by Sereeta Alexander, Education Social loafing and diffusion of responsibility may permeate and ruin group work, to the dismay of the teacher and the students who do actively participate. ... I have learned to design group activities that either inherently entice (or even incite!) participation or that are structured in a manner clearly requiring each student's contribution.
by John DeNero, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The course’s original syllabus began with a conceptual roadmap of how various problems related to each other. But since our students didn’t understand the individual problems yet, they didn’t understand the purpose of the framework...To infuse continuity into the course, I designed a series of projects around Pacman, a classic video game with lots of retro charm.
by Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Chemistry As a GSI, I fell back on the question that has guided me through countless teaching experiences: when I was trying to learn this topic, what did I wish a GSI had told me to make it truly click in my mind? What allowed me to break past the memorization barrier to deeper understanding?
by Ryan Steele, Chemistry I had to humbly undergo a transformation that allowed me to let the students' discussion guide the session. Frankly, I had to shut up. Letting students speak and make mistakes does not mean conceding control of the classroom or the teacher's sense of authority.
by Carolyn Sparrey, Mechanical Engineering Due to the restrictions of the classroom I could not simply bring in tissue for the students to experiment with. Rather, I needed something tissue-like but without the mess and, because I was supplying the materials myself, at minimal cost. The solution was chewing gum.
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.
by Angela Chau, Bioengineering I decided to redesign the lab sections to allow each student to learn at his or her own pace. Instead of using the few days before lab to plan out the chalkboard lecture, I used that time to implement a web page for that week’s section...Because students were being "taught" by the web pages during labs, I was then free to spend time working one-on-one with individual students without leaving the rest of the class waiting.
by Ari Nieh, Mathematics The homework problems that generated the most confusion among my students were not particularly long, complicated, or computationally arduous; rather, the difficult problems were the ones which involved formulating a rigorous argument. Faced with any problem that used the word “prove” or “show,” the class was unsure how to get started.
by Tatiana Fedyk, Business Administration At the beginning of this academic year, I chose a new strategy: make the subject itself interesting and funny, attractive and gameful. For every discussion, I created some entertaining exercise related to the new topic just covered in class. Though difficult at the beginning, it became easier with every new preparation and brought a lot of excitement into my classes.
by Matthew Sargent, History To my students...the past was merely a "repository of error," and the history of science was only the chronicle of humankind's gradual purging of mysticism and error. My goal was to convince them that the ideas long since discarded from the canon of science could teach them something worthwhile about science itself.