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Pair Work

• Today made use of pair work, though it evolved into groups of four or five.
• Pair work is a good way to create an environment where students feel comfortable talking.
• Introduce a topic, ask students to discuss an issue in pairs, then ask each group to share something they discussed.
• This lets shy people participate without speaking to the group, or to feel good about what they’re going to say before announcing it, gets students comfortable talking, and lets them share varying opinions (as opposed to a large group, where people tend to find one perspective and focus on it).
• Today we used this in order to break up the lecture (after 10 minutes of lecture, we had a short break to share ideas). This helps with attention span, where research indicates people can focus for about 20 minutes without a break.
• We also used the pair work to move into group discussion. The first few breaks we used pair work to start sharing, and then once everyone was engaged, we moved to using the breaks for short class discussions.

PowerPoint Design

• Benefits of a text based presentation
  • Students don’t need to worry as much about taking notes
  • You can clearly state the points you want students to learn
  • Students can catch up if they weren’t there (don’t need the instructor)
  • Helps linear learners
• Benefits of image based presentation
  • Helps meet multiple learning styles (visual)
  • Makes use of Dual-Coding Theory (both visual and verbal to introduce a point at the same time)
  • Creates a puzzle (why this image?) that requires more attention than just the content
  • Can create a more powerful recall situation the next time they see the image
• Drawbacks of a text based presentation
  • Allows students to miss class or tune out
  • Encourages speaker to focus on what’s on the slide, rather than what the class is most interested in (or what it needs the most)
  • Appeals mostly to language based learners (to the exclusion of the others)
• Drawbacks of an image based presentation
  • Frustrating for non-visual learners
  • Lack of information that requires instructor to make sense of slides
  • Difficult to follow for linear learners

Any that you’d add?