The Mini-conference

In a traditional face-to-face teaching environment where students are assessed partly on an oral presentation, the lecturer usually puts up a list of the available spots and students (or groups of students) sign up for a spot.  Some go for the earliest spots, so that they can get it over and done with early. Others sign up for later spots, so that they can see what others do before them. Either way, marks have to be tweaked to take the schedule into account.

Here’s an alternative, suggested to me by my colleague James Meek: the mini-conference.

Instead of holding oral presentations every week for the 13 weeks of the semester, bring the students together towards the end of the semester for a whole day (or two), and run the day like a mini academic conference, complete with plenaries, discussion panels, streamed presentations, and opportunities for informal networking.

This works equally well for traditional semester-long courses, intensively-delivered courses, online courses (except here you run it like an online conference, e.g. Follow the Sun: Online Learning Futures Festival), and short courses.

Crosswords

In some disciplines, the vocabulary (and spelling of specialist language) is extremely important. If this is so for your discipline, you might think about developing a number of crossword puzzles to use as stimulus or starter activities at the beginning of class, to fill in those minutes when the latecomers are drifting in. This will give your students practice at spelling the language of the discipline (and becoming familiar with the meanings of the words).

There are a number of websites that offer free software and more that offer more sophisticated, paid applications. Here’s a crossword I generated using one of these free online puzzle makers, and the answer sheet.

 

Small Groups

Small group discussions can work very well, but you need to have quick, easy ways of grouping and re-grouping the students.

Here are some methods.

First, count the number of students in the class on the day.

Decide how many people you want in each group. Say you have 20 students in the group, and you want them in groups of five.

1. DIY: “Divide yourself up into groups of five.” If you do it this way, they will sit with their friends. This works in some situations, but not in others.
2. Count them off: Once all the students are in the room, count them off around the room: 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4, … etc. Sit all those numbered 1 together, all those numbered 2 together and so forth.
3. Aye, Captain: Pick four “captains” and allow them to choose four others to join their group.
4. Mixed abilities: Create lists of team members before you get into the room, based on ability. In each group, put one from the highest-achieving five, one from the lowest-achieving five, and three from the middle of the pack.
5. Similar abilities: Rank the students, and then make up the groups by allocating them in order: the five top-achievers are in Group A, the next five in Group B and so on.

These are their Home Groups.

Beadle’s Jigsaw

So, you’ve grouped the students and set each group a different (but related) set of on-topic questions. Keep the list of questions short. They discuss the topic and questions in their Home Group.

While they are talking, go around, and put stickers on their upper arms. (You will have pre-prepared stickers that will sort the students into four Expert Groups, each of five students.) Stop the first discussion.

Direct the students to stand and re-group according to the stickers: all those in Expert Group 1 sit together, and so on.

In the Expert Group discussions, each student reports on discussions and conclusions from his or her Home Group.

If necessary, move them back into their Home Groups and begin all over again with a different topic.

To read more about Phil Beadle’s tips on teaching, read his book: Beadle, P. (2010). How to teach. UK & USA: Crown House Publishing.

Thinking Aloud as a Problem is Solved

This idea is from a site that focuses on collaborative learning.

The strategy is this.

Divide the class into pairs. If you have one student left over, add that student to one of the pairs as an extra listener, or listen to him/her yourself.

Present the pairs with the problems they are to solve. The first person in the pair takes the role of Solver for the first problem. He/she reads the problem aloud, and talks through the solution, making notes when necessary. The second person in the pair is the Listener. He/she listens carefully, but does not guide the first person to the solution. Rather, the Listener's role is to catch any errors (pointing out that an error has been made, but not identifying it or providing correction), question the Solver about any gaps or leaps in logic, and ask for clarification when the Solver's explanation becomes unclear.

To read the author's explanation of the theory behind the strategy, go to the Doing CL website.

Building Student Communities

Most tertiary sector institutions use a Learning Management System (LMS) these days. It might have a local name, but sitting behind that cutely named online learning environment is usually one of the vendor-supported applications (e.g. Desire2Learn) or one of the two main English language open-source LMS applications (Moodle or Sakai). This isn’t about LMS applications, though, it’s about a couple of lovely little (externally-hosted) tools called ELGG and Ning.

ELGG: According to the company website, ELGG “is an award-winning open source social networking engine that provides a robust framework on which to build all kinds of social environments”. It’s a bit like an LMS, but not really. It’s reason for being is to facilitate social learning and sharing of resources and ideas.

Ning: The Ning website says: “Hit the ground running to engage and grow your community (big or small). Organize events. Use member profiles to bring faces to names. Get everyone talking through groups, forums, chats and activity stream. Plus more (lots more).”

Have a look … I am sure you will find uses for them. Free versions are available.

 

K-W-L

The K-W-L technique is a very useful little tool to have in the kitbag, and could be used for a range of purposes.

In essence, it is a tool for reflection. Students are asked to reflect on three things:

In the beginning:

1. What do they Know?
2. What do they Wish to know?

Throughout the course and at the end:

3. What have they Learnt?

So, how could it be used?  Here are three examples that spring to mind.

Diagnostic assessment

On the first day of class, with a new cohort from diverse backgrounds, the teacher using the technique for diagnostic purposes would ask students to answer the first two questions. This information would be used to shape teaching and learning activities and decisions about whether or not to provide “catch-up” material for those students who aren’t fully prepared for the class, and to assist students to make decisions about how best to expend their energies and time on their own learning activities. At the end of the course, they would be asked to reflect on the success of the experience in improving their learning.

Building a Community of Learners

The technique could be woven into the pattern of the class. At the beginning of each new topic or module, students would complete the first two questions in groups and share their responses. They could then pair up, based on the pre-existing knowledge each participant is bringing to the course. At the end of each module, each group or small community of learners would compete the third reflective question and report back to the whole class. In this way, the technique would help students to begin to identify their most effective learning strategies.

Learning blogs

Where students are keeping learning journals or learning blogs, they could be directed to use this technique in their first entry, completing the first two questions at the beginning of the course, and adding material throughout the course to answer the third question, finishing with a final blog / journal entry that revisits their first entry and summarizes their learning throughout the course.

Create your Own Comic Strip

It's tempting to use other people's comic strips, but generally not a good idea without seeking permission. (That #@*** copyright legislation ... it just gets in the way ...)

However, with the Stripgenerator tool, you can create your own.

Here's one I made earlier:

To create your own, go to Stripgenerator.