Posts: General / I am teaching my first

class this Fall in Human Development.

I have been thinking about how I would like to teach the class and researching information on good teaching styles.

However I have not yet tapped into the immense resource that is idiotechnica to find out what members here liked and disliked in classes they have taken.

So for example I am curious about your feelings regarding

>projects or other assigments

>Testing methods - was thinking of using a half multiple choice and half essay test

Undergraduate students? How many students in the class? Is it a general education course or is it for a specific plan of study?

What school are you teaching at? Is it upper division or entry with no pre-reqs?

I hate test with essay questions on it.
60 question multiple choice

Jes: Undergraduate students? How many students in the class? Is it a general education course or is it for a specific plan of study?

I have to follow a master syllabus that's relatively general. The class is a required course for getting a bachelors in psychology. Yeah all undergraduates, probably mostly freshman and softmores. 

There are 180 students in the class, which kind of sucks. I like the smaller classes. 

I am in the process right now of setting up the syllabus and figuring out the readings and class assignments. 

Was thinking of giving the class a few small studies to do that relate to the material. Many students, however, may not have access to children. 

Also for extra credit figured each week they can bring in an article from a popular science magazine or podcast and write a small summary about it. 

Attendance will not be mandatory, however, I plan to use iclicker to ask questions during class and use those points toward participation credits. 

My goal is get the students to be interested in the material, to try to relate the material with current research and to try to tie the material all together. I have taken so many classes where you learn a bunch of stuff that never gets tied together by the end of class. 

The only thing that ever offended me in school was doing group work.   Don't make them do it.

Dylan:

The only thing that ever offended me in school was doing group work.   Don't make them do it.

100% agreed I really hated group projects in school. I thought maybe it was just me bc I tend to not like working with others in general but ya having group projects is really frustrating. Nobody ever does their fair share of work so much time is spent debating over stupid stuff. 

My very worst college class experience, and I have had some bad ones, was when I was forced to take a supplementary biology class. My university requires that if you take bio you must sign up and pay for this study class basically that was intended to reinforce the information learned in class that week. Not to mention the fact that each week I was forced to do things like make a poem about photosynthesis or draw pictures of cells. Felt like I was in middle school. Fine whatever if they want to offer the class as an option but to force me to pay for it when I already knew I am going to get an A pissed me off to no end. 

I never personally had to use them, but I always hear bitching about iClicker shit. I'd advise against it, for that reason. Weekly quizzes are a good way, I think, of keeping students in attendance and attentive. Nothing hard, just a 'were you alive during lecture' sort of quiz. Also, I'd think a few short answer questions + an essay > 2 essays per test.

My two nickels.

For 180 frosh/soph students, I think a multiple choice test would be good. 40-50 questions. In my lower level psychology courses it worked out nicely, in my opinion. For starters, do you want to grade at minimum 180 questions? (if you only ask 1 short answer or essay question) If you don't mind, go for it..

I'd assume that all teachers' goals include keeping the students interested. It is harder in a class with so many people and at that lower level than with a higher level, more specialized bunch (obviously)
With that, somehow I think you should focus on letting students find their niche and run with it. If they're really interested in one study, theory, psychologist, or whatever. Make a project out of that.

I'm for the clicker. I used it a lot in my general education classes. At first (it was new my freshman year) it sucked because it didn't always work. But then the students got the benefit of the doubt so nobody bitched. But then it was great. I had a criminal justice professor who asked 10 questions every Friday for attendance questions. (Class was MWF) They were sort of difficult. 5 were based on lecture that week and 5 on the reading.

I think that extra credit EVERY week is too generous.
My university had a huge posting space in the bottom of the psych building with all the upper class students' research projects that we could be participants in for a certain number of extra credit points. It benefited everyone.

I think if you lay out your goal in the beginning of the semester to the students, that'd help. Also, if your school has those people who do midterm check-ins with the students, those are awesome. They asked 4 questions (without the teacher there)
1) What do you like about the class? 2) What don't you like? 3) Suggestions 4) What could you do to make the class better for yourself? (ie- do the reading, don't text, etc)
It always changed the second half of the semester if a group of people were pissed about something and nobody had the balls to talk to the teacher.

Virginia:


I have to follow a master syllabus that's relatively general. The class is a required course for getting a bachelors in psychology. Yeah all undergraduates, probably mostly freshman and softmores. 

There are 180 students in the class, which kind of sucks. I like the smaller classes. 

I am in the process right now of setting up the syllabus and figuring out the readings and class assignments. 

Was thinking of giving the class a few small studies to do that relate to the material. Many students, however, may not have access to children. 

Also for extra credit figured each week they can bring in an article from a popular science magazine or podcast and write a small summary about it. 

Attendance will not be mandatory, however, I plan to use iclicker to ask questions during class and use those points toward participation credits. 

My goal is get the students to be interested in the material, to try to relate the material with current research and to try to tie the material all together. I have taken so many classes where you learn a bunch of stuff that never gets tied together by the end of class. 

Each week seems excessive. I would say make it mandatory and have them do one or two, post the article on the form and talk about how it relates to psychology today, etc. People could also get points for posting a response that has thought and effort behind it, rather than searching for an article, if they so choose.

Have them make one m/c question that relates to the course then take each student's question put it up for them to write it. They would get a mark out of 10 for example on the question and a mark for doing the quiz(not their mark on the quiz, you can tell if someone did it half asses by the pace the answered the question and if they hit all the same answer, etc.). Also you can use some of those questions on the final.