{"id":2113,"date":"2017-01-24T16:11:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T22:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2017-01-24T16:11:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T22:11:50","slug":"spring-in-full-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/spring-in-full-swing\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring in full swing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back from the winter break! &nbsp;From the hustle and bustle in the hallways, it\u2019s clear that students are happy to be back. &nbsp;These beginning moments are so important for our courses because they influence a student\u2019s choice about the course.&nbsp; There are other influences, such as a student being required to take the course, that impact the classroom environment, but we, as faculty, do have a primary role in encouraging students from beginning to end.&nbsp; Our design encourages students to engage or disengage.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>During our pre-spring workshops, faculty were able to attend several sessions of their choosing. &nbsp;I chose to attend sessions on writing, active learning, flipped classrooms, and new technologies.&nbsp; Each of these sessions provided me with some take-away that I am excited to integrate or have already implemented, so I wanted to share a few gems that have worked for me just from day 1!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>List of qualifiers: while this is not the actual name of the activity, I thought it sounded accurate. &nbsp;Have students write down a list of phrases or words that they feel represents them as individuals.&nbsp; Students will share this list, so they will need a reminder to write down what they\u2019re comfortable with others knowing about themselves.&nbsp; After the students have several minutes to write, they take turns reading their lists allowed.&nbsp; This can happen in a circle or even by popcorn style (where students self-volunteer who reads next).<\/li>\n<li>Word summary: again this is not the actual name of the activity, but it\u2019s my blogpost, so it\u2019s what I am naming this activity. J This strategy can be a get-to-know-you activity, or it could even been used as a formative assessment tool.&nbsp; Give the students a prompt and have them fill in the word that they feel best represents them.&nbsp; The prompt I used was, \u201cThe word that I would use to describe literacy is _____________.\u201d&nbsp; What the students shared was very telling for me about their fears, excitement, engagement, and more regarding literacy.&nbsp; I\u2019m planning on using this at the beginning and end of some classes as a reflection about the activity.<\/li>\n<li>60 sec pop up: This is another get-to-know-you activity, as well as a great community builder. This could also be used as a content related activity or a mini-assessment.&nbsp; Most importantly, it encourages simple, yet effective, movement in your class.&nbsp; For this activity, I read statements to the students and then they were to stand if they were true.&nbsp; They would then sit between each statement.&nbsp; At the end of my statements, I encouraged the students to create a few statements that they wanted to know about their peers.&nbsp; Here are all of the statements the students were asked:\n<ul>\n<li>I am in WRIT 120.<\/li>\n<li>I am in a sport.<\/li>\n<li>My favorite food at the pub is a milkshake.<\/li>\n<li>I know my major.<\/li>\n<li>I am a new student.<\/li>\n<li>I am a freshman or sophomore.<\/li>\n<li>I am a junior or senior.<\/li>\n<li>I like to read for pleasure (when I can).<\/li>\n<li>I have siblings.<\/li>\n<li>I like to dance (salsa).<\/li>\n<li>I like diverse music.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Feel free to use any of these strategies for your courses whether in the beginning, middle, or end of the semester.&nbsp; If you\u2019re curious about how to adapt these strategies, feel free to contact me.&nbsp; Also, post below if you have a gem that you\u2019d like to share!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome back from the winter break! &nbsp;From the hustle and bustle in the hallways, it\u2019s clear that students are happy to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-tips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DI6r-y5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2114,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions\/2114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}