Were you Naughty or Nice?

End of Semester Reflections

Another semester done and on to the holiday break. Recently I met with a rookie colleague who had just finished their first semester, and was full of questions about preparation and student engagement. It was good timing, because I always reflect on what went right and wrong during the semester, and start revising.

I’m a relative rookie instructor myself, but here’s what I shared:

How Do You Prepare for a Course?

Course Outlines:

Our institution, like many others is obsessed with course outlines (syllabi). Over 20 pages in length, every instructor facilitating the course must have the identical outline right down to the action verbs (don’t get me started on Bloom’s). This, along with the number of “elements of performance” under each learning outcome tends to confuse both students and new instructors. It also creates a cage, trapping an instructor into thinking it’s all about pushing content.

My advice? Ignore the elements of performance. The learning outcomes, if written properly will guide you towards those anyway. Start by deciding what are the 3 most important things that students will need to come away with for each learning outcome and allocate your time accordingly.

Lesson Design:

Take those important things and design a lesson(s) around them. If you’re an active learning instructor like I am, that means including lots of things students must do to interact and experience the material of the day. Try and think like a student, not for the student. What do you think is engaging and fun? Try that first. If you’re excited and engaged, you have a good chance of pulling the students along with you.

Resources:

If you’re struggling to find things, check out social media. There are fantastic people teaching your subject and doing amazing things. Reach out, the vast majority are more than happy to share lesson plans and activities if they believe you're authentic and genuine in your quest to improve your craft. I’ve borrowed a metric tonne of ideas from people all over the world. Or try using a GenAI platform to help you brainstorm a lesson plan. Prompting is key…. but here’s a quick tip; use the phrase “think outside the box” to avoid the run of the mill activities and lesson plans.

Pace Yourself:

Pick one or two lessons per course to redesign. At the end of the day, if you just stand in front of the class reading publishers PowerPoints and asking clarifying questions, your students will make out ok. It’s been done for years and its not going away anytime soon. Over time, you’ll build up a series of lessons that both you and your students will find fun and engaging.

Now, go find your personal fortress of solitude and rest up. We’re back at it in a few short weeks!

Yours in fun,

Rich

This article incorporates input from AI, but the content and theme was crafted by a human.

#ludicpedagogy #highered #play #fun