Teaching
Undergraduates at U of T's Economics Department
(Our
Intranet
is a complementary resource)
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Last
updated: April 22, 2013
Created
and maintained by: Jennifer
Murdock
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Academic
Handbook for Instructors (updated 2012, pdf) Academic
Handbook for Instructors (updated 2012, html) Sessional
Dates (St. George) Sessional
Dates (UTM) Course
Information (Calendar, sessional dates, etc)
(St. George) |
Center for Teaching Support
& Innovation (CTSI) [Formerly: OTA)] Teaching
Resources at A & S (St. George) |
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St.
George Campus, Undergraduate Economics |
Policies, Guidelines &
Best Practices (Provost) Council of
Chairs, Principals, Academic Directors (CPAD) Memoranda Archive |
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OSM:
Office of Space Management Report classroom malfunctions
(OSM, St. George) |
Sessional
Dates (St. George)
Sessional
Dates (UTM)
Times and
locations for final examinations (St. George)
Accommodations
for Religious Observances
CTSI:
Developing Course Syllabi
Sample
course outline (ECO220Y1Y)
·
You
can view the course outlines of your colleagues for more samples by visiting
their course websites listed in the undergraduate course time tables St.
George or Mississauga
or by finding a link to it through the faculty
member's own homepage
·
***Your course outline must be uploaded
to our departmental website: http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/index.php/index/teaching/coursesForUser***
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The
syllabus and the first day of class are your chance to communicate your
expectations to your students. Making your expectations and what students
should expect as transparent as possible right from the start will ensure a
smoother course and greater student satisfaction with your course.
·
You
may require students who miss an assessment due to illness to provide a University of
Toronto Medical Certificate or other documentation.
Teaching
Workshops at the Center for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI)
(physically on St. George campus, but all are welcome)
Teaching and
Learning Symposium (annually at U of T)
Academic Skills Centre (Mississauga)
Educational
Advisory Committee (EAC)
·
CTSI
gives seminars and courses to help you in your professional development as a
university teacher. Visit their web site to sign up. Members of the
Economics Department have attended numerous sessions and found them to be
useful and informative.
·
You
may choose to include a mid-course review of your own design. Students
typically given more substantive and constructive comments on these than the
A&S end-of-term evaluations. CTSI has a booklet entitled "Gathering
Formative Feedback with Mid-Course Evaluations: A Guide for Faculty" that
you can request (e-mail them) or you can borrow a copy from me. SurveyMonkey
is a useful, easy, quick, and free tool that lets you create a professional
looking online survey and easy-to-review results.
·
Subscribe
to the CTSI listserv to
ensure you receive timely information about upcoming events, workshops,
lunch-time roundtable discussions, etc. To subscribe, you may send an e-mail to
CTSI
asking them to add you.
·
You
may consider joining (subscribing) to the Society for Teaching and Learning in
Higher Education (STLHE), which is a Canadian association dedicated to the
advancement of teaching and learning, or subscribing to a teaching newsletter
such as The
Teaching Professor, which will help you keep up-to-date with developments
in teaching and learning and keep your courses on the cutting edge without
taking up much time
·
You
may periodically check for interesting articles (full text, searchable, pdf) in
Journal
of Economic Education (click on Connect to this resource >>) from U
of T libraries provided by EBSCO. From a U of T computer you can get full
electronic access directly at http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/vece20/current.
New
teaching/course evaluation framework for all of U of T
Teaching Evaluation for
Promotion and Tenure (Provost's Guidelines; general for U of T)
A&S
Guidelines for the Assessment of Effectiveness of Teaching in Tenure and
Promotion Decisions (Research stream; St. George Campus)
A&S
Guidelines for Evaluation of Teaching Activities and Pedagogical/Professional
Development (Teaching stream; St. George Campus)
Copy
of blank student survey form (used until 2012/13) (St. George Campus)
ASSU Anti-Calendar
(St. George Campus) (published summaries of faculty members' student survey
results)
Office of Student Academic Integrity
(OSAI)
Academic Integrity at the
University of Toronto
Academic
Handbook for Instructors (See Section 12)
Turnitin at U of T (plagiarism detection software)
·
Dr. Kristi Gourlay is the Manager
of the Office of Student Academic
Integrity (OSAI). She is extremely willing to help. She strongly
encourages faculty to contact her with any concerns about academic integrity
such as inappropriate use of medical notes, plagiarism, cheating or other such
problems. OSAI also distributes a newsletter for faculty. It is not
available online, but you can ask Kristi to e-mail a copy if you cannot locate
yours.
