Teaching Strategies and Techniques

• Active and Cooperative Learning
• Diversity in the Classroom
• Lectures and Oral Presentations
• Preparing for Class
• Teaching Large Courses

Active and Cooperative Learning

R.M. Felder and R. Brent, "Learning by Doing."  In a succinct article, Felder and Brent address the philosophy and strategies of active learning with a particular emphasis on engineering education.

R.M. Felder, "It Goes Without Saying."  Dr. Felder provides a detailed, illustrative example of how he uses active learning in engineering classrooms. 

L. Dee Fink, "Active Learning," discusses conceptualizing and implementing active learning.

Jennifer Faust and Donald Paulson, faculty at CSU, Los Angeles, define active and cooperative learning, offer suggestions for both individual and group exercises, discuss critical thinking motivators, and give tips for classroom assessment in "Active Learning for the College Classroom."

Handouts from the Teaching with Discussion workshop offer tips for integrating discussion into your classes. 
 

Diversity in the Classroom

In "Diversity, Discourse, and the Working Class Student," Janet Galligani Casey discusses how the working class student fits into current discourses of diversity.

Barbara Gross Davis' classic text, "Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom," addresses strategies for incorporating diversity, tactics for overcoming biases, advising, and designing sensitive course content, assignments, and classroom discussions.

In support of Martin Luther King, Jr. Days of Dialogue, the ECTL published Classroom Dialogues, tips for creating diversity centered dialogue in the classroom.

The Teaching and Learning Series on Diversity is a collection of monographs written by faculty at CU Boulder on embracing diversity in teaching and learning. 
 

Lectures and Oral Presentations

The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard acknowledges the need for lecture-style presentation.  "Twenty Tips to Make Lectures More Participatory" addresses some of the common problems of this presentation style.

Berkeley Compendium of Suggestions for Teaching with Excellence   Lecture topics include presentation style, speaking technique, clarity, preparation, discussion, and assessment. 

"Lectures:  Organizing Them and Making them Interesting," published by the Instructional Development Program at the University of Oklahoma, gives a series of useful tips for lecture-style presentations.

Barbara Gross Davis' "Tools for Teaching" contains a section on teaching large lecture courses.  She discusses strategies, organization, lecture notes, structure, and class management. 
 

Preparing for Class

Self assess your teaching goals with the Teaching Goals Inventory developed by T.A. Angelo and K.P. Cross in Classroom Assessment Techniques (1993).

In "Preparing or Revising a Course," Barbara Gross Davis addresses the critical decisions and processes involved in preparing or revising a course. 

L. Dee Fink offers suggestions for starting class on the right note in "First Day of Class:  What Can/Should We Do?"

Syllabus Design offers a how-to approach to syllabus preparation.
 

Teaching Large Courses

Campus Instructional Consulting at Indiana University-Bloomington has prepared answers to FAQs About Teaching Large Classes.

"Big, but Not Bad," was published by the Chronicle of Higher Education to combat the notion that the best learning only takes place in small seminar-type classrooms.  Effective teaching and learning can, and does, happen in large enrollment courses.  Examples of successful large courses are offered in addition to tips from faculty.

The Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Maryland has created "Large Classes:  A Teaching Guide."  The guide offered practical, informed tips on making large classes effective learning environments. 

A Survival Handbook for Teaching Large Classes (UNC-Charlotte) addresses many of the issues common to large enrollment courses:  constructing exams, lecture presentation, use of technology, encouraging attendance, and incorporating active learning. 

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