Friday, July 17, 2009

On-line teaching tip...

... I have one -- I think :).

If at all possible, group sections into one bigger class. That way you have a smaller number of courses to manage...

Do you have any tips for me?

In particular, any ideas about how to write reading quizzes?

2 comments:

Rafal Urbaniak said...

Good question. I'm not sure in general if there's "the best way" to do quizzes, but here's a trick I sometimes use (I'm not sure if you're gonna be conducting the quiz on-line, or rather in person; the trick works for the paper version).

This is rather obvious: it's nice to have at least two different quizzes so that people sitting besides each other don't cheat.

This is kinda less obvious:

1. Don't tell the students that there are two versions.

2. Prepare the tests so that on the first sight, they're very similar (to the extent that questions and answers to choice questions seem the same unless one reads really carefully).

3. Make sure you move the correct answers pattern around, so that if somebody cheats by copying someone's correct answers, they get their answers wrong.

4. Wait and see what happens.

:)

julie said...

I tried this tip, but it doesn't work for me with writing classes: the pace for each class is too different because each group becomes its own organism/community.

But for a lit class, it might work.

My tip? Hold "online office hours" a couple of times each week, and *require* a certain number of attendances every semester (I require five and give 10 attendance points).

These real-time chats clear up SO many questions.

The other important thing with these chats: make the archives available to let students who couldn't attend see what got discussed.