Last week I attended the Western Conference in Science Education in London, Ontario. My goal in attending was to pick up some ideas for new things to try in my classroom and get some tips on possible assignments to try in the future. I also presented on my experiment in my graduate course last fall on using blogging as an assessment tool for learning .
Below is a list in random order of ideas that I’ll be ruminating on in the next few weeks before teaching again in fall term:
1) Have your 1st assignment early. It gives students a chance to see how you write questions and to prepare for future assignments.
2) If you use in-class quizzes, let the students teach each other for a few minutes before you evaluate them. This allows peer learning to take place in the classroom.
3) Lists of learning tasks and learning outcomes are important. This is definitely an area where I can improve.
4) Start a teaching mentoring community for faculty so that we can discuss strategies, successes, and challenges and learn from each other.
5) Get over the need to feel that every minute of every lecture has to be perfect.
6) I usually have students evaluate my teaching using a paper survey that I hand out in class. Other teachers found that allowing the students to use 15 or 20 second audio or video clips to deliver feedback led to more authentic responses.
7) Investigate the PeerWise platform.
8) It’s important to teach our science students how to communicate science to non-specialists and to tailor their communications to their audience.
9) I attended a great workshop that discussed strategies for teachers to maintain their well-being during our busy teaching semesters. Lots of valuable tips that I hope to implement!
10) Think hard about my classroom policy on electronic devices and their use. Tanya Noel and Tamara Kelly gave a neat presentation on “Does the digital have to divide us?”
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