PART B:
Identifying a connection between something in the world and a theory that is used to explain that.
In your next Observation:
- If the instructor is talking about a theory, are they making the connection between a theory and a real-world application of the theory? If yes How?
From what I saw so far, the first year courses at my department are primarily based on this way of organization. First, the student has an intro slide that posses some important events and phenomena happening in the world. And then students are introduced to the objectives. So students first learn about the “theory” behind the phenomenon and only then asked to try to explain how this theory “fits” in the real world. The skill is mastered through various clicker questions and also review questions. In my future observation, I want to be more aware of this process, and to see in more details how it works.
- If the instructor is talking about a concrete experience or phenomenon, are they making connections between that concrete experience and a theory in their discipline? If yes, how?
Although during the lectures, students explicitly go over the method and then an example is given how to apply it to the real world problem, through my experience as a TA, I find that the process to go from real-world example to theory is very problematic to students. I find that the most confusing part for students who were attempting to do a review questions at home is to be able to see the underlying method behind. Throughout the course, students learn a lot of different methods and theories. Hence, once they are given some situation/ phenomena that they have never encountered during the class and asked to explain what a certain event will do to it, students are often are unable to answer it as they have no idea on what method to apply. How I can explain that? … I actually come to the realization just by typing this paragraph. I think what students fail to do is to be able to “read” the question correctly. What I mean is they don’t see a “key” words that can hint them on how to approach this problem. Once, you point it to them and ask what do they know about it they immediately can recall the theory/method that is linked to it.
Does the activity they are using to do either of the above cases help the students make connections beyond the particular application they having students experience?
I think the review questions are very helpful in bridging the theory and practice. However, I also find it to be the most challenging part of the course.
In my next teaching practicum:
I want to make sure I:
- Identify a connection between something in the world that I am trying to explain and a theory that is used to explain that.
In my next practicum, I am planning on teaching students about different methods to estimate secondary productivity. By the end of the class students will be able to:
- Describe 3 different approaches to estimate secondary production
- Compare and contrast 3 different approaches
- List advantages and limitations for 3 methods
- Propose the best method to estimate secondary production under the given set of conditions.
Thus this class is specifically designed to link the “theory” or method to answer some question that exists in the real world.
- How are you helping your students make that connection?
I will ask students to read the scientific paper that talks about the estimates of secondary production. I think reading this primary literature is a very effective tool to make students aware that all the scientific papers answer the certain question posed by their authors. Thus, I need to make sure students are aware of it. Originally, I created 5 questions/topics that students need to write down while reading the paper where I asked about the advantages and disadvantages of each method. However, I totally omitted to include the purpose of these studies. Hence, I am planning to add additional questions such as “ what is the purpose of the study?” or “ What is the underlying problem the authors trying to solve?”, so that students can pay additional attention to why they are reading this paper and why authors chose this method to answer their question.
- Does your process help your students be able to make connections beyond that particular exercise? How does it do that? and if not, what can you do to help them be able to do that?
As a 4th-year student, I would expect them to be comfortable in reading analyzing the scientific literature. But I feel what is more crucial is to master the ability to criticize the paper and be able to compare them to another study. Thus, to help them master the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of each method I will also do debate/ group activity where students will have time to talk over about advantages and disadvantages of each method and then summarising it in a concise way to present it during the debates. I also want to make the whole process a bit closer to the real-life situation rather then a “classroom” set up, hence I will introduce more of the “role-playing” group activity where each student will have a certain role as a scientist to contribute to the whole team.