AY 375 - Fall 2016: Third Day Lesson Plan

• Pass out syllabus to anyone who doesn't have one yet
• Welcome everyone, introduce each instructor
• Go around and have each person introduce themselves and state what class they're GSI-ing for and when their sections are (instructors fill in the wiki as this is happening)
• Answer logistical questions about the class

Remind them that this is something we intend to do every week and that everyone should come prepared to share about how their previous sections went.

(3 minutes) Individually, think about how section went this past week. Questions to keep in mind:

• 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?

(17 minutes) Open the floor up for general questions and sharing about how sections are going.

(5 minutes) Individually, write or draw the first thing that comes to your mind (can be a plot, equation, definition, idea, action, image, etc.) for the following words: a) Stellar Spectra, b) The Seasons, c) The Moon, d) Total Solar Eclipse, e) Blackbodies

• Have members share what they wrote.
• If you were teaching this subject, would this be something you would want your students to write/draw if they were asked this question?
• Why did you write/draw that particular item? Does this reflect how you learned this material? (Presumably there will be at least two approaches to one of the subjects.)

(5 minutes) Now, think about what kind of question you would ask about each of the same subjects to your students. What do you want to test them on?

(5 minutes) Share these questions as a class. What words represent higher vs. lower levels of learning? What type of understanding are you testing? Do you immediately understand the material in this way? How do you get to this level of understanding? What is the highest form of learning you could imagine? (a pyramid shape should start to appear on the board).

Pass out Bloom handout. Students often treat learning as fact memorization and regurgitation. As GSIs, we want to help students come to a higher level of understanding. How can the questions we ask and the lesson plans we write encourage this?

(5 minutes) Using some of the verbs on the handout, re-write the questions you originally wrote down. Think about what concepts you would want a student to remember and be able to explain. Share new questions with class.