Getting Started

I recently attended Mcmaster's Teaching and Learning Forum to warm up for another year of TAing. On my 'to do list' of things to learn was I wanted to understand how to make a teaching portfolio. I assumed it was something polished with specific expectations and a format, like a large resume or CV, so I was pretty pleased to discover it can be as easy and fun as starting a blog and recording your musings! Thus, my experiment begins.

(Although it may have made more sense to start 6 years ago when I was a student in concurrent education. Short of building a time machine the best idea is to start with the present. I may, however, dig through my old papers and post content retroactively)

Another thing I learned during this forum was the BOPPPS method of lesson planning, which I will definitely be using in the future. Here are the components:

Bridge: this is just an introduction. I like the word bridge through because it is a point of connection. You want to invite your students to connect with the content as something that they can relate to.

Outcomes: this is also called intended learning outcomes and in our education program we called these learning goals. I know it's very common to talk about setting SMART goals, but what this instructor talked about that I really liked was using verbs-what do I want the students to be able to do? Verbs are important in a field as abstract as philosophy so I find that helps keep me grounded. The taxonomy of the cognitive domain I've attached illustrates some useful verbs that might inspire you.

Pre-assessment: this is a really important part that I think some teachers forget or have difficulty with. If you don't know where your students are at you won't know if you are ahead or behind them. It can be as easy as asking them to help you review a concept. This can also be a good way to get student engaged.

Participatory learning: as always, active learning is huge! Lecturing at a student is nowhere near as effective as getting them to get up and DIY it with your guidance. I love having debates and discussions, and this instructor recommended an activity called a value line (it's like asking students to create a bar graph of classroom opinion by moving around the room) that I know I just have to try!

Post-assessment: here we check to see if students have met the intended learning outcomes. In depth assessment can be difficult but a quick activity can help give some formative assessment. Our instructor gave us colour cards with A,B,C, and D written on them and asked us multiple choice questions.

Summary: this is just an opportunity to wrap things up. My biggest difficulty with this part is I forget to attend to housekeeping issues at that time.

Another point this professor suggested is giving our students opportunities for anonymous feedback. I really like stop/start/continue forms for this because it inspires you to give constructive and specific criticism. We do get feedback statistics from the department, but specific feedback is much more helpful.

Next semester I wil be TAing for moral issues. Since this is a subject I'm fairly comfortable with I would like to ask to guest lecture. I'm sure these tips will be useful.