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| Dr. Jodie Krontiris-Litowitz
(r) and her students: Sarah Siao, Ben Fulton, and Latisha Foster. |
Where do I start?
This is usually the thought that comes to mind when faced with that
first course. The best place to start is with your colleagues. Sit down with
them and ask a few questions. Find out if the course has been taught before
or if it is a new course. If it has been taught before, talk to the other
course instructors and ask them how the course was designed and managed in
the past. Find out if you are supposed to teach “as it has always been
taught” or if there are some issues with previous courses necessitating a
change in format. Either way, make your job easier and tap the experience
and expertise of your colleagues. If it is a team taught course, meet with
the other members of the teaching team ASAP and discuss content, format,
course management etc.
If you are teaching a new course for the first time—lucky you. Course
design, content, and format are in your capable hands. It can be scary at
first , but it will be a lot of fun. Be sure that you understand the
department's expectations for the course, the preparedness of your student
population, and the impact that your course will have on subsequent courses
that your students will take. If there are prerequisites for your course,
review the text to see what students will know when they enter your class.
If there are no prerequisites for your course, you may want to give a test
of basic knowledge during the first week so that you understand the
background and preparation of your students. With this information you can
pitch your course at a level that will ensure success.
How do you prepare a course?
Everyone has prepared at least one course by opening a textbook chapter,
outlining the important points and then turning the outline in a lecture.
What many discover at test time is that the students have a superficial
knowledge of the material. They know the facts of the topic but primarily in
the context of the text or course. They are slow to relate their knowledge
to situations outside of the lecture context and may be unable to use it to
predict outcomes or assess a problem.
Consequently, one of the first caveats for preparing a course is to clearly
identify the course objectives. What do you want your students to know?
Should they know content or facts? How should they be able to manipulate the
information that they have learned? Will you expect them to be able to solve
clinical problems, calculate results, predict outcomes? Will they need to
acquire skills in the course? Think about questions like these and then
format them into a list as your course objectives. Once the list is
complete, match your objectives to one or more class sessions or topics. For
example, if you want your students to acquire content knowledge, identify
the class session in which you present the information or the homework
reading assignment (textbook chapters, websites, etc.) that addresses the
topic. If you want students to learn to apply their knowledge to clinical
problems, data analysis etc., identify class sessions where you give them
examples in class or provide them with opportunities to practice working
them out with their classmates or on their own. If these ideas won't work
for you, there are many other ways to build your learning objectives into
the course, such as incorporating them into student projects, homework
assignments, study questions, web-based discussion, etc. For more ideas,
search the “APS Archive of Teaching Resources” (www.apsarchive.org/main/ugradsearch.asp)
and “Resources for Effective Pedagogy” (www.apsarchive.org/main/ugradpedagogy.asp)
at the APS website.
Plan your course outline and your classroom presentations around these
objectives. Some faculty build from small ideas to big concepts and some do
the reverse starting with big concepts and working their way down to the
small ideas. Do whatever works best for you but be sure to sketch out a
logical progression of ideas before writing the presentation.
Collect as many resources for your course as time allows. Gather images from
your textbook (many publishers supply image libraries and lecture slides),
the internet and even create your own images using a drawing program. Search
the web for graphs, animations, case studies, and examples that you can use.
Again the APS website,
www.apsarchive.org/main/ugradsearch.asp), is a great resource for many
of these. Talk to colleagues about how they taught the course and what they
did or used that really worked for them. You may not use all of the
resources that you collect but they will give you another perspective of the
topic and a toolkit for answering those unexpected questions.
Preparing the Syllabus
After you have finalized your course objectives, you are ready to prepare a
syllabus. A syllabus is a contract between the student and the instructor
and when a student registers for a course, they agree to comply with the
terms of this contract. Within the syllabus the instructor lays out the
expectations for the course with respect to learning goals, student
behavior, and course grading policy. Typically, learning goals explain what
the student should be able to do at the end of the course (e.g., identify
three mechanisms of…, explain the process…, predict the change in….,
determine the validity of the statement…). The syllabus section on student
behavior deals with a range of instructor expectations, some as mundane as
attendance or cell phones in class and others as crucial as class
participation or plagiarism. While these may be unpleasant topics, some
preemptive thought and action will make your job easier. Decide before class
begins whether or not students can talk in class, eat in class, answer cell
phones, leave early or walk in late. Refine your vision of class
participation and define your idea of plagiarism. Once you have decided on
these parameters, clarify them in your syllabus and talk to your students
about them on the first day of class. If students understand that these
issues influence the classroom environment and that your goal is to provide
the best classroom environment possible, the majority of your students will
support your efforts. Finally, the syllabus defines what the instructor will
use as a grading scale and the assignments, quizzes, and exams that will be
associated with the final course score.
