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click here for freelancing tutoring sitesSvetlana ShamanaevaAssistant Professor American Studies Department, AUCASpring 2013

Learner-Centered Teaching in American Studies

“The student told the least, learns the most,” claimed the distinguished 20th century

American mathematician and a university professor, Robert Lee Moore. He meant that

traditional lecturing is not the best way of teaching, and other teaching methods and approaches

are much more productive. One of such approaches, rather popular currently, is learner-centered

teaching. There are other terms to name the same thing: student-centered teaching, active

learning, and interactive learning. Besides having different names, the idea has different

interpretations. Mortimer J. Adler understands active learning as “a process of discovery in

which the student is the main agent, not the teacher” (quoted in Bonwell [1991?], 3). For Dr.

Charles C. Bonwell “active learning involve[s] students in doing things and thinking about the

things they are doing” (2). But what are those activities, which students are expected to do in

their learning process? Chickering and Gamson explain that students “must talk about what they

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are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, apply it to everyday life” (1987, 3). Dr.

Bonwell also includes developing learner’s skills, increasing their motivation, “receiving

immediate feedback from the instructor,” and using their “higher order thinking (analysis,

synthesis, evaluation)” (3).

My understanding was very close to these “traditional” definitions; teaching becomes

automatically learner-centered when learners stop being lectured and become involved in various

in-class activities and work mostly in groups. However, Maryellen Weimer radically changed

my perception of this idea. Her significant contribution to the comprehension of learner-centered

teaching includes five key areas.

Firstly, she argues that a teacher should not just arrange the learning process in an

interactive way in order to ease knowledge transmission. Instead, a teacher’s role should

completely change into a facilitator of the learning process which should be mostly done through

students’ own discovery (2002, 13-14). The second area discusses the function of the content.

The focus of teaching shifts from inventing exercises and assignments ensuring “content

coverage” to those providing skills development. As we see, the course content is forced out to

the back front (10-12). The next original idea of Weimer is about sharing decision-making power

with learners. Since they and their needs are the center of education, learners should participate

in determining the course content, designing course activities and tasks, working out course

policies, and even evaluating their own work (8-10). The idea sounds too radical, but actually it

is not so awful if it is implemented gradually and wisely. The fourth change in the educational

process concerns evaluation purpose and process. Students should be trained to evaluate

objectively their own work and progress. Weimer suggests providing more practice in self- and

peer-evaluation (16-17). And her final innovation is bringing up self-sustainable, independent,

and responsible learners. It is not as easy as it can seem. On the one hand, responsibility doesn’t

develop automatically and should be explicitly cultivated in students. On the other hand, students

are resistant to taking back their own responsibility for learning (15-16).

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Since I was tremendously amazed and inspired by the research of Maryellen Weimer, I

tried to implement as many of her key ideas as I was able to manage in my classes on the US

politics. Two of my courses were very experimental: American Government and Politics and

American Political Parties. It was a difficult but valuable experience. However, I have to confess

that a big part of my experiments failed. But even those failures were beneficial, because they

taught me plenty of interesting things about my students.

One of my mistakes was to incorporate too many changes in my most experimental

course – American Political Parties. I planned to use the content for developing their skills, but I

was not ready to actually sacrifice a big portion of the reading materials. Thus, I just slightly

reduced its amount; my students (juniors and seniors) had to read about 15-20 pages per class.

Furthermore, plenty of skills were included in the course objectives: writing, reading, analyzing,

communicating their thoughts orally and in writing, and development of their responsibility.

Naturally, it resulted in overwhelming myself and my students. It was taxing for me, because the

new approach requires not just knowledge about the methodology, but mostly my own teaching

skills. And my skills of creating interactive assignments and activities based on inquiry, choosing

authentic and recent material instead of relying on the course reader, and efficient evaluation of

the numerous submitted assignments were very low. This made preparation of each class an

exhausting process. The other suffering side was the students. In addition to usual reading of big

chunks of material, they had to fulfill a wide range of tasks for this course. For example, after

reading a chapter, they were to create exam questions about it. They were offered to write one or

two essays on any of the provided topics, to do up to four peer reviews of their classmates’

works, to make one individual and at least one team presentations, to do a team project (produce

election advertisement in any form: poster, video, website, newspaper), to write a midterm and

final exams, and to write weekly journals on metacognitive issues and supplemental videos.