tests/examS, ETC.:
Important
rules regarding term work (Academic Handbook Sections 2.8 – 2.19)
University of Toronto Libraries Exams
and Course Collections (St. George campus)
See Using multiple choice questions on this website
·
Scheduling
assessments during the term and obtaining appropriate testing rooms can be
challenging. To avoid dealing with student conflicts with other courses you can
try to schedule assessments during lecture time. You can also try to
minimize student conflicts by avoiding dates with religious
observances.
·
Typically
your regular lecture room is not appropriate for testing. To request a room you
may either: (1) ask Deborah
Navarro to book a room for you (make sure to specify the course, sections, number of students taking the test, date, and time) or (2)
make a booking request directly to the Office of Space Management
(OSM). Do this early (before classes start) to ensure that it is possible
for you to get an appropriate room at the requested time: sometimes the
University will not accommodate you. You will receive a confirmation e-mail:
bring a copy to the examination room as proof that you have reserved the room
for that time if there is a conflict. If you have 50-minute-long lectures
holding assessments during lecture time can be limiting. For year long courses (ECO###Y) you can request time for a
midterm test (2 or 3 hours) during the December examination period by
contacting Undergraduate Administrator Robbie Innes
early in the term and the University will schedule your exam and assign a room
(you lose control of the time and date).
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University
sets the times
and locations for all final examinations with the schedule published a
couple of months in advance.
·
Final
examinations from previous years are publicly available from the University of Toronto Libraries Exams
and Course Collections by entering the course identifier (ex. ECO200) under
"ERes QuickSearch:". If you wish not to have your examination
made publicly available please search “Restricted Exams” in the Academic
Handbook for Instructors.
Writing
at the University of Toronto
(an excellent and comprehensive website for faculty and students)
Percentage
marks, letter marks, and GPA at U of T
Important
rules regarding term work (Academic Handbook Sections 2.8 – 2.19)
·
See
the A
&S Academic Handbook for important grading information including
the U of T guidelines on mark distributions.
·
Given
that marks can be curved up but not curved down, there appears an incentive to
write assessments that are difficult or time-pressured to ensure that marks do
not exceed the U of T guidelines and then to retroactively curve the marks up
as need be. This is highly unpopular with students. Even if after
the curve the marks are typical, students seem to never forget (or forgive you
for) the initially low un-curved marks. While there are several possible
explanations, one is that students believe that the assessment reflects your
expectations of them and if they do not do well on the assessment they feel
they have fallen short of expectations possibly despite extensive studying and
preparation. The ex-post curve does not change this feeling. Many
students will blame you for this failure because you have not effectively
communicated your expectations to them or are perceived as having expectations
that are impossible for them to meet.
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Term
marks (not inclusive of the final examination) should give students a good idea
of how they are doing in your course. This means that you should strive
to follow the guidelines during the term. It is not fair to students to
give easy term work that is generously graded and then hit them with a much
more difficult final examination that differs from their expectations based on
the term work.
·
Students'
official transcripts indicate not only the student's grade but also the overall
course average.
