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Teaching Times TTimes Banner Teaching Times

Volume XI, No. 3

March 2006
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Keys to Conducting a Vital Class

Photo

Photo by Jason Blair, CIDDE

An introductory activity in an advanced acting class taught by Melanie Dreyer-Lude , Theatre Arts, uses a prop (string) to reinforce the ideas of ensemble and collaboration.

In this issue of the Teaching Times , Lu-in Wang, Law; Kim Needy, Engineering; Edward Stricker, Neuroscience; and Melanie Dreyer-Lude, Theatre Arts (pictured here with her class), share strategies and techniques they employ to help students learn in the classroom. As a springboard for their articles, they considered “How Do They Conduct Class?” a chapter from Ken Bain’s What the Best College Teachers Do . This chapter presents seven challenges to the college instructor:

  1. Create a natural critical learning environment
  2. Get student attention and keep it
  3. Start with students rather than the discipline
  4. Seek commitments
  5. Help students learn outside of class
  6. Engage students in disciplinary thinking
  7. Create diverse learning experiences

Pointing out that Bain’s examples “collectively describe an environment in which students and teacher engage in a joint undertaking, recognizing and even relishing their mutual responsibility for and contributions to its success,” Wang elaborates on the concept of “hosting” her law classes. This involves “focusing on the students the way one ideally focuses on companions around the table: being attentive, responsive, spontaneous, and flexible.”

Dreyer-Lude describes her classes as taking place in a collaborative environment where “teamwork and resource sharing become a habitual part of the students’ process.” She believes that interactive learning promotes “the acquisition of new information and ideas without sacrificing an independent point of view.”

Stricker emphasizes the importance of arousing student curiosity to capture student attention and keep it. He does this by selecting topics that illustrate basic principles of the field. He engages students by asking questions to model scientific inquiry, sharing anecdotes that illustrate concepts in concrete ways, and encouraging students to generate their own questions.

Needy explains how she uses classroom discussions to explore contemporary issues and real-world applications. Discussions, along with other varied activities, help students to appreciate the lifelong learning that is implicit in the field of engineering.

 

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