Discussion: Investigating a Teaching Problem with CATs, Part 2
In this week’s Discussion, you will wrap up your time as a faculty member in a Speech Communication department. Last week, you discussed how to use classroom assessment to investigate your students’ apparent lack of motivation and ability to improve their speaking abilities. This week, you will begin to reflect on the results of your investigation and decide what to do about it.
In your Speech Communication course, you decided to use "Reflective Learning Logs" to gather information about what students thought about class activities, about their work outside of class, and about public speaking in general. You asked students to hand in anonymous copies of their logs each week. In reading through the first few weeks’ worth of logs, you discover the following:
All but two of your students report that they are terribly afraid of speaking in public.
Four of your students (about one-fifth of the class) are non-native English speakers and feel very unsure of their ability to make a formal speech in English.
Half of the class reports spending less than 2 hours per week outside of class on this course.
About a third of your students felt that the expectations for the first assignment (a Powerpoint presentation, submitted electronically and not actually presented in class) were unclear. All of the assignments in your course require some form of slide presentation or visual aid, and you use the same rubric language for these parts of the assignments throughout the course.
By Day 3
Post
a short summary of what you think these results mean. Then, suggest at least two ideas for how you could use these findings to help students overcome their difficulties.
...
Discussion Investigating a Teaching Problem with CATs, Part 2.docx
1. Discussion: Investigating a Teaching Problem with CATs, Part
2
In this week’s Discussion, you will wrap up your time as a
faculty member in a Speech Communication department. Last
week, you discussed how to use classroom assessment to
investigate your students’ apparent lack of motivation and
ability to improve their speaking abilities. This week, you will
begin to reflect on the results of your investigation and decide
what to do about it.
In your Speech Communication course, you decided to use
"Reflective Learning Logs" to gather information about what
students thought about class activities, about their work outside
of class, and about public speaking in general. You asked
students to hand in anonymous copies of their logs each week.
In reading through the first few weeks’ worth of logs, you
discover the following:
All but two of your students report that they are terribly afraid
of speaking in public.
Four of your students (about one-fifth of the class) are non-
native English speakers and feel very unsure of their ability to
make a formal speech in English.
Half of the class reports spending less than 2 hours per week
outside of class on this course.
About a third of your students felt that the expectations for the
first assignment (a Powerpoint presentation, submitted
electronically and not actually presented in class) were unclear.
2. All of the assignments in your course require some form of slide
presentation or visual aid, and you use the same rubric language
for these parts of the assignments throughout the course.
By Day 3
Post
a short summary of what you think these results mean. Then,
suggest at least two ideas for how you could use these findings
to help students overcome their difficulties.