Multiple Choice Questions and Software:
Basic
tips for writing effective multiple choice questions (pdf)
Template
for a multiple choice question assessment (Microsoft Word)
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Pros and cons of using multiple
choice questions in your assessments |
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Pros |
Cons |
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You
control the marking and ex post you can decide to accept alternate answers ·
Marking
is objective and does not depend on subjective decisions made by TAs ·
Marking
is completely consistent across students ·
Marking
is done by machine so that even for hundreds of students it takes only a few
hours total ·
Students
can get quick feedback: each student can have their marked paper
"returned electronically" within hours of the assessment (responses
and marks posted on website) ·
Allows
for more frequent testing: for example, with quizzes ·
Potentially
frees some TA hours for more student contact ·
Lets
you obtain very detailed feedback on students’ performance on each question ·
You
"set the agenda" for the assessment so students cannot avoid the
questions (i.e. give long and irrelevant answers) ·
No
opportunity for ex post cheating (modifying the test paper and then
submitting it for a remark) |
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It
is time consuming to write multiple choice questions ·
Likely
not a useful tool if you have few enough students such that you can mark most
assessments yourself ·
Poorly
written questions lead to extremely frustrated students: see basic tips for writing multiple choice questions ·
Poorly
written questions can "give away" answer: see basic tips for writing multiple choice questions ·
Multiple
choice questions are not suitable for all of the subject matter taught in our
department ·
Multiple
choice questions do not give students a chance to improve their writing
skills ·
Guessing
can impact students marks and create spurious variation across students ·
Some
students complain that there is no partial credit (even though that's not
true in expectation) ·
Because
forms are machine read, students that fail to follow instructions could face
catastrophic consequences (failure) |
Marking
Software: version (Fall. 2012) (NEW version for
our new Fall 2012 scanning process: sample
e-mail that explains new process to instructors)
I have written software to grade and
analyze student performance on multiple choice questions. This description explains what it can do.
Instructions for your TA that explains
how to do marking
Software to
mark multiple choice question data (STATA do-file) version (Oct. 2012)
Template
for online posting of results for students (Excel 2010 .xlsx)
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Illustrative example from Fall 2011,
Term Test #1 in ECO220Y |
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Inputs |
Outputs |
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Term Test #1 solutions (Form A) (pdf
file) Term Test #1 solutions (Form B) (pdf
file) Raw Data from
scanning machine (spreadsheet) (note: names and student numbers are fake) Course List from
ROSI (spreadsheet) (note: names and student numbers are fake) |
Report on student performance on Term Test #1 (text
file) |
This illustrative example uses real
data (but with fake student names and student numbers). For each question, the
report on student performance (sample report)
indicates the percent of students that chose the correct answer, the percent
that picked each of the wrong answers, the percent that chose the correct
answer broken down by quartiles (first quartile, second quartile, third
quartile and fourth quartile based on overall performance on the multiple
choice questions), the Discrimination Index (DI), R-squared (r2) and the
slope. The DI, r2 and slope are all statistics that can be used to assess
the effectiveness of each of your questions.
·
The
DI is the difference in the percent correct for the top and bottom quartiles of
the class. One measure of the quality of a particular multiple choice
question is the DI: the higher the DI the better the question is at separating
proficient students from incompetent students. If a question is too easy
the DI will be small: proficient students and incompetent students get it
right. If the answer is obvious even if you don't understand the concept
the DI will be small: proficient students and incompetent students get it
right. If the question is way too hard the DI will be small: proficient
students and incompetent students get it wrong. If students who understand an
important concept get the question right but others get it wrong then the DI
will tend to be large: proficient students get it right and incompetent
students get it wrong. If you write a really poor or misleading question
it is possible that you get a negative DI index: proficient students are misled
while incompetent students guess and some get it right. In general, the
larger the DI the better.
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The
R-squared (r2) uses the information in the data more efficiently than the DI
index, which makes it a better measure. The R-squared for a question tells you
what percent of the variation in the students' overall percentage correct on
all other questions is explained by their performance of this question. A relatively
high R-squared indicates that the question is a good predictor of the students’
performance on the other questions. This is one sign of a good
question. A bad question that confuses students who know the
material would be expected to have a low R-squared. A hard question
where most students guess would again have a low R-squared.
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The
slope for a question measures the how much higher on average the percentage
correct on all other questions is for students that got this question
correct. A high slope is an indicator of a good question, whereas a low
slope is an indicator of a bad question.
