Going into week 3 I was excited with how the class/lectures have been going, however I had slight nerves as to how Thursdays lecture would go seeing that Dr. G was not going to be there. Overall it went smoothly but I did notice a couple things I would have done differently, but more on that later!
Tuesdays lecture started off with bang seeing we came back from an amazing weekend and Dr. G took full advantage of that fact the moment he walked in the door to lecture. By now we all know he plays music to get the students comfortable and ready for class and Tuesday the students really responded the music and by observation of that, I knew it was going to be a good class and I believe Dr. G knew it as well! In Tuesdays lecture Dr. G also used some time to yet again review the concepts of experiments and correlations. Although it was not a lot of time, it signals the students to know that it is an important concept they should know because the professor keeps bringing it up; meaning he wants them to know it! After the quick review he moved onto new material; Psycho-Biology.
When moving onto new material, I’ve noticed that he starts with the big ideas and then as the students grasp those he moves towards more of the specifics. I feel this is a good approach to take when moving into new material because it allows a student to stop and ask questions about the big idea before moving on. During Tuesdays lecture he also made great attempts to use relevant examples thanks to the Super Bowl; the more relevant information a professor can use the easier it is for students to relate to/remember the material. Dr. G did use a lot of video clips in Tuesdays lecture but I feel they weren’t detrimental but very useful in learning this material. For example, he used clips of a commercial to demonstrate what areas of our brains are activated while watching, and from this video students can remember that its not just one area of our brain that responds its a variety of areas. Going back to something I have previously posted about, I feel that when Dr. G is using videos and different teaching forms it really caters to the students. I say this because not all the students learn material the same way and by doing this he is giving them a chance to learn the material in different ways; great move on his part, more teachers should try and incorporate this!
Moving onto Thursdays festivities! Most of the class period was spent on the documentary “SuperSize Me” and an activity to go along with it. As mentioned at the beginning of this post Thursday went as smoothly as I could have hoped not having Dr. G there. However, I did make a few noticeable observations in how the students acted. Firstly, a few students got up during the class period to use the restroom which would not have happened if Dr. G was there thanks to the slight embarrassment he caused a student! Secondly, there were more cell phones out Thursday then I have previously observed in class and again I believe this is due to the absence of Dr. G. Finally, as the movie progressed students started to spend their time on other activities instead of watching the documentary. Many of the students I observed pull out work/books from other courses and spent time doing homework for them instead of watching the movie that Dr. G had selected that day.
Lastly, I want to talk about the last 10 minutes of class Thursday. After the documentary was stopped directions were given to finish the questions and discuss them with people around you if need be, however a lot of students just saw this an opportunity to leave class 10 minutes early with half the class leaving in the first minute or two! Again, would this have happened with the presence of Dr. G? My gut instinct says no! Secondly, I feel we as TA’s could have walked around the room to send a signal that this is work time and to answer any questions the students may have had because we all gathered at the front of the room. I tried to go out and walk around the room but I got stopped by all the students on there way out and they saw me as a source to turn in their work thus stopping my ability to walk about the room and answer questions. However, we all do things we wish we could adjust when looking in hindsight, but we will get ’em next time!