24
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
Successful Teaching
What makes a good teacher? What makes a great one? In addition to illustrating the important role that teaching—and teachers—play in civilized society, Professor Allitt outlines the structure of the following 23 lectures and introduces you to the other veteran Great Courses professors who'll appear throughout the course.
1.
Successful Teaching
|
13.
Cogent Thinking and Effective Writing
A great weakness in American education and, consequently, in business is students' writing. Improve the way your students write with Professor Allitt's suggestions for assignments and exercises, including assigning papers with sentences of 10 words or fewer (to stress the merits of precision), 100- and 500-word summaries (to test students' ability to isolate issues in a text), and more exercises.
13.
Cogent Thinking and Effective Writing
|
2.
The Broad Range of Learners
There has always been a strong relationship between teaching and learning. Here, discover how lifelong learning habits are cultivated by listening to students share their own insights, and hear teachers stress why it's important to always keep learning.
2.
The Broad Range of Learners
|
14.
Teaching Revision and Editing
Continue your exploration of how to encourage and strengthen student writing with pointed advice on editing drafts (such as looking out for verb-tense inconsistency), rewriting papers (such as reading drafts aloud), and practicing more writing (such as having students keep a journal).
14.
Teaching Revision and Editing
|
3.
Starting Out Right
The first day of class. It's the most daunting moment in the career of both new and seasoned professors. In this lecture, learn how to make the most of your first class meeting by actively getting to know your students' names, demonstrating why your subject is so important and fascinating, establishing your expectations, and more.
3.
Starting Out Right
|
15.
Coaching Students on Presentation Skills
Presentations, delivered by either one student or a group of students, are a part of nearly every teacher's classroom. So what makes a presentation so bad? More important, what can you do as a teacher to improve the quality of your students' presentations? Discover the answers to these questions here.
15.
Coaching Students on Presentation Skills
|
4.
The Teacher's Persona
Discover ways to develop and enhance your teaching persona—the in-classroom personality that establishes respect among your students. These include establishing guidelines and boundaries; using dress, regionalism, age, and other personal characteristics to your advantage; and avoiding the pitfalls of treating students as peers.
4.
The Teacher's Persona
|
16.
One-on-One Teaching
Research shows that one-on-one contact between teachers and their students has benefits for both parties. Here, watch two instances of Professor Allitt interacting with individual students and witness just how effective and valuable this kind of teaching experience really is.
16.
One-on-One Teaching
|
5.
Planning the Work
What do you want your students to learn? How do you intend to teach your subject? How would you solve potential learning problems? The answers to these questions lie in this lecture on the art of planning, which can help cut down on your degree of uncertainty and strengthen your teaching confidence.
5.
Planning the Work
|
17.
The Learner's Perspective
Learn from students themselves their perspectives and opinions on the art and craft of teaching. What do they want from a teacher? What responsibilities do they take for their successes and failures in the classroom? How do they think teaching could be improved?
17.
The Learner's Perspective
|
6.
The Teacher-Student Relationship
Listen to what teachers and students themselves have to say about the importance of maintaining responsible and productive teacher-student relationships. Professor Allitt also offers tips on the best ways to create and maintain a strong practical and professional working relationship with your students.
6.
The Teacher-Student Relationship
|
18.
Exams, Evaluation, and Feedback
In this lecture, Professor Allitt reveals several approaches you can take to creating, administering, and grading exams—whether multiple-choice, short answer, or even oral tests. Plus, investigate ways to deal with cheating and plagiarism and how to approach—and learn from—your students' evaluations of your class.
18.
Exams, Evaluation, and Feedback
|
7.
Dynamic Lecturing
Throughout the history of education, lecturing has been one of the basic ways teachers pass information on to their students. So what makes a lecture good? How can you work toward becoming a more effective lecturer? What kinds of mistakes do lecturers commonly make—and how can you avoid them? Find the answers here.
7.
Dynamic Lecturing
|
19.
Maintaining Your Enthusiasm
When you've taught for quite a while, it can be easy to lose enthusiasm for your profession and your subject. But research shows that students respond favorably to enthusiastic teachers. Here, learn how to reinvigorate your teaching by tapping into new research in your field and experimenting with team teaching.
19.
Maintaining Your Enthusiasm
|
8.
Teaching with PowerPoint
The 21st-century classroom is filled with all manner of technological teaching aids, yet it's easy for these technologies to be misused and overused. With PowerPoint as your example, focus on tips for using technology to complement, not control, your teaching style.
8.
Teaching with PowerPoint
|
20.
Managing the Challenges of Teaching
Teaching is not easy—especially for beginners. This lecture exposes strategies for maintaining your confidence in common challenging teaching situations, such as when you have a large course load or when you have to teach outside of your area of expertise.
20.
Managing the Challenges of Teaching
|
9.
Demonstrations, Old and New
From PowerPoint, move on to other technologies that can both enhance and detract from your lectures. This lecture reveals the pros and cons of using older "technologies"—like blackboards, whiteboards, and in-class demonstrations—and more recent technologies such as clickers, e-mail, and podcasts.
9.
Demonstrations, Old and New
|
21.
Creativity and Innovation
Just as important as maintaining enthusiasm for your job is instilling in your classes a sense of the unexpected. Look at some valuable techniques for keeping your teaching style interesting and innovative, and discover why these techniques can be more effective when they take advantage of your location or the special circumstances of the moment.
21.
Creativity and Innovation
|
10.
Teaching the Critical Skills
Teachers must resist the assumption that their students know how to read critically. Here, Professor Allitt stresses the importance of having your students read aloud as a way to develop and enhance their knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, tone, and other components essential to analytical reading.
10.
Teaching the Critical Skills
|
22.
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths
Education is for everybody. A good teacher makes all the difference. You should always uphold your students' self-esteem. The best teachers work at the most prestigious colleges and universities. Professor Allitt dispels these and other common—and sometimes controversial—illusions about teaching and American education.
22.
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths
|
11.
Engaging with Discussion, Part 1
Equally as important as critical reading skills are critical speaking skills. In the first of two lectures on this subject, discover how to make the most of your seminars with helpful ways to coax participation in your classroom, including calling on quiet students and encouraging your students to ask plenty of questions.
11.
Engaging with Discussion, Part 1
|
23.
The Anatomy of a Great Teacher
Listen to professors describe their lives and learn the answer to one of the most important questions in this course: What makes a good teacher great? Some common characteristics of great teachers that you explore include thinking of teaching as a calling, not a job; being able to be self-critical; and constantly striving to improve.
23.
The Anatomy of a Great Teacher
|
12.
Engaging with Discussion, Part 2
Watch class discussions in action and learn how small groups can strengthen your students' abilities to communicate intellectually; how the special type of seminar known as the case method can prepare your students for the professional world; and the vital role of humor in turning your seminar into a productive environment.
12.
Engaging with Discussion, Part 2
|
24.
Teaching and Civilization
Conclude the course by taking a giant leap back and viewing the art, craft, and importance of teaching from a historical perspective. Why is education so important to advancing civilization? Who are some of history's greatest teachers? And what is the moral and political significance of this honorable and ancient profession?
24.
Teaching and Civilization
|
18
Lectures
30
minutes/lecture
1.
Understanding Your Unique Intelligence
In this introductory lecture, students learn what intelligence is, how it reveals itself in multiple ways (including visual, spatial, interpersonal, and logical intelligence), and several characteristics that all great students share.
1.
Understanding Your Unique Intelligence
|
10.
Delivering Dynamic Presentations
Develop an opening hook that takes advantage of a startling image or fact. Organize your speech or presentation the way you would organize a research paper. Make sure to use visual aids sparingly but effectively. These are just three of the many strategies students will find here for delivering dynamic presentations.
10.
Delivering Dynamic Presentations
|
2.
Developing Effective Habits in Class
Students explore three keys to success in the classroom: preparing, participating, and taking good notes. How can they make preparing for class quick and simple? How can they participate in class without looking “dorky”? What are the best ways to take notes while still paying attention to what’s going on in class?
