Presenter bio »

Work Session 1: Lecture-Free Teaching: A Learning Partnership Between Science Educators and their Students

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
8:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
White River Ballroom J, JW Marriott Indianapolis Hotel
Cost: $100
Limit: 60
Middle School, High School, and College

Presenter: Bonnie Wood, University of Maine, Presque Isle

Framing Questions

1. What are some methods for building cooperative learning teams on the first day of class?
2. How can formative assessments provide feedback to both educator and student and strengthen the "partnership of learning"?
3. How do both educator and student prepare for a lecture-free class?
4. How do content outlines replace lectures and then what happens during class?
5. How does one erase the boundaries between "lecture" and laboratory?
6. What are the thirteen steps to lecture-free teaching and how does an educator apply these to his/her own courses?

Session Summary

The best way to successfully incorporate a new teaching method into one's own classroom is to first experience it as a student. Educators frequently model their own teaching styles on the methods used by their most effective teachers. During the morning session participants will assume the role of students during a simulation of a typical grade 8–16 science class. They will experience how the interplay of student preparation before class, cooperative learning, and formative assessment techniques allow an educator to achieve course content identical to that of a lecture-based course. They will also see how to accomplish this with low-technology methods that add little or no additional cost to the classroom budget.

During the afternoon, participants will employ Wood's thirteen steps to lecture-free teaching to plan revisions of their own previously taught course or to design a course they have never taught before.

Participants are encouraged to bring a copy of Dr. Wood's book Lecture-Free Teaching (2009, NSTA Press) and materials for a course they wish to revise.

Register Now!

Bonnie Wood describes this session:

The player will show in this paragraph