Heather,
Good strategy. I like your use of time as well. I use a similar method and by imposing time limits my students stay on task and complete the work in a timely manner. A win win for everyone this way.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Hi Yolanda.
Heather's idea is a good one, and I may try that, too.
I also consistently have time at the end of our lecture. Since the attention span is limited to less than 20 minutes, I try to get my lectures down to that time frame, and fill in with other beneficial material.
I have found "current events" to be my solution. Since I am dealing in the pharmaceutical field, the subject matter needs to be related somehow to either our current topic or to pharmacy, medicine, insurance, etc., but could be related by way of new product, legal, insurance, or what have you. This gives the students a broad range of topics, and keeps them current with trends and information in our industry.
Each current event needs only be a summary of the news article, and 1-2 minutes in length, so it's just enough to keep them busy until the end of our session. Also, I make it so students cannot use the topic another student has already researched, so we don't hear about the same thing several times.
Does this sound like something you might be able to integrate??
It's a good idea to fill time with some tangible presentations for the students. They know that you are an expert in the field and sometimes, they just want to see you "do it". Always an easy way to reinforce prior instruction.
I often struggle with this also. I have a few ideas that I keep on hand. One is a quick research project. I break them into groups and give them a retlated topic to look up on the internet or in theri books. For example, when lecturing the digestive, if I have extra time, I have a list of GI disorders. I then give each group a disorder to look up. They will either present the disorder that day or the following. To keep students on track, I give them 15 min for research, and five minutes to present. I tell my students that I want them to "explain the diagnosis to a patient".
