Creating Classroom Environments to
be Active and Maintain Order, Rigor,
and Effective Outcomes
SAM 136 Instructors’ Seminar
Professional and Academic Center for Excellence
Marsha J. Harman, Ph.D.
Critical Thinking Warm-Up
• In your teams, read the situation on the
next slide. Create some questions to ask
that can be answered with “yes” or “no.”
• As each group rotates and asks questions to
narrow the correct answer to the puzzler,
cross out your duplicate questions and
think of more.
When Time Stands Still
• As a burglar reaches for something
on the mantle, he accidentally
knocks over a clock. It falls to the
floor, breaks, and stops. The next
morning, however, police aren’t
able to determine what time the
robbery took place. Why not?
SAM 136 COAT OF ARMS
• Divide you coat of arms into six parts.
• Using only symbols:
• What is something that makes you happy
about teaching SAM 136
• Your greatest success to date in teaching
SAM 136
• Your greatest failure to date in teaching SAM
136
• Something you believe in so strongly that you
would never budge regarding teaching in
SAM 136
• Something you want to accomplish in SAM
136 before the end of the semester
• What three words do you want your
students to use in describing you in SAM
136? (you may use words on this one).
You Gain and Maintain
Classroom Control Through
• your reputation for effort, flexibility, and
availability;
• your reputation for firmness and fairness;
• your knowledge of the content;
• keeping the students focused and wanting
to learn;
• responding forcefully and fairly to
challenges to your authority
Effort, Flexibility, & Availability
• Try to learn their names, and say them.
• Be in the classroom 15 minutes before
class starts.
• Start on time.
• Encourage them, but avoid one-on-one or
small-group rehashes. These create fairness
issues, the bane of higher-level education.
• If you depend on audiovisuals, part of your
effort is the need for a back-up plan when
they break.
• Whenever a decision must be made, during
class or outside, invite the students to take
part.
• You can tell how you're doing by watching
the class.
• Smiles and eager responses means you're
doing well.
• If there's a room full of frowns, or people
looking at watches and the clock, say, "How
are we doing? Too fast? Too slow? Seen this
before? Got a better idea of what we could be
doing?"
• Listen to what they tell you. They are usually
right.
Firmness and Fairness
• Explain why you've asked the class to do
various things.
• If there is something about the classroom
that's unacceptable, don't tolerate it.
• Keep as relaxed a classroom atmosphere as
possible.
• Fairness includes recognizing
• good behavior and effort.
• Say their names.
• Praise them for good behavior.
• Avoid sarcasm or shouting (indicates loss of
control)
Knowledge of Content
• Students will judge this (rightly) by your
ability to answer their questions.
• How you handle questions
• Welcome all questions as they arise.
• Requests for clarification
• Off-topic questions
• Start a lecture with an attention-grabber.
• Finish with something about how they will
use this material in the future
Keep Students Focused on
Wanting to Learn
• MUST be able to explain the content
CLEARLY
• With adult learners, use why, because, and
you
• Involve the class
• Ask questions ranging from knowledge to
evaluation on Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom (1956):
3 Types of Learning
• Cognitive: mental skills (Knowledge)
• Affective: growth in feelings or emotional
areas (Attitude)
• Psychomotor: manual or physical skills
(Skills)
Levels of Student Thinking
Bloom’s Taxonomy
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Evaluation
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Knowledge Verbs
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Define
Fill in the blank
Identify
Label
List
Locate
Match
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Memorize
Name
Recall
Spell
State
Tell
Underline
Knowledge Activities
• Quiz Games
• Jeopardy
• Wait, Wait, Don’t
Tell Me
• Who Am I?
• What’s Wrong with
This Picture?
Research shows that early learning centers
in which infants are trained with letter and
number flashcards
• A. produce children who learn to read and write
earlier than their agemates.
• B. may threaten infants’ interest in learning and
produce responses much like those of stimulusdeprived infants.
• C. often produce children who are classified as
gifted during the elementary school years.
Who Am I?
• I was born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, to
sharecropper parents. (25)
• I was educated at Spelman College and
Sarah Lawrence College (20)
• At a commencement speech at Sarah
Lawrence College, I spoke out against the
silence of that institution’s curriculum
when it came to African-American culture
and history. (15)
• In 1976 I wrote a searing examination of
politics and black-white relations in the
novel Meridian. (10)
• My most famous work is probably The
Color Purple. (5)
Who Am I?
