Lectures NOT Always Bad... Uninterrupted Monologues ARE Bad!

Reading Reflection 2: Exploring Learning Objectives & Teaching in Groups

So... lectures aren't always bad, but uninterrupted monologues are certainly not effective. How can we make classes interactive, challenging, and variable?

The Anatomy of Objectives:

In class we have learned that there are three important and distinct parts to an objective: condition, performance, and criteria! Whittington (2005) encourages teachers to think of objectives as road maps for students. In order to ensure a productive road trip occurs in my future classroom, I need to be thinking about the objectives, how they are written, and if it provides students with a pre-directional mindset. The example Whittington provides is having "list" versus "understand". The word understand is vague and might cause students to stress... how do I know that I understand this?

The article also provided a list of "Vocabulary Useful in Developing Objectives at Various Cognitive Levels (which I ABSOLUTELY will be using in the future!) These action verbs separated by cognitive levels are categorized as 1) Remembering 2) Processing 3) Creating, and 4) Evaluation, and get progressively more challenging. This is important for the students to be challenged in class, and additionally the teacher to teach students at different or higher cognitive levels. Whittington states that planning and writing objectives for different cognitive levels can challenge students and help them grow.


Cooperative Learning and Group Teaching: Lets Do This Together Class!

Groseta & Myers (2006) explain that there are many cognitive and social benefits to having students work in groups. From listening, taking turns, and explaining oneself clearly to encouraging others there are many social and teamwork skills to working in groups. Academically, students who will have to (or might have the chance) to explain a topic to a peer will learn that item better than just studying for an exam!

Pretty neat right!

However, often not used because it's difficult to assign groups, hard to manage behavior, and often confusing to evaluate. I can certainly see why these roadblocks are common. It is extremely difficult to come up with a "fair" system to grad or evaluate students. Also, we have all been in group projects where we did all the work and other student's didn't help.

The Key... is PLANNING (Newcomb et al. agree!!!!!)


Planning who works with whom is vital. "Heterogenous groups usually work best: the differences in group members are what make cooperative learning effective” (Groseta & Myers, pg 2). Also it's vital to monitor the students (observe, intervene if necessary, and have the students help evaluate themselves and their peers).

Finally an important topic this article brought up is the physical environment. Is the classroom/lab conducive to working in groups? Do we need to move desks?

For any type of group learning activity ( discussion, demonstration, field trips, role play, cooperative learning, etc.) it's  important to plan. Discussions require well thought out questions that students can not only comprehend, but grasp and discuss. Additionally, its important to not say the students' name(s) before the question... this requires the entire class to be paying attention (I never really thought about that before!) GENIOUS! Ensure students are engaged and paying attention.

I also have never really thought about the potential of role play and what that can do to add novelty and variability to a class. Other suggestions for the Methods of Teaching Class were to have guests come in sometimes to share content knowledge. By having the students come up with questions the prior to the meeting, students are already intrigued and the session goes much smoother.

Group work and cooperative learning, when properly implemented, can add a lot to a class session.