Month: January 2011

After the first class period ended I was tell having a few worries of what our second lecture would be like. However, I am proud to report that after the week came to a close both Dr. Gurung and his TA’s are settling into teaching/lecturing very well.

When comparing the first day to the second day there were comparable differences. The most notable difference was seen in the amount of names Dr. Gurung knew. For a professor to learn 30+ names between two class periods amazed me (although we learned Dr. G’s techniques), that takes a lot of dedication and shows that he wants to make the students feel comfortable and let them know he is interested in knowing them and getting them involved with the lectures. I personally feel that the more comfortable a student is with the professor the more likely they are to get involved and learning students names is the easiest step a professor can do.  A second noticeable difference was the amount of time Dr. Gurung spent in the front of the class. Unlike the first day, where he allotted a good amount of time to walking around the room, he spent most of his time in the front of the class during our second meeting. I do feel this was okay to do because he knew more of the student’s names and could keep the attention of individual sections of the class when calling on students in those areas.

Another thing I noticed during the second class was how Dr. Gurung uses different techniques while teaching the same material; this allows students to learn it in the best possible way for themselves. At our meeting Dr. Gurung mentioned how he introduces something, followed by something else (I cannot recall it at the moment), then he does a follow through to make sure students have ample time to learn course concepts. For example, Dr. Gurung has used videos to show conformity along with a class demonstration to illustrate sensitivity. By using a variety of teaching techniques it allows students to better grasp and comprehend course material.

Finally, we completed our first group engagement activity during Thursday’s class. Overall the activity went smoothly once the students got into groups. I feel once the students get a few more of these activities under their belts, forming the groups will get easier since there was slight confusion since it was the first time.

The second day of class, while fundamentally similar, had different elements to show that this will be a class worth your time. Dr. Gurung began class (and continued throughout) by calling out individuals by name to answer questions and make comments. In a lecture of 250 people, this is important. People think that he knows everyone after the first day and this causes them to be more accountable for showing up to class and doing the work. They are less of a face in the crowd. There were also an abundance of activities during the class. A candy exercise to show introspection elaborated the point of Titchner’s ideas. One student was called up to be drawn on, and the entire class participated in an exercise that had them thoroughly working with the material. By then end of class, it was obvious that this wasn’t going to be a typical “lecture” class. In all of my experience thus far at UWGB, I have not had a professor with that large of a class do that much class activity. Even in smaller classes, group work during class is hard to get. Again today, Dr. Gurung used the entire allotted class time to show that everyone’s time is valuable and that this is a class that IS going to go the full time. On the first day, it was made clear what the expectations for coming late/leaving early were. You just don’t do it. I was able to notice that very few individuals came late, and the couple that did, seemed to go unnoticed. Nobody left early or during the middle of class either.

What did you think the instructor did well?

• I think Dr. Gurung did well on the class organization. He was well prepared and the volume of sound was fixed.
• He also integrated group activity during the class and it went well because everyone seemed to be interacting with each other and exchanging their thoughts.
• In addition, when Dr. Gurung asked students to raise their hands to show their opinions, it was more effective in receiving feedbacks than frankly asking. A lot more students participated when he said it.
• Most awesomely, Dr. Gurung impressed students by remembering many of their names! I could tell a lot of students were surprised and trying to figure out what was going on because no one expected a professor to remember many names and faces by the second day of class.

What techniques did the instructor employ?

• He directly asked students to show their opinions by stating, “Raise your hands if you think ___.”
• He explained major points of each topic, and told students exactly what is important to remember. (ex. Name of school, idea of how the theory works, and one person from school)
• He also used the technique to divide students into a group of five for the group assignment.
• Calling names to ask questions was also one of his techniques Dr. Gurung used.

Did they work?

• I think it worked because it seemed like everyone paid more attention and took more notes diligently than other parts.
• As for the division for a group of five, I think many of the students (including myself) were confused and did not know what to do. I was in the back of the class to help students, and those students could not understand what to do first.
• Students were more attentive in learning since Dr. Gurung started to call students’ names. I think it definitely worked to motivate students try to learn more.

What would you do differently?

• Along with the former question, I told students to grab five people in their groups since the students in the back missed/misunderstood the procedure of how to form a group of five. In the end, I thought grabbing a five people around them worked out just fine.

What went wrong with today?

• I don’t think anything went wrong too much for the second day of lecture. I thought that confusion of Psychodynamic and psychoanalytic on the lecture note was not so bad since Dr. Gurung explained they are basically the same.

How were students reacting?

• I thought they were responsive when they were asked to do certain tasks. They took notes well for explaining the different psychological perspectives.

What did and did not work for you?

