AY 375 - Fall 2014: Eighth Day Lesson Plan

Today we will be talking about group work, mid-semester evaluations and board work.

1. We cannot get sloppy with our board work. This is something that has to be continually practiced.
2. Mid-semester evaluations are a great way to get a high density of feedback from your students, with plenty of time to implement their comments in your section.
3. Group work dynamics can greatly impact how well your learning objectives are met. Be aware of your group work dynamics and how the types of activities you use influence your learning environment.

Open the floor up for general questions and sharing about how sections are going. Some questions include:

• What did you do?
• How did you implement your activities?
• What worked?
• What didn't work?
• What would you do differently?
• How did you assess learning?
• Did you receive any unexpected questions/reactions/etc.?
• Did anything unexpected happen?
• What were you thinking about while you were running section? Any moments of panic?

In previous classes, we talked about the benefits of group work and different ways of organizing group work. Today we want to talk about how to improve group dynamics, both in small groups and class discussion.

In small groups (3-4 people), you'll be given a scenario to think about. What could you do to improve the group dynamics in your scenario? Brainstorm some possibilities in your groups for 10 min and then we'll share with the class as a whole.

Scenarios:

• In one of your small groups, you notice that one of the students is doing most of the work. His partners are mostly copying what he does but with very little interaction between them.
  • Ask one of the other group members to explain their thought process when you walk up to their table. If he/she doesn't know, ask the student what it is that's confusing. Ask other group members if they have an answer. Try to get a conversation going. Point out that being able to explain your reasoning to others is a valuable skill and helps you better understand the material.
  • Talk to the student doing the work after class about the benefits of teaching his partners.
  • Create group activities that require each group to report to the class a whole or to other small groups. Force a different student to present to the class each time.
• In one of your small groups, you notice that one student is very quiet. The others are ignoring him since he's not speaking up.
  • Go over to the table and ask the quiet student his thoughts on the question/project at hand. If he expresses confusion, ask him/her to pose a question to the group and give status to the student, saying “That's a great question.” If he expresses an idea, give him status by saying “That's an interesting idea.” If his idea is wrong, try to involve him in the group conversation by saying something like, “I think there's a lot of students who have that same idea. This may be something your group is asked during large class discussion. What does the rest of the group think about this?” Or you could then ask the same student, “How could you test whether this idea/method is correct?” Try to get students to correct each other and explain their reasoning to each other, instead of stepping in and saying what's wrong or right.
  • Create group activities that require each group to report to the class a whole or to other small groups. Force a different student to present to the class each time.
  • Emphasize to the group or the whole class that everyone has something to contribute to group work. Even wrong ideas can be useful in terms of clarifying the group's thinking and explanation.
• During class discussion, two students almost always raise their hands to answer your questions or volunteer to speak for their group, but the rest of the class seems to be disengaging.
  • Try just waiting more time for other people to raise their hands.
  • Thank the two students for their contributions but say you'd like to hear from other students as well.
  • If the discussion was preceded by group work activity, call on a specific group that the dominant students are not in.
  • Ask students to think about the question in pairs. Then try asking for a volunteer again or walk around and if you hear the right answer, ask that student to share it with the class later.

During class discussion, as groups are sharing, ask if other groups have additional strategies to contribute.

What other group dynamics have you encountered in section? Did you try to “fix” them? If so, how and did it work? If not, how could this type of situation be dealt with?

Sometimes you probably use worksheets as part of group work. How can worksheets help or hinder group work? Consider both the content of the worksheet (e.g. the types of questions) and how you use it (e.g. do you hand one out per group or per person)?

Some takeaways:

• Giving only one worksheet per group can help promote group work. However, giving worksheets to individual students can encourage them to take notes and have something to take away after section.
• If you only give one worksheet per group, think of ways to encourage students to take notes of the important takeaways, perhaps by writing on board during class discussion.
• If you give individual student worksheets, make questions more open-ended, require finding an optimal way of solving a problem, etc. Try to ask questions in a way that encourages them to talk to each other, exchange ideas.

• These questions should cover things you want feedback on. Be explicit about what you want to know whenever possible.
• There should be room for some free response (e.g., if there's anything else not addressed here…)
• You should make sure you take some time to go over the results in a later session.
  • If you have quantitative questions, this might include averages, or distributions.
• You should make sure they are able to fill them out anonymously.

