Key Information
It Works for Me, Too! More Shared Tips for Effective Teaching, By Hal Blythe & Charlie Sweet
2002, ISBN:0-913507-95-4, [104 pages soft cover, 7 1/2 by 9 3/4 inches] $15.95
In the four years since our first book on teaching, we have noticed both on our campus and around the country a new emphasis on the instructor as teacher (vs. scholar). We have read books on the subject, attended the prestigious Lilly Conference, helped establish a Teaching & Learning Center on our campus (Hal served as its first director), and written for new journals focusing on pedagogy. It Works For Me, Too! is our contribution to the Renaissance in College Pedagogy, our attempt to fuel this brightening interest in effective teaching. Like its predecessor, this book is a compilation of tips from workers in the collegiate trenches, but this time our contributors (some volunteers, some drafted) reflect the national interest in this subject and come from all around the country. We begin with a few theoretical approaches, but the major focus of IWFMT (not exactly a memorable acronym) is that average day in the classroom and what momentary magic some instructor has injected into the mix to make the experience much more than average. Sometimes the advice is general, but usually it’s specific. While the advisor may be in a different discipline than you, we have every confidence that you will be able to use this information in your area. After all, most of us weren’t born good teachers Ð we made ourselves that. During an observation last fall, Charlie watched as an instructor had her students reproduce exactly what Keats described on that famed Grecian urn. He went immediately into his Am Lit I class and had his students draw up the floor plan for the turret in which Lady Rowena is suddenly transformed into the lost love Ligeia. Only when his class could actually picture that pentagonal structure could they begin to see what magic might have transpired that fateful night. The best tips aren’t only shared; they are borrowed, reshaped, and adapted to one’s own philosophy, and, as John D. MacDonald once said about good writing making more good readers, that reworking makes us all much better teachers. So, read and adapt.
The Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
2. TEACHING PERSPECTIVES
Interrelating the Disciplines
Diversity
>Drawing Upon Personal Resources
>Walking in Another’s Shoes
Group Learning
>Team Building in the Classroom
>CLEGS (Cooperative Learning Exchange Groups)
>Common Team Problems
>Making Group Discussions Work
>Partners in the Learning Process
>Cooperative Learning
Microbursting
Rhythm and Hand Drumming
SWA (Selected Work Analysis)
Empathizing: Role-Playing in the Classroom
Professional Collegiality at Service in the Classroom
Duads
The Modified Socratic Method
ALFF (Active Learning Frequent Feedback)
“Daring” Teaching
3. PRACTICES AND POLICIES
Pre-course Class Preparation
>The Weekly Overview
>Folders
>Multiple Outside Sources
>’We Will, We Will . . . Rock You’
First Day
>Student Information
>E-Mail Instructions
>Web Use
>Previous Students as Visitors
>Macaroni Art
>Family Tree
>Waste Not, Want Not
Testing and Quizzing
>The Test
>Quizzes
>Bonus Round
>Individual Quizzes
>Quiz Bargaining
>Group Testing
>Collaborative Creative Quizzes
>The Quote Selection Process
>Posting Test Answers
>Self-Posed Post-Test Questions
>Makeups
>Individual and Team Homework and Quizzes
>Write Your Own Final
Class Organization
>Previewing
>All Good Things Must End-Effectively
Presentation Techniques
>Demonstrations
>Power Point
>Props
Concerns
>Block of Cheese Day
>Children in the Classroom
>Research
>Your Mission: Not Impossible
>Grading
Assessment
>The End of Class Paragraph
>Periodic Assessment
>End of Class Questions
Syllabi and Information Sheets as Legal Documents
4. EXERCISES AND TECHNIQUES
Literature
>Their ‘Write’ to Understand
>A Picture Is Worth…
>Engaging Students Through the Writings of Arthur Conan Doyle
>Visual Imagery in Discussing Literature
Writing
>A Swift Way to Spark Interest
>Real Writin’
>CLAD 6
>Supercharging Prose
>Teaching Voice in the Composition Classroom
>Teacher as Writing Role Model
PE
>Program Advocacy
>Mending the Fractured Physical Education Fairy Tale
Science: Molecular Biographies
Occupational Therapy
>Historical Contributors to Occupational Therapy
>Paper Dolls
>Making the Picture Complete
Library
>Where In the Library?
>What DonÕt You Like?
>Keyword Connection
>Boolean Basics
Cut-Across
>Framing Research
>Jeopardy
–Uniform Terminology Jeopardy
–Almost Jeopardy
–Game Shows in the Classroom
>Fun Team-Building Activities
–Initializers
–Communication Activities
–Low Level Activities
–High Level Activities
>Partner Projects
>Documenting Sources: A System Approach
>Blackboard Use
>SpongeBob SquarePants Lives
>Performance Appraisal: Providing Feedback
>Motivation in the Work Place: Goal Setting
>Who Is a Leader? Why?
>Connecting Experience and Concept
5. AFTERWORD:. Ten Timely Tips for Terrific Teaching
The Authors
Hal Blythe, Ph.D., is a Foundation Professor of English at the Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY. He has authored three non-fiction books dealing with writing and over 100 critical scholarly articles. He has ghost-written over 30 Mike Shayne novellas and over 100 short stories in popular magazines to include Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Woman’s World. He also has produced seven television scripts for EKU-TV’s Keys to Communication Series, and over 25 articles in Writer’s Digest dealing with pedagogy.
Charlie Sweet, Ph.D., is a Foundation Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University. He formerly taught at Florida State University.