Teaching Techniques Used in the TAMU APPEAL Courses
Interactive Small Whiteboard Prompts
Motivation:
- Increases student involvement and engagement during lectures.
- Assess student understanding and background during class class.
- Peer learning—students are exposed to approaches and responses they otherwise
may not have considered.
Methodology: |
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- Students are given the small whiteboards and markers at the beginning of
the class. During the class the will be asked short questions (see types
below) that all must write down. The professor, walking through the class
can then select a few as examples of different points of views, answers,
common misconceptions, etc.
- Small Whiteboard Prompts can be prepared in
advance with lecture notes, or can be implemented “on the spot” to further a
line of discussion.
- Types of Prompts: Specific vs. Vague, Quick vs. Detailed
- Specific prompts can be used to gauge student understanding of a particular concept or problem.
- Vague prompts allow breadth to the types of student responses, giving a means of incorporating multiple approaches and representations.
- Quick prompts can be used to probe student understanding at an immediate and fundamental level. Also, quick prompts can be used to keep students engaged without deviating too far from lectures.
- Detailed prompts can be used in a few minutes in order to probe deeper levels of student understanding with respect to specific topics.
Effective Use:
- After the students answer, collect a few of them and to place sets of whiteboard
responses on the chalkboard such that they read like a story, where each
successive board advances the concepts of its predecessors.
In order to control the flow, and to keep from revealing steps too soon,
it can be beneficial to keep the backs of small whiteboards facing the
class until you are ready for them.
- Timing of Small Whiteboard Prompts:
- Used at the beginning of a lecture, prompts stimulate review of topics
previously covered.
- In the middle of a lecture, prompts help assess the parts that students
have and haven’t understood.
- Ending a lecture with a prompt allows an instructor to set up the following
lecture, give students additional food for thought, or simply recap the
day’s lecture.
- Levels of Preparation:
- Although advanced preparation can help Small Whiteboard Prompts to address
particular goals, those incorporated on the spot can help to address lecture
content as it develops in the classroom.
- Prepared prompts give an instructor more control over the course of a class discussion than impromptu whiteboard questions.
- Whether prepared or not, prompts can tend to lead a class discussion down an unpredictable path. The most important part of implementing Small Whiteboard Prompts is the
instructor seemingly unintrusive control of the flow of the discussion
to highlight a specific point. It requires the instructor to think on their feet and continually make
value judgments in order to control the class flow.
This most likely will not be automatic, but a learned skill.
- Loosely bound prompts tend to promote student investment in a topic, while tightly bound discussions can be more effective in assessing particular aspects of student understanding.
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