Alice Walker
Comprehension Verbs
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Convert
Describe
Explain
Interpret
Paraphrase
Put in order
Restate
• Retell in your own
words
• Rewrite
• Summarize
• Trace
• Translate
Comprehension
Activities
• Graphic Organizers
• Put in Correct Order
Application Verbs
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Apply
Compute
Conclude
Construct
Demonstrate
Determine
Draw
Find out
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Give an example
Illustrate
Make
Operate
Show solve
State a rule or
principle
• Use
Application Activities
• Mind Maps
• Create a
• Cheer
• Acronym
• Mnemonic
Mnemonic
• Create a mnemonic that will help you
remember the levels of student
thinking in Bloom’s Taxonomy.
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Analysis Verbs
Analyze
Categorize
Classify
Compare
Contrast
Debate
Deduct
Determine the
factors
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Diagnose
Diagram
Differentiate
Dissect
Distinguish
Examine
Infer
Specify
Analysis Activities
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Debate
What’s Wrong with this Picture?
Fishbowl
Categorize Movie Characters into
Theory’s Stages
What’s wrong?
Sidney is fourteen years old and very ill
with Tay-Sachs disease. His African
American family has prayed consistently in
church for him, but he remains very ill.
However, he continues to be very active on
his school’s junior varsity team. He is even
the quarterback when he is able and is
hailed as the winningest quarterback in the
school’s history.
Fishbowl
Should Representative Barton
have apologized to BP CEO
Tony Hayward for being
required to set up a $20B
escrow fund for oil spill
damages?
• Rep. Joe Barton told Hayward he was
"ashamed" of the pressure the White House
put on BP to create the $20 billion escrow
fund to cover losses to victims of the spill.
"I think it's a tragedy of the first proportion
that a private corporation can be subjected
to what I would call a shakedown," the
Texan said. "In this case a $20 billion
shakedown."
Synthesis Verbs
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Change
Combine
Compose
Construct
Create
Design
• Find an unusual
way
• Formulate
• Generate
• Invent
• Originate
• Design game-shows or the like to bring two
or more students to the front of the room
• What governs the attention given to your
lectures?
• Source of exam questions (specify it)
• Choice of handout style (Do exams come
from text or lectures or both?)
More Synthesis Verbs
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Plan
Predict
Pretend
Produce
Rearrange
Reconstruct
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Reorganize
Revise
Suggest
Suppose
Visualize
Write
Synthesis Activities
• Design a Menu
• Pretend You Are
the Committee…
Committee Work
• Pretend you are advisors to President
Gaertner
• Formulate a plan of action regarding how
to encourage freshmen to develop study
skills.
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Evaluation Verbs
Appraise
Choose
Compare
Conclude
Decide
Defend
Evaluate
Give your
opinion
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Judge
Justify
Prioritize
Rank
Rate
Select
Support
Value
Evaluation Activities
• Rank from Least to
Most Important
Rank order from least important to
most important.
• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Respond Forcefully and Fairly to
Challenges to Your Authority
• Anticipate the question
• Anticipate the complaint
• Have a Plan B
Hecklers
• Hecklers tend to be misinformed; portray
you as:
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Radical Right crackpot
Radical Left crackpot
Close-minded dogmatist
Malicious oppressor of the human race
• Your battle with heckler is for support of
the audience
Critical Thinking Break
• In your teams, read the situation on the
next slide. Create some questions to ask
that can be answered with “yes” or “no.”
• As each group rotates and asks questions to
narrow the correct answer to the puzzler,
cross out your duplicate questions and
think of more.
Not So Safe
• A man keeps his expensive belongings in
safes. No one has ever seen him enter a
combination, and he has never written one
down or told it to anyone. When he opens
one of his safes, he is shocked to find
everything stolen. The safe wasn’t
damaged and had been locked, so how did
the thief open the safe?
Brief Brainstorm
• Think about someone you view as an
influence in your life.
• Write three adjectives that would describe
this person.
What would your students say about you?
Any chance it would be like this?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1_My
dgRFZw&NR=1