Besides, learners were given freedom in choosing which assignments and how many to fulfill, in

establishing their own deadlines for all the chosen activities, and in tracking their own progress

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through calculating their scores. All that freedom of choice was new for them, and at first, it

disoriented my students. Later they were struggling with fulfilling the tasks and with time

management. Being buried in work myself, I could not enforce the deadlines. This resulted in

complete ignorance of all the deadlines; the assignments were submitted whenever students

wanted.

Another problem was my high expectations about their skills, since I had only juniors and

seniors in this class. It turned into a complete disaster; all their skills were much lower than I had

expected. Moreover, students lacked ability to apply the theoretical explanations to actual

activities or to transfer the skills from one type of activity to another. For instance, I thought that

students do not know how to create good True/False or Multiple Choice questions. That is why I

posted useful instructions and some examples to the electronic course system (it is like a course

website), assuming that it will be a sufficient preparation for them. As a result, I had plenty of

terrible questions on their reading materials. Students got low grades after investing a lot of time

and effort in this activity, and of course lost their motivation to continue this task. Only a couple

of students who were rather quick to grasp the principles of good question making did the

assignment throughout the whole semester. Another example of similar problem was

development of students’ academic essay writing skills. I planned two activities improving these

skills: writing their own essays with the further revision of them and reviewing essays of their

peers and filling a special form for that. Many students wrote their first essay drafts and

discovered how poor their skills were. The first peer-reviews were also far from good, mostly

praising instead of advising how to improve problematic places in the essay. After a class

discussion of the shortcomings of the both products, it was much easier for learners to obtain

how to critique a work of another person than how to improve your own work. No wonder, the

majority of the students chose to write 3-4 peer reviews and not to rewrite their own drafts. Thus,

I have no idea how my assignments and detailed comments on students’ drafts actually improved

their own writing skills. Donald G. Schoffstall also warns us not to “assume student’s previous

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knowledge,” since it usually leads to “miscommunication,” “poor grades,” and “lower student

motivation” (2010, 8). A lot of revelations of my wrong assumptions happened through students’

electronic journal and in-class short feedbacks.

The above mentioned problems could be solved through modeling, constant practice, and

immediate feedback. My first mistake was just to provide supplementary readings on rules of

question construction. It would be much better if it were followed by a class discussion of

students’ first questions, with my explicit explanations what is good, what is wrong, why, and

how it can be improved. Since this activity was absolutely new for my students, I should have

done such modeling 2-3 times in class. Then as any new skill it needed to be repeatedly

practiced. Actually, the students were really enthusiastic and created a lot of questions for each

assigned chapter. And here I made a mistake myself again. I did not limit the number of

questions they could create, and they created too many for me to check all of them in time.

Consequently, they were producing a lot of bad questions without any grading and comments

from me during a month. When I finally managed to return their works, it was too late, the

grades were too low, and students’ dissatisfaction was too great. They just stopped writing

questions, and many of them even stopped reading at all. It would be much better if students

created only one question of each type (true/false, multiple choice, and open questions) of a good

quality for every meeting, submitted them electronically at least several hours before the class,

and got the written comments in class when the read material was discussed. I did use the

electronic submission of the questions, but the deadline was always 11 p.m. at the day when we

had a class. And my students confessed later that it was a weakness of the assignment, since

some of them created the questions after the class discussion and did not need to read the

chapters in advance or at all. The problem was worsened by my procrastination with grading the

questions.

To sum up, my wrongdoings in implementing the new approach to my classes were as

follows: shifting to skills development without reduction of mandatory course readings,

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including too many skills for improving in one course, making wrong assumptions about the

level of students’ skills, sparing use of modeling for all activities, even those which are

considered traditional like PowerPoint presentations and essay writing, and postponing feedback

for their work due to my being overwhelmed.

Despite all the difficulties, some of the changes were successful. My biggest successes

were regular collection of students’ feedbacks and use of metacognitive electronic journal

writing. I borrowed the first idea from the very resourceful book by Maryellen Weimer and

modified it a little. I prepared small (A6 format) colorful sheets of paper: green – for

summarizing what students learned in today’s class, red – for expressing their problems with

comprehension and asking their questions about the course material, and different colors (but

only one color for a class period) – for reflecting on their progress and struggles as learners and

for commenting on my teaching style and techniques. Actually, green and red cards dealing with

the course content failed, since students’ summarizing and inquiring skills were poor, and I could

not add these skills to already long list of the planned skills. Thus, I just stopped doing that. As

for the cards discussing methodology and skills, they were the most useful innovation in my

course, which I am going to make regular in all my teaching practice. But in order to make this

activity beneficial, a teacher should be honest and flexible. First of all I clearly defined the goal

of this activity for my students, saying that I wanted to maximize their learning, create friendly

and fruitful atmosphere for them, and provide as much help as I could. I also admitted that I do

not know how to do it, and their detailed and honest answers and comments will help us both

improve their own learning. The second even more important step is to keep your promises. If

you say that you will take their suggestions into consideration, so do it! Otherwise, students will

not consider such reflections serious and their writing will be short, dull, and useless. I want to

demonstrate how I created credibility in my course. I made the students take responsibility for

tracking their progress in class. They earn grades by accumulating points for fulfilled

assignments. I decided to provide their scores for each assignment, and students had to sum them

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up themselves and to see which grade they already earned and if they need to do other tasks for

improving their grade or not if they are satisfied with what they have got. Participation was one

of the parts of their grade, and I told them they will evaluate their own participation in each

class. Students were not happy with the situation, as they had absolutely no experience in this

sphere. One of the students, let’s call him Nurbek, expressed his concern and explained why this

evaluation should be done by the teacher and not the students. In the next class, I told them the

good news, that Nurbek persuaded me, and participation evaluation will be done by me. The

students were happy, and since then all their feedbacks and reflections were detailed,

argumentative, and sincere. We established close relations through these cards. And I did a lot of

adjustments suggested in these cards during the whole semester. Moreover, many students said

that it would be great if other teachers asked learners’ opinion during the semester instead of

usual collecting student evaluations of the course at the end of the semester, when it is useless

for the students.

Another activity valuable for me and beneficial for students was electronic journal. It was

optional like all other assignments in this course. I tried to use a journal before but not electronic

and only for the content; all the questions were connected to their mandatory or supplemental

readings or films watched in class or outside, or with the news from the US politics. Maryellen

Weimer shared all her 22 “Learning Log Entries” in her book (203-212). I used it as a basis for

developing my own journal questions. First, I planned it to be mostly metacognitive and to

include 20 entries (5 points for each). During the course I discovered that some entries could

check students’ understanding of supplementary video materials, and some were assigned for

research. In order to motivate students to do more rigorous job, analytical entries cost 10 points

each. Besides, I was ready to give even more points if the writing was really elaborative. Thus

we ended with only 16 journal entries totaling the same 100 points. I did not provide all the

entries to the students from the very beginning of the course. An additional handout for the

syllabus included only the first five entries. All the rest of them were created during the course

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and some of them mirrored the problems we uncounted in class, like Journal Entry 15. You may

find my syllabus with all journal questions in the Appendix.

The last thing which was a success is using students’ questions on the readings in their

midterm and final examinations. On the one hand, it feeds their motivation to read; the more of

their questions will be selected for an exam, the better their performance will be. And creating

important and good exam questions provided purpose for students’ careful reading texts.

Finally, if you find yourself interested in learner-centered teaching, remember that the

center of this approach is real life needs and values of the learners. Figure out what your

audience will really need after graduating from the university, and try to contribute to satisfying

those needs. Establish clear goals of your course in terms of learners’ development, and start

changing your teaching. Start small; if you introduce gradual changes in your courses, it

eventually will change you as a personality. Be courageous but not ambitious; try anything you

are interested in, but be ready for failures. They are inevitable; however, do not forget that every

cloud has a silver lining. And always keep in contact with your audience: exchange feedback,

ask for their advice how to improve their learning process, and be flexible and willing to

embrace their suggestions. I have got some of my best working techniques through the students’

recommendations. And I would love to finish with the words of the American basketball player,

coach, and author of numerous books, John Robert Wooden, “Seek opportunities to show you

care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.” Show your students you care

about their progress, and they will be happy to cooperate with you in the educational process.

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Appendix

Syllabus of American Political Parties CourseSpring 2013

Course: AMS 322 (02290) Instructor: Lana Shamanaeva3 credits shamanaeva_s@mail.auca.kgMonday, Thursday 14:10 – 15:25

Course Description and ObjectivesThe course focuses on American political parties and their historical development, structure and

activities. It also covers the patterns of voting and the role of mass media in election campaigns both presidential and congressional.

The course aims at developing students’ awareness of US political parties and their role in American life as well as developing their learning skills such as writing, reading, analyzing and communicating your thoughts orally and in writing. A special attention will be given to development of students’ responsibility.

