#classroomtips

Standing on the podium, a subtle glint of light on my wrist can quietly capture the attention of distracted students.

My crystal bracelet is my classroom "attention catcher."

Come here for a surprise! ➡️https://www.tanqushop.com/

Classroom Equipping – Introduction

It is not uncommon for a teacher, anxious to give of his best, to find difficulty in obtaining the apparatus necessary for modern teaching methods. This book has been written to help teachers in tropical countries who face this problem. By far the greater part of the apparatus described in the following pages can be made from scrap cardboard or stiff paper.

Giving a presentation to a classroom of students can be a rewarding experience. Here are a few tips for giving a presentation to a classroom of students.

Engaging presentations can help students to learn and retain information more effectively. Here are 10 presentation tips for educators.

Uncovering OSU Research google map

We use this interactive map to start our Uncovering OSU Research workshop for first-year students. When they click on one of the pins, they open up a page with a description of the research (usually pulled from a press release), links to the lead author's faculty page and links to news articles about the research.

I use this activity to frame discussions about citations and plagiarism.

Materials:

A chalkboard or whiteboard.

First, tell students that you're going to lead them through a short thought experiment.  

Imagine that you've just started a new internship for a company that you really want to work for.  Your new supervisor asks you to do some research and report back with a recommendation.

(The topic doesn't really matter -- it can be related to the class topic, or it could be something like recommending a new type of polling software)

Next, tell students that you're making one major assumption with this activity -- that their new supervisor is going to draw some conclusions about them from their performance on this, their first major assignment.

Ask them if they share that assumption. Make sure you have consensus on this idea before moving forward.

Now, ask students to write down a list of adjectives that they would hope their new boss would use to describe them, based on their work in this assignment.

Give them 2 minutes to create their own list

Put them in groups of 3.

Give the groups 3 minutes to develop a consensus list of the three most important adjectives.

Debrief. Ask the groups to call out adjectives while you write them on the board.

Now, tell them that we're going to shift gears a bit.  Instead of thinking about how their boss would describe you, think about how you'd like your new boss to describe your process, or your work habits.

Add those terms to the list on the board.

Wrap-up.

Explain that when we cite sources -- we're helping to paint this picture of ourselves.  We don't do it because we think our reader will only believe us if we have a citation, we do it because it shows the reader that we are [insert adjectives here].

Transition from this into - what types of sources should we consult to demonstrate that we are [insert adjectives here].

This is an example of what one FYE instructor does before and after his students come to the library for an instruction session

(Note: the library session activity for this class is also discussed here).

Class: A first-year seminar called Science Myth Busters

Before the library session:

Introduce the class topic: the link between autism and vaccinations.

Students read a packet of three articles: a review article on autism spectrum disorders; a primary research article; an Internet article comparing a global list of autism rates and the number of vaccines given during childhood.

The research article in this case is the original Lancet article drawing the connection between the MMR vaccine and autism (Wakefield, 1998) later retracted.

Goals for this activity:

Provide students with a concept and language for evaluating the claims in scientific articles: correlation vs. causation.

Discuss the differences in quality between different types of sources.

Introduce the concept of scholarly communication, & scientists reviewing/ replicating each others' work.

After the library session:

Students brainstorm topics for their final presentations (myths they want to investigate).

Then I sit at the computer (projected on the screen) and let the class guide me through the process of researching the topic in real time.

The title for this entry, and this activity come via a conference presentation almost 10 years old now - by Susan Avery at UIUC.

Used with a class of future health professionals.

Assumption: Even as students, you are frequently asked to give health advice.

Premise: A relative tells you their child has been diagnosed with Exploding Head Syndrome. They wonder if this is a real thing.  What do you tell them.

Materials:

This 1988 article from the Weekly World News (this link goes to Google Books).

This article from the journal Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain

What to do:

Explain the premise.

Distribute the WWW article and ask students to evaluate it.

Ask them to formulate a response to their relative & ask them to share it.

Distribute the scholarly article. 

Discuss how the existence of the scholarly article affects their evaluation.  Discuss purpose of scholarly articles.

Transition into where to find scholarly articles.