Hi ED101, A couple of things I'm always looking for on the first day of class are 1) are there any "ringers" in the class 2) what is the motivation of each student. Ringers to me are students who know alot about the subject already, or at least think they do. So I need to find out who these people are and how much knowledge they possess. That way they don't become a distruptive influence. Motivation of each student is finding out why they are here. Some students only want to learn very specific things, while others are happy to… >>>

I'm in a dilemma about the use of electronic material vs traditional hard copy versions in our courses. As an IT school, we tend to use mini-lectures and lots of hands on computer time to re-enforce the topics covered in those lectures. Books are rarely used during the actual class time, and support materials are used occasionally to reference tables of information or clarify a topic. Our textbooks are used by the students outside of class to look up ways of doing things but are not generally read cover to cover. So based on this I feel we could successfully… >>>

One technique I have always try to incorporate into my teaching style is using questions as a way to lead students to my point. Instead of using queries solely as a review, use them to illustrate reasons why we need to do things in certain ways, or to have them get their heads into a new topic. So I would be curious on how other instructors use the Socratic Method in their teaching, when is it appropriate and when is it not, and student responses to it. Also I found this article to be a very interesting test of the… >>>