Farris Beuller's Day Off

Week 4
Farris Beuller's Day Off

Each week I struggle with my first public speaking section. I have tried so many different tactics: video examples, group activities, lecture, discussion questions, adding in goals for the day, but to no avail. I even chalked it up to this is my first semester of teaching and it may simply take a while. But my second section responds to my discussion questions? They talk in class. Their grades are higher. Hmm…well I have discovered my problem. Section one is my group of non-readers.

Monday I went to class and started the discussion/lecture I prepared Sunday afternoon and was met with silence and blank stares. Not everyone is inactive. I have about four or five that participate. Here is a quick example of similar looks:



I know with confidence I have more enthusiasm then the teacher in this video clip. After awhile I was frustrated with the lack of response and announced we were having a quiz the next class, which was Wednesday. That seemed to perk everyone up.

I honestly don’t know if that was an effective thing to do. After the quiz Wednesday I asked who had read their assignment for Monday and not one hand. Then I asked who had read the chapter for the current day’s lesson and only two hands. There were two shocking realities that day. First, my second class had the exact opposite responses – all but four had read. But then they always participate and respond. Shocking reality number two: the students from section one were honest. I think I was surprised that they would be so up front about not reading. I guess it was obvious early on, but I wanted to evaluate my role in the equation.

After this week’s reading I feel armed with activities to make sure section one becomes a lot more active.

First, an update from last week’s implementations.
1. I wanted to state the specific points we would cover and increase organization in the lecture. I used a power point for the first time and section one was more engaged. I’m not sure if the power point was the livening factor or if they were still jittery from the quiz! I’ll know more next week when I use the visual again.
2. Last Friday, I indicated what our discussion questions would be on Monday. I told them what they needed to think about over the weekend. I think this helped them to some extent. However, group one’s discussion fell flat quickly when the points related to the reading were brought up. Implementing this means I have to be a lot more organized about lesson plans and discussion.
3. Counterpoints. I didn’t know how I would implement this. I did have a student try to argue that a graduation speech is o.k. to practice expressing your personal views on birth control. I asked the class if anyone agreed. No one did and it made me wonder if I should have asked for a counterpoint to her comment. I guess she felt comfortable enough with her opinion that she voiced it in class; she hopefully is o.k. with me asking for a counter view.
4. I added how the concepts covered related to the course objectives and no one really cared. This didn’t surprise me. It did help remind me of the point of the lesson.

Going back to my new arsenal of activities to make sure students read. These suggestions were very timely for me. I also really like the information about how to build summaries into the lectures.

I have never thought about the structure of my lecture. I noticed that a lecture is constructed in the same format a speech is: intro, body with three to four main points, and a conclusion. I glanced at my lecture notes and they are in a form similar to this, but I discovered that I often had a lot of main points.

One concept I struggled with, or felt was not explained well, was the teaching theories, specifically the Socratic Method. And I was lost when the author discussed Conclusion Orientated lecture structure. I did some searching online about but didn’t a lot of helpful information.

I did have the opportunity to implement a few concepts on Wednesday from week 4 material.

1. The reading talked about why some students are passive in class. One reason may be fear of answering wrong. I tried to make sure my questions were phrased better and not asking for a right or wrong answer. I asked the students to discuss how we could develop definitions for terms in our own language. I indicated I wasn’t looking for something in the book. I think this helped because I noticed people speaking more freely. I liked the result of this idea.
2. The reading suggested posing a question and pairing people together to discuss their answer prior to sharing with the class. A shy student from section one offered his answer for the first time. Again, I liked the outcome this activity had in the class

Ideas I want to implement:
1. I’m excited to use the strategies about how to get students to read. I’m not sure which ones I will use yet. I may even use them all and evaluate which tactic has the best results.
2. Periodic summaries – I really like this idea. It is a way to wrap up the information for a main point before transitioning into something else.
3. I’m going to take a new approach to how I prepare my lecture notes and think of it more as speech construction than notes about class material.
4. I want to find a creative way to start class, either with an activity or a pre-lecture question. I also think it would be a good idea for me to move the class activity to the middle instead of the end of class. It may help give them an attention jolt.
Helpful links:
Socratic Method Information

Getting students to read the text tips