In the first lesson in my course the students draw the answers to four questions and then explain their drawings to the group as they introduce themselves. The drawings are put on white boards. The students select their own color or colors. During my last class we were in a room with white boards down both side walls. All eight sets of drawings stayed on the boards until their owner erased them or the class ended. I ususlly arrange the student seating in a U, but I close off the open end with another student table/desk. I sit in that space during discussions.
I have a poster of the ISD Model I use that identifies the management functions in one color and the phases in a different color. The students get a color copy as a handout. When I summarize the model, they get another handout that has the key activities from each phase on the front as a list, and on the back as a stair step chart. They also get a color copy of one of the teaching method decision grids as a handout.
I do use some other creative supplies for several of the experiential learning lessons I teach. I haven't tried music yet, except when I taught a demonstration lesson on how to do karaoke. I may have to try some music in one of my upcoming classes.
Over the years, I've tried to use a variety of sensory learning activities. Primarily, I am a lecturer, which works mostly for the visual and auditory learner. But, I am a fan of color and images, so I incorporate these with the lecture via PowerPoint through images, pictures, and animation. Later, I began to utilize the extremely large post-it papers in the classroom for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. From time to time I add music depending on its relevancy. These are just a few examples, but I am open to suggestion!
Hi Brandi!
To be "primarily a lecturer", you clearly understand your student's need and work to ensure that learning occurs.
I often use games that I have made up or ask student work groups to develop games for the class. I use a study technique where I have each student to write down questions, we then cut them apart and let other student groups in the class randomly chose a question to answer. Ths group with the most correct answers win. When I use this technique for study, the students as a whole have higher test scores.
I use footprints and handprints made out of colored paper to post on the board with important information to remember. A lot of things that I do is for reenforcement and students seem to like it.
Hopefully, there will be other course participants who also have some ideas for you.
Keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
Color in graphics, slides on screen, and from book. Handouts to discuss and analyze. Music in background during projects done in class.
I think I could try to incorporate music into my class. Using color might be difficult since the printers we have are all black & white. I don't use a lot of PowerPoint presentations in my lectures. Seating is limited because I'm in a computer classroom where the computers are already setup as rows. Although what I can do is gather students in the front or back to take them away from the computer screens. Hanging peripherals can get to be a challenge since there is not a lot of time between classes to hand items.
I find that in business classes, colorful powerpoint slides and classroom movement helps to keep and hold attention.
Jen,
Have you ever experienced or perceived that your students may be experiencing PowerPoint overload or "death by Powwerpoint."
I teach a two week course and use approximately 5 slides during the course. Most of the other instructors I work with uses 20-50 slides per hour of instruction for 6-8 hours per day.
I often get critique comments about how refreshing it is to see that there are several teaching methods and techniques that can be used in the classroom besides powerpoint. So I was just wondering, how many slides on average are you using to hold attention?
Julie
Hi Julie!
Great question! I recently developed a career and professional development program at a trade shoolc where most of the students come from high risk backgrounds.
The academic director had been facilitating a few classes over the past year but strictly using PowerPoint presentations. When I asked for poster boards, he was very challenged. I got the poster board and have had some very good group activities using this tool.
I believe we need to use a variety of presentation tools when working with students particularly when we are spending a full semester with them.
Good job - I really like your approach!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
I teach drawing. It seems adding music to the time when students are drawing could be helpful with them retaining the information I have just lectured about. Also, I can use visuals like work of artists to get the students to see work other than what they are used to looking at.
Each of these are additional tools for the instructors toolbox. Color integrated into the classroom enhances student sensary engagement. Visuals reinforce points and assist in emphasis. we use Seminar type seating, conference type seating and classroom type seating depending on the level of Bloom's taxonomy we are trying to achieve. Classroom seating and large groups facilite knowledge and comprehension levels. Seminar type learning enhances discussion and synthesis or evaluation level learning. designing the classroom around virutual technology and allowing all students to see each other increases the ability to intiate higher levels of learning while incorperating audio, visual and color electronically as well as physically.
