Teaching Complex Ideas: How to Translate Your Expertise into Great Instruction

Description

Integrating insights from learning science with practical guidelines and stepwise approaches, Teaching Complex Ideas helps educators masterfully translate their expertise into easy-to-understand, interesting, and memorable instruction. Covering areas such as identifying the critical ideas within a complex topic, designing clear explanations, and making lectures useful and engaging, this resource brings together subjects and skills never before adequately addressed in a single book. Using real world examples and full of practical tips, this book guides college instructors to improve their understanding of their subjects, select the most valuable ideas to teach, and integrate those concepts with other aspects of teaching such as presentation design, technology, and assessment of understanding. This practical book helps professors at any stage in their career convert even the most complex ideas into great teaching. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments 1. Know What Not to Teach Can You Find The ‘Lead’? Less Teaching Equals More Understanding Consider What Your Audience Is Becoming Work Backward To Who Your Audience Is Now Why You Only Need Very Little To UnderstandA Lot Finding Critical Ideas And Putting ThemIn Sequence Elaborating On Critical Ideas The Philosophy Of Sacrifice Implications For Practice Conclusion Postscript: So, What Was The ‘Lead’? Exercises References 2. What Makes an Explanation Great? What Einstein Never Said About Explanation No Explanation Without Understanding Leveling-Up Your Explanations How Understanding Changes Blocks To Understanding First Element: Familiarity That BreedsUnderstanding Second Element: Organization AroundCritical Ideas Third Element: Gradual Addition Of ComplexityThrough Connections Fourth Element: A Linear Sequence ThatStrengthens Connections Fifth Element: Provocation Of Thought Putting It All Together Exercises References 3. A Step-by-Step Approach to Explain Complex Ideas Clearly Try The Twitter Challenge Step 1: The Critical Ideas For The Audience Detour: Chunking And Un-Chunking Step 2: Generate The Building Blocks Of TheExplanation Pit Stop: We Un-Chunk So That We Can Re-Chunk Step 3: Where To Start? Step 4: Connect The Building Blocks Step 5: Putting Ideas In Sequence Reflection: How Accurate Should AnExplanation Be? Step 6: Provoke Thinking How To Follow The Process With, Or Without,A Textbook Exercises Appendix 3.1: Ways To Make A KnowledgeStructure More Complex Appendix 3.2: Analysis Of The Twitter Explanation References 4. Help Students to Remember Creatively and Forget as Much as Possible Memory Is Creation And Recreation, Not StorageAnd Retrieval Forgetting, Not Remembering, Is What MakesMemory Useful How Understanding And Memory Are Interwoven Sometimes ‘Storage’ Without UnderstandingMay Be Necessary When Is Memorization Without UnderstandingAppropriate? Techniques To Help Students Memorize Memory As Distributed Cognition Conclusion Exercises References 5. How to Make Boring and Complex Ideas Interesting Why Should Ideas Even Be Interesting? Interestingness Described In Three ‘F-Words’ Using The Three F-Words To Generate Interest Putting It All Together Conclusion Exercises References 6. If You Want Students to Reason Like Experts, Don’t Teach Them How to Reason Reasoning Unlocks The Power Of Understanding Do Not Teach Students How To Reason Under The Right Conditions, EveryoneReasons Well If You Have To Teach, Then Teach Moves AndVariations Here Is One Way To Promote Learning ThroughArgumentation Conclusion Exercises References 7. Transform Assessments into Learning Experiences and Eliminate Cheating Assessment Determines Learning Assessment Is Learning How Assessment Encourages Cheating Conclusion: The Teacher As Designer Exercises References 8. Create Valid Conventional Assessments but also Consider Alternatives What To Assess (Or Not) Matching What You Assess To How You Assess Designing Objective Test Items Designing Complex Achievement Items Before, During, And After The Assessment Assessment Alternatives Conclusion Exercises References 9. Rethink Educational Technology by Noticing What Everyone Else Misses There Is More To Educational Technology ThanYou Realize Free Resources Create The Ideal Classroom The Affordances Of Resources Linking Resources And Their Affordances ToLearning In The Lecture Hall Conclusion: The Antifragile Professor Exercises References 10. Design Presentations That Make Your Lectures Much More Useful Presentations Work If Lectures Are AbleTo Be Useful Principles For Designing PresentationsFor Lectures Principles For Designing Individual Slides In APresentation Procedure For Developing Good Presentations Conclusion Exercises References 11. The Future of Professor-Experts Index