Kent,
I do not believe that there are any guidelines regarding this type of questioning. However, I have found that it is best to allow the student to create the parameters. Instructors can provide a "general" selection of questions, which enable the student to decide how much information to devulge. For example, a good icebreaker question would be: Please provide the class or a partner in class with a summary of your experience with the (class) subject. With this the student can be brief or more expansive, depending on what they would like to share with others.
Tremayne Simpson
I try to learn about the students previous experience , this way I will know who they are, what they like or dislike, then I direct some question to identify the dept of the experience.
I too have an introductory discussion at the first of a class. I have wondered about asking about hobbies and personal experience as far as knowing the boundry between an individual's profession or academic experience and their personal life. I try to keep the discussion relevant to our class discussion and honor the students privacy and personal experiences, but at times there can be some gray areas between professional and personal opinions and experiences. Any guidelines to where this boundry exists other than assumed PC correctness?
I usually start each new class with an introduction of who I am and my background in the industry that this class relates to. Then I let and encourage each student to do the same. I listen to what their experience has been and try to ask questions that will help me to know the depth of their experiences. An example is that currently I have a student that spent over a decade working in this field while in the military. As we enter new areas in the course I can encourage this student to relate his expererinces from his past career history as this applies to our course of study. This also helps to encourage discussion during later classes. This has brought real world applications into our classes and helps to build on the student's past experience.
I give them a pretest, ask questions and come to an understanding where they stand and prepare the lesson plan accordingly.
I have found that opening a general discussion about the topic will allow students to freely express any previous knowledge of the subject matter. I have also used a true and false pretest to test previous knowledge, this also orients students to the information that will be presented.
Brant,
This is a great idea. It provides an instant assessment for student knowledge, during the lecture.
Tremayne Simpson
Brant,
This is a great idea. It provides an instant assessment for student knowledge, during the lecture.
Tremayne Simpson
As I present material by power point, I utilize multiple choice questions into the presentation. This way I get immediate feedback from the students regarding their grasping content.
I usually strike up a conversation with the entire class relating to the subject at hand. I also ask the students if they have taken any terminoloy classes or maybe human anatomy in high school. Usually will get them talking about how they like learning about the human body and so forth.
Loren,
This is an excellent method for tracking student subject knowledge. I have also found that it is a good idea to collaborate with the pre-requisite instructors, to ensure that all course content is properly aligned.
Tremayne Simpson
I have a course outline that establishes which classes they have taken prior to my class.(pre-requisite) This helps me know that they have some background knowledge for understanding the material in the course. I have also found out that some students may have taken the course more than a year ago and may need extra time to recall the skills used from the previous classes.
I will use pretests to help identify what my students know and also we have clicker technology so I can do oral pretests.
Marie,
This is a great idea. Do you provide the quizzes at the beginning of each class session?
Tremayne Simpson
I use minute quizzes. These are not worth points and are used as pre or post assessment only. I ask an important question on the topic for the day to quickly assess the student's knowledge in the subject area. It only takes a few minutes to read through the responses and it lets me know how detailed I need to be when presenting the material. As a post assessment, it lets me know if they understood the material or if I will need to cover the area in more detail at the next class.
I do the same sort of pretest for my MA students in the clinical classes. Then I recapitulate some of thse same questions on the first and second quizzes so that prior learning is continually reinforced.
I always ask the students previous experience. I like to know where they are coming from
By having an entrance evaluation quiz based on the expected knowledge level for the new class they are about to start. Depending on the results, we can set the pace or review weak areas.
I usually get to know my students on the first day of class, but the one thing I really like to do is ask them questions when we enter into a new subject, before teaching it just to see who knows what about it. This allows me to adjust my focus to the most viable points of the topic.
Laura,
This is a great idea for assessing your students' knowledge of the subject. Also, having an informal conversation about their interests and prior knowledge, generally enables them to provide, candid thoughts regarding the course.
Tremayne Simpson