• NOTE: The Ay 375 eval is a little bit on the long side; we did this purposely since Ay 375 is such an amorphous class and should be tailored to what its students are interested in.
• Discuss the wisdom from past GSIs and Slater & Adams chapter 9:
  • Assigning a combination of “Informal Written Response” and “Check-box Questionaire”.
  • In addition, we've done two types of “Observation by a Critical Friend”, both a peer visit and a videotape.
  • Use different colored highlighters for positive and negative comments that merit further review.
  • Four categories of “course difficulties”:
    1. simple fixes
    2. fixes for next semester
    3. offsetting concerns
    4. issues without remedy
• Why do we do mid-semester evals
  • There is a department wide, official end of semester eval, but by then it's too late to fix things for your current students.
  • The point of student feedback at mid-semester is to allow you to adjust your section and teaching style as necessary to match your current students' demands.
  • However, take the responses with a grain of salt; Ay 10 students don't always know what's best for them!
• Mid-semester eval basics
  • They should be done about half-way through the semester (try to avoid right before or after an exam – this usually skews your results!); halfway through the semester is one week from today.
  • They should be anonymous (however you might want to ask for their section number so you can compare your multiple sections).
  • Sometimes this is done during the last 10 mins of a section, but you get less accurate responses this way since many students will rush through it just to leave early.
  • Consider doing it in the middle of section (maybe right after your initial lecture review/Q&A session).
  • The GSI will usually step out of the room during this time or at least turn their back to the class.
  • Have a student collect all of the evals and put them in an envelope. DO NOT open the envelope until way later (i.e. after you've left Evans and there are no students around you at all).
• Always be sure to give students way more than enough room to write. You don't want them to limit responses simply because they feel they don't have enough room. You might even consider printing the evals one-sided and make a note at the beginning of the eval saying that if the student needs more room to write that they should feel free to use the back of the page.
• Here's a ranked list of general topics that might be found on an eval (the last three are of the least importance by far with the last one being almost not worth putting on the list):
  1. Section structure (lecture review, Q&A, worksheets, demos, group work, etc.)
  2. GSI's skills (board skills, student interaction skills, lecture skills, etc.)
  3. Section content (which topics are covered and how long is spent on each)
  4. Stuff besides section or lecture (i.e. star parties you're at, your TALC, office hours, etc.)
  5. Course content (which topics are covered and how long is spent on each)
  6. Course structure (order of topics, demos during lecture, audience participation during lecture, grading, etc.)
  7. Prof's skills (board skills, student interaction skills, lecture skills, etc.)
• Types of questions:
  • Open ended (good because they allow students to discuss the things they feel most strongly about and students shouldn't feel constrained about what they can and cannot comment on). E.g.:
    1. Describe three things you like about this section.
    2. What does your GSI need to do less of in section?
    3. Put any additional comments.
  • Quick answer (very directed or short answer questions are good for students who don't want/can't write a lot and the answers can sometimes give a more quantitative evaluation than the free response questions). E.g.:
    1. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being great, 1 being horrible) rank the following.
    2. Give the section a letter grade.
    3. Circle MORE, LESS, or THE SAME for the amount of time (relative to the semester so far) we should spend on each item.
  • Humorous (but still informative). E.g.:
    1. Draw a face that best describes how you feel about this class.
  • Humorous (just for fun). E.g.:
    1. Make up an hilarious nickname for your GSI.
  • Humorous and/or totally random questions are good in moderation, they can break up the seriousness of the eval and show off your personality.
  • Put a variety of types of questions so that all types of students can give accurate feedback and you can get both qualitative and quasi-quantitative results.
• After the eval is filled out:
  • It's a good idea to read through them all twice: once to just read every answer and the second time to see if you can spot some trends and consistencies (based on the assumption that if a majority of students agrees on something, then it might actually be a valid point or an accurate assessment).

• We will ask you to compile a short summary report that includes:
  1. consistent comments
  2. averages/standard deviations/histograms for any quantitative questions
  3. any hilarious, unfairly mean, or really thoughtful comments
  4. a personal assessment of what you've learned and what you'll change (and when)
• Food for thought: In addition to turning it in to us for this class, the summary report could be sent to the Head GSI and/or prof (as opposed to having them read all of the evals). Most professors, however, do not request reports or copies, or even require that you pass out midsemester evaluations.
• Arguably the most important part of evals is responding to the criticisms (both positive and negative) publicly in front of the class and addressing at least some of their concerns (Slater & Adams call this 'closing the loop').
• Different profs have different opinions of students responses on the evals: some ignore them completely and assume that the students have no idea what's best for them, some ignore them because the prof teaches the way they teach and that's that and it won't change, and some actually read through them (or at least read their GSIs' summaries of the evals).
• Sample ones on the EBRB.
• Handout the eval handout?

Start by reminding the students the point of this exercise:

This activity will be a little different than the activity we did at the beginning of the semester.

Randomly select someone to go to the board and answer a question from their students. The instructors will not tell you the question in advance to best simulate what you are experiencing in section and in midterm reviews. Each person will have around five minutes at the board. Feedback will be given after each.

1. Schedule a time to chat with me if I have viewed your section.
2. Let's check on the smaller logs next week. Bring in your lesson plans for a quick check.
3. Write and administer your mid-semester evaluation.