I use zero powerpoint slides. Powerpoint is way to over used and often improperly used. Powerpoint lectures have come back from the students negatively as a general comment in the school. I only use projection for demonstration. And perhaps - _perhaps_ - a picture of something that is so intricate that the jpeg, gif, png, etc would be impractical for me to draw by hand. If we are the professional and experts in the field are that we are facilitating, we should be able to write, draw, picture, illustrate on the fly - with our own hands - in front of a group, e.g., like our students (sans 'aids'). If you were on the job, say in a business or consulting situation, and asked to illustrate or explain something, would you respond by breaking out a powerpoint or saying "hold on and wait while I create and present the powerpoint presentation", would you?
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I feel like using these approaches will keep the students alert and engaged so that I will keep their attention during my lectures. I know after sitting for 3 hours and possibly tried from other classes before mine it may be difficult to keep their attention so i would hope eye contact from the seating arrangement, bright or soothing colors will grab their attention and visuals will keep them interested
Greetings Joe!
Very good comments - I particularly liked the classroom seating examples.
Good job!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
Greetings Brad!
Some really good points! I use PowerPoint very sparingly but when I do I often have slides that ask questions that are answered by students before moving to the explanation screen. This type of work can provide some of the color in the classroom and just provides another way of engaging students. I do agree that it can be used as a crutch by instructors. It is just another tool in our toolkit!
Good job!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
Funny, I teach my students all about color forecasting and how people interpret color when purchasing a garment... how it makes them feel. It never occurred to me to use colored paper for a test to make them FEEL calmer. I plan to copy my exams this term on blue paper.
My lectures are all visual and I generally use very vivid colors to keep their interest, but I may tone it down a bit.
I have taught a class in a room that was set up U shaped. I found that the students felt freer to open up in discussions. The difficulty I had with this style was the personal space. It was very cramped for the number of students for this class.
i am unsure about music in the classroom, our school does not have the ability to play mp3's on the laptops. I can imagine it works, but seems very complicated to incorporate properly. I do occasionally refer to popular music to create a connection to information.
Susan
Brad-
Come sit in my class on Monday! I'll show how to properly use powerpoint! (I say this with respect and love for my neighbor) It is a MUST for my subject!
Susan
In most of my classrooms it is rather difficult to move the seats, but fortunately our program operates using the cohort model, and the class size almost never exceeds 10 people. It seldom takes them long to connect, so they move freely about the room as projects dictate.
I frequently back up concepts with amusing YouTube videos. For example, even though School House Rock was geared for children, my adult learners LOVE it when we watch things like "Conjunction Junction." We reinforced a lesson on punctuation by watching a video of Victor Borge doing his phonetic punctuation.
YouTube has also been valuable for breaking down cultural barriers, as many of my students are from poorer nations in the Caribbean and Latin America. If I make an allusion to some cultural icon, we take 3-5 minutes to watch a video that explains it. One time a discussion we were having made me remember the Vitameatavegemin episode of I Love Lucy. We watched a clip on YouTube and the laughter alone was enough to both energize the classroom and help reinforce the concept I was teaching.
Color and supplies are somewhat less common for me, although I do try to color code anything we write on the white board. Sometimes we will make a "special" marker for things students write, and we come up with silly contests to earn the marker.
I'm definitely going to try some music. I've done it with other groups at a previous institution, but never with my students at the current U.
I find that in any class setting - sound and color play a powerful role in learning.
I like the idea of placing quote around the room and adding plants and aroma therapy as well. I like the idea of student learning and any thing I can do to help them get there is ideal for me.
While going through this module it occured to me that in culinary education the use of sound and SMELL could be used to introduce new topics. If your are starting a module on bread, have some fresh bread filling the room with its fragrance to grab the learners attention. If its french onion soup then have some onions caramelizing, if its italian then set out some fresh italian herbs, etc. I found the notes on different fragrances very interesting.
