comprehension) when framing multiple choice questions. Ed Nuhfer, a geologist, also urges faculty members to frame other types of questions at the highest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Read the entire tip.
Jigsaw Using a Graphic Organizer
Graphic organizers — visual depictions that suggest relationships — can help structure homework assignments. A “cooperative jigsaw” using a graphic organizer for the homework can promote deep learning.
Read the entire tip.
Uncommon Commonalities
This exercise serves as a group icebreaker, reinforcing for students what they have in common with their team members. To add relevance, teachers can require some academic topics related to their discipline.
Read the entire tip.
Importance of Students' Prior Knowledge
"A logical extension of the view that new knowledge must be constructed from existing knowledge is that teachers need to pay attention to the incomplete understandings, the false beliefs, and the naive renditions of concepts that learners bring with them to a given subject. Teachers then need to build on these ideas in ways that help each student achieve a more mature understanding. If students' initial ideas and beliefs are ignored, the understandings that they develop can be very different from what the teacher intends."
Read the entire tip.
Don't Round Up "Almost Right" Answers
Doug Lemov (2010) encourages faculty not to reward students for "not-quite-right" answers. The best teachers, he contends, set high standards and reward only answers that are 100% correct. He urges teachers to avoid affirming partially correct answers before adding their own embellishments to make them fully correct. For example, if a student asserted that Orwell's Politics and the English Language is about political change, the teacher might say, "Right, but it also postulates that accurate, honest language free of clichés promotes the critical thinking that can lead to political change."
Read the entire tip.
Thinking-Aloud Pair Problem Solving (TAPPS)
To solve case studies, complex problems, or to interpret text, students can pair with one individual designated as the explainer and the other as the questioner. The explainers outline the issues at hand and then begin detailed descriptions of how they would solve the case, problem, or interpretation. The questioners listen, for the most part, but they can also pose questions or offer helpful hints. At a given point, the students reverse roles, a process that continues until the exercise concludes (Felder and Brent, 2009, p. 3).
Read the entire tip.
Three-Stay One-Stray
Reports can be time-sinks, particularly in large classes. This activity allows for efficiency and student involvement that goes well beyond a single, usually terrified student addressing an entire class where only sadists or "show-offs" would ask questions. Students need to be in small groups of usually four members. To build in accountability, do not pre-identify the team member who will become the group's spokesperson.
Read the entire tip.
Notetakers
Effective in small and large classes and easily adapted to online teaching.
Purpose: (a) present concepts; (b) promote higher-order thinking; (c) allow students to assess their knowledge and mastery during class time; (d) actively engage students in learning content.
Read the entire tip.
