Monthly Archives: October 2018

Lisa’s introduction to educational technology at City

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Several of the participants of Establishing a Teaching Persona, which ran for the first time last month, had the opportunity to discuss technology and teaching with one of my colleagues, Lisa Baker. Lisa is an educational technologist at City and has produced a handout to introduce you to the key technologies that you might come across whilst teaching at City: Moodle, our virtual learning environment, which is used for many things, from providing information about each module or submitting assessments to online activities; Mediaspace, our system for recording lectures or creating videos for your teaching; Poll Everywhere, a system which can be used to gather responses online from your students in class; and last but no means least, the ‘pod’ or PC set up in each classroom. If you want to learn more about the educational technologies supported at City, the Ed Tech team are running a series of workshops this term which you might want to sign up to.

Would you like a City forum for PhD students who teach?

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One of the best ways I’ve found to develop my own teaching is to talk about it with other people – sometimes it can be reassuring to know that other people are encountering the same issues as you (why has the attendance tailed off after the first few weeks? what do I do about the group at the back of the class who were chatting all the way through my session? what could be going on with the student who doesn’t seem to take part in any of the group discussions?). Often other people might have different ways of looking at something that you’re finding difficult – as they’re more removed from the situation, they will have a less emotional reaction to the behaviour of your student, and might be able to suggest reasons why the student might be acting in that way, and how to resolve the situation. It’s also really useful to share ideas for different kinds of activities, and different ways to get students excited about your subject and what they’re learning.

Some of you might have already developed informal ways of talking about teaching with your PhD colleagues – perhaps just over a cup of tea in your shared office after you come back from a seminar or lab session. But would you like the opportunity to discuss teaching with PhD students from across City on a regular basis?

If so, I could set up some forums for PhD students who teach at City, where we could get together to discuss ideas and share solutions for issues that you might be encountering. We could have a different theme each time – perhaps based around particular types of teaching, or maybe focused on specific aspects, such as technology or classroom management.

Does this sound like something you’d be interested in? If you would like to attend a City teaching forum for PhD students who teach, please use the comments below or my email (jessica.hancock@city.ac.uk) to get in touch with me. Alternatively, if you have another suggestion, let me know about that too.

Pam’s top tips for running large group sessions

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Pam, the Deputy Director of LEaD and a professor in Educational Development, shared some of her years of experience with lecturing to large groups with the attendees of the Establishing a Teaching Persona course. You can take a look at her advice and some links to further resources in the teaching large groups handout. Her top ten tips  about teaching in large groups are:

  1. Be at the room in plenty of time – if there’s no class before yours, you can get in and set up
  2. Welcome students as they come in – this does make a difference
  3. Start on time and have a slide after your title slide that has learning outcomes for the session – this helps students know what to expect and enables you to provide an overview of what is to come
  4. Ensure your slides are not too full of text – use pictures/graphics and key words rather than write full explanations
  5. When you have students doing activities, like paired discussions and group activities, do walk around the room so they can ask questions if they need to
  6. Keep an eye on the time and keep to the times you have given them for activities
  7. If delivering a short lecture part, do tell the students if it is okay to ask questions
  8. If using a quiz leave enough time for students to respond – but not too long
  9. Finish the session with what next: so is there anything they need to do on Moodle, or related reading?
  10. Enjoy the session and be enthusiastic – it makes a difference!

 

Ruth’s small group activity ideas

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In part of Establishing a Teaching Persona (ETP), Ruth, one of the Lecturers in Educational Development at City, who is the school liason for Cass, discussed small group teaching with some of the participants. Ruth led a reflection about teaching in small groups, thinking about the advantages and disadvantages, and the ways in which students might feel included or excluded. She explored a teaching incident where the teacher, frustrated at the types of answers she was getting to her questions, made a disparaging remark about a student. This demonstrates the ways in which acting towards a student without compassion (something we discussed during ETP) can be harmful to the relationship with a whole class.

Ruth also shared some ideas for activities which can be used with small groups to encourage active learning: from the fishbowl to the jigsaw classroom. Take a look to see which might be useful for your classes.

Ali’s lab demonstration guide

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Part of Establishing a Teaching Persona, the course for PhD students who teach at City, involved the opportunity to chat directly with a member of LEaD about a particular type of teaching. Ali, who works in the academic team as a Lecturer in Educational Development, with special responsibility for the School of Mathematics, Computer Science & Engineering, was there to discuss lab teaching, and has produced a ‘Lab Demonstrating Guide‘ which provides advice for working with students in labs, and links to further resources.

Ali’s hints and tips for effective lab work with students:

  • Ask questions that open up the subject, or other possibilities; lead students towards answering their own questions, where possible, through consideration of their actions;
  • Use the lab to explicitly build on current knowledge and lead the student through chains of reasoning; do not simply answer student questions (unless the question really does warrant a simple answer, like ‘where do I…’);
  • Be approachable – friendly, available, equitable and helpful – especially to those students who are new to working in a lab environment, e.g. Level 4 (first year) students;
  • Be proactive as well as reactive – recognise those having difficulties. Encourage active participation by students and counter any “freeloaders” by encouraging all students to participate when you are working with groups;
  • Draw comparisons and parallels between laboratory work and professional practice.

Checking on the progress of students in the lab environment is essential due to health and safety concerns. With safety as a primary concern the need for you to be alert to student activities, and prepared to intervene, is increased when compared to some other teaching situations:

  • Make sure you are clear on your role in the lab environment, the protocol to be carried out, and what support you are being asked to provide;
  • Clarify safety requirements and procedures and make sure there are no equipment issues; be proactive with students in ensuring equipment is used safely;
  • Ensure you know any parameters for feedback you need to give, particularly if you are to be involved in assessing students’ work.