About me
Peter Brooks
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Discussion Comment
In 99% of my classes, all of my papers and assignments have been graded with percentages. I am used to getting 95-100% on all of my papers and assignments. In one class I had recently, though, I got something back and I had a 40 on it! Imagine my panic and confusion! When I emailed the instructor about it, she explained that the assignment was worth 40 points, so essentially I got 100%. I didn't understand her logic at switching from the format that everyone had been used to, all thru their program at this school. Some items were worth… >>>
Discussion Comment
A good group activity, time filler, or active learning tool is to have the students make the class kind of like a gameshow. They can throw it together in five minutes, or you can plan ahead and have them plan it for a later class period. They can write questions, or answers, and play it like Jeopardy. Candy makes great prizes!
Another thing is to have them work together to make up fun mnemonics to help them remember things. Prizes for the best or funniest ones can be distributed. It can be pretty entertaining.
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I think students benefit from seeing a colorful presentation onscreen, having the handouts with clear, small versions of the slides and space to take notes. Being green, though, I encourage everyone to fit at least 3 slides per page, and copy them double-sided.
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There are two traveling exhibits going around the country, The Body, and Body Worlds. Both are excellent and would be a huge benefit to anyone in a field where anatomy is part of the curriculum. I highly recommend taking your classes to these exhibits if they come to your area.
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I have learned the most from teachers who went off-topic a little and off the book, using funny stories that illustrated the points they were making. I think you can still maintain your profesional image while being humorous, and people will remember more of your presentation that way too.
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I'm brand spanking new to teaching, so I have no experience in this, but it kind of seems to me like everyone is a suspect when it comes to cheating, like we expect it will happen. Maybe we should, I don't know. But for me, I've always had a personal policy of trusting everyone until they give me a reason not to. I haven't been burned too many times. I find that when you treat people with respect and give them your trust, usually you will get it back.
Am I just being naive?
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When I was in nursing school, we had a girl who had already worked as a patient care tech for a couple years and therefore, thought she already knew everything. She had a comment about everything, often contradicting or expanding on what the teacher said. We all got so sick of her!
I like the idea brought up in the reading about having participation cards, where a student can only speak as many times as he had cards. I will employ this tactic if I ever have a student like this!
Discussion Comment
I anticipate having some trouble connecting with some students and relating to their struggles, due to being from different bacgrounds. I don't have kids, so I can't fully appreciate how hard that is and the problems it can bring up. I don't want to take that as an excuse for absences, but I don't want to be a jerk about it either. Any thoughts?
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I am just starting teaching, but when I tutored bio and A&P, a really helpful tactic I employed was getting my students to realize that they carried their own model with them -- their own body. If you want to know the action of the bicep muscle, just flex your bicep! Which side is the bigger bone in the leg on? Just feel it, during the test, it's not cheating! Another cool group project that we did was assign muscle groups - arm, leg, back, etc - to a group and have them choose one person to be the model.… >>>
Discussion Comment
In clinicals, we have a pre- and a post-conference, where we talk about what we are going to learn, and then later, what we did learn or do. For the post-conference, I am going to borrow a tradition from a group I used to lead, and that is "one good thing." No matter how scary or frustrating the day has been for the students, I will challenge them to list one good thing about it. It can be some valuable (yet painful) lesson they may have learned, or a kind helping hand just when they needed it, or any number… >>>
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