When I was an undergrad at McGill (in the dark ages, before mobile devices…), one of the classes I dreaded the most was the pre-Confederation introductory survey class. It was like something out of my worst nightmare: an hour and a half lecture twice a week, with occasional tutorials. Those lectures were hellish. Not that there was anything really wrong with the professor. She was lovely. But she read her lecture out from a prepared text. I was usually asleep within about 20 minutes. Tutorials weren’t much better, since they usually involved the TA awkwardly asking everyone about their thoughts on the readings.
Like most professors, much of my teaching style is based on which classes I hated or enjoyed the most as an undergrad. That pre-Confed class has stayed with me as an example of what I wanted to avoid. Especially when I contrasted it with a course in English literature that I loved (confession, I have a minor in English lit. Don’t judge me too harshly.). I don’t remember much about the content, since it was also a survey class, but I remember looking forward to the tutorials, where the group of TAs gave us activities to do in small groups.
As I mentioned in my previous post, most professors receive little to no training in pedagogy. I certainly didn’t. The closest I got was a TA training course, complete with diploma from the UVic Learning and Teaching Centre (I probably still have it somewhere too…). While I believe that this should be a requirement, especially for those intended to try for a career in academia (try being the operative word here), there are a number of great resources available online. So in this blog post, I’m going to share my journey to make my introductory Canadian history classes better through active learning techniques. I’ll also include information about how you can develop the same kinds of activities for your classes. This blog post is a revised version of the talk that I gave at the 2016 Festival of Learning conference, which I wrote about last week.
If there is one question that I have been asked over and over again as a professor, it’s “What’s on the exam?” Exams, and particularly essays in exams, have struck fear into the hearts of students for generations. While most professors will trot out the old adage about journeys and destinations, this does little to assuage the very real fears of students who want concrete answers and not philosophical musings. But with the right approach and tools, every student can succeed in writing essays in exams. So here are my eleven top tips on writing amazing exam essays.