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75 things you can do to enhance your classroom

First Few Days I Setting the Stage I Every Day I Learning Climate I Feedback

The first few days

  • Use an icebreaker (see attached ideas) to create a warm climate.
  • Handout a course syllabus (see attached guide).
  • Call attention to important aspects of syllabus.
  • Have students fill out an info sheet  (see attached examples).
  • Consider giving an assignment – Take home syllabus/read thoroughly/10 pt quiz over it on the next class day.
  • Create a Writing Assignment: “What do you need from this classroom environment to facilitate your learning?”
  • Consider taking pictures of your students and create a classroom collage
  • Have students write a letter telling you about who they are and why they are taking the class.
  • Greet students at door – make it a welcoming environment.
  • Share your philosophy of teaching with your students.
  • Tell about how you got here from your own beginnings in the discipline, and share your current research interests.
  • Let your students see the enthusiasm you have for your subject and your love of learning.

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Anticipatory set/setting the stage each day

  • Get attention!  Use an object, a special event, and unusual gesture, a fresh location, crazy costume, special visuals, unusual staging, wild decorations to introduce new topics.
  • Take advantage of first impressions:  you have 30 seconds!
  • Open with 3 key words you’d like the audience to remember…and they will!
  • Give Immediate WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?”  Announce a benefit of the content.
  • Start new topics by making sure you use a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic preview.

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Every class day/on occasion

  • Start class on time.
  • Keep students aware of campus happenings and events –invite them to participate.
  • Take roll – class pictures /roll call/clipboard/sign in.
  • Check on absentees/by calling or writing a personal note.
  • Praise students for behavior you want.
  • Organize. Give visible structure by posting the day's "menu" on chalk- board or overhead.
  • Find out what your students are thinking feeling and doing in their everyday lives – (eg. Monday morning: weekend highlights, five minutes to find out.)
  • Return tests and quizzes as quickly as possible for immediate feedback.
  • Gather information from your class: read feelings & concerns, read the audience.
  • Take quiet time before class to gain a focus.
  • Create RUBRICS and clear expectations for assignments and tests.
  • The Brain thinks in color – use them!  Boost attention span and recall by using color in your notes, transparencies, chalkboard, etc.
  • Utilize pre-exposure:  Make sure the students get exposed to subjects long before they really need to; from hours to weeks in advance, drop hints, make references.
  • Honor multiple intelligence’s: Teach and assess to include the 7 ways of being smart:  logical-mathematical, interpersonal, bodily kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal and verbal-linguistic.
  • Patterns provided:  Prior to learning, provide the brain with a “map” of the material – a graphic organizer that provides the connections and possibilities intrinsic to that subject.

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Optimal learning climate

  • Be sure you put out an invitation to students to use your office hours.
  • Seek out a different student each day and get to know something about him or her.
  • Use some form of unique greeting and/or saying good–bye.
  • Stay in your room between classes to engage in social conversation with students.
  • Use a variety of methods of presentation at every class meeting.
  • Stage a figurative "coffee break" about twenty minutes into the hour; tell an anecdote, invite students to put down pens and pencils, refer to a current event, shift media, stand up and take a few breaths.
  • Consider incorporating community resources: plays, concerts,  government agencies. businesses, the outdoors into your curriculum.
  • Hand out study questions or study guides.
  • Be redundant. Students should hear, read or see key material at least three times.
  • Use non-graded feedback to let students know how they are doing: post answers to ungraded quizzes and problem sets, exercises in class, oral feedback.
  • Maintain an open gradebook with grades kept current during lab time so your students can check their progress at any time.
  • Consider having students keep “learning logs”, reflecting on what they are learning
  • Explore the use of collaborative learning strategies (contact the CTL for more information)
  • Learn names. Make sure everyone makes an effort to learn at least a few names.
  • Set up a buddy system so students can contact each other about assignments and coursework, or help them form study groups to operate outside the classroom.
  • Form small groups for getting acquainted; mix and form new groups several times.
  • Solicit suggestions from students for outside resources and guest speakers on course topics.
  • Have a suggestion box available for students input & control over their learning, make sure you read and respond to the suggestions weekly or they won’t do it.
  • Acknowledge audience for their time and attention; give genuine compliments; acknowledge participants for commitment and reassure them of value.
  • Give a pre-test on the day's topic.
  • Start the lecture with a puzzle, question, paradox, picture, cartoon, slide or transparency to focus on the day's topic.
  • Elicit student questions and concerns at the beginning of the class and list these on the chalkboard to be answered during the hour.
  • Have students write down what they think the important issues or key points of the day's lecture will be.
  • Show a film in a novel way: stop it for discussion, show a few frames only, anticipate ending, hand out a viewing or critique sheet, play and replay parts.
  • Form a student panel to present alternative views of the same concept.
  • Stage a change-your-mind debate, with students moving to different parts of the classroom to signal changes in their opinion during the discussion.
  • Conduct a "living" demographic survey by having students move to different parts of the classroom: size of high school. rural vs. urban. consumer preferences...
  • Conduct a role-play to make a point or to lay out issues.
  • Let your students assume the role of a professional in the discipline: philosopher, literary critic, biologist, agronomist, political scientist, and engineer.
  • Give students two passages of material containing alternative views to compare and contrast.
  • Distribute a list of the unsolved problems. dilemmas. or great questions in your discipline and invite students to claim one as their own to investigate.
  • Allow students to demonstrate progress in learning: summary quiz over the day's work, a written reaction to the day's material, etc.
  • Have students generate one question from the week’s lessons that they could see on a test.
  • Use music appropriate to the setting, topic or environment that you want to create.
  • Have students turn to their neighbor and identify some aspect / 3 main points / etc. that have just been discussed.
  • Shut off the lights, have students close their eyes and visualize a scene, concept, place, etc. that has been discussed together. 
  • Offer smiles, positive gestures, a special comment on paper.
  • Create room displays for your Learners' posters, signs, projects, pictures, or student work.

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Feedback about your teaching

  • The minute paper
  • The muddiest point
  • The one-sentence summary
  • Directed para-phrasing
  • Applications cards

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