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If
you see a relatively low R-squared and a relatively large slope that is a sign
that the question is relatively easy. Hence most students got it, but
those who missed it really didn't know the material and also did very poorly on
other questions. It is a good idea to try to include some questions like
these to separate the incompetent students (F's) from the borderline competent
students (D's and low C's).
·
If
you see a question with a low R-squared and a low slope, this is a sign that
the question might have problems. It means that this question is a poor
predictor of students' success on other questions and students who got this
question right didn't tend to fare better than average on other questions. This
could be consistent with: an overly hard question where all students (even top
students) are guessing, confusing wording that leads proficient students
astray, or an overly obvious question where all students (even incompetent
students) can easily spot the right answer. You should review the
specific question you wrote and also look at which distracters students
selected.
By carefully reading the report, you
can study exactly what happened on each question and potentially identify
questions that did not work well. For well-written questions you can
identify common misconceptions amongst the students if you see numerous
students selecting the same wrong answer.
I would recommend having your TA visit
this web site (instructions for your
TA (txt)). You will need to provide your TA with a solution key and a
spreadsheet with the list of students registered in your class and the TA
Scanning Coordinator will e-mail the raw data with scanned answers. Your TA can
set up and execute the code. Your TA needs to have access to Stata version 10
or higher to do this, which is available at computing labs around campus. Your
TA can give you the automatically produced report summarizing student
performance, a spreadsheet with the marks, and a file that you can post to your
course web site so students can see their answers and their marks.
The TA Scanning Coordinator (Lei Tang lei.tang@mail.utoronto.ca in
2012/13) in the Department of Economics is responsible for running the scan.
They also have the blank forms you will need. They will scan the papers for you
and e-mail a file containing the raw scanned answers.
BLACKBOARD:
U of T has adopted Blackboard as the
university-wide learning management system (LMS) that typically involves a web
presence for courses, downloadable handouts, course announcements, online
discussion boards, online tutorial sign-up, student e-mail lists, online marks
posting, online student surveys, and sometimes online testing and other
advanced features. Blackboard training is available through CTSI. You may log in
to the Blackboard Portal using your
UTORid and password. If you do not have a UTORid or forgot your password
go to UTORid Management.
MAKING YOUR OWN COURSE WEBSITE:
Instructors that choose to may
continue to use self-maintained web pages (i.e. through the Economics
Department server or through CHASS)
and possibly in conjunction with Blackboard. For example, Martin Osborne uses
the Economics Department server (http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne/2030/index.html)
and Matthew Turner uses the CHASS server (http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~mturner/ec2020/eco2020_main.htm).
(Or you could develop your own learning management system from scratch: http://mjo.osborne.economics.utoronto.ca/index.php/course/index/1.)
Teaching Assistants' Training
Program (TATP)
Graduate
Student Directory (for e-mail addresses/telephone numbers)
·
TA
assignments usually happen around the time that classes begin and sometimes a
bit after they have started.
·
At
the beginning of the course you are required to tell your TAs the breakdown by
task of the hours they will spend on the course. Martin Osborne has
created a web-based form you need to fill out for each TA. Please log-in to our
Economics
Department Intranet.
·
The
Economics Department expects you to evaluate each of your TA's at the
conclusion of your course: you will receive an e-mail with links from the
Economics Department Associate Chair, Graduate Affairs near the end of an
academic session.
·
Duties
typically assigned to TAs include: marking, conducting review sessions, holding
office hours, and invigilation. It is often advisable to have TAs attend
your lectures and especially for those TAs that will have student contact
through review sessions or office hours. Even for 100 and 200 level
courses, the assumption that the TA is sufficiently familiar with the course
material to teach it is often a poor one. Further, TAs that are not in
lecture cannot be expected to know what you covered each week and what was
emphasized or possibly how you taught it (i.e. with graphs or with or without
calculus). Top research universities, such as Yale, require their TAs to attend
all lectures including 100-level courses and courses the TA has done
before. While we do not have an unlimited number of TA hours, for large
enrolment courses we do have enough to require lecture attendance of at least
some of the TAs assigned to the course. For a half-year course, class
attendance uses 24 hours total and for a full-year course, 48 hours total.
