Teaching practicum report 1

Guest Lecture: Vancouver Housing Market – A Case of a Growth Machine (Nov. 29th, 2016)

(Course: Geog 250 Cities)

A good lecture is a like a good paper. It needs structure and the main idea, like a thesis statement. An idea that is to be communicated to the students that will be their main take-away. It is like the main learning objective. Their could be additional more specific LOs, but the main one needs to be clear and straightforward. Just like in any good presentation. And while most of my presentations are good presentations, I think, there is always room for improvement.

In my first practicum, a lecture on the Vancouver housing market for the 200-level Urban Geography course, I have been preparing different aspects as a part of the teaching program: working on specific learning objectives, thinking of engagement strategies, creating good slides. However… the basic narrative, the main idea, might have been lost as I was focusing on other more minor details. It is something I haven’t foreseen and wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for the comments from my mentor. He “was never clear quite what [I was] arguing”. From my mentor’s comments, I now see how my main idea wasn’t clear enough, it could’ve been simplified to ensure it wasn’t lost in the details and complexities. Still, other parts of the lecture went quite well, the students were engaged, some came with more questions after the lecture. My mentor praised the use of statistics to support the arguments I was making.

I think improving structure and connections between the different parts of the lecture is the main point for improvement. Besides, allocating enough time for the discussion activity at the end and wrapping up would have improved the students understanding significantly.