Here is a simple template:
1. Lecture for a few minutes.
Most students will probably listen to a monologue by a gifted scholar (you) for about 10 minutes before even considering checking out the new KevJumba video on YouTube. But at some point soon after, their attention is likely to wane.
2. Get the students involved.
After you’ve given the students some information but before they’ve laid their heads down on their desks, pose a semi-challenging question to them and tell them to write silently about it for one minute (or two minutes). For example, instead of telling them how to balance a new chemical equation, ask them to try it on their own first. Or instead of telling them how to interpret the film you screened last night, ask them to write about what they thought was going on.
Note: Some instructors are nervous that their students will refuse to do the silent write. When I ask my students to do a silent write the first time, usually most of the class looks at me blankly for about 10 seconds; then, one by one, they turn their attention to the writing task. After the first time, most students go for it right away.
After the minute or two, tell them to discuss their answers in groups of two or three. I tell them that it’s OK if they make a lot of noise while they talk with their neighbors. I don’t know why, but this often makes them laugh. But then they get really noisy, talking about the problem. (I eavesdrop on various pairs and triplets to be sure of this.)
After several minutes, ask one person to share their group’s ideas with the rest of the class. This activity has at least two purposes. First, you get to hear what was happening in one of the small groups. Second, the students get to hear your response. Students often want you, the instructor, to let them know if the conclusions they came to in their small groups were right.
When you get your students involved in this way, few to none of them will still sit there daydreaming or texting their friends.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 till the class period is over.
By the way, there are endless variations on this scheme, including using clickers in the classroom or switching over to problem-based learning techniques. No matter what you decide to do to get your students involved, I’ll bet you a dollar that it will reduce the recreational use of electronics in your classroom. And I’ll bet you another dollar that you’ll enjoy teaching more at the same time.
Have you tried these or similar techniques, or been a student in a class in which they were used? What have your experiences been? Tell us about either the problems or the successes.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
This “think/write pair share” method described above really does work. I’ve used it a lot and found it to be helpful. This method also helps those students (such as language learners) who maybe take a bit more time to process information than some of their peers and it gives those quiet students a chance to share their opinions. Also, I agree with the idea of lecturing in small chunks so students don’t get bored. However, the question always arises, how do I present material to a large lecture (100+ people) if lecturing isn’t always successful? I once TAed for a class in which the professor did a mix of lecturing and group work even in a large lecture. She employed us TAs to walk around and help with the group work in between lecture blocks. For example, she lectured on a particular theoretical concept, projected an exercise related to that concept, then her and us TAs walked around the lecture hall for several minutes while students worked on the exercise individually and/or in groups. Then she brought the class back together to address their results before moving on with the lecture and repeating the process. She is one of the few professors I’ve seen do this in a large lecture hall and the students always respond positively to her methods. I think my main point is that even a large lecture can be treated as a small discussion section if approached properly. “Think/write pair share” and activities like I described can help accomplish this. Also, having a team of TAs does help.
I like your point, Heather: “even a large lecture can be treated as a small discussion section if approached properly.” I have TAed for large lectures but I’ve never seen this approach before. Perhaps because I was the only TA. This approach may be problematic in this scenario (when you have a large lecture and few TAs). One approach that I found that worked well in keeping students engaged in the large lecture scenerio was bringing in real world, current examples to make the lecture material more applicable. For example, I was TAing for a Perception class; the topic was the structure of the eye and how the visual system works. Instead of just giving the students the material to memorize, he gave an example of how Lasik procedures work. Many of the students were familiar with this, so taking the material and applying to a real world example helped them learn the material better.
This is a great template that seems to be flexible enough to apply to any classroom! I occassionally use this in my (French) foreign language classroom because students often find it easier to work out their grammar/language issues on a piece of paper before they try and speak up. The small group discussion also helps them clarify their ideas–most students don’t realize they’re making mistakes until they’re with their peers.
When it comes to “Sharing ideas with the rest of the class,” I wonder how much we should allow students to volunteer their ideas and how much we should call on particular students who might be too shy to share, even after sharing it in small group. This is where I think your “evesdropping” suggestion is a good one, Mikaela. Sometimes a student will have a really great idea and just be too shy to share it! So often I will single them out, “So-and-so had a really interesting response to this question, could you share it with us?”
I worry about making my students feel put on the spot, but this method was very helpful to me when I was an undergrad. I often felt that my ideas weren’t good/smart enough to be shared, and so when my professors encouraged me to speak up more in class, I began to gain more confidence. I hope that my students feel the same way, although some have noted that they hated being called on in my class.
