Engaging Students in Large Classes Slides

1. Tessa Hill
Eric Peterson
Monday July 29, 2013

2. • Setting the stage
• You, your students, your team
• Goals for the course
• Promoting thinking and learning
• The interactive lecture
• Delivering the Lecture
• Engagement Triggers
• Engaging non-majors
• Presentations & Assessment
http://gallery.ilstu.edu/bonestudentcenter/main.php?g
2_itemId=1882

3. • You, your students, your team
• What is large? 50, 100, 200, 500?
• Do you have teaching assistants?
• Define their role and your expectations to the TAs
• Explain the TAs role to class
• Identify your teaching style – Informer, Questioner, Entertainer, etc.
• Play off your style (strength) but incorporate other deliveries.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com

4. • Suggestions
• Identify your main points (2
to 3)
• Determine how each slide
advances these
• Prepare your visuals
• Practice your unfinished
talk; revise…
• Write out sentences that
need to be precise
• Focus on your slide
transitions
• Print out notes
• Keep track of time
• Don’t install new software
right beforehand
• Don’t be rigid in delivery,
adapt as needed
• Take notes on how you
would improve for next year
• Use a lecture preparation
checklist

5. • Detail your expectations in writing
• Explain TA duties: lecture attendance, office hours,
proctoring exams, maintaining grades, setting up projectors,
participation in in-class discussion, running review sessions,
punctuality.
• Team work: make clear division of labor, set up regular
meetings
• Records: TAs must keep records of all communications and
assignments, but not keep personal student data on their
computers (security).
• If co-teaching a class: make sure each professor has clear
responsibilities

6. • What is the purpose of the course
• Major vs Non-Major
• General Education
• Content vs Process
• Content – Breadth vsDepth
• Develop an informative syllabus (set the expectations)
• State the goals of the course
• Explicitly express policies and procedures for grading, attendance,
late homework, missed tests, office hours, etc. Making up rules as
you go along sets a bad precedent.
• Publish all important dates at the beginning of the class, with a clear
plan for students who miss exams
• Send a welcome email to the class before it starts
• Identify all resources that will be used and have them ready for the
class
• Describe your email policy in advance

7. • Identify a large class that you might teach (see
worksheet)
• What are your top 5 goals for what students will learn in
this class?

8. • Delivering the Lecture
• Engagement triggers
• Engaging non-majors
• Presentation & Assessment

9. • EXPRESSIVENESS is the most basic and most direct
way to keep students’ interest
• Vocal variation, facial expressions, movement, gesture, style
variation
• Is more interesting and easier to understand
• Yields contagious enthusiasm
• Improves retention of material
• Is more about communication than about entertainment (is
compatible with the content coverage and high academic
standards)
Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#790 How to Create Memorable Lectures -
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/posting.php?ID=790

10. • Interpreting Graphs
• Making Calculations
• Demonstration/making
predictions
• Brainstorming
• Reading to solve a
problem
• Physical prop
• Evocative visual/picture
• Cartoons
• News Clips &Articles
• Clips from movies or
tvshows
• Think-Pair-Share
• Minute paper
• ConcepTests
• Question of the Day
• Small group discussion
• iClicker
• Google Earth (or other
tech)
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/e
arlycareer/teaching/LargeClasses.html

11. • In a 10-20 minute breakout:
• Break into groups of 5-10 (works even in auditorium
seating)
• Provide a single question, set of questions, or exercise
that students need to discuss.
• The question(s) can be used as an introduction or as an
assessment of presented material. Each group
independently discusses the question and negotiates a
group answer.
• You and the TAs monitor and guide groups. Collect each

12. • The core (center) of the Black Hills of South Dakota is
composed of granite. The Columbia River Plateau of
Washington and Oregon is composed of basalt. Using a
Venn Diagram, compare and contrast the two locations
highlighting the composition of the rocks, the texture of
the rock, and the location (depth) where the rocks
formed.
Black Hills
Columbia
River

13. Interactive Lectures
Individual work
Please spend the next few minutes on an
activity that you’d like to use in your class.
• What concept do you want students to
better understand?
• How will you engage the students?
• How will you know it is working?

14. Interactive Lectures
Group Brainstorm and Sharing
Now share your idea with a partner and provide
each other with feedback.

15. Interactive Lectures
Group Brainstorm and Sharing
•What are some of the potential
problems or concernsyou do, or will,
face using these and other interactive
activities in the classroom?
•How can you overcomethem?

16. • Many large lecture classes serve as a breadth
requirement and have many non-majors who are not
necessarily engaged in the topic. This is your opportunity
to get them interested and excited in geoscience:
• Make it relevant to their lives
• Make pop culture work for you
• Recognize different learning styles
• Bring in your personal experiences

17. • How has geoscience been
involved in your daily
activities?
• Water
• Electronics
• Vehicles
• Buildings
• Weather & Climate
• Food
• Energy resources
• Hazards

18. • Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash
• Four Seasons, Vivaldi
• The Tide is High, Blondie
• Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan
• Dust in the Wind, Kansas
• Black water, Doobie Brothers
• Water, The Who
• Volcano, Jimmy Buffett
• After the gold rush, Natalie Merchant
• Eye of the Hurricane, The Alarm

19. • Day After Tomorrow
• Dante’s Peak
• Volcano
• The Core
• Jurassic Park
• Andromeda Strain
(don’t need to show whole movie – select a ~10-15 minute
clip that exhibits facts & fiction and ask students to
analyze)

20. • Visual: pictures, diagrams, spatial understanding
• Auditory: by sound, including music
• Verbal: speech, reading, writing
• Physical/kinesthetic: use of your body, including hands
& touch
• Also, “social” vs.
“solitary” learning styles

21. • Ekman transport:
A rotating column
of water that
forms when
surface water
moves at an
angle to the wind
direction due to
Coriolis Effect.

22. • Where have you done fieldwork?
• What inspires you?
• What environmental issues keep you up at night?
• Where have you traveled?
• What is the societal relevance of your work?
• What career path did you follow and what experiences
shaped that?

23. • Blackboard / whiteboard can be useful
• Check to see if students in the back can see what
you are writing!
• Mix of videos, slides, blackboard
• Powerpoint- students write down everything on your
slides!
• Post your powerpoints online
(before class)
• Post partial powerpoints online,
students fill in what is missing
• Post lecture outlines or main points online,
• or ….post nothing!

24. With any of these techniques, it is a good idea to….
assign textbook/ reading ahead of time
ask students to review vocabulary / conceptual ideas as
part of their reading (outside of class)
….then spend more time on activities, discussions,
interpretation, analyses during your lecture
Consider a "flipped" classroom, where in-class time is as
active and thoughtful as possible:
http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom/

25. • In "large" classes, you can use a variety of techniques,
depending upon the # of students and how much TA
support you have:
• Multiple choice/ scantron
• Online quizzes/tests
• Short answer / short essay
• Fill in the blank
• Matching (vocabulary)
• Diagrams that you've used in class - fill in blank or interpretation
• Familiarize yourself with Bloom's Taxonomy, and aim
for students to be working at the "top" of the pyramid in
class, and in your exams, as much as possible
• Consider collaborative exams!

26. • Be flexible and adaptable
• Not everything will work: failures can be learning
experience
• The literature is clear: students learn more when
they are actively engaged in their learning.
Again, visit
http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/index.html
(or http://serc.carleton.edu/ in general)
Materials were adapted and modified from Randy Richardson, Michael Wysession, Andrew Goodliffee, and Rober