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Better examples through peer instruction
I just gave midterm evaluations in my classes, and for the item about “What could we be doing differently to make the class better?”, many students put down: Do more examples at the board. I think I’ve...
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Some interesting findings and unanswered questions about clicker implementations
I have been using clickers in my classes for three years now, and for me, there’s no going back. The “agile teaching” model that clickers enable suits my teaching style very well and helps my students...
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A rundown of Wednesday at the Joint Meetings
By the time you read this, I’ll be heading back home to Michigan from the AMS/MAA Joint Meetings. Yesterday was the first day of the actual conference, and since it was the only day of the conference I...
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Starting off in SoTL
Today I was excited to attend the startup meeting for a faculty learning community on the scholarship of teaching and learning (“SoTL”) here at GVSU. This group is sponsored and facilitated by our...
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Encountering abstraction with clickers
I had the great pleasure this weekend of leading a session at Math In Action, which is Grand Valley’s annual K-12 educators’ conference. My session was called “Classroom Response Systems in...
View ArticlePeer Discussion or Peer Pressure?
In peer instruction, students are given multiple choice questions to consider individually, followed by an individual vote on the question using a clicker. That’s followed up by a small group...
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A screenshot that illustrates what peer instruction can do
I blog a lot about peer instruction, but I think this screenshot from this morning’s Calculus 2 class is worth 1000 of my blog posts about just how effective a teaching technique PI can be. It’s from a...
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Misunderstandings vs. misconceptions
The first speaker in the Model-Eliciting Activities (MEA’s) session Monday morning said something that I’m still chewing on: Misunderstanding is easier to correct than misconception. She was referring...
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The summer of BYOD
So, the six-week Calculus 2 class is over with — that didn’t take long — and there’s beginning to be enough distance between me and the course that I can begin to evaluate how it all went. Summer...
View ArticleAdopting new instructional strategies: Going with the gut
I’m really excited to be working next semester as a co-PI on a National Science Foundation grant with my Grand Valley State colleagues Scott Grissom (Computer Science), Shaily Menon (Chemistry), and...
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4+1 Interview with Derek Bruff
It’s my pleasure to introduce a new series here at Casting Out Nines called 4+1 Interviews. In each of these interviews, I’ve picked out someone who I believe has something interesting to say about...
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