On Borrowing

This semester I have been borrowing many ideas from different faculty members:

1)Heather: I had my students write their expectations for me (the instructor), themselves (the students), peers (each other), and the overall course. I then complied this and attached it as an addendum for the syllabus. It worked very well and helped build a student centered approach.

2)Lindee: To build teams and precision in writing, I broke students into groups and distributed twenty Legos to each group. As they built a structure, they had to write the instructions for how to build it. After they built the structure, one member form the team photographed it with a mobile device. Then, each group passed the instructions along with the blocks to the next group with the hope that their instructions allowed the next group to recreate the structure. Through three classes, it became very evident that visual aids provided the best chance for success. This seems to reinforce the adage- a picture is worth a thousand words.

3)Laurie: To break down constructs I asked students to list as many cliques as they could remember from high school. After we came up with the list (jocks, nerds, Goths, cheerleaders, sluts- to name a few), we labeled characteristics for each group. Next, I asked students to think about students who may have been part of these groups but didn’t fit with the characteristics for that group. Looking at constructs in this way really helped my students understand what constructs are.
4) Matt: To brainstorm about constructs I used Matt’s best practices exercise three. This exercise afforded students multiple viewpoints which helped them see differing perspectives.
5) One Minute Paper—I think this one came from Adele, but Laurie may have been the originator of it. I have used the one minute paper many times to gage how well students are grasping the material.

I have plans to borrow much more for the rest of my teaching days, and I want to invite everyone to share what it is that we all really love doing. The ideas I borrowed from others helped me do a better job. Thank you! I obtained the borrowed plans from best practices and by talking to others in passing. We are all too busy to talk with everyone about what we are doing, so we now have a space to blog about our classroom practices.

This blog space is a place where we can share our ideas with one another. Laurie, Lindee, Heather, Adele and Matt have reached beyond their own classes to influence students in my class. (I am also using more stuff from best practices later in the term). At a clip of teaching for thirty years and reaching 200 students per year (a 4x4 block), an instructor might reach 6,000 people. By sharing ideas and helping other instructors become better, an instructor can reach tens of thousands more students.

Please come and blog here. Talk about what you are doing in your class and what is really working well for you.


Joseph