Developing a New Major

here are a couple that I think i want to work into class – maybe into qual first or the game class – we want them to learn at lower levels in the freshmen/sophomore classes – not necessarily able to synthesize

1 – background knowledge probe – see what they know already about a topic – probably work better the day before we start a topic – not a test or quiz, not a pretest, but a way to see what htey know or what they think they know that’s wrong, how many know it, and give some idea about how to present the topic so not too much repeated info (or without assuming htey know a bunch of stuff and skipping it, it gives you some ideas about what ideas/aspects of the topic you can use as hooks to hang the new info on – gotta be willing to change what you wanted to do wiht the topic to make sure people get the basics

what to do – come up with a couple of open ended questions or a few short anser or multiple choice (kind of sounds likea pretest) to see what they know about the subject – gotta be careful how you ask the questions because they might know about the topic but not the specific words you use or the industry terminologyg; be sure to tell the students this isn’t a quiz and give them a few minutes to fill it out; group the answers into a few categories – significant backgroundknowledge, some background knowledge, wrong background knowledge or even prepared and not prepared; tell the students the results and how it affected your putting the classes together for that topic and how it should affect what they do as learners (maybe some need to do some remedial work, read a background article

2 – focused listing – take one person or concept or date or term and have student list as many things as they can about that term/concept – see what htey recall as the most important points about the concept/term – could use it before to see what they know already about a topic – could use it as a midpoint checkup – are they getting what ya want – or at the end to see how they’re putting it all together

what to do – the prof picks a word or a phrase to describe a topic you’ve been discussing in class and to make sure it’s what you want – you make a list in a set amount of time – then see what you forgot – is the list of stuff important for the students to remember? if so then do in class, set a time limit and have the students make their list, could do as a group, could then compare their list with your list and clarify what’s missing from t heirs and why stuff on their list should get added to your list, could have the students write a paragraph about the list and how things are related and why they’re on the list. lets the teacher see what parts people remember and what needs to be reviewed, could use it at the beginning of topic B to remind them of how topic A is related to the new topic B; it’s just recall; another problem is it looks at just one topic at a time and now at how topics are related (could do that wiht the concept map)

3 – empty outlines – make an outline of a lecture or a reading and have the students fill it in as they go along – forces ya into a structure for your lecture, does help the students become better at notetaking and listening but still not much in the way of higher order thinking skills if they don’t have to create their own outlines; don’t put every point from teh lecture in the outline – focus on the main points to help students focus

4 – one minute paper/half sheet response – at the end of a class have the students write for one minute on the most important thing they learned in class that day and/or what thing they’re still unclear about or what questions do they still have on the topic. Give them a time limit and half a sheet of scrap paper or a note card to write on. Collect and read thru – look for tings to reinforce, talk about the next class – like if many people thought something unimportant was important then you need to redirect, clear up any questions they have – give them feedback on their responses generally as a class. May need to leave time for more questions/discussion but have a time limit set.

5 – muddiest point – ask them to answer the question – what was the muddiest point in ____? could use for a lecture summary, about a homework assignment, a discussion. Can quickly run thru them and address as ya go thru teh class. Ask the question after the lecture/discussion, reading assignment finished. Could ask them to tell you what made the point muddy – especially upper level classes where they have soem background. Let students know that some test questions will definitely cmoe from the muddy questions you’ve gone over in class.Not all muddy points can be dealt with in a few minutes – and you need to be sure to tell sutdents that

6 – defining features matrix – gets at some higher level thinking skills – see if students can categorize info, good to use when there are concepts that are closely related – have a list of features and you say if that feature is present or not in the related concepts – one prof had students look at feature differences in Freudian and behaviorist psych and another at the differences in teh federal systems of US, Canada, Germany. You give them the list of features – they say whether that feature is present (+) or absent (-) or always present, sometimes present, rarely present, never present. 7 to 10 features is plenty to start and don’t have more than a couple/three closely related concepts (like US, Germany, Canada)

7 – one sentence summary – students have to sum up the reading/lecture/discussion in one sentence – who did what to whom, when, where, how, and why – synthesis. Sentence will be long but grammatically correct. Could work in paris to ipmrove each other’s summaries. The prof should make sure they can do it first before asking hte students. DOn’t do too big a chunk of material before asking them to do the summary. Could give them a focus by telling them the “who” you want htem to write their sentence summary about

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