What is the theory of small teaching?
The theory of ‘small teaching’ comes to us from James Lang (2016). He asserts that small teaching is the minor changes to course design, assessment structure, or communication with students that impact student engagement, motivation, and achievement. His book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning organizes these small teaching techniques into three categories – knowledge, understanding, and inspiration. We can also look at the small changes as techniques that can be implemented into individual class sessions at the beginning (in the first fifteