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--- astro300_f18:day4 [2018/08/29 20:05] – ccheng
+++ astro300_f18:day4 [2018/09/05 21:56] (current) – [Homework] ccheng
@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
   - Especially when writing free response questions, it can be useful to develop a grading rubric for each question as a way of ensuring that your questions are specific, clear, and not testing the same concept over and over again.
+=====Peer Visit Assigning (5 minutes)=====
 =====Section Recap (20 minutes)=====
-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.
+=====Group Work (25 minutes)=====
+(5 minutes) Recap and Why Group Work?
+   - Group work appeals to many learning styles. Group work provides a sense of shared purpose that can increase motivation.
+   - Group work introduces students to the insights and values of their peers.
+   - Life after college will involve group work.
+   - Listening to lecture and taking notes will carry the students only so far in their development. Learning cannot be passive.  Group work engages students in the learning and thinking process.
+   - We (as college instructors) should be encouraging and developing students' ability to do higher-order thinking.
+(5 minutes) Every person/pair is given a different type of group work. Pairs predict what the group work entails and then discusses the advantages/disadvantages of the type once they read its description.
+(10 minutes) Jigsaw Group Work
+(5 minutes) Tips for Group Work
+   - Be sure to introduce the activity with crystal clear instructions. Ambiguity leads to either poor group work or individuals going off and doing their thing.
+   - The quality of the group work depends sensitively on the activity and questions asked. We encourage open-ended questions and questions that actually involve group discussion. The focus on problem solving results in individual working; new strategies are needed for this, like:
+       - Only hand out one worksheet per group.
+       - Have the students write their answers on a large sheet of paper, work entirely at one of the whiteboards, or have some sort of whiteboard at each table.
+       - Anything else?
+   - Good group work activities take time, often more time than just lecturing. However, the added work results in added gains for the students.
+   - A "Q&A" part of section can involve a lot of peer learning, if you get good at enabling the students to answer each other's questions. This requires more sophistication than just asking the smartest student to say the right answer; you have to ask the question in a way such that all of the students have a chance to grapple with the question initially posed.
+   - "I paid all this $$ to be taught by professors and graduate students, not listen to classmates who don't know as much." Let students know the benefits of group work. They will resist at first, but proper use of group work will show the students they are learning just as much (usually more) than if you were lecturing.
+   - "Students don't like working in groups." Students are used to working individually. Or students might fear that some group members will not pull their weight. Again, explaining the rational for group work is key, as well as providing checks for students who do not contribute.
+   - Get feedback often.
+Suggestions to your students (adapted from McKeachie):
+   - Be sure everyone contributes to discussions and to tasks.  You each have something unique to contribute.  Know that you both have something to learn from others and to teach others.
+   - Don't jump to conclusions too quickly. Be sure that minority ideas are considered.
+   - Don't assume consensus because no one has opposed an idea of offered an alternative. Check agreement with each group member verbally, not just by a vote.
+   - Set goals---immediate, intermediate, and long-term---but don't be afraid to change them as you progress. (//These should be obvious in sections.//)
+   - For bigger multi-part tasks: Allocate tasks to be done. Be sure that each person knows what he or she is to do. Check this before beginning.
+Types of Group Work
-Remind them what to think about for section recap:
+  - **The Interactive Lecture**
-   * What did you do?
+       * The "biggest" form of group work, where the whole class works as one big group (and you're a group member).
-   * How did you implement your activities?
+       * Can be used with worksheets and/or demos.
-   * What worked?
+       * Continuously call on //a variety// of students to explain answers. If you don't want to call on individual students (cold calling), you might call on particular groups ("This group, what do you think?")
-   * What didn't work?
+       * This style tends to keep all students engaged and on task.
-   * What would you do differently?
+  - **Concept Mapping**
-   * How did you assess learning?
+       * A concept map illustrates the connection between terms, ideas, or concepts, which creates higher-level learning. Concepts and terms are written in bubbles and lines are drawn connecting related concepts. With each line, the relation is identified.
-   * Did you receive any unexpected questions/reactions/etc.?
+       * Students in groups can be given a partially completed concept map and a list of terms that they need to fill in the blanks with. Alternatively, students can work at filling in the relations between various concepts.
