Thursday, October 30, 2008

How To-73: "How to Teach"



How to Teach


from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Teaching well is an art, but there are definitely techniques that have been proven to work better than the typical "stand and deliver" lecture of information. Here's how you can help facilitate significant, long-term learning with integrated course design.

Steps

  1. Analyze your teaching situation. Consider your students and whatever you already know (or can guess) about them. Consider the expectations of the organization that has brought you in to teach. What are your minimum requirements?
  2. Identify your Learning Goals. Ideally, what would you like the students to remember and/or do from your class a year later? Ideally, how do you want this class to leave a lasting effect on their lives?
  3. Identify your feedback and assessment options. Whether you have to grade the class or not, how will you know whether the students have achieved the Learning Goals? One option: Educative Evaluation (vs. Auditive) where you ask students to imagine a specific future situation related to what you've been teaching about, and ask them how they would respond to the situation. This helps students personalize (and retain) what they've been learning about. The more immediately you can give the students feedback on whether they're "getting it" or not, the more quickly their brains will retain the learning. Tests are the most common assessments in graded classes; one way to make a multiple-choice test more of a learning activity instead of just an audit is to give them immediate feedback as they take the test, perhaps by using something like the Epstein IFAT test form.
  4. Choose Learning Activities. Based on your situation, learning goals and feedback & assessment options, what activities will help students experientially learn what you want them to? Active learning (here students participate in some sort of way) has been proven to be more effective than passive learning (e.g. listening only to a lecture or presentation). One simple way to add active learning to a lecture is to include "Think, Pair, Share" moments after every chunk of conceptual information (7-15 minutes max).
  5. Check for Integration. After pulling together the learning activities and assessment techniques, check to see if they integrate to effectively facilitate the learning goals with the kinds of students you will have. Consider checking with someone else, perhaps beta-testing activities you haven't tried before, so that you can improve on the clarity of the instructions.
  6. Get Student Feedback. Don't wait for a generic course evaluation at the end! Check with students frequently during the course to get feedback on what is working well and what could be improved, either immediately or the next time you teach. One way, if you are teaching in a graded attendance-required class, is to have students complete a simple half-sheet evaluation each day, asking 1) what are your take aways" today? 2) what could have been better today? How? 3) what grade would you give this session (on a scale of 1 to 5).
  7. Keep Learning More About How To Teach! No matter how good you are, you can continue improving. Stay open to new ideas, and look for opportunities to learn from others. What works and what doesn't. Just because an activity doesn't work smoothly the first time does not mean it won't work - many times they just need refining. For a more detailed step-by-step guide to course design, try the free downloadable Self Directed Guide to Creating Significant Learning.

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Sources and Citations

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