We are starting now to put together a more detailed syllabus for our Teaching College Physics course in the fall. It will be a 10-week course (not enough, I know) which will meet once a week for 2 hours. In addition, we will host once a week "micro teaching sessions" which each student will be required to attend at least twice (once to watch, once to teach).
There will be a reading assignment every week, and we will discuss that reading assignment during the first ~30 minutes of every class.
Week 1 will be a motivation for the course as a whole, and Week 2 will cover the student perspective and different learning techniques.
To see how Week 1 went, click here!
Week 1: Motivation for the Course
For the first week, we felt it was important not only to motivate the students, but also to convince them that we know what we're talking about. This is a course mostly run by the graduate students, so it is important that we come from a place of authority, even if it's just because we've done our research and prepared heavily to run this course. Often, new graduate students who don't have a lot of teaching experience don't realize how much work goes into preparing for a course like this, or how much other people have thought about how to develop and improve teaching techniques. By presenting the research that we've done and convincing them that improving their teaching skills is crucial to their professional development, we can gain control of the classroom and will have a real chance at making a lasting impression.
Active Learning Technique: Class Debate
We are giving the students a reading assignment to be completed before the first class (gasp!). Although this may be annoying for some students, we only have a 10 week course, so it's important to hit the ground running. We are assigning "Navigating the Bumpy Road to Student Centered Learning."
This reading assignment lends itself easily to debate, since it presents both sides of an argument. The main debate will be: Which teaching technique works best for teachers and students; Active, student centered learning, or teacher-centered lecturing?
While this question seems to have a "right answer," many students who are new to this course stand by the lecture-based teaching techniques which they experienced themselves in their undergraduate or high school education. It worked for me, it can work for my students, too. In fact, lecturing does have its merits, and can be necessary in a science classroom to get some of the important content across. Since students can be resistant to active learning and most graduate students teach non-mandatory discussion sections, using active learning techniques can drive students away from the classroom. There is an argument to be made for lecturing. We hope that students will eventually see both sides of the coin and come to the conclusion that there is a time and a place for lecturing, but the teacher has to realize when they're using lecturing as a tool, and when they are leaning on it as a crutch. Ultimately, it comes down to being intentional when preparing a class.
Homework for Week 1:
How People Learn by the National Academy of Sciences (pg. 10-12), Learning Styles Quiz + Supplementary Reading
The point of this homework assignment is to introduce the concept of student-centered learning - that each student has their own way of learning and that a teacher needs to address as many learning techniques as they can in the time they are given.
Week 2: The Student Perspective:
In the second week we're trying to put the graduate students in the shoes of the undergraduates in their classroom. They are not unfamiliar with the student perspective, having been students only months before, but they need to be able to understand the learning techniques of students who are dissimilar to themselves. Specifically, we want to address how to correct previously held misinformation, especially when dealing with non-science majors.
Active Learning Technique: Video Presentation (with interaction)
We will show “Private Universe”, a video about misconceptions about science. What makes this video presentation an "active learning technique" is the fact that we will pause it in several places to ask for predictions and to get input from the graduate students. For instance, at one point in the video, a girl is asked a question about physics and gives a near-perfect answer. We will then pause the video and ask the graduate students: "Do you think this student understands the material? What questions would you ask to ensure that she truly understands the main concepts? What depth of understanding are you looking for?", then continue the video. While the girl got the initial question correct with a "programmed answer," she is unable to explain her reasoning.
Active Learning Technique: Polling and Discussion
One of the major issues new TA's run into is when to explain something during class and when to save it for office hours. We will present a variety of example situations (on a powerpoint) and ask students to pair up and discuss what they would do. We will then ask for a vote: would you discuss this in class, or save it for office hours? We will call on specific groups and ask them to explain/defend their vote, without really presenting a "correct" answer. As with many of the topics we will present, we do not want to present the "correct way to teach." Rather, we want students to develop their own "right ways" in a thoughtful and intentional way.
Homework for Week 2:
We haven't assigned this yet, but are looking for a good resource which covers lesson planning and backward engineering, which will be the topic of Week 3.
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