Fitting in all the Material
I teach on quarters and one of the quarters is 10 weeks, where the others are 12. So to fit all the material into 10 weeks is very challenging. I feel as though it is hard to keep the students engaged because I have to present so much more material in a class period and am not giving them the appropriate breaks. Do you have any suggestions on how to get that extra material in.
These are excellent strategies.
I teach some courses that are 5 weeks long and some courses that are 9 and 15 weeks long in different institutions.
Bottom line is keeping a few students engaged. I have come up with pretty much all the activities - problem based learning in groups, observations, individual Q&A, etc. Regardless of how I approach, I am not able to engage a selected few that has the tendency of "... I should not be here but I have to take this as a prerequisite." I have actually called on the expertise of them in approaching a problem scenario (What type of computer to purchase for a Small business firm in a basic introduction to computers class). Sometimes, that technique works because they are put on the limelight for their experience/expertise. But, sometimes, that still does not work.
So, has anyone broken the ice on with strategies to get such students engaged?
Thanks.
Sriram Rajagopalan, PhD, PMP
Short quarters do create some headaches. Thanks for the question. I get so excited about the material I don't want to leave anything out and find it all important. I really have to take a step back and determine what is really relevant in order to fit in all the material. It sometimes helps me to have a outside eye review my material overview to help limit the material.
This is indeed an interesting challenge -- there will be situations where the same wine will have to fit in different-sized bottled -- perhaps the solution is to drink some of it first?
Seriously, I think in any class that you teach there should be 'n' fundamental concepts that you are going to get across, based on the learning outcomes for the class. Now if n = number of weeks in the class, all is good. If it doesn't, then I think the thing to do is to identify a set of 'nimbus' issues which relate to the core -- these can be made optional or mandatory depending on the time available for coverage.
To give an example -- if I was teaching some database subject, I might have to cover database models, relational concepts, differing RDMS, SQL language types, and so on. If the course was short, that might do it. But if it was longer, than such concepts as database security or datbase object management could be introduced ina way that was supportive of the learning outsomes. If the course was shorter, I would look at one or two of these and ask the question: can I skim or abstract here? In the above case, I could abridge the treatment of differing RDMS considerably without affecting the course outcomes, to give just one instance.
Pretty much every subject has this sort of fractionality, and therefore allows for appropriate expansion of contraction.
I also teach 10-week Quarters, so I try as much as possible to include more than one topic or issue into each segment of each class, though never more than three topics, to avoid overloading the students with too much new material.
Hi Michael,
Good strategy. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Gary
I agree, its a challenge. My courses are in an accelerated format, 5 weeks long. There is a tremendous amount of material to cover in that time. One trick I picked up from a colleague is to prepare several 10-15 minute recorded mini-tutorials. They are powerpoint slides with voice narrative explaining the material in the slides.
I know exactly what you mean. I feel so rushed in shorter quarters, so I've changed my method of doing things. Now, I focus on core content with a shorter quarter. Sometimes, it is not necessary to cover every chapter or fit it all in. It's more important that the students get the core content. Because if it is too much in too short a time, they might not be absorbing the most important material. Is there some material that is not really critical that you could cut in a shorter quarter?
I'd suggest that you plan your curriculum to be delivered in ten weeks. Then, in the 12 week quarters, devote more time to topics students in that particular quarter are struggling with. Or, add extra things into the 12 week quarters --field trips, guest speakers, an extra project or assignment.
