{"id":1101,"date":"2012-03-05T21:41:06","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T08:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2012\/03\/changing_teaching_techniques\/"},"modified":"2012-03-05T21:41:06","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T08:41:06","slug":"changing-teaching-techniques","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2012\/03\/changing-teaching-techniques\/","title":{"rendered":"changing teaching techniques"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post’s title is another one drawn from the search terms that brought people to my ‘other’ blog at Talking Teaching<\/a> \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve written quite a lot about the benefits students may gain as a result of lecturers changing the techniques they use in the classroom. A while back I wrote about <\/span>the idea of helping students to visualise a paper’s curriculum<\/a>, & this semester I decided to try that out with my first-year biology class. Today was the first day of the new semester, & I thought I’d share what I did with them – it would be interesting to hear what others think of this approach, so please do add a comment \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I kicked off with this slide – I thought the images captured some of the confusion that many first-year students seem to share as they enter their first year of uni study. It’s a fair bet that all the new terms & concepts thrown at them in many ‘traditional’ paper outlines don’t help \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Then I listed the obvious: the various classroom ‘styles’ they’ll be experiencing (ie lectures, labs & tuts). And pointed out that there are definite bi-directional links between them – this is because (in my experience, anyway) some students tend to see them as isolated enitities. When I first tried my hand at a diagram like this my wonderful friend & colleague Brydget pointed out that it was way<\/em> too complicated; the kids would just get lost in the detail. I took her advice & had another go \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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And then I asked, OK, when you enrolled in this paper, what did you <\/em>think you’d be doing & learning? This was the very first class so I wasn’t sure what responses I’d get, if any, but I wanted to send the message from the start that this is how I teach & that active participation is the norm in my lectures. But people put their hands up. ‘Content,’ they said; ‘stuff about plants & animals & how they function & how they interact with their environment.’ ‘Great!’ I said, ‘and I need to make sure that we do look at some of this, because my colleagues further down the line will expect you to be familiar with this material.’<\/p>\n

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‘But wait!’ I said, ‘there’s more!’ (Because beyond ‘dissections!!!’ no-one had mentioned any process skills.)<\/p>\n

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So now we could look at those other skills & why they are relevant. We’d talked a bit about plagiarism at orientation last week, so I could check back on their understandings around this – & emphasise that we’ll be working with them to develop their skills in academic writing, referencing, citations & so on. And critical thinking – to me, this is surely one of the most important skills that any student could acquire during their time at university.<\/p>\n

Now, where are we going with all this?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 Well, there’s the obvious one – that first-year is expected to turn out students with the knowledge & skills that they’ll require if they’re going on to further study in the subject. But there’s a second, equally important point here, and it hinges on the fact that there are quite a few students in the class who aren’t going to major in biology, & who may not actually be science students at all – they’re taking the paper as an elective in another degree altogether. What do I hope they will gain from it?<\/p>\n

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Yes – apart from (I hope!) helping them gain an enthusiasm for & appreciation of the living world, I really really<\/em> want to enhance the scientific literacy of all my students, so that they can apply this understanding in their own future lives, regardless of whether they’re going on to a career in the sciences.<\/p>\n

Now, I don’t know what the class thought of this approach – yet. I’ve asked them to let me know (anonymously if they like) through our Moodle page. But it would be good to hear from readers as well \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post’s title is another one drawn from the search terms that brought people to my ‘other’ blog at Talking Teaching \ud83d\ude42 I’ve written quite a lot about the benefits students may gain as a result of lecturers changing the techniques they use in the classroom. A while back I wrote about the idea of helping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,43],"tags":[3,40],"yoast_head":"\nchanging teaching techniques : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2012\/03\/changing-teaching-techniques\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"changing teaching techniques : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post’s title is another one drawn from the search terms that brought people to my ‘other’ blog at Talking Teaching \ud83d\ude42 I’ve written quite a lot about the benefits students may gain as a result of lecturers changing the techniques they use in the classroom. 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