by Marquise McGraw, Economics
I innovated by…creat[ing] an exercise that required students to integrate multiple concepts and skills to solve…This type of activity proved to be much more effective in promoting student learning than the standard “chalk and talk” delivery.
by Jessica Smith, Chemistry
Prepared students are slow because they meticulously follow the directions rather than thinking critically about the purpose of each step…Students of science become scientists as they begin to comprehend how different steps contribute to an experiment rather than blindly following directions.
by Sean Tanner, Public Policy
I experimented with a method of collecting student feedback that would force the students to make tradeoffs in my time and effort. I gave them a list of the potentially alterable activities I perform as a teacher…All told, I had eighteen hours per week to distribute across nine teaching activities. Each student reapportioned my time to suit his needs.
by Naomi Leite, Anthropology
The first section presents a double challenge…Simply put, how can a GSI use the first section to engage a disparate group of students who are not necessarily enthusiastic about their enrollment in a course whose topic they don’t yet understand?
Connecting grading to specific learning objectives, and developing a clear system for commenting, can make grading an easier and more strategic process.
by Sarah Macdonald, Sociology
While teaching Sociology 5: Evaluation of Evidence, I encountered a problem that is not unique: how, as GSIs, can we prepare our students for challenging final exams without teaching exclusively to the exam?
by Jennifer McGuire, Integrative Biology
Despite my efforts, the students continued to struggle with the exam material. It seemed to me that, despite my making the study material available to them, most of the students would not take advantage of it or study in a timely manner unless they had some graded incentive. The next semester when I taught the course, I decided to try to help my students achieve better test results by getting them to study for the exams earlier. To do this, I changed the way in which I quizzed the students.
by Robert Held, Bioengineering
My goals were to gauge the students’ comprehension of the material, provide an assessment of the professor’s effectiveness for the class as a whole, and help everyone understand the concepts more thoroughly. I adopted a three-tier solution to the issue of uneven experience. Brief quizzes, multimedia presentations, and interactive study sessions were employed.
Issues to consider while crafting a rubric for an assignment.
by Veronica Herrera, Political Science
I thought that many of these students would go on to teach, facilitate presentations in future careers, give public speeches, or otherwise coordinate and instruct a group of colleagues, students, etc. The way sections were commonly taught did not allow for them to be constructors of the material in order to prepare for such a career, but rather the students were often passive digesters.