It important to invest significant time and effort into your syllabus
because you must live with it throughout the course. Often, first-time
instructors or instructors teaching a course for the first time prepare the
“perfect” syllabus only to discover midway through the course that either
the students or the instructor cannot live with perfection. As a result, an
instructor may consider altering the syllabus. However—a word of caution—if
you must deviate from your syllabus, be judicious about it. Traditionally if
an instructor deviates from the syllabus, it must benefit the student. For
example, if you must reschedule an exam, it is appropriate to change the
date (usually a later date) so that it provides the student with at least as
much study time as the originally scheduled day. Also, if you must drop
topics from the schedule and eliminate associated assignments, make sure
that the lost points do not penalize student grades.
What should I teach in my course? What should I cover in class?
These are actually two separate questions. You may expect students to know
the material in 1,000 pages of the text, but it is unreasonable to expect
that you will discuss all of this during class time. Decide what students
need to know at the end of the course and then divide it up between what you
can present in class and what you expect students to learn on their own.
Don't allow your students become “dependent” learners (Weimer, Maryellen.
2002. Learner-Centered Teaching, Five Key Changes to Practice. Jossey-Bass,
San Francisco, CA) where they look upon their instructor as the source of
all knowledge. Prod them into learning for themselves with challenging and
relevant questions (Why don't birds have teeth?) that make them delve into
their learning resources (texts, internet, etc.) for answers. Also,
encourage them to be selective about their learning. Help them recognize
that learning everything in the 1,000 pages of their textbook is unrealistic
for the course and that they might be more successful if they were selective
about their learning. Guide them to ask questions and make decisions about
their studying. Help them ask themselves questions like, “Does this concept
have broad applications outside of this chapter? If, so maybe I should focus
on it rather that detailed content knowledge.” Encourage them to learn
information that will help derive other information by asking questions
like, “If I learn how the Na/K pump works, will I need to memorize the
events associated with hyperkalemia or hypernatremia?”
How do students learn?
Many of us attended courses that were taught in a traditional lecture
format.
By and large that worked. After all, we are successful scientists today.
There is some question about the value of this technique. Studies show that
classroom lectures are not the most effective way to teach or the most
effective way for students to learn. Because of our own experience in the
classroom however, most of us feel comfortable with this form of teaching,
and might naturally want to use it for the first time in our own courses. If
this works for you, use it but take some part of your first course and
experiment with alternative teaching strategies like problems-based
learning, think-pair-share exercises, etc. For examples of quick and easy
ways to teach without lecture, look at the “APS Archive of Teaching
Resources” at the APS website
www.apsarchive.org/main/ugradsearch.asp).
Large class sizes can be intimidating and often instructors feel that
lecture is the only option in this situation. However, there are several
effective alternative strategies that you could consider. One example is
class discussion. While it is difficult to run a single discussion section
in a large class, it is quite reasonable to generate productive discussion
if you break up the class into groups of 3-5 neighboring students. These
students can work as a team for five minutes answering a question that you
pose. At the end of this time you can poll the groups for their responses to
assess student understanding and misconceptions.
It is important to recognize that all students do not learn the same way;
hence it might be wise to try multiple presentation formats in your class
session. Some students learn better with pictures, some with written words,
some with stories/lectures and some by talking about the topic. Vary your
course presentation so that it incorporates all of these formats. You might
try introducing a topic with a combination of verbal and written format by
lecturing with slides and then follow this up with a discussion of a flow
chart, diagram, or linkage map. As a summary you might ask students to
explain the answer to a question to the person sitting next to them. In this
way you can address multiple learning styles and enhance the successful
learning in your classroom.
How do I know that my students are learning? Testing and Assessment
Many instructors regard testing and assessment as an unpleasant but
necessary task that makes some fraction of the class dissatisfied. However,
if used appropriately, testing and assessment can provide valuable feedback
for students, enabling them to identify their study targets and ultimately
improve their learning and grades. Often an instructor relies on test scores
only to tell them if students are learning course material. The problem with
this method is that exams occur at the end of the curricular unit and by the
time the instructor finds out that students have not learned the material,
it is too late to remediate. An alternative to this is to quiz student
knowledge frequently throughout the course. These assessments don't need to
be labor intensive; simple questions with oral or written answers will do.
For example, after a difficult topic in class an instructor can put a
question up on the screen with 3three to four answers, one of which is
correct and the others which address common confusions or misconceptions
associated with the topic. Ask the question and have students raise their
hand or write their answers on a card. Their replies should give you a sense
of their understanding. If you want to know about their deep understanding
of the topic, you could pose a question and ask them to write a short
paragraph in response. Share these results with the class and ask students
to explain why they chose right or wrong answers. This discussion will allow
you to dispel the misconceptions that students might have. Also, use this
time as an opportunity to guide students to study targets that promote depth
understanding rather than superficial learning or memorization. Finally,
evaluate student understanding early and often. It will promote learning and
prevent those frustrated, confused students that appear in your office just
before the exam. |
