Category Archives: teaching

7 tips to help you prepare to teach large auditorium clasess

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Anthony Palomba
Ph.D. student, University of Florida

At first, teaching in large lecture halls with large enrollments can appear to be a daunting task for professors. Teaching already presents many potential challenges, and large lecture halls and class enrollments can exacerbate these elements, creating challenges for an inexperienced professor. 

However, if you are assigned to teach a lecture hall class, you should remember that this is an opportunity to meet undergraduates, many of whom may be freshman or sophomores.  In this case, teaching a class of this size and scope can help introduce you to a bevy of students, some of whom may decide to future classes with you or to ask you to be their advisor.

Additionally, the ability to manage classes in large lecture halls will serve you well when you make research presentations at conferences. 

Here are seven strategies to remember as you prep for a large lecture:

Tip #1 – Be sure to see all activities from the perspective of students.  It is crucial that you try to envision whether or not the type of methodologies and practices that you are implementing both inside and outside of the classroom will reach eighty to one hundred students or even more.

Tip # 2 – Develop an infrastructure in place so that students can get help and resources if they need it.  This will cut down on how many emails are sent to you or your teaching assistants.

Tip #3 – Implement a variety of class activities. Class activities will allow you to listen to student discussion, interact with groups, and hear from students who may present information in front of the class.  This will help you get to know your f students and serve as a way to ensure that the material is being grasped by students.

Tip # 4 – Realize that you will not be able to make a personal connection with every student.  However, every student will have an impression of how you teach and decide whether or not to take another class with you or request you as an advisor.

Tip # 5 – Learn to appreciate lecture halls. By structuring a curriculum with larger introductory courses, upper-division classes can have a much smaller class size. Additionally, large lecture classes serve as practice for conference and research presentations.

Tip # 6 – Have teaching assistants. If possible, have several teacher’s assistants who have either taken the course beforehand or are knowledgeable enough on the topic in order to competently assist in the management of the class.

Tip # 7 – Investigate the lecture hall or auditorium you are assigned to teach in.  There may be issues regarding the acoustics, location of doors, and lighting, as well as how PowerPoint images appear against the wall or screen provided in the room.

For more resources, please follow the following links and academic citations:

Academic Studies
Carbone, E., & Greenberg, J. (1998).  Teaching large classes: Unpacking the problem and responding creatively.  In M. Kaplan (Ed.), To improve the academy, vol. 17, Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education

Wulff, D. H., Nyquist, J. D., & Abbot, R. D. (1987). Teaching large classes well. In New Directions for Teaching and Learning (Vol. 32, pp. 17-30). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Cooperative Learning
Paulson, D. R., & Faust, J. L. (2008). Background and Definitions. In Active Learning for the College Classroom. Retrieved April 2, 2013, from http://www.calstatela.edu/dept/chem/chem2/Active/#group

One-Minute Paper
Bressoud, D. M. (2013). In The One-Minute Paper. Retrieved April 13, 2013, from http://www.maa.org/saum/maanotes49/87.html

Formulate Share Listen Create
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Edina, MI: Interaction Book Co.

Anthony Palomba is a student in Mass Communication Teaching (MMC 6930).

Creating online teaching portfolio helps you demonstrate teaching and technology abilities

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portfolio_chrisby Julie Dodd

Having an online teaching portfolio is helpful for anyone interested in seeking a job in teaching.

  • You can include the link — in correspondence you send about job applications, in your email signature, with your LinkedIn profile, on your business card, on your print curriculum vitae or résumé.
  • People can find you even if they aren’t looking for you specifically. Materials that you have included in your online portfolio can be found in online searches (such as the topic for a syllabus you’ve posted). And in finding contents of your portfolio, you have been discovered.

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Tips for developing and using rubrics

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by Kristina Birnbrauer
PhD student, University of Florida

Rubrics are used to support and assess student learning. They serve as performance scorecards to identify and measure criteria for student assignments. Rubrics are especially useful when grading written assignments.

They can reduce teacher-student disagreement, provide structure to the evaluation process, reduce the overall time spent grading, and provide students with a holistic picture of strengths and weaknesses.

Best practices recommend that rubrics have three to five levels of achievement or gradation. Within each level, performance measures should be clearly communicated, along with the scores/percentages for fulfilling/not-fulfilling the assignment.

The following resources can be helpful to members of the University of Florida community:

University of Florida’s Handbook for Teaching Assistants

University of Florida Faculty Grading Policy

University of Florida Student Grading Policy

Other helpful resources include:

“Understanding Rubrics” by Heidi Goodrich Andrade

Walvoord, B.E. & Anderson, V.J. (1998). Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Kristina  Birnbraurer is a student in Mass Communication Teaching (MMC 6930). Her teaching presentation was on developing and using rubrics. She is a health communication researcher. Her research involves how individuals respond to health threats.

5 resources to help you be more effective in college teaching

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by Julie Dodd

A major part of Mass Communication Teaching is having each class member teach class on a topic related to teaching, such as multiple-choice testing, learning styles, and incorporating discussion into class.

McKeachie's Teaching Tips provides great advice and strategies for planning your syllabus.Each of those teaching topics is a big issue, but each teaching presentation is only 30 minutes. So a key part of developing the lesson plan is determining what are the most important aspects of the topic to talk about.

Another key part teaching class is demonstrating what we’ve been reading about in “McKeachie’s Teaching Tips” and “What the Best College Teachers Do” – which is promoting active learning and not just lecturing.