Course AssignmentsIn this course, students have discretion to choose assignments to fulfill. You should make your

own plan of studies, which you will describe in the Journal Entry 1. You don’t have to fulfill all the assignments; you just need to obtain the necessary score for the desired grade. But keep in mind that though you define majority of deadlines for your assignments, once the due date for an assignment has passed, you can’t complete it anymore. There will be no specific tasks for earing bonus points at the end of the course, but you may be given additional points for your extra active and creative participation during the course. And every student should make at least one presentation (either individual or team).

AttendanceSince students are expected to do a lot of work in class, attendance is very important. You won’t

be credited for your good attendance, but you will definitely be punished for the poor one. One missed class will cost you 10 points and one coming late 5 points. Only THREE medical records are accepted or other three important reasons if I’m informed beforehand.

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Participation (15%)Your participation and enthusiasm are essential. Always-silent, back-corner students will get no

points. Be well prepared for class and read assigned material in advance. Your participation (even if your answer is not correct) will never lower your grade. Participation also includes active listening to your groupmates and asking questions to them as well as to your teacher.

Exam Questions (25%)In this class, instead of having quizzed made by your professor, you’ll create your own questions

on the readings, presentations, debates, films, and any other material from the course. You are supposed to upload to the e-course and bring to class true/false, open, and/or multiple choice questions for each chapter and article which we’ll read. You can make up as many questions as you like, but they must be of good quality and test important information. Your questions will be used in the midterm and final exams. One true/false and open question is 2 points, and multiple choice question costs 4 points. But if they are too simple or not appropriate, they’ll get no credit. And please include the correct answer.

Midterm and Final Exams (10% each)Exams will be partly compiled from your own questions and done through the E-Course System.

The exam will be open for a week, so if you miss an exam, it’s your own problem, no make-ups will be allowed.

Short Essays (6% each)During the course you may write 2 short essays, which will be peer-reviewed and then have to be

significantly revised. The topics, guidelines, and rubrics for their evaluation will be provided later. All the essays must be uploaded to the E-Course. Don’t forget that I’ll have schedules with all the due dates for each assignment of every student. Late assignments will be accepted but punished: 10% reduction of the grade for every extra day. Thus, it’s your responsibility to submit your papers in time.

Peer-Reviews (3% each)You may review an essay or an individual presentation of your peer students and get 15 points for

each good review. You will be provided the peer-review sheets and the rubrics for evaluation. The goal of the review is to help the author to improve his/her work and get a higher grade for it. You may choose to do up to 4 reviews, but they must be detailed and constructive; otherwise, you’ll get no credit for them. You can review papers of the same student or of different ones.

Individual Presentation (10%)Students have to choose a topic for a PowerPoint presentation on political parties within the first

week of the semester. Your presentation will be scheduled most likely on the day when we are going to discuss that topic. You have to present when you are scheduled. Postponements are possible only in exceptional cases. It has to be settled with me in advance. If you are late with your presentation, you still may do it, but your grade will be reduced by 10% for each class period.

Your presentation must be a result of a research, and be organized around a thesis statement. Thus, it must not include all the information about the party or politician, which you have found. Be selective. A simple Wikipedia description of a political party will get 0 points. The presentation must be 15 minutes long and 5-10 minutes for questions. You are supposed to speak not read your slides.

Journal (20%)Students will write a journal in the E-Course. The journal will mostly focus on your learning

skills. You may write as many entries as you choose out of the given 20, but the minimum number must be 5. If during the course, you submit less than 5 entries, you’ll get 0 points for the journal. All the entries will have a deadline, and once it passed the entry will not be accepted. The entries should be thoughtful responses to the provided questions. One entry of good quality costs 5 points.

Team Presentation (15%)You should make a team within the first week and choose a topic for your presentation within the

first 2 weeks of the semester. The presentation should be 20-25 minutes long with 10 minutes for questions, and every member must contribute orally. All the other requirements are the same as for individual presentations.

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Team Project (15%)You should make a team within the first 2 weeks of the semester and during the semester create

an advertisement for an election campaign. It can be a newspaper article, a video clip, a poster, a website, or whatever you choose. The major thing about this project is creativity! Besides, it should be persuasive and attractive. Keep in mind, it should be informative and short; the advertising time is precious. If you choose this task, the details will be discussed later during the appointment. Your team will determine the deadline for this project yourself.

GradingFor the purposes of planning, highlight the assignments you are considering, and then total the

points possible. Be realistic. It’s highly unlikely that you will get all the points possible for the tasks. Check your total with point totals needed for each grade. Be sure that you are planning to do enough assignments to get the grade you desire in the course. Keep track of your points as the course goes on (a points grid sheet will be provided later) so that you will know if you need to add more assignments. Calculating your scores is completely your responsibility. If you miscalculate and discover it too late, you’ll suffer all the consequences of that. I’ll accept no additional work which is after the due date!

