The review session I had to conduct Thursday actually went really well. Most of the people in my POD were there by ten-to-eleven. At eleven, I passed a sheet around for attendence. Then I explained what I was going to be doing with the class time. I went through the slides, where I read the question, and then a student answered. I really didn’t have to read off the choices because the students knew the answers well (which is a really good sign!). I had “challenge questions,” which were highlighted in green. When these came up, the student who answered the question first got some chocolate candy. At first, people whould just shout out answers, so I wouldn’t know who answered first. I had to nicely ask them a few times to raise their hands so everyone had an equal chance to answer. I attached the student engagement exercise 3 to the PowerPoint, that we didn’t have time to go through on Tuesday. This seemed useful for the students, because quit a few of them seemed a bit confused about which part of the brain was linked to certain behaviors/actions/thoughts. After that, I talked a little bit about the neurons, giving candy to those who answered questions that I posed. I helped clairify some of the students’ questions about neurons. I wanted time at the end of class for questions, but there were only two people who asked them. One of the questions, about the fuctions of the rectilinier formation, I was not 100% sure about. I did admit this to the POD, because I did not want to give them false information. While students were talking, I looked up all of the fuctions of the RF, and answered the student’s question. I remember form our Teaching Tips book, there was a section that talked about how even though you are the instructor, and the students trust every word you say and believe you are a genius on the subject being taught, you need to admit that you do not know everything. I have a few professors that admit that they enjoy challenges and encourage us to ask questions. I left about 15 minutes before classs ended for students to ask questions. No one actually asked questions during that period of time, which I’m not sure if it’s good (they understand most of the material) or bad (very confused but don’t want to admit it among others). I mentioned to them that they can e-mail me and meet me thurs afternoon or during fri if they want to discuss any material. I also told them I will send an e-mail on Monday reminding them that they have until tues 10 am to finish the exam. I felt kind of emberressed after class when one of the students came up to me and told me that I had the wrong answer for one of the questions on the slide. I had actually read it wrong off of the slide (no one corrected me!) and had given the wrong answer. I think it was the slide asking for the two systems that are part of the nervous system, and I said the autonomic system. I admitted that I was right and thanked him for his honesty. I am not sure if I should e-mail all of the students, telling them about this???????????
From this class period, I learned some things about engaging with students. First off, some students are going to be more willing to participate than others. One of the students in my POD used to go to my high school, and she was answering most of the questions. Other students didn’t say a word the whole class period. Greatfully, I did not find anyone sleeping and nobody left in the middle of class. Another thing that I learned was what Professor Gurung had talked about, to go with the flow of things, especially things that happen spontaneously. For example, I had pushed the wrong button, and a couple of the slides were skipped. The class had all laughed and gone “waoh slow down.” Insead of getting all nervous and appologizing like crazy, I laughed too, and don’t remember exacly what I said, but I remember it was something like, “sorry about that. This computer is really touchy. Let me know if I’m going too fast through these slides.” After that, one girl actually did ask politely if I could slow down a bit.
From Tuesday’s class, I noticed that Jared was sitting in the back row! I also noticed that almost all of the people in the back row in front of me (on the right side) were on their cell phones throughout class, and had them out in the open until Prof. Gurung walked by. Should I go up to these students next time after class and talk to them, because if I do, I’ll be trying to catch ten or so kids after classes! One other thing that I found interesting was that Prof. Gurung moved from bigger to smaller in his material. He talked first about brain strucutre, then fuction, and then neurons. Very good idea!
I’ll have to see how my POD did on their exams, and then hopefully we can ask students in Tuesday’s class if the sessions helped. One of my friends in my POD said I did a good job, but idk if she was just trying to be a good friend haha. I hope next week goes well!!!
Way to go with the flow Martha. Nice use of spontaneity. It sounds like you had a smooth time with the session. You sounded confident and in control which is great.
Regarding class and phone use, given that I made it more of a personal choice, it may be hard to say do not, BUT perhaps I can make a reminder about it in class. Let’s talk about this point on Monday (i.e., what level of policing is needed/appropriate).