·
If
your course has a tutorial hour (third hour per week), you can use this for
weekly TA sessions. This is convenient as students should not have
conflicts during this time and you will automatically be assigned a
classroom. If you have a course that meets only two hours per week, you
can request a third hour for next year by contacting the Economics Department
Associate Chair, Undergraduate Affairs Dwayne Benjamin.
·
For
weekly TA review sessions (outside of the third hour of the course) and special
review sessions before tests and exams you should request a room. To request a
room you may either: (1) ask Deborah
Navarro to book a room for you (make sure to specify the course, sections, number of students taking the test, date, and time) or (2)
make a booking request directly to the Office of Space Management
(OSM).
·
For
TA office hours or office hours for part-time instructors that do not have an
assigned office, you can e-mail roombookings@economics.utoronto.ca to
reserve time in the Economics Department. You can check the availability of our rooms.
TA's need to pick up the key from Nada during regular business hours.
Alternatively, TA's can meet with students in common areas (such as the
Undergraduate Student Lounge on the main floor of the Economics Department,
which is also open during regular business hours).
·
For
accurate marking, it is strongly recommended that you provide TAs with complete
solutions (including alternate solutions that would also be correct). In
addition, you may provide them with marking guidelines and a marking rubric.
Policy
on Official Correspondence with Students
First-Year
Learning Communities ("Flicks")
Economics
Students' Association (ESA)
Rotman
Commerce Students'
Association (CSA)
ASSU Anti-Calendar
(St. George Campus)
·
Students
are required to have and check a University of Toronto e-mail address.
·
While
it is not required that you communicate with undergraduate students via e-mail,
you are required to clearly state an e-mail policy and to be otherwise
accessible to your students.
·
The
Department expects you to have at least one hour of office hours per week per
undergraduate course during the time when you are teaching.
·
You
can request a spreadsheet (Excel) that contains the contact information,
including telephone number, e-mail address, and postal address, for all
students registered in your courses. At the St. George Campus this
request should be directed to the
Undergraduate/Graduate Office Assistant Deborah
Navarro. The names and e-mail addresses can be imported into a mailing list
(see help for your e-mail system for specifics). Alternatively, you can
download your class list from Blackboard.
university teaching INNitiatives:
New
teaching/course evaluation framework for all of U of T
Starting in the 2009/10 academic year
the University of Toronto has issued new guidelines on marks distributions. A memorandum
from the Dean and an attachment
describe the revised approach.
The
Faculty of Arts & Science Academic Plan 2010-2015
Curriculum
Review and Renewal in A&S
Teaching and
Learning Symposium (annually at U of T)
Educational
Advisory Committee (EAC)
lecturing using PowerPoint (or other software):
When used properly, PowerPoint (or
other slide producing software) can be an effective tool in some branches of
economics. PowerPoint allows you to include more graphs, tables, game trees,
flow charts, data, computer output, etc. Each instructor should choose a
lecture style that works best and PowerPoint is not for every instructor or
every course. Below is some useful information if you decide to use
PowerPoint (or other software such as LaTex) to give lectures at U of T.
Logistics of creating PowerPoint slides and publishing slides:
·
You
can purchase Microsoft
PowerPoint at the Licensed
Software Office at Robarts Library.
·
If
you publish your slides (i.e. post your lecture notes online for your
students), you also need Adobe to convert the PowerPoint slides to pdf
documents. You can purchase Adobe Acrobat
Professional 11.0 at the Licensed
Software Office at Robarts Library.