You are also responsible for setting the deadlines for part of your assignments. Individual and team presentations will be scheduled according to the topics in the syllabus. You’ll have freedom in determining due dates for your essays and team project so that you distribute the work more equally during the whole semester.

Participation 15% (75 points)Exam Questions (T/F, open – 2 points, m.ch. – 4 points each) 25% (125 points)Midterm Exam 10% (50 points)Final Exam 10% (50 points)Short Essays (2 essay * 30 points) 12% (60 points)Peer Reviews (4 reviews * 15 points) 12% (60 points)Individual Presentation 10% (50 points)Journal (20 entries * 5 points) 20% (100 points)Team Presentation 15% (75 points)Team Project 15% (75 points)

142% (720 points) TOTAL

Grades for the course will be given according to the following scale:

above 476 A 95 – 100%475 – 456 A- 90 – 94%455 – 426 B+ 85 – 89%425 – 401 B 80 – 84%400 – 376 B- 75 – 79%375 – 356 C+ 70 – 74% 355 – 326 C 65 – 69%325 – 301 C- 60 – 64%300 – 276 D 55 – 59%275 – below F 0 – 54%

PlagiarismNO Plagiarism will be tolerated at all! Any plagiarism (even so-called unintended) will result

in immediate failure of the course, not just an assignment! You are not freshmen, thus it’s absolutely your responsibility to find out what plagiarism is (ask me if you are unsure) and to do your best to avoid it. I’ll have no mercy for cheaters! Believe me!

Readings1. Hershey, Marjorie Randon. Party Politics in America. New York: Pearson/Longman. 13th

edition. 2009.11

2. Wayne, Stephen J. The Road to the White House 2008: The Politics of Presidential Elections. Boston: Thomson/Wadsworth. 2008.

3. McKenna, George and Stanley Feingold. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Political Issues. New York: McGraw Hill. 2012.

4. DiClerico, Robert E. and Allan S. Hammock. Points of View: Readings in American Government and Politics. Boston: McGraw Hill. 2009.

5. Loomis, Burdett A. and Wendy J. Schiller. The Contemporary Congress. Canada: Thomson/Wadsworth. 2006.

6. Reichley, A. James. The Life of the Parties. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 1992.7. Bibby, John F. Politics, Parties, and Elections in America. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers.

1996.

Electronic Course System http://e-course.auca.kg

Daily Syllabus

[A daily calendar of all classes with dates, topics, and assignments follows.]

Journal Entries

Entry 1

Develop a game plan for the course indicating which assignments you plan to complete and when you would like to submit each assignment. Why have you selected these options? What do you think your choices indicate about your learning preferences? Why do you think a teacher would give students a choice about assignments? How do you think this strategy will affect your performance in the class?

Entry 2

Which learning skills do you need to develop? Be specific. “Writing skills” is too general. Which writing skills exactly: summarizing, forming a strong thesis statement, incorporating quotes into your argument, organizing a paragraph around one single idea, telling the difference between introduction and conclusion (which info to include in the intro and which in the conclusion), finding your own position among all those scholars, etc.? If there are too many, prioritize them. Which 2-3 skills you would like to focus on in this class? Why have you chosen them? What did you do before to improve these skills? How successful were those strategies? Which assignments in this class will help you to develop these skills? How can I as a teacher help you to improve in chosen areas?

Entry 3

Write about your class participation in university courses. What role should student participation play in the college classroom? How much do you participate? What do you usually do in class? Is that as much as you’d like to contribute? If it’s not as much, what keeps you from saying more in class? If you are active in class discussions, could you somehow help other more silent and shy students to participate more? What exactly can you do in our classes to involve more students to discussions?

Entry 4

Think about your experiences working in groups. What made those group experiences effective or ineffective? What responsibilities do individuals have when they participate in groups? Can individual members do anything to encourage other members to fulfill these responsibilities? How can people contribute to group work? Do some research if you need. What roles do you typically fill in groups? Think about trying new, more challenging roles. Are there any skills you’d like to develop further?

Entry 5

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What topic have you chosen for your individual or team presentation? Why have you chosen it? Which materials have you already found for it? What particular aspect about this topic are you going to focus on? What can be the preliminary thesis statement around which you will organize your research? How can I or your classmates help you with your presentation at this stage?

