for Course Design and Implementation
“I never knew that psychology included so much biology and experiments. I really enjoyed the hands-on activities and I thought the guest speaker was interesting.”
(8th grade summer enrichment student)
These are the techniques and strategies I have used in diverse settings for creating a new course, captivating students, building skills through assignments and activities, setting the bar for rigorous standards, and learning from student feedback.
Creating a new course
I’d be hard pressed to pick my favorite part of teaching, but creating courses is a top candidate. I have been able to wholly design two intensive summer courses (for gifted middle/high schoolers): for each I created a central concept, and wove that concept explicitly through each day. For example, in the introductory psychology course, I chose to put together a teasing array of just the most fascinating findings, touching on each major area of the field. I chose this design in the hope of piquing students’ interest to pursue later, comprehensive high school or college courses. The uniting theme behind my “teasers” was breakdown: failures of our minds which illuminate their inner workings and typical adaptivity. This allowed us to explore effects as far flung as perceptual illusions, stereotyping, and false memory (which I later expanded into a seminar). The skill-based strand woven into the course was learning how psychological research is conducted. Each day we practiced a different step of the scientific method (culminating in independent experiments), and each day guest speakers from UVa also discussed their experience researching topics we’d covered.
Captivating students
Once I have a course concept, I’m sold – but the students are another matter. I find that a teacher’s own enthusiasm goes far in engaging students, but working with a wide range of students and subject contents has required me also to develop an array of techniques for drawing them in. Several courses I taught met for 3-4 hours a day, so they would be torture if I couldn’t make them varied and exciting. I took this challenge on this with lots of hands-on demonstrations: in-class experiments for my psychology students (to practice data collection), or activities with travel magazine photographs for my ESL students (to practice prepositions). When I do give a brief lecture, I make a special effort both to be engaging and to explain topics in a way those particular students will understand. (One 8th grade student actually wrote on her course evaluation that her favorite activity in class was listening to me sit up front and talk!) Above all, variety is crucial, so in a single day I mix hands-on demos with lecture, discussion, debates, group work, videos, guest speakers, and/or field trips (see course plan for examples of daily programs). When directing a language school, I also initiated and obtained support and funding for extracurricular activities: cooking classes on American foods, music lessons on pop songs, even a full Thanksgiving dinner.
Building skills through assignments & activities
Of course, piquing students’ interest is just the beginning. I teach to share valuable skills and information with students, not just because they’re interesting, but because they’re useful. I decide at the beginning of the course what skills I want students to learn, and design activities and assignments around those goals. For example, since I wanted my eighth graders to present their own research at the end of a two-week course, we worked each day on another step of the scientific method: practicing skills in class, and applying those skills to their projects for homework – one step at a time. In my UVa psychology discussion sections (which included many freshmen), I wanted students to learn how to evaluate studies thoughtfully, draw connections among them, and discuss these ideas cogently both in class and in well-written papers. As a start, I had students bring brief reaction papers to each class: commenting on what had most interested them in the reading, then writing (and trying to answer) discussion questions (see Weekly Assignment). Students used these assignments to launch large and small group discussions, and later rated them to have been very helpful.
Setting the bar: Rigorous standards
I take my teaching seriously, and I expect my students to take their learning seriously – after all, they are the most interested parties! For me, high standards are what makes our work together serious. This does include strict grading, but goes far beyond that: high standards start with clear expectations, and progress with steady support. At UVa, for example, I gave a great deal of attention to my syllabus; although the professor had already set the readings, I wanted my students to understand my policies: what preparation I expected of them, how I would assign grades, etc. I devoted in-class time to discussing papers in depth, wrote guidelines, and always offered to read and comment on drafts or outlines ahead of time (one third of students took me up on this). I graded those papers by rubrics that I discussed in advance, and attached to the paper, so students could see exactly where they needed to improve. In Brazil, when I taught ESL, the school I joined had struggled to adapt to market demands for a speedy course, and some students arrived at my upper-level courses without the necessary preparation. I graded them according to their work, which made for some failing grades, but I also made myself available after and before classes for extra tutoring. Students had remarkably favorable responses to this, even the ones that failed. I would not trade any As for the shared joy of seeing them genuinely progress. (One of the greatest ironies of being “easy” on students, I think, it that it robs them of this very joy: if failure is not a possibility, then success is meaningless.) The administration also supported my efforts: : I presented my case for re-evaluating quality standards in a report to the owner, and he asked me to be faculty liaison starting a new committee to look into this (unfortunately, I moved before I could do so).
Learning from students: Use of feedback
Just like a well-intentioned student who hasn’t yet learned to study effectively, I have to admit that all my effort preparing for classes does not guarantee good results. Therefore, I make a point of seeking and incorporating student feedback in all teaching situations. In my summer courses, teachers prepared their own student evaluation forms: I chose to ask what students thought were the most important things they had learned from the course, as well as their reaction to specific activities (see responses). I additionally decided to have students fill out daily exit cards. At the end of class, I gave each student a blank index card, and they wrote brief, anonymous comments: what had impacted them about the class, what they had liked, what they hadn’t. These were very helpful barometers, and usually quite positive. Some days, though, activities I’d spent hours preparing fell totally flat, and I had to face a few honest complaints. I took these into account: altering or replacing activities in the next session, and checking for students’ response. At UVa, students filled out official evaluations, but I drafted extra questions to supplement these. In my first ESL school, student feedback was actually not routinely sought, but I prepared evaluations for my classes (mid-term and final), and again used responses to tailor activities and time allotment . I discussed the results with the class, and explained which aspects I could change (more pronunciation, for example), which I couldn’t (the book), and which I wouldn’t (always a few pleas for even more movies). Students appreciated having a voice, and I benefited greatly from the opportunity to improve my teaching.
Next page: Creating Synergy in Teaching and Research
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