Discussing:
Attending: Patrick, Daniel, Kristen, Emral, Shoshana.
(1) Daniel’s visit to Shoshana’s class
They had discussed interspersing lecture and practice, every 30 min (20 min/10 min respectively). Shoshana had been doing both, but with larger intervals. She thought the shorter intervals have been more effective since then.
Discussion of how the programming software shows you what each line of code is doing as it does it (jGRASP debugger).
(2) Ross Nehm article
Issues with problem-solving skills; identifying relevant information to use to solve the problem.
Textbooks — do not much help students to organize new info like an expert. Could OER help?
Describes well how students need to “deactivate” irrelevant info — how can instructors help? Use in-class activities to individually diagnose & resolve with each student. Showing the class an incorrect response often lodges it in everyone’s mind — so that’s less effective.
(3) “What Works, What Doesn’t” article
Useful tips to share with students.
McGraw-Hill online texts — do electronic highlighting?!
Highlighting emphasizes key terms, but ignores/makes invisible the connections, which is what an expert hones in on.
Self-testing (which is basically doing the homework) is what works. Teachers know this works, but do students?
Making a chart with connections is harder homework than the questions at the end of the chapter, but more effective.
Assessing students’ mastery not just of concepts, but of organization & connections (expertise, with the concepts). Such assessment can be difficult to explain to students what they did “wrong”. “That’s not what I meant” (said by students); they need to articulate what they understand, in a more precise, expert way.
Giving students examples of graded work prior to formally assessing them can help.
Brief discussion of physical set-up of the room — digital projection AND two whiteboards necessary for STEM classes. Desired: splitter for two screens (presenter view, presentation view).
