Eeeek! Scared of my students

Fear comes in all shapes and sizes.  Since that awful April 16 at Virginia Tech, my definition of fear has shifted -- or maybe I just gained perspective, but the hollow feeling in my stomach and the tightening in my throat are physiological responses that come with even the smallest of fright; it's just the duration that changes.

When you guys come to class all worried about my expectations of you, keep in mind that I'm just as worried about YOUR expectations of ME.  If there is any truth to "safety in numbers," you've got me beat - hands down.  My fears may be different than yours, but know that we all have them.

Just a few of the things I wonder . . .

• how many of you are smarter than me?
• can you hear me over the roar of your thoughts while you read your e-mail, facebook posts, and blogs?
• does the class matter?
• are you really in the room when we're having class?
• do you think all the non-traditional activities I work so hard and developing are stupid?
• do you think about them at all?
• can you tell I love what I do?
• does that even make a difference to you?

Man, I really envy confident people!

Is there a better way?

Ever notice the slight sag of the shoulders or heavy sighs or rolled eyes when you tell students they must work on a team project for the semester?  It is a method of constructing what we tell the students is "the way it works when you're out there in the world," and yet it's so contribed as to be void of creativity, and certainly novelty!  I've noticed that some of our students have 4 or 5 team projects per semester during their junior year. 

One dedicated faculty member at North Carolina State University, Dr. Robert Beichner, developed a new approach to teaching the funamentals of physics - not a simple undertaking!   This method, known as SCALE-UP (Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs), has so many benefits that I don't believe I can express it all well in a short blog.  I will encourage you to explore the possible use of this approach in your classes.  There are two critical components of this learning environment that, in my opinion, make this program increibly valuable:

1. The teams are designed by the faculty to have a distribution of students with different academic records/performance.  While it was expected that the honors students would be bored and would carry the group, that was not the case at all.  In fact, the students with the highest GPAs learned more than those they guided though the material. 

2. The test format is designed to guide the students through the fundamental questions; to learn to frame the problem and identify the approach to solve it.  Once the student has addressed the problem, he or she has the opportunity to make the connection as to what the answer actually means.

The website where you can learn more about SCALE-UP is http://www.ncsu.edu/PER/scaleup.html.