-   * Did anything unexpected happen?
+  - **Jigsaw Projects**
-   * What were you thinking about while you were running section? Any moments of panic?
+       * Each group contributes to a specific part of the assignment. When members have completed their task, all groups shuffle so that one person from each original group is in each new group. Each person then shares their answer and explanation with the rest of the group.
+       * Requires EVERY person in section to be responsible for knowing why the answer is what it is.
+       * Good way of covering an entire worksheet worth of questions in a short amount of time.
+       * Make sure you assess that groups understand why their answer is what it is.
+  - **KWL**
+       * Stands for "what I **K**now, what I **W**ant to know, and what I **L**earned. It happens in three parts.
+           * (Part 1) To introduce a new topic, have the students list what they know about the topic before you start discussion. Collect these lists or have them share.
+           * (Part 2) Using these lists, you can modify the remainder of the section to address misconceptions and erroneous understanding. Run section employing whatever demos, activities, etc. you want to use.
+           * (Part 3) At the end of the unit, have students list what they have learned. You might ask them to identify the three most important concepts, answer some questions, or just free-write.  Collect these lists or have them share.
+  - **Choreographed Group Tasks**
+       * Example: Suppose you hand out a worksheet that has six questions. Go through the first two questions of a worksheet on the board (with varying amounts of feedback from students). Then have students work on the next two questions (which are similar but different to the earlier questions) in groups. Then have the class explain to you how to solve question 5 (and do so on the board). Ask for a volunteer to do question 6.
+       * Students learn in different ways, so variety is a good thing.
+  - **Activity Stations**
+       * Break the class into a few stations (3 is ideal), where one station deals with one aspect of what you want to cover in section that day.
+       * Have the class break into groups of three, one for each station.
+       * Each group spends 15 minutes at each station, then rotates.
+       * Each station could be either a demo, hands-on activity, some worksheet questions.
+       * Instructor must be very careful with timing so they can make it around to each group every 15 minutes to assess.
+  - **Open-ended Questions / Case Studies (e.g., Think Like an Astronomer)**
+       * One thing that makes discussion difficult in science courses is that most of our questions have a single "correct" answer. Asking open-ended questions can encourage students to think about how concepts fit together.
+       * Requires that the question is at the appropriate level of the class. Takes more time to prepare.
+       * Anything that allows for interpretation is ripe for discussion.
+       * e.g., You have a sealed box (of doughnuts) in the front of the class. Have students in groups device experiments to determine what is in the box (without opening it). Then tie this into how astronomers might detect dark matter, etc.
+       * e.g., Give each group a budget and a catalog that includes costs of telescopes, mirrors, equipment, launching into space, etc. Have them come up with a plan to build a telescope at some particular wavelength (having to weigh whether it is in space, what resolution it will have, etc.).
+       * e.g., Have students reproduce the thought process of famous astronomers and scientists (e.g., Hubble's discover of other galaxies and the realization of the size of the universe).
+  - **Send-A-Problem**
+       * Have each group try to solve a different problem related to material covered in section/lecture.
+       * Each group them gives their problem and suggested solution to a different group, which then evaluates the solution and offers corrections.
+       * That group then gives their altered solution to another group, who provides the final evaluation.
+       * Good for lengthy 7a/7b type problems or problems involving multiple steps. Has groups practice group thinking and comparing/discriminating among multiple solutions.
-Open the floor up for general questions and sharing about how sections are going.
 ===== Multiple Choice and Free Response Questions (40 min) ======
-   - (5 min) Come up with either a multiple choice or free response question for the class you're teaching for and write it down on a piece of paper. Also think about what learning objectives it tests and what level of learning it probes.
+   - (5 min) Individually, come up with BOTH a multiple choice and free response question for the class you're teaching for and write them down on a piece of paper. Remember to think about what learning objectives they test and what level(s) of learning they probe.