Entry 6

We don't have much discussion about the material you are reading. How much have you got so far? Are there any particular topics we have covered, which you are totally confused about and need to clarify? Be specific so that I can help you.

Entry 7

Do some research (not very extensive) and say what you've learned about the US health care system. How does it work? What are advantages and disadvantages of it? Why is so widely discussed in every election during the last 20 years? And I want you to share this information with the whole class, thus, copy your response to the Forum 1 (on health care). If you find some interesting advertising about it, share the links with us.

Entry 8

Do some research (not very extensive) and say what you've learned about election campaigns of Hillary Clinton. What positions did she campaign for? How much money did she spend? Where did it mostly come from? What issues did she focus on during her campaigns? If you find some interesting advertising about her, share the links. You can also share this info with the whole class through Forum 2 on Hillary Clinton.

Entry 9

After watching the film Sicko by Michael Moore, answer the following questions:1. What are the problems the US has with health care system? 2. What in the film struck you the most?3. Where does all the money spent on health care by the US government and citizens go?4. Why cannot the US solve these problems for such a long time?

Entry 10 (10 points)

Watch the 1st and 2nd 2012 presidential debates and discuss in detail the strategy used by each candidate in the debate. What they focused on answering a question? Did they just describe the situation, offer a solution in general terms or provided a more or less detailed plan for future improvements, or criticized the opponent? How did they do it? How did they control the conversation? How did they try to improve their own image and damage the image of the opponent? Who of the candidates looked better and why?

Entry 11 (10 points)

Watch the 2008 presidential debate between the major party candidates and between the minor party candidates. How are these debates different from each other? Were their rules different? How and why? What were the candidates talking about? Did the minor party candidates look better than major party candidates?

Entry 12

We have covered two thirds of the course so far. You should calculate your grades yourself. Where are you right now? Will you be able to get the grade you planned? If not, why did it happen? What you can do to improve your grade before the course is over?You still have a chance to make short bonus presentations (even without PowerPoint) about some details just mentioned in the text to improve your participation grade.

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Entry 13 (10 points)

Watch the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and get as much as you can from this film about the rules and procedures of Senate work. The better and more detailed analysis you make, the better your grade will be (maybe even more than 10 points).

Entry 14

Analyze the presidential debates we had in class. Who was the most persuasive? Why? What were the mistakes of each candidate? How much the candidates' programs and performance influenced your final choice? Would you choose the same candidate (Democrat, Republican, independent) if you hadn't seen this debate? Why yes? Or why no?

Entry 15

Watch Begaiym's presentation about Ann Richards again and answer the following questions. The purpose of the presentation was to show how governors, as part of the executive branch, deal with political parties. And don't forget that the class is American Political Parties.1. Which information from Begaiym's presentation you would keep?2. What should be eliminated?3. What kind of information should be added?4. Do you have any questions about her, which you would like to have answered?If you wish, you may redo her presentation and upload it to the e-course. Since there will be no oral presentation of it, put your actual speech into the notes area. The grade (maximum 40 points) will be added to your total score.

Entry 16 (10 points)

Reflect on your learning in this course. Evaluate1) improvement of your skills (reading, writing, research, analysis, preparing presentations, oral performance, evaluating other essays, time-management, tracing your progress in class, etc.) Be specific did any of your skills improved? What helped you to do so? Which course activities were useful, and which were useless for developing your skills?2) how much content you've learned in this class. Which activities helped you to acquire the information better (reading the course reader, doing research for your presentation/essay, listening to my lectures, watching the presentations in class, class discussions/debates, reviewing essays of peers, short videos in class, long videos out of class, etc.)? If my lectures were supported with PowerPoint regularly, would it help you to learn the information better? Why?

References

Bonwell, Charles C. [1991?] Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. PDF. Purdue Agriculture. Accessed May 10, 2013. http://www.ydae.purdue.edu/lct/hbcu/documents/Active_Learning_Creating_Excitement_in_the_Classroom.pdf

Chickering, Arthur W., and Stephen C. Ehrmann. 1996. "Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever." AAHE Bulletin October: 3-6. Accessed May 9, 2013. http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html.  

Schoffstall, Donald G. 2010. “Don’t Assume a Student’s Previous Knowledge.” Faculty Focus Special Report: Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom March: 7-8. Accessed

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May 9, 2013. http://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/teaching-mistakes-from-the-college-classroom/.

Weimer, Maryellen. 2002. Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Accessed May 10, 2013. http://freepdfdb.com/pdf/learner-centered-teaching-book

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