I'm fairly satisfied with how I have replicated my classroom environment here. I do have to "lecture" more, since they aren't doing the readings ahead of time. This also means I need to do more example calculations for them - and they would benefit from even more examples. I am managing to have many conceptual examples, demonstrations, and questions for them to work on.
My "think-pair-share" questions have gone fairly well, but could be improved on. Some of the questions are too hard, and don't quite match the content. I'm having difficulty "enforcing" the idea that they first answer the question on their own, without talking to others. Many of them talk a little to the people around them, but I don't know if they are asking for minor clarifications or fully discussing the problem. When I have them discuss after the first vote, they really have a discussion. Interestingly, they tend not to switch their votes - I don't know if everyone is more sure (such that the wrong answers don't change) or if everyone is less sure (such that the correct monks aren't convincing), compared to my normal students.
The colored note cards are working reasonably well, but I do prefer the clicker system that I use at Agnes. I can only estimate the percentage of different answers for the notecards, while the clicker system will tell me exact percentage. More importantly, students vote "secretly" with the clickers, so no one knows what others have said. Sometimes the answers are very uniform here, except for the people at the front who can't see what everyone else is voting. Finally, I can "enforce" answering. I think only about 60% - 70% of the students are typically raising their notecards. However, they tend to raise their notecards at different times so I might only be seeing a fraction of the ones who have actually voted.
One big difference between the classroom here and back at Agnes - other than the number and type of students - is that here I get to use a microphone! I don't usually feel like a pop star when I'm teaching. At one point I tried lecturing without it, since I can be pretty loud, but the microphone really is needed.
I've realized one aspect of my teaching doesn't really work here: I tend to use my body and gestures to demo different motions and forces. I do the same thing here, but many of the students don't know enough English to understand what I am saying. I think they just see me dancing around, making funny motions, and don't know why I am doing it. Tsondue tends to be more conservative in physically demonstrating motion and forces. I'm basically a crazy person. When I jumped on a chair to drop things, the students here looked as concerned as my students at Agnes typically do when I do similar things. I was a little more cautious in my demonstration of Newton's 3rd law and Friction. When I did the demo at Agnes I really pushed against the wall hard enough that my feet slipped and I fell down. The students were very concerned and I assured them I was ok (I actually had hurt myself). Here, I just slid a little but didn't push hard enough to fall down. While the demo is less effective, I had already fallen down once today...
I do think my class is going well. It has gone fast - I only have two days of lecture left! One of the monks who is assisting (who went to Emory in the past to learn math and physics) said that the monks like my class and that he hoped I would come back next year. I'm taking notes on things so that I can do better next year; I hope that I will be able to come back to this monastery and teach the same topic. Given that this is the "swankiest" monastery and I'm teaching the "easiest" course, I might have to fight for that.
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| Monks using color-coded cards to respond to a question. |
The colored note cards are working reasonably well, but I do prefer the clicker system that I use at Agnes. I can only estimate the percentage of different answers for the notecards, while the clicker system will tell me exact percentage. More importantly, students vote "secretly" with the clickers, so no one knows what others have said. Sometimes the answers are very uniform here, except for the people at the front who can't see what everyone else is voting. Finally, I can "enforce" answering. I think only about 60% - 70% of the students are typically raising their notecards. However, they tend to raise their notecards at different times so I might only be seeing a fraction of the ones who have actually voted.
One big difference between the classroom here and back at Agnes - other than the number and type of students - is that here I get to use a microphone! I don't usually feel like a pop star when I'm teaching. At one point I tried lecturing without it, since I can be pretty loud, but the microphone really is needed.
I've realized one aspect of my teaching doesn't really work here: I tend to use my body and gestures to demo different motions and forces. I do the same thing here, but many of the students don't know enough English to understand what I am saying. I think they just see me dancing around, making funny motions, and don't know why I am doing it. Tsondue tends to be more conservative in physically demonstrating motion and forces. I'm basically a crazy person. When I jumped on a chair to drop things, the students here looked as concerned as my students at Agnes typically do when I do similar things. I was a little more cautious in my demonstration of Newton's 3rd law and Friction. When I did the demo at Agnes I really pushed against the wall hard enough that my feet slipped and I fell down. The students were very concerned and I assured them I was ok (I actually had hurt myself). Here, I just slid a little but didn't push hard enough to fall down. While the demo is less effective, I had already fallen down once today...
I do think my class is going well. It has gone fast - I only have two days of lecture left! One of the monks who is assisting (who went to Emory in the past to learn math and physics) said that the monks like my class and that he hoped I would come back next year. I'm taking notes on things so that I can do better next year; I hope that I will be able to come back to this monastery and teach the same topic. Given that this is the "swankiest" monastery and I'm teaching the "easiest" course, I might have to fight for that.
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