Part of the process of developing a lesson plan is doing research on your teaching topic. Here are five resources:

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8 steps for developing a syllabus

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syllabus_start_wby Julie Dodd

The major assignment for Mass Communication Teaching is for you to develop a syllabus for an undergraduate communications course and create course materials, including an exam or major project and lesson plans.

The process for developing this syllabus will help you prepare for all the syllabi that you will be developing if you go into teaching.

1. Determine the schedule for your class.
You are designing a three-credit course. Will it meet for three hours once a week, one hour three times a week, or meet for two hours one day and one hour another day?

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AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division’s midwinter meeting at Poynter enables faculty members to share teaching strategies and research related to teaching

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Michigan State faculty member Cheryl Pell used her laptop, iPad and iPhone during a session on using Twitter in the classroom at the midwinter meeting at Poynter, January 2012. Photo by Julie Dodd

Michigan State faculty member Cheryl Pell used her laptop, iPad and iPhone during a session on using Twitter in the classroom at the midwinter meeting at Poynter, January 2012. Photo by Julie Dodd

by Julie Dodd

What’s a great way for teachers to get ready for the start of a new semester?

Attending a workshop, conference or training session that helps consider new teaching strategies, share research findings on teaching, and share strategies on curriculum development.

That’s just what I’m going to be doing the weekend before classes start at the University of Florida. I’ll be attending the mid-winter meeting of the AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division, held at the Poynter Institute at St. Petersburg.

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4 tips for designing a successful group project

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by Seul Lee
PhD student, University of Florida

Group projects are important for students majoring in advertising, public relations, journalism and telecommunication because those industries require a higher level of cooperation.  If structured well, group projects can promote important intellectual and social skills and can help students prepare for work world in advance.

Group projects are distinguished from group activities in that group projects are more likely to be long-term-based and require group product(s), such as a written report, a presentation, a design work, or a paper.

Positive group experiences contribute to develop skills specific to collaborative efforts and to have a field experience with real-world clients. However, there are often typical problematic group members, such as a free rider, a dictator, the do-it-all, the procrastinator, the socializer, the academically poor student, the quiet student, and/or the complainer.

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Advice for preventing plagiarism and cheating in the college classroom

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by Arlena Jackson
PhD student, University of Florida

Prevention is the best solution to mitigating plagiarism and cheating in the class room. When prevention is the priority, the teacher commits to investing the time that is needed to help students understand their assignments and the resources available to students to assist them with writing and to provide tutoring as needed.

Creating a classroom culture that promotes academic honesty can be fosters by the class syllabus. The syllabus can serve as a written document that guides the class format and assignments from start to finish, enabling students to plan the time needed to complete assignments and requiring them to turn in big projects in stages to prevent them from trying to complete too much work at the last minute. The syllabus is a great tool to remind  students to their university academic honor code and code of conduct.

To learn more about preventative measures that are available to teachers, please visit this site, which is sponsored by the University of Florida’s Warrington School of Business:

http://warrington.ufl.edu/itsp/docs/instructor/OnlineAssessment.pdf

Here you’ll find recommended teaching activities for preventing cheating and plagiarism. My favorite is the 21 tips for handling technology advanced cheating.

As a teacher, be sure to check to see what resources your university provides to assist you in determining plagiarism in student writing. For example, the University of Florida provides Turnitin.

Remember, you are not alone. Familiarize yourself with the department at your university who is responsible for managing academic dishonesty violations. At the University of Florida, the Dean of Students Office manages this process and should be contacted when assistance is needed to manage academic dishonesty or code of conduct violations.

Arlena Jackson is a student in Mass Communication Teaching.

6 tips for promoting cultural diversity in the classroom

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by Alexa Lopez
English Education graduate student, University of Florida

The United States is becoming more diverse – and so are our classrooms.

As future teachers, we must make sure that our classrooms are inclusive environments where cultures are respected and celebrated. By doing this, we will not only motivate our diverse students and help them better adjust to the American culture, but we will also be helping all our students become well-rounded global citizens.

Also, remember that multicultural students will not be the only ones in your classroom experiencing stressors related to diversity that will affect them academically. All students come from unique backgrounds and, as a result, have varied expectations of the college classroom that are grounded in their communities, families and previous academic experiences.

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Using discussion helps promote student learning

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by Carina Seagrave
UF master’s student

My presentation topic was Using Discussion in the Classroom.  Some important information which should have been taken from my presentation is listed below:

  • Discussion helps students internalize lessons
  • Discussion gives teacher another method for testing their students
  • Discussion helps us form arguments, articulate positions and learn from others
  • The Socratic Method is when a teacher argues against a student’s point of view to get them to see another
  • Information Retrieval helps teacher’s test student knowledge but isn’t a discussion technique

In addition to what I shared in my teaching presentation,  I wanted to include a few other points.

The first is to divide class time into lecture, discussion, group work, and visual aids. The average attention span of a human being is about 45 minutes so teachers should always keep that in mind when teaching.

The second is that teachers should always reword what students say during discussion so that (A) students who didn’t hear it can get it a second time and (B) to clarify information before speaking further on it.

An important resource to my presentation and a great resource for new teachers was the “Penn State Teacher II.”  This handbook was written for new teachers at the university level and is a compilation of helpful articles written by scholars on teaching.

Carina Seagrave is a student in Mass Communication Teaching.