I find the problem of engaging students in a large lecture class to be an important one. I recently read that Chancellor Katehi has proposed a plan for UCD to enroll a significantly higher number of new students in order to help the staggering UC deficit. Even though this plan calls for an increase in faculty hires, I still wonder how large classes could get if we implement it. So the question of how to engage students in large classes becomes, I think, all the more urgent in our current academic climate.
The example Heather brings up of an effective teaching strategy in a large class is a great one. It’s nice to hear about faculty who strive to engage students despite the challenges of being in a lecture hall. But I’ve also been the TA for lectures where such classes did not engage students, and out of a class of 125+, only 5-6 students spoke in class the entire quarter. In a literature lecture for which I was the TA, I noticed we had a student who was continuously disengaged from the discussion, typing on his laptop. The professor didn’t notice and I, being a young first-year TA, didn’t think it was my place to say anything regarding the professor’s classroom management. The prof did do a good job of incorporating students’ comments into the discussion, but did not implement any activities such as the think/write, pair, share activity. At the end of the quarter, this student who was so busy on his laptop submitted a final paper – on the wrong Shakespeare play, one that we hadn’t mentioned in class and which was not listed on the syllabus. This illustrated to me how important active learning is, even in a large lecture.
From my own experience as a student, when I speak more with others, I learn more than if I just listened. The most effective graduate seminar I have taken was run by a professor who, after greeting us and setting the agenda for the day, didn’t speak, not even a word, for the first hour and a half of our 3 hour class. It was fantastic because it put the burden of conversation on the students and forced us to engage in critical conversations that we otherwise would not have had. So, even though sometimes I fail, this approach is what I strive for in my own classes now.
This method of think pair share seems to me to be highly effective in both large and small classrooms. One advantage of the method that I think is particularly attractive is that students get a chance to explain to each other what is going on. Sometimes students who are struggling will feel more comfortable talking to peers than asking the professor, or they benefit from hearing the problem explained from another student’s perspective. This also benefits the students who understand the concepts by giving them a chance to practice verbal communication skills.
This technique also helps the instructor develop their teaching. I have been a TA wandering and ‘eavesdropping’ on student conversations and I sometimes hear one student coming up with a new and innovative way to explain a concept. This gives me an opportunity to use their perspective in the class. Think pair share not only encourages continuous engagement with material, it also allows more of an educational network to develop within the class. Multi-directional exchange of information occurs between students and instructors creating a more varied and rich educational climate. I would highly encourage instructors to use the method and pay close attention to student explanations that lead to understanding and ‘light-blub” moments for their peers.
I strongly agree with everything that is written here. And I think it’s so important for us to find ways to engage our students in what we teach. I had dreadful experience TAing my first year. The instructor lectured from an overhead projector without engaging students for the entire 80-minute class session. Students would raise their hands, yet he either wouldn’t see them or just wouldn’t acknowledge them. I think that’s a worst case scenario.
I want to add one other idea I’ve used in the past to engage students from the very beginning. I love to begin classes by having my students write. I did this as a high school teacher, and I did it when I led discussion sections. Typically, I’ll pose a few questions related to either the assigned reading or the topic of the discussion for the day (often these are one in the same). Generally I like to ask students to think about the content in some new way, perhaps asking how they would apply what they learned. Some times I’ll ask then to list questions they had from the reading and then have them attempt to answer one or two. After, I’ll follow the same pair-share activity described above.
What I always liked about this is it gets students engaged and thinking about the content before I even say anything. When students share their ideas with the large group, it often opens opportunities for discussion. I find that the lecture turns into more of a focused discussion.
I haven’t tried this with more than about 50 students at a time, but I think it could still work, especially with the assistance of TAs as others have suggested.
I really like the fact that think-pair-share can be applied to both smaller and larger sized classrooms. As an undergrad, I had a professor who would have her students post short blog responses 5 times a semester. She would then take anonymous blog excerpts and present them to everyone in the beginning of class. The excerpts would often get students inspired to raise their hands and either agree or contradict the anonymous post. Especially since they had already put thought into the topic before class. I think slightly controversial introduction material can be a good jump start to conversation in the classroom even if it doesn’t come from students themselves (ex: an interesting video clip, comic etc).
These are all good ideas, but I worry that going into “think-pair-share” more than once in a class session would not be an effective use of time, especially in science lecture classes. Most science classes do not have nearly enough class time available to cover the material that the course should be covering. For example, a class on cognitive neuroscience should have 6+ hours of in-class time per week if we’re serious about covering all the material in one quarter, but we instead get 2-3 hours/week. We thus have to rush lectures and cut “think-pair-share” type activities just to get a minimum amount of material covered. How could this method be adapted for such science lectures?
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