Geography 599, Autumn 2002

Week One

 

INTRODUCTIONS

Introduce ourselves:  elicit names and teaching experiences;  any specific lesson learned from teaching?

Introduce the course: 

·        objectives; 

·        syllabus & options;

·        textbook; 

·        relationship with other opportunities on campus

o      CIDR; 

o      the Graduate School course; 

o      courses in pedagogy; 

o      mentor relationships w/ faculty; 

o      Huckabay fellowships

Would we benefit from any other organized Department activity regarding teaching?

 

 

SUBSTANTIVE  INTRODUCTION

Try to identify your objectives, and those of the lead instructor – for the course and for a given lesson, lecture, or section.  (Distinguish objectives from content:  why are you teaching this content?  What do you want students to be able to do with it?)  Everything should support the objectives: 

·        your choice of content (if there’s more material than you can cover in the hour or the week, let your reasons for trying to cover the content help you edit it down);

·        your choice of pedagogic method (Discussion?  Exercise?  Lecture?  Video?  Quiz?)

·        your handling of whatever method (Open-ended discussion?  Leading questions?  Open-resource exercise?)

·        your selection of “testing” methods and content (Oral exams?  Essay?  Take home?  Multiple choice?  Student recitation?  Portfolio?)

 

 

[Break?]

 

 

DISCUSSIONS

How many of you use discussions as a major tool?  Which courses?  What are your reasons for using discussions?  (For those who don’t use discussions, what are those reasons?)

 

Elicited in real time, and written on the board:

Why have discussions?

How to conduct discussions?

 

 

Make manifest that there are multiple opinions on an issue

Know your objectives in holding a discussion (see above for some possible objectives);  perhaps share these with the students explicitly

Make material more relevant to students via their own examples

Assign focusing questions before the class meeting

Make material and connections within material more explicit (by having students enunciate them themselves) and more accessible (by allowing students to hear peers put these things in their own words)

Validate students’ comments by repeating and/or recording them

 

Help teach students to argue and to assess arguments

Direct students’ comments by writing down the key points you want to take from them[1] (but be explicit that you’re recording selectively)

Validate students’ current awareness and knowledge.

Use your body to direct attention to the speaker, to a particular set of listeners, and/or away from yourself

 

Ask occasional leading questions to direct the discussion

 

Maintain a safe environment:  establish ground rules for discussion  [Intellectual arrogance has no place in the classroom]

 

 

Your most enjoyable discussion ever (as a student or teacher)?  Why?

“Discussion from hell” stories?  (Make sure we discuss “the monopolizer” — see page 79)

Why?  (elicit reasons, and ask how the good can be encouraged and the bad, avoided)

 

Distribute the “Dialogue Guidelines” from ASU’s Intergroup Relations Center (http://www.asu.edu/provost/intergroup/resources/classguidelines.html)

 

My suggestions, from the reading (and not):

Identify (especially for yourself) the reason(s) for staging a discussion;  what might some of these be (refer to earlier discussion)?  Relate the reasons to the overall course objectives.

“Assign” discussions or material for discussions;  have students prepare for discussion

Give the discussion a point – related to the objectives – and make this explicit:

·        To get different opinions out in the open, and explore the bases for them

·        To share substantive information to build knowledge (esp. useful in small groups, where each person has read something different)

·        To see whether there are points of confusion (and to clear them up, or to leave that for the instructor to do)

Keep the discussion on-topic (the topic should not be a mystery to you or the students).

If you’re really staging a discussion, keep the focus off yourself to the extent possible.  Don’t reply to each comment made;  get the students to reply to each other.  Get them to refer to each other by name.  Use body language and position to get speakers to speak to each other rather than to you.

Ask questions:  at times, to get discussion started;  at times, to understand where students are in the material;  at times, to get students to discover something on their own.

I’ve found grading on participation to be a net plus, with some caveats:

·        Don’t use it as a “fudge factor”

·        Don’t reward over-eager participants

·        Learn students names, and/or get them to mention their names

·        Provide different formats through which the points can be earned:  discussion in class, discussion in small groups, prepared presentation, asking questions

 

ASKING  QUESTIONS  OF  THE  CLASS

“When you ask a question of a class, when do you get good answers, and when do you not?”  [Use the response to this to judge whether this is a good question].

 

 

 

Make sure we come around to:

·        asking questions that have reasonable, possible answers (not “Any questions about yesterday’s lecture?”  (Tell my story about asking a noted colleague “What’s new?” and waiting for an answer.));

·        encouraging each other to ask only one question at a time;

·        not to answer our own questions;  and

·        to allow a good long time for students to parse the question and formulate responses.

·        Don’t “fish” for a very specific answer.

 

Fairness in the classroom

Call on people in order of hands or requests.

Look all around the room;  don’t keep your eyes in one part of the room.  (Are there people behind you?)

Be aware of gender and ethnicity — are you favoring one group over another?

Make sure all students can hear the questions (and your answers).

 

 

OFFICE  HOURS  AND  ADVISING

There are currently no department guidelines (and I cannot find any University guidelines) about the amount of office hours.  What are the norms among graduate TAs here?

 

 

Whatever you do, post some office hours and hold them!!!

Keep the door open, or have other grad TAs in the shared office.

Don’t tolerate overly familiar students, and don’t expect over-familiarity or liberties to be tolerated.

 

At the outset of an office interaction, try to identify your and the student’s objectives, so you can both try to satisfy them.  In a general advising session, establish objectives (for example, they generally should not be to create a budding graduate student in your subfield of geography).

 

Use the students’ questions and concerns to provide feedback to yourself, th elead instructor (if the lead instructor invites this), and if warranted, to Rick Roth or me.

 

 

 

 

A  WORD  ABOUT  ASSESSING  TEACHING  (more to follow)

·        Try to assess your own teaching, and to assess your role in students’ learning.

·        UW Grad School Memo 14, and Geography’s implementation.

·        Note that each TA and instructor needs to request her/his own set of evaluation forms;  you might do that now;  the Department pays;  make sure the Chair is copied on the results;  unless you’re teaching independently, check off class type F or H so that the summary results are not published online.

 

 

 

 

C:\Oscar\courses\599\discussions.doc

C:\MyDocs\599\discussions.doc

Rev. 9 Oct 02


[1] I gave examples of how you can plan your boardwork to reinforce a certain type of learning:  Pro vs. Con;  different causes of precipitation;  different dimensions of globalization – but by asking a simple question, such as “What causes rain?”  “How would you define globalization?”