What are your personal learning goals? - Lecturing with Impact by I.E. Johnston-White https://padlet.com/iejohnstonwhite/klcvl6undvqo857x Post your learning goals for this training below by clicking on the pink button in the bottom right corner of your screen. Write down: 1. What are the characteristics of your group(s) of students (size, year, level, attitude)? 2. Which aspect(s) of your (online) lectures would you like to improve? What is your experience so far in teaching large groups? 3. What challenges do you foresee in designing an (inter)active lecture (online) and how do you want to tackle these challenges? en-us 2022-02-14 10:52:52 UTC 2026-03-17 15:33:29 UTC hello@padlet.com Current situation and expectations https://padlet.com/iejohnstonwhite/klcvl6undvqo857x/wish/2068328603 I teach to both bachelor and master students, mainly within the Informatiekunde programme. The two groups are very different, especially when it comes to motivations of the studnets for attending a course and a programmed. Withing this moduele, I want to focus on the bachelor students and on one specific course I teach: Databases. This is quite a successful course, attracting students also for FSE programmes, Digital Humanities minor, and Erasmus students. The course has seen an increase amount of students (60/66 people) in the last 2 years so that now we have three werkcolleges to accomodate all the students. Students enjoy the werkcollege because they have to create a working database from scratch as a group assignment and also because they "put in practice" what I explain in call. Database design theory and the learning of a dedicated programming language such as SQL can be monotonous and, at times, not very fascinating (honestly, they can be very boring). The usual interaction in the lectures - especially after a couple of weeks - is that some students disappear (but then they are present during the labs) - and only a small groups of students actively interacts when I ask questions or present more interactive occasions of learning. This is quite common also in other relatively large group classes I teach, but it tends to be quite bad for this specific course

I have attempted to do some classes using a flipped-classroom approach - especially when we were forced to be online - but they were not successful: studnets did not arrive at the lectures ready and in the course feedback they made very clear that they did not like the flipped classroom approach. I know that I could have stopped the class and dismiss everybody (the flipped classroom was clearly scheduled in the syllabus and I repeatedly announced it). Clealry something is not working when it comes to the active involvemet of the students in some of the lectures (namely, when presenting SQL). Note that the slides I use have moments were the students are asked to reflect on the results or answer questions that clarify the way SQL works.

The main challenge I foresee is in identifying the right strategy to activate the students and avoid them falling asleep in class. I have already tried some ideas but the rate of success is not as I would like it to be. What I need right now is to get more training and feedback on how to improve the interactions and the impact of lecturing.]]> 2022-02-27 17:21:42 UTC https://padlet.com/iejohnstonwhite/klcvl6undvqo857x/wish/2068328603 1. What are the characteristics of your group(s) of students (size, year, level, attitude)? So far, I have taught a seminar with third-year BA linguistics students in groups of about 25 people. In general, they seemed rather shy or not very engaged, except for a few highly verbal students who were the only ones asking questions. 2. Which aspect(s) of your (online) lectures would you like to improve? What is your experience so far in teaching large groups? I would like to learn how to engage students, encourage them to be active in class and to teach them how to think autonomously. I have no experience in teaching large groups yet, but I did experience that engaging students works best if you let them work in small groups or in pairs first before discussing things plenary. I would also like to know how I can be a more engaging teacher myself and more confident in front of a group. 3. What challenges do you foresee in designing an (inter)active lecture (online) and how do you want to tackle these challenges? One challenge is to know what level your students are at. What do they already know from previous courses, and where do they need help? What academic skills can I expect them to possess? Is everyone at the same level? Ideally these are things you would like to know before designing the course, so this might be something to discuss beforehand with other teachers and the program coordinator. Another challenge is to keep students motivated. How do you catch their attention and make the topic of the lecture interesting for them? This relates to the first challenge as well, because I think it’s good to hook onto something that the students are already familiar with or working on. A third challenge may be to activate all students, so that it’s not always the same people that engage in discussions. If students are shy to speak up in a group, it may be helpful to have them discuss among themselves in small groups first, or give them preparatory assignments they need to do before coming to class. If students are just not that interested in the topic, it might help to get to know them a little better so you know what their interests are and accommodate that in the course. Or you can try to be a more engaging teacher yourself. https://padlet.com/iejohnstonwhite/klcvl6undvqo857x/wish/2071473169 2022-03-01 13:48:25 UTC https://padlet.com/iejohnstonwhite/klcvl6undvqo857x/wish/2071473169