Student Presentation Based Effective Teaching (SPET) Approach for Advanced Courses

Abstract

A student activity based effective teaching approach can significantly improve student learning. However, implementing student activity based teaching for the advanced level courses can be very challenging. Incomplete course coverage and the amount of time required by an instructor for designing active teaching strategies are cited as the common inhibiting factors in the adoption of active student teaching. This paper discusses a student presentation based effective teaching (SPET) approach that covers more course material than that covered in the conventional or other student-active teaching methods. Moreover, SPET approach requires less preparation time on instructor behalf. This paper is based on the effective teaching experiments conducted on senior level science and technology courses at University of the District of Columbia. Under the SPET approach, students are given reading assignment to prepare ∼ 10–20 minutes long power point presentation on well-defined conceptual topics, questions, or chapter modules. In every class typically three presentations take place on the same questions or topics. However, non-presenter students are required to generate conceptual questions. These questions were asked during or after the presentation by the designated students. Students’ presentations were graded according to the rubric focusing on coverage of suggested topics, quality of presentation, and questions and answers. Hence, the whole class is engaged in understanding the topic either for making the presentation or for creating conceptual questions. These grades were posted right after the class in the Blackboard’s online grade center to provide quick feedback. The following are key advantages of this approach. (1) Students understand 50–100% about the intended topic during self-reading and while making a presentation or participating in class discussion. (2) Repeating same concepts thrice during a class period and occasionally with instructor’s insights enable deep learning. (3) Students get quick quantitative feedback after each class and qualitative feedback during the class from instructor and peers. (4) This approach allowed coverage of very complex topics. (5) Students improved their communication skills by making coherent presentations and doing class discussion. In the survey, students reflected a higher degree of satisfaction with their learning as compared to instructor’s lecture-based classroom education system. This approach is highly suitable for advanced-level elective courses with small enrollment.