Lec 8 | MIT 5.95J Teaching College-Level Science and Engineering, Spring 2009

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Today, Teaching with Blackboards and Slides. And also several questions from last time.

And related to that, a handout - which I've put online - which is

how to make a lesson plan.

So I'll do all that through the questions

Ok, now just a quick bit about lesson planning

because a couple of you pointed out you'd like to know more about lesson planning

And then reminded me that when I taught the chemistry TA workshops

I actually gave everyone a handout on how to plan a lesson

So I've put that handout online and I'll just show you what it looks like here

So this is basically the sheet i use for planning any kind of lecture recessitation.

Ok so, at the top we need some kind of course and date

And then the objective

So that's quite important

You'll see the exact sheet

And there's a .PDF file. You can just use it yourself.

There's a course objective

for that particular section

And that relates to your overall goals for the course.

So for example, in this problem, my objective might be something like

To show that easy cases.. in fact this was my objective...

I wanted to show that easy cases.. extreme cases... are useful not just for checking formulas

but also for generating formulas.

Ok, so, I write that on the top so I remind myself

Why am I here?

What am I doing?

Then, there's a 3 column table

Basically you just plan items in your lecture

The first column is minutes... how long you expect each thing to take

And then your... here is your... middle column, most of the spaces..

What's your goal in this local part of the lecture and what are you gonna do for that?

So here is my overall objective

And my local goal may be just this example

Getting that one third

And then here, the third column is props

Ok, so there's actually a piece here too

So props are anything I need to bring

So I just stick that in the margin

Ok, bring the cones or the pyramids.. whatever they may be

And so then when you're planning your... when you're filling this piece in about what to bring

you just scan down all these columns on your, this last column

And just write everything here

Ok, bring cones

Homework 3, Solution set 2

Ok so now, at a glance

Before you go to your session

You review these two things

Make sure you have everything

You know why you're here

But then here you're gonna follow your script

Which is a loose script

It's not exact word for word script

It's.. maybe a few equations

Suppose there's a question:

What is this constant?

Ok, so that's my overall what I'm gonna do for say.. .10 minutes

And then I break it into sub-questions

Ok, what is H & B? How many pyramids do I need?

What's my goal shape?

So these are questions I ask students.

And for each one, I write down the minutes

Maybe in parentheses.. because I put the total up here

Ok so now when I've done my two or three pages..

And by the way, I find just the level of detail I use, if I ever go beyond three pages

I never get to that material

So, it's just sort of for a security blanket

by the time I'm beyond three pages

It depends on how detailed you write these things, but I've generally found that's where I am

And then you estimate the time

And what you'll find, the first time you do stuff, you'll massively underestimate the time

You'll be off by a factor of two

So in other words, if you thing it'll take five minutes, it will really take ten minutes.

And that's true even after you take into account this rule.

Sort of.

Ok so then you put down all your minutes on this page, the next page

You add them up

And you make sure you're not over fifty or whatever the amount is

And then what you'll find what you thought was fifty

Really is gonna take you one hundred and thirty

So the next time you evaluate the minutes

You'll have a better idea

And you'll find yourself actually tuning your time sense pretty well

So now I've got my time sense

So that I really don't need to put the minutes down

Because I can just do it by the number of pages

Three pages, too much

So you'll find for your own writing detail level, how many pages to use

Ok, now the other point is.. where do these questions come from?

Ok, well this is a way you can turn any regular lecture into an interactive one

So, suppose you have a long derivation you're going to do

Or some.. like for example, the first way I planned this, I wanted to show people

that this was one third over here

This three here

And the way I was gonna do it was I was gonna draw 6 pyramids

Show them in a cube

And show the six V

And do all this showing

Well, first draft, write it all out like that

With times and everything, without questions

Then, any time you come to something interesting

So here... so before you have tell.. so now you look at your sheet

And you say hmmm... where did something interesting happen?

Hopefully, there is at least one point

Because if there isn't, maybe you shouldn't be giving the lecture at all

Alright.. so now.. let's just saw by instruction, you found some interesting things

Ok, so... wow that's interesting.. it's interesting that it makes a cube.

It's not obvious

You know.. so.. just think... where does something require thought

and you're short circuiting the thought by telling

So then you just put a... what I do is I have a green pen... and I turn it into a question.

So I circle it in green and write "ASK" next to it