• Meeting before and after the class always works for me and gives me an idea of what to do for the day. The group activity worked for me to see who is actively participating or not. However, I was afraid of what to say when students asked me questions. I think I tend to worry things too much and worry about what kind of questions the students would ask me. I do not wish to give out right answer so easily or tell them a wrong answer, and yet I have to be vague and directing to the right way at the same time… It sounds hard to do…

What did and did not work for the students?

• I think everything pretty much worked for the students. I did not see any major problems that students had. I thought the class went very well and smoothly for the most part, except for the time to form a group because many of them did not understand what to do.)

Thankfully the first week of classes only lasts one week!  Also thankful that the first week jitters will be gone at the end of the first week!  Overall, I think that the first week of Intro to Psych was a great way to start off the semester! 

Day two of intro classes included entertaining activities, impressive name learning, and strong attempts at engaging conversations.  First, the impressive name learning (although we learned Dr. Gurung’s secrets in our meeting…) was a real “wake – up call” to the students in the class that thought they could sit in a 250+ student lecture and remain anonymous.  I know from experience, on the second day of class you are still expecting the professor to have no idea who you are, and to generally lecture to the class as a whole.  Also from experience, when Dr. Gurung calls your name on the second day of class, you will come to every other class prepared and paying attention to ensure the next time you get called on you come up with something good to say.  And as we learned in our meeting, this is exactly the point Dr. Gurung was making when he takes the time to learn the student’s names.  Hopefully with the addition of the pre-lecture quizzes and the anxiety of being the next to be called on the student interaction will grow as the semester progresses.

I believe that learning the names of the students is a great way to hopefully get participation from the students, as well as the pre-lecture quizzes.  The quizzes are used to ensure that the students read the material they are asked to read, and to (hopefully) be using that knowledge to help interact in class.  On Thursday it was apparent that Dr. Gurung was attempting to get class participation, and in the beginning of class, given the night to think about the question, everyone had an answer.  However, as the class went on, there seemed to be fewer hands being raised.  To help break up the monotony of a long lecture, Dr. Gurung included some interesting activities to help not only engage the students, but to help them grasp a better understanding of what they were reading about.

Personally, I enjoy an interesting story, video, or demonstration to further solidify the concept in my mind.  The two demonstrations/activities that Dr. Gurung used I am sure were helpful to the students participating and observing the activities.  The first demonstration of reaction time/sensitivity was funny for those observing and yet I couldn’t help but feel bad for the man participating. But because of the humor that was associated with seeing one of their classmates being marked on, they will (hopefully) remember what the demonstration showed and anything else that they can link to the history of psychology.  The final activity with the mints to help solidify introspection was a good way to help the class become more relaxed and to talk to those sitting next to them.  More than one student was apprehensive of eating whatever was in the paper envelope, but as they saw others taste test, they felt more at ease to do the same.

Finally, the class activity was an interesting activity and execution.  While I was walking up the rows I noticed that often times the counting off of the students did not work as well, and more often than not, the stairs were in the way an everyone was confused on who was standing/sitting.  The further up I moved in the rows, the more frusterated individuals were, and I simply told them to get into groups of 5 around them.  There was less room to move around towards the top of the room, and the counting was off as there were fewer seats towards the top on the ends.  Apart from the mishap of getting into groups, the activity seemed to go smoothly, and there seemed to be a good understanding of the material.  I also noticed that Dr. Gurung did not move up and down the rows as much as he did the first day, but in a room that size I understand that it is simply the nature of the beast.

I thought that today’s class went very well. All of the students seemed to pay attention to what was going on. Dr. Gurung did a good job of “selling” the class and making the students become interested in it right away. Something that I thought was really neat was how he picked out a student and used them as an example. I think that doing that type of thing really makes the classroom pay attention. I also noticed how he walked around a lot to include everyone in the discussion. Although most of the class went very well there were a few problems. Handing out the notecards seemed to be a problem becasue at first we thought they were supposed to write their names on them when they actually had to write different information on them. I think this was a simple mistake and was easily fixed, it didn’t seem to be a big deal. Another problem I saw was that when the students were coming into the classroom a lot of them were sitting in the back because they didn’t want to come down to the front of the room and look for a seat. Dr. Gurung took care of the problem and I’m sure it happens for other classes on the first day too because there are so many students. I think that this could be fixed by asking students to start by filling up the seats in the middle and working their way outward. I did like the music in the beginning of class. It wasn’t very loud but I’m sure that problem could be worked out very easily.Something that I really like about today’s class was that the lecture didn’t completely revolve around the powerpoint. In a lot of classes students just copy whatever is on the powerpoint and in this class there is a lot more discussion and interaction. I thought today’s class was very interesting and I even learned a few things. I’m looking forward to see what the rest of the semester brings!