Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars

Preparing to Teach 1

April 29 and May 1

Peter Newbury

pnewbury@ucsd.edu

ctd.ucsd.edu

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Preparing to Teach Workshops

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The aim of these workshops is to give you a well-

supported head start on many of the things you

should do to prepare for your classes, like

creating a syllabus

working out an assessment scheme

drafting learning outcomes

deciding what kind(s) of student-centered,

alternatives to lecture you’ll use, and

developing those activities

and more…

Who are you?

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name

field/department

what course are you teaching?

While others introduce themselves, listen for someone doing something like you – maybe you can work together in future sessions.

Reminder: How People Learn

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How People Learn: Key Findings

1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how

the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they

may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are

taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert

to their preconceptions outside the classroom.

2. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a)

have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts

and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c)

organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and

application.

3. A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students

learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning

goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

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Sort your cards into 3 sets of 3:

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Key Finding

2

Implication

for Teaching

Implication

for Teaching

Implication

for Teaching

Designing

Classroom

Environments

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Scholarly Approach to Teaching

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What should

students

learn?

What are

students

learning?

What instructional

approaches

help students

learn?

Everything

you value,

from learning

outcomes to

what will happen

in class to how

your students will

be assessed, should

be revealed to your

students on the

course syllabus.

Carl Wieman

Science Education Initiative

cwsei.ubc.ca

Example Syllabi

CSE 3: Fluency with Information Technology

(Beth Simon)

MMW 11: Making of the Modern World

(Matthew Herbst)

HIEU 131: The French Revolution

(Heidi Keller-Lapp)

Take 10 minutes and look over these syllabi.

Find 5 things they have in common.

Does anything surprise you?

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Next week: Learning outcomes

Watch the blog

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for details about what you should do to

prepare for next week’s meeting.

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