Adopting new teaching strategies - trials and tribulations

Collaborative Learning and Think-Pair-Share

This is a narration of the teaching strategies that I used this semester and my assessment of their efficacy.  Think-Pair-Share was a technique that I used in more than one course.  The activities were formative assessments designed to improve student learning and engagement.   Usually the TPS activity followed a lecture with direct instructions on the concepts covered.  Students then broke out into pairs to discuss concepts learnt, derive questions based on concepts learnt and prepare answers to their questions.  The intent was to develop their skills in understanding and synthesizing concepts. 

In both the courses that I used this technique, I found that students were eager to have an activity to break the monotony of a lecture.  In one course - perhaps because they were a senior group, students came up with challenging questions.  I would like to reflect on the implementation of this technique in the second course where I had mixed results

What worked?

The course was ITEC N225 which is all about writing SQL code for business requirements, I used Think-Pair-Share to enhance learning.  The first activity required students to work in pairs to produce answers to questions provided by me.  Students had about 45 minutes to complete the activity and share their answers with the class.  They were quite successful in doing this and the activity was a good way to wrap up lecture/demo session.  

This class was a good sample of interactive/participative learning.  In this case, taxonomy of the questions in the assessment matched the level of the assessment - both were at Apply. 

What did not work?

The second activity students required students to define the business requirements and derive their own questions based on what they learnt. This was obviously more complex than the first.   Students found it very difficult to devise a good explanation of the business requirement and then to write a proper question.

In hindsight, my instructions to students should have included sample answer such as the one shown above.  My verbal explanations did not have the necessary effect.  I can also appreciate that I was asking students to analyse  synthesize and create which did not match the taxonomy of the learning outcome.  I was assessing at a higher level!  I'm still pondering if I was being overambitious or if the learning outcome was below par!  The net effect of incorporating this strategy was that students began to get better at writing SQL code and writing scenarios where these commands could be applied.  There was gradual improvement in their performance in class and in their assessments.  Their work on their project which required them to analyze, evaluate and design queries was very satisfactory.

On a last note, writing this reflective blog has been a milestone in my journey to becoming a 21^st century teacher!