Leslie Darlington

Hi.

I love the concept of jigsaw or splitting students up into groups. It is true that not all students feel comfortable being in front of the class, so having small groups with assigned learning tasks is a good way to liven up the class time and give students the feeling they are responsible for learning/teaching.

Also, I have a holiday in my term where students have to make up the time. Since I teach graphic design, I have invited a guest speaker to come in on a different day in the week and those students who can not be there will be given an extra assignment they have to turn in.

Good luck.

Cheryl Chun

Hi Christy,

I teach math and I also find myself often looking for new methods to teach my material. I usually use a lecture format because my curriculum is also packed and it often feels like I don't have enough time to go over the material so I usually do lecture followed by work time. If you have any suggestions for math let me know :)

But something I've done in the past that might help you is an activity called a jigsaw. There are different ways to implement this and I've done it different ways myself. One way is to split your class into groups and then assign them each a chunk of material that they will have to become familiar with and teach to the class. I've done this with definitions before and it works pretty well. The trick is to make sure to make the chunk manageable for them to learn on their own and by the time you want them to present.

The other way to do it is to split students into group again and assign each person a letter or number. Then all the ones go to a station where they learn a topic, all the twos go to another station, all the threes another, etc. Then after they learn there material they return back to their original group and teach their group members. This is good if you have students who don't like to get up in the front of the class.

I don't know if that'll help you, but it's a way that you can break up the lecture time and have students teach each other. Just be careful because sometimes this activity can get a little planning heavy depending on how you're having students teach themselves the material.

Christy Klatt

I am teaching a veterinary technician class, which is quite heavy on terminology and medical science information so it is hard to leave anything important out. On the other hand, it does get overwhelming for the students to just be lectured at all the time. Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Hi Christy,
What is your subject area? I am sure you are feeling a bit overwhelmed since you are a new instructor and you have to shorten a course by two weeks. Even veteran instructors would feel this way. Keep up the good attitude. I will try to give you assistance once I know your subject area.
Gary