·
When
converting PowerPoint slides to pdf documents using Adobe, it is important that
you embed the fonts. Failure to embed the fonts will mean that some
students will not be able to properly view and print out your lecture
notes. This is also useful if you are converting other documents you want
others to be able to reliably read and print. For Windows users, you can set
embedding the fonts (recommended) to the default: (1) Install Adobe (reboot),
(2) Click on start (if have option, choose Settings), (3) Select
"Printers and Faxes", (4) Right click on "Adobe PDF" , (5)
Select "Properties", (6) Click button "Printing
Preferences...", (7) Select the "Layout" tab, (8) Click button
"Advanced...", (9) Under "Graphic", "True Type
Font:" click on what is shown (probably "Substitute with Device
Font") select "Download as Softfont" from the drop down menu
that appears, (10) Click button "OK", (11) Select the "Adobe PDF
Settings" tab, (12) Under "Adobe PDF Conversion Settings",
"Default Settings:" choose "High Quality" from the drop
down menu, (13) UN-check the box "Rely on system fonts only; do not use
document fonts" ("Do not send fonts to "Adobe PDF""),
(14) Click button "Apply", (15) Click button "OK". If
any of this is confusing, you can see pages 4 - 6, How
to PDF document that illustrates most of these steps (in some cases the
instructions are slightly different, follow those given on this web site). You
only need to do this once and not every time you convert a document.
·
To
convert a PowerPoint file to pdf: (1) Open the PowerPoint file you wish to convert,
(2) Click on "File", (3) Select "Print" from the drop down
menu, (4) Under "Name:" select "Adobe PDF" from the drop
down menu, (5) If you want to double-check your settings you can click button
"Properties" and you should see the default settings you set above
(i.e. Layout, Advanced, Graphic, Download as Softfont; Adobe PDF Settings,
Default Settings, High Quality; Adobe PDF Settings, Do not send fonts to
"Adobe PDF" is unchecked), (6) Do NOT check "Print to file"
box (even though you will be creating a file and not a hardcopy), (7) Under
"Print what:" choose desired format (i.e. one slide per page, six
slides per page, slides with lines for notes, etc.), (8) Click button
"OK", (9) In Adobe, review the pdf file you have created and if you
need to rotate the image: select Document, Pages, Rotate, OK, and then if it
looks right, File, Save, (10) In Adobe, you can check whether you have
successfully embedded the fonts by selecting File, Document Properties...,
Fonts, and making sure in parentheses you see (Embedded) or (Embedded Subset)
next to each font: for illustration see page 9, How to
PDF document.
Logistics of delivering lectures using
a data projector (at St. George campus):
·
For
most classrooms you need to bring your own laptop to class with you. However,
if your class meets in a large lecture hall it might have a U of T teaching station. If
there is a teaching station, you can just plug a memory stick into one of the
USB ports. To access the teaching station you need to be U of T staff (faculty,
sessional or TA) with a valid UTORid
and password.
·
To
give PowerPoint presentations you will need to request the use of a data
projector in your classroom. The data projector will either be
permanently installed in the classroom (an "electronic classroom") or
it will be wheeled in on a cart prior to each of your lectures ("portable
data projector"). If you will be using PowerPoint for only some of
your lectures, a regular classroom with a portable data projector will suffice.
However, it you plan to use PowerPoint for most or all of your lectures I
strongly recommend that you request an electronic classroom. You should make this
request as early as possible to Undergraduate Administrator Robbie Innes.
Planning for classroom assignments begins in December for the upcoming academic
year. Further, if you are teaching more than one section back-to-back you
should request that you be assigned the same classroom for those consecutive
sections as you need time to set up your laptop and the data projector.
The Department can then try to get your requests filled with the Office of
Space Management (OSM). There is sometimes a shortage of electronic
classrooms, so as a courtesy to your colleagues you should not request one
unless you plan to fully utilize it.
·
As
soon as you have your classroom assignment, which is typically posted a month
or so before classes start on the undergraduate
course time tables, you can check out the classroom specifications
(most classrooms on campus). You can also look at OSM's document containing
answers to frequently
asked questions about using AV equipment.