-   - (6 min) Trade your questions with a partner. Have them attempt to answer the questions or at least determine what learning objectives were being probed, what level of learning it targeted, and what would have constituted as an "acceptable answer." Once you have gone over each other's questions, discuss in your small groups what you liked about the question and offer improvements to flesh it out further. Some questions to consider (perhaps project on the board):
+   - (5 min) Trade your questions with a partner. Have them attempt to answer the questions or at least determine what learning objectives were being probed, what level of learning it targeted, and what would have constituted as an "acceptable answer." Once you have gone over each other's questions, discuss in your small groups what you liked about the question and offer improvements to flesh it out further. Some questions to consider:
        - For both:
            * Is the wording clear?
@@ Line 41: / Line 102: @@
            * What if students cannot solve part A? What does that imply for part B?
            * What sort of responses might students give under the pressures of an exam setting?
-   - (6 min) Come back as a class and discuss.
+   - (5 min) Come back as a class and discuss.
          * Did you learn anything surprising?
          * Is this easy? (Unfortunately, NO!)
          * What part of question writing did you find the most difficult?
-   - (20 min) Go through question example slides as a class exercise.
+   - (25 min) Go through question example slides as a class exercise.
          * MC Summary
            * Test what you teach and teach what you test!
@@ Line 181: / Line 242: @@
        * Make the questions easy to grade!  Don't give students the opportunity to 'core-dump' for a problem: be very specific about what you're looking for in these questions.
      *  Can be more time-consuming than MC questions, depending on the overall length of the exam.
-=====Rubrics and Grading (30 min)=====
-====Activity====
-  * Activity in groups of 3. Each group receives the same free response question.
-  * (5 minutes) Have each group develop a key and rubric for the question.
-  * (5 minutes) Give each group one student response to that question (three different responses, one for each group). Have each student grade the quiz based on that rubric individually.
-  * (10 minutes) Have students compare your grade with others in the group and discuss.
-  * (10 minutes) Discuss as a class and recap the main ideas of grading as a class:
-        * Reading some responses first is important
-        * How to handle erroneous info
-        * The most important part of grading: **Grade fairly and consistently for ALL students**.
-        * Try not to look at student names while grading anything
-        * Grade in blue or green (not red!)
-        * GRADE WHAT YOU TEACH AND TEACH WHAT YOU GRADE
-==== Notes from Past Years====
-=== Free-Response Quizzes and Exams===
-    * Most questions should have 1 and only 1 correct answer (matching, fill in the blank, put in order, //etc.//).
-    * Paragraph or few sentence responses or plotting can be uglier.
-    * Try to give partial credit where you can.  **Always** give points for correct steps even if the final answer's wrong.  If they get the final answer but their steps or logic to get there is wrong, give them some points, but not too many.
-    * Obviously if they screw up part (a) by a factor of 2, but carry that extra factor through parts (b) through (f) and get everything else right (while including the factor of 2), they should **only** lose points on part (a).  Also, stress this fact to your students so they don't get frustrated if they can't do (a), but the rest are doable (maybe even tell them to make up an answer to use for later parts, or in the question say 'use 5km for the rest of this question if you don't get part (a)').
-    * In longer answers, you should usually reward for correct information more than you punish for incorrect information.  With that said, if they say something really wrong or even contradictory to the rest of their answer, they should be penalized a decent amount.
-    * Hopefully on your quizzes and exams you stress to students that they must write clearly and explain their steps and logic clearly.  If you can't read their writing or understand what's going on, **you should usually assume it's wrong.**
-    * Be suspicious: If you see similar, very wrong answers, flag the tests and compare their answers to other questions. Hopefully you can look out for cheating while the quiz/exam is actually going on, but you won't be able to see everything.
-    * Talk (probably through e-mail) to students in your section(s) who performed very poorly (grades of less than 40% or 50%).  They may be too shy to ask for help even if they know they need it!
 =====Homework=====
   - Peer visits are assigned. Meet up for discussion with both the person who visited you and the person you visited by 9/19. Bring a completed {{:peergsivisit.pdf| Peer Visitation Worksheet}} to class on 9/19.
-  - Draft a full length quiz and detailed grading rubric for the quiz. Bring TWO copies to class next week.
+  - Draft a full length quiz (20 minutes in length, 50 total points) for the class you are teaching. Bring TWO copies to class next week.

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