2.
Developing Effective Habits in Class
|
11.
Taking Control of Tests
In this lecture, students find out what it takes to perform at their best when the stakes are high: taking tests. They’ll learn how to prepare themselves for various types of tests, focus their studying on what they need to know, combat test anxiety, attack tests with a clear strategy, learn from their wrong answers, and more.
11.
Taking Control of Tests
|
3.
Working Cooperatively in Groups
Professor Geisen focuses on the techniques of effective group work. Students discover how to structure their group to use everyone’s strengths; how to avoid the dangers of insensitivity by communicating with tact; and how to reach a consensus using a variety of methods, including dot voting and weighted voting.
3.
Working Cooperatively in Groups
|
12.
Finding Balance
Students learn the importance of maintaining balance in their lives. Professor Geisen’s pointed advice includes getting more efficient with their time, cutting back on things that prevent them from achieving their goals, and diving deep into a couple of activities they really love to do.
12.
Finding Balance
|
4.
Managing Time and Organizing Spaces
By navigating their busy lives more effectively, students can free up more time and space for true learning—and things they really like to do. First, students will bust the myth that multitasking actually works. Then, they’ll develop strategies for planning and prioritizing activities. Finally, they’ll learn some secrets to keeping themselves—and their work—organized.
4.
Managing Time and Organizing Spaces
|
13.
Managing Your Child’s Education
The most important teacher in a student’s life: his or her parents. Professor Geisen shows you how to become a true learner, why most learning happens outside the classroom, and how you can adapt to the continually changing landscape of 21st-century education.
13.
Managing Your Child’s Education
|
5.
Taking Charge of Homework
Here, Professor Geisen gives students tips for creating the perfect study environment, offers them study techniques that fit with their unique learning style, and demonstrates ways to take truly effective notes.
5.
Taking Charge of Homework
|
14.
Understanding How We Learn
Approach learning with wisdom from neuroscience and educational research. How do our brains assimilate information? What can you do when your student is out of his or her comfort zone on an assignment? How can you help your student embrace his or her learning style?
14.
Understanding How We Learn
|
6.
Developing a Creative Mind
Students take a closer look at play, risk, trust, and other mind-sets needed for creative thinking, as well as practical techniques for brainstorming, using a different viewpoint, and changing their environment.
6.
Developing a Creative Mind
|
15.
Helping with Homework
Discover how to create the perfect mood, space, and time for your student’s academic success; how to help your student with homework—and how much help to give; and what to do when you don’t have the answers.
15.
Helping with Homework
|
7.
Thinking Critically
Students turn to the second half of thinking: critical thinking, where they decide what to do with all their ideas. They explore how to evaluate evidence, recognize bias, distance themselves from emotions, use logic and reasoning, and much more.
7.
Thinking Critically
|
16.
Working with Teachers
Professor Geisen reveals the two foundations of a solid parent-teacher relationship, offers tips to improve communication, and provides options for effectively handling problems and complaints.
16.
Working with Teachers
|
8.
Diving into Research
The ability to research effectively is a huge factor in students' success. Professor Geisen guides them through the process of pre-searching, searching, evaluating, and organizing. They’ll also get tips for working with the wide range of sources available to the 21st-century student.
8.
Diving into Research
|
17.
Preparing for College and the Future
How you talk about and expose your student to college makes a huge difference in how he or she approaches this subject. Which post-high-school option is best for your child? What are colleges looking for in applicants? Find the answers to these questions and more.
17.
Preparing for College and the Future
|
9.
Writing Well
Whatever kind of learning style students have, all it takes to strengthen and improve their writing is following a series of guidelines and techniques. They’ll discover the secrets to choosing powerful words, building effective paragraphs, organizing entire essays, spending the right amount of time drafting and editing their work, and more.
9.
Writing Well
|
18.
Parenting with Balance
Professor Geisen offers you candid advice on being the best parent you can be—all from the perspective of his role as a teacher. You’ll find tips and exercises to ensure that you’re inspiring, not forcing, your child to learn and live a responsible life.
18.
Parenting with Balance
|