·
In
rooms without a U of T teaching station, you should contact Brian Usher
(416-978-6544) as soon as possible and preferably via e-mail to request AV
equipment. Indicate the course code (ex. ECO220Y1Y), the lecture days and times
(ex. TR 11-1), the class room (ex. SS 2135), and what you will need (ex. I want
to give PowerPoint presentations in all of my lectures and I also need a
microphone). I also highly recommend that you also request (in this same
e-mail) to have a demonstration visit with the technician for your
classroom. Ideally you will choose a time before the first day of
class. The technician will show you how to use the equipment and will
give you any codes you will need to access the equipment. Ask for the best
telephone number to call for your classroom should a problem arise during or
before lecture. You should receive an OSM e-mail containing the confirmation:
double-check that the times, dates, locations, and equipment are correct.
·
Emergency
telephone numbers to call if the AV equipment is not working properly:
416-978-0423 or 416-978-6968.
·
Make
sure you completely shut down all data projection equipment when you are done
lecturing (unless AV has specifically instructed you to do otherwise).
Leaving this equipment on not only uses up valuable bulb life, which increases
the chance of bulb burn out during lecture, but it also makes this equipment
vulnerable to misuse.
"Art" of effective
PowerPoint use: Some tips, questions, answers:
·
Q: Do we have reliable technical support
or will I be wasting a lot of valuable lecture time trying to get projection
equipment working?
A: In nine years and in about 1400 hours of lecture time (all using the
data projector) I have lost a total of less than 2 hours due to technical
problems. The single worst case scenario I have encountered is when the
bulb for the data projector expired in the middle of lecture and it took 15
minutes before a portable data projector was delivered and operational.
This is not too bad at all: I have found that the AV support at OSM is very
responsive and quick. You should be proactive though: arrive 10 minutes
prior to lecture, have a demonstration with a technician before first day of
class so you know how to operate everything, and immediately report any
problems with the equipment (especially if the image is not a bright as usual
as this is a sign the bulb is about to go).
·
Q: How about hybrid lectures: part
PowerPoint and part blackboard?
A: Good idea in theory but hard to implement given that most classrooms
have the projection screen directly on top of the black board (white board). A
great alternative is to use a tablet PC with a pen so you can write in
real-time directly on your slides.
·
Q:
Isn't it time
consuming to create PowerPoint lectures?
A: Yes, it is fairly time consuming. How time consuming depends a lot on
you and the course material. You may want to try creating a couple of
PowerPoint lectures to see how long it takes.
·
Q:
Should I post all of
my lecture notes on my course web site?
A: Understandably, students really, really want the lecture notes
posted. However, to make sure that students attend lectures and keep up with
the course in-between assessments, lectures have to have "value
added." Each instructor can use some creativity to figure out a way
to ensure lectures have "value added" even if all the lecture notes
are posted before lecture such that students can print them out and bring them
to lecture. In my case, have found that peppering the lecture notes with
questions that are only answered during lecture and using iClickers helps
ensure high attendance. There are many possibilities. For an econometrics
course you may present a table of estimation results and discuss the
interpretation in class (rather than write out the interpretation in the
slides). For a course more focused on public policy, you could present the
facts and assumptions in the slides but draw out the policy implications in
class. For a theory course, you could present a model and derive the
results in the slides but work through the intuition and the importance of
various assumptions in class. Of course there are more direct means of ensuring
class attendance such as having a TA pass around a sign-in sheet to take attendance,
including "class participation" in the marking scheme, pop quizzes or
other short in-class exercises. Make it very clear to your students that
you expect them to take notes and attend class.
·
Q: Does using PowerPoint mean that I
just read from slides in class?
A: Try hard not to read your slides aloud in lecture: this is boring and
students get frustrated because they can read faster than you can talk. Focus
on providing context, interpretation, explanations, elaborations, insight, and
encouraging some class room discussion (if appropriate).
·
Q: Does using PowerPoint mean I should
change the content of my course?
A: The means of delivery should not dictate the content. If you
feel that the content of your course is not well-suited to using PowerPoint then
don't use PowerPoint.
Overview
of iClickers at U of T
Using
Classroom Response Systems ("IClickers") in the Classroom
(prepared by U of T's, CTSI)
Registration
instructions for students at U of T
For two reports on the use of
iClickers in our department – 2009 and 2011 -- see our intranet
and look under Teaching (iClicker report).