Ashley's Reading Notes #2

I found the assigned readings in Davis to be very beneficial and interesting this week, as Carrie Anne told us, “mark interesting points for the final project” (I have lots of colored tags in my book). The first point that stuck out to me was the idea of interteaching (Davis, p. 138). I think that would be an effective way to have students work in groups and teaching each other. How would you handle this in a large class and how do you prevent students from just talking to their friends? I think group work is a great teaching tool, but I am guilty as well as others, we tend to work within our comfort zone. I am sure we will cover groups later on, so I look forward to learning how to effectively use them in large classrooms.

The readings make it seem like giving a lecture is an art-form and takes time for you to learn what your lecturing style is. Davis (p. 153) makes the point of saying to avoid boring lecturing style and to vary how you lecture to a class. I have been in many classes where the lecturer just stands there, advances his/her slides, and reads everything word from word. Some material is naturally boring, but it has to be covered. What are some methods to “jazz up” boring material to excite your students? I know that the uses of multiple media resources helps and I liked the suggestions for using the blackboard, overhead projectors, PowerPoint, and videos. I think these are all great resources to use in the classroom to get students interested past the 15 minutes where they “zone out”. Lang suggests (p. 78) breaking up your lecture and utilizing different resources. I think this would be effective in keeping students involved, but what is a good way to break up a lecture (time wise)? Is it possible to have too many video or audio clips? If so, what is a good number?

Another question I have about lecturing is related to the set-up of the room. Carrie Anne tackles this in our classroom where the screen covers the white board. Both authors, as mentioned earlier, like the idea of breaking things up. How do you effectively break things up when you have to constantly put the screen up and down? Do you just choose one method of presenting the material and try to break your lecture up by group work and discussion?