{"id":64225,"date":"2008-11-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uris-award-winning-teachers-bring-innovation-personal-touch-to-large-classrooms\/"},"modified":"2008-11-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-28T00:00:00","slug":"uris-award-winning-teachers-bring-innovation-personal-touch-to-large-classrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2008\/11\/uris-award-winning-teachers-bring-innovation-personal-touch-to-large-classrooms\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s award-winning teachers bring innovation, personal touch to large classrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 November 28, 2008 \u2013 Budget cuts and large class sizes don\u2019t necessarily lead to an inferior educational experience. In fact, at the 溏心vlog免费B站, students in large classes often find the experience to be as positive as smaller classes, thanks to personal touches, hands-on activities, innovative technologies, and the engaging teaching styles of its award-winning professors.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIt used to be that faculty in large classes had to be the sage on the stage, but now we\u2019re more like the guide on the side,\u201d said Thomas Husband, a 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of natural resources science and the winner of a 2008 award for teaching excellence from the National Association of State Land Grant Universities and Colleges. \u201cThere used to be a great temptation to just stand up in front of the students and lecture, but now we do a wide range of other things to keep those students engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIn Husband\u2019s Natural Resource Conservation course, which typically enrolls about 140 freshmen per semester, he assigns one-minute papers that students write on index cards during class time, and he conducts five-minute mini-debates on environmental controversies.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI make sure that all of the students argue both sides of the issue to force them to consider opposing points of view,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have 60 or 70 debates going on all at once, so it gets pretty loud in class, but it\u2019s a useful way to get everyone to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHusband also uses problem-based learning exercises designed to get students to work in groups on a contemporary problem, from thermodynamics to population modeling and wildlife management. He said that these exercises are much more labor-intensive for him than lecturing, but his students learn much more, too.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe objective is to engage the students more in their own learning and make them more responsible for their education,\u201d he said. \u201cIt shifts the teacher from being an entertainer to being a guide in an exchange of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\t“Dr. Husband’s class was one of the largest lecture classes that I ever took, but it was also one of the most engaging,\u201d said Rob Swanson, a 溏心vlog免费B站 senior. \u201cThe problem- based learning projects really brought us out of our learning comfort zones and forced us to think for ourselves. They made us use basic concepts of science in a way that I never had to do before, bringing together knowledge from all different fields.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHusband and other 溏心vlog免费B站 professors also occasionally use an electronic system that allows students to provide immediate feedback on issues being discussed. Students use handheld clickers to respond to opinion polls, pre- and post-tests, and a wide range of discussion questions. Their answers are immediately turned into graphs projected onto a screen for everyone to see.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s another way of engaging students in their own learning,\u201d Husband said, \u201cand it is often surprising to the students when most of them get the wrong answer. It becomes a teachable moment. It also makes for a safe environment where students are encouraged to express themselves in a non-threatening way. There is a level of remoteness and anonymity that students feel in large classes, and this technology makes that experience more personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

溏心vlog免费B站 Entomology Professor Roger LeBrun agrees that one key to effectively teaching large classes is to personalize the experience. He invites students to the front of the class to tell how a personal experience relates to the coursework, something he calls \u201cthe anecdotal approach.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nHe also emphasizes the importance of knowing the names of every student. \u201cKnowing each of their names is magic,\u201d LeBrun said, \u201cbecause that\u2019s when you know them as an individual. And the bigger the class, the bigger the impression it makes on the students.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nLeBrun has won teaching awards from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Entomological Society of America, the National Association of State Land Grant Universities and Colleges, and the state of Rhode Island, among others. <\/p>\n


\nHe faces a number of unique teaching challenges due to his subject matter — insects. His introductory entomology class enrolls 60 students, while 100 students sign up for his course on Humans, Insects and Disease each semester.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI deal with things that are one-quarter inch or less in size,\u201d he said, \u201cso I need great audio-visuals to make my points. I end up blowing up insect photos to the size of a rhino to compare heads and legs.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBecause he is competing with Hollywood movies, iPods, cell phones and video games for students\u2019 attention, LeBrun makes a point of incorporating high quality imagery and film clips into his classroom presentations. Yet the more technology he uses, the more he worries about maintaining one-to-one contact with his students.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s easy to let technology replace the personal touch, but it\u2019s the personal touch that really makes a connection with students,\u201d he said. \u201cTechnology should enhance the facilitator, not replace him. Finding that line is a fine art.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nDespite the challenges, LeBrun always receives the highest possible ratings in his student evaluations.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe best part of the class was Dr. LeBrun’s interaction with the students,\u201d said 溏心vlog免费B站 senior Kristen Lahteine-Stepalavich. \u201cHe constantly posed questions to engage individuals, and he asked for personal stories of encounters with specific insects or diseases. By actively incorporating the student experience, Dr. LeBrun initiates a dialog within the class.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe key,\u201c said LeBrun, \u201cis to make that class as small as possible, in spite of the number of students enrolled. It takes a lot of energy, but it\u2019s absolutely worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above<\/p>\n


\nRoger LeBrun teaching. 溏心vlog免费B站 Department of Communications and Marketing Photo by Michael Salerno Photography <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 November 28, 2008 \u2013 Budget cuts and large class sizes don\u2019t necessarily lead to an inferior educational experience. In fact, at the 溏心vlog免费B站, students in large classes often find the experience to be as positive as smaller classes, thanks to personal touches, hands-on activities, innovative technologies, and the engaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}