Best Practices on Teaching & Learning

1. Best Practices on Teaching & Learning Dr. Maan A. Kousa Associate Professor Department of Electrical Engineering

2. Why should I care? • Duty • Valuable Opportunity for Experience. • Building a Good Reputation • Paving the Road for Future Career • ………

3. Things’ I Have Learned about Teaching • The most valuable service an instructor can provide to his students is to motivate them • The last thing you want a class to be is a transcription session • Students will not put more effort than you. • Students cannot keep attention for long periods, no matter how interesting the subject is.

4. Retention Versus Delivery Methods 90% Demonstrations 70% Teaching others Student retention of information after 24 hours 50% Lectures Reading materials 25% Discussions 15% 5% Visual materials Reading materials Visual materials Teaching others Lectures Demonst. Discussions

5. Effective Teaching Methods for Large Classes, J. Carpenter, U. South Carolina, 2006

6. Scope of Presentation • Introduce tips that: • Engage Students • Can be used in class • Do not require class or material restructuring. • Because: • Everyone can try • Less resistance from students • Build the “culture” of participation gradually.

7. Why to Engage Students? • Deeper Impact • Longer Retention • Enhance independent learning. • Improve student concentration. • Student ownership of their learning. • Development of interpersonal skills • More fun, less Boring(both to student and instructor). • Improves student evaluation ! • ….

8. DSQ Discussion-Stimulating Questions

9. Why Do We Ask Questions • Review of Material • Assess Student Understanding. • Draw Students Attention • Transitioning • Arousing Interest • Maintain Discipline • Stimulate Class participation • convert lectures to dialogues.

10. Features of DSQ • Not YES/NO questions. • Designed for Higher level of thinking • “2/3 of questions asked in a classroom required only recitation of a memorized text as a satisfactory answer” (1912) • “Overwhelming proportion of questions asked by college professors were on the memory level”. (1982) • Has anything changed today?

11. Bloom’s Taxonomy:6 levels of Cognitive Thinking Assess, convince, conclude, judge, support, criticize, defend. Evaluation Compose, generalize, plan, substitute, create, formulate, integrate, design, anticipate, compile, negotiate, "what if" Synthesis Analysis • Analyze, arrange, connect, divide, infer, classify, explain, correlate Application Apply, demonstrate, modify, prove, construct, develop, establish, use information in new situations. Comprehension Associate, compare, distinguish, differentiate, interpret, order Knowledge Describe, List, Define, name, state

12. Why HOT Questions? • More stimulating than purely descriptive questions. • Those who “do not know” can participate

13. And … • Phrase your question Clearly. • What did we say about FS ? ! • Ask one thing at a time: • What are the disadvantages of X, can we remove them all, how and at what cost ?! • Write Down Your Questions.

14. Response Time • 20% of students do 80% of the talking. • When teachers ask questions they typically look for immediate response from students. • Allowing few seconds for the response … • Promotes self-thinking • Promotes higher levels of participation and longer responses. • The frequency of “I don’t know” decreases. • Improves language use, attitudes and teacher expectations. (Gambrell, 1983; McTighe,1988; Stahl, 1994)

15. How much RT is needed? • Allows nearly every student to complete the thinking needed for the task. • Matches the “HOT” required. • Takes into consideration the Language Barrier • Keeps students on board.

16. Watch Your Feedback • Reinforce good responses. • Praise the student in a strong positive way • “Absolutely correct”. “I like that”. • Make comments pertinent to the student response • You were so careful to include all the conditions. • Build on Students responses now and then.

17. Student-to-Student Q&A • Let students answer each other. • Encourage students to ask review questions to their peers. • We learn by asking questions more than we do by answering them. • What is harder for us, setting exams or solving them? • “It is better to ask some of the questions than know all the answers”.

18. 5 Tips for DSQ

19. TPS

20. Think-Pair-Share (TPS) Teacher poses Q T P S

21. PAIR Phase What do we gain from … Think Pair Share Compared to … Think Share

22. PAIR • Advantages: • Guaranteeing that everyone would have thought in the THINK phase. • Refining their thinking as well as the language used to explain their perceptions in a non-threatening environment. • Students in many instances learn better from each other then from their instructor.

23. PAIR • More Advantages: • Realizing the benefits of sharing ideas with peers. • Less confident students have the opportunity to rehearse their ideas and be encouraged to present them in front of the class. • To Improve the communication skills with colleagues of the same level.

24. Now, when we SHARE … • Students who would never speak up in class are now both required and enabled to participate. • The classroom is no longer dominated by a few students, but is open for contribution from all.

25. Management of TPS • Manage the “Think time”, “Pair time” & “Share time”. The longer the time “less discipline” environment is more likely to happen.

26. JIGSAW

27. Effective Teaching Methods for Large Classes, J. carpenter, U. South Carolina, 2006

28. Advantages of JIGSAW • Every student learns from his peers. • Every student teaches his peers. • Cooperation by Design • Typical for problem solving sessions.

29. JIGSAW at work !

30. Home and Expert Groups 1 2 6 5 9 10 13 14 Study Groups 3 4 8 15 16 7 11 12 2 14 4 16 1 13 3 15 Teaching Groups 11 7 12 10 6 8 9 5

31. Remarks • The class layout needs little adjustment • The instructor goes around to facilitate the work of the groups when needed. • Some groups may complete the task early. Prepare some time filling. • A comprehensive quiz may be given at the end of the session to students on individual basis.

32. How students feel about JIGSAW • We act spontaneously. • We ask all types of silly questions that never dare to put to the instructor. • Practice our teaching skills. • We can discuss in Arabic. • Assess our understanding of the subject. • Rank oneself against other students. • No chance to feel bored or sleepy. • Time passes very fast. • Some room for fun

33. Did you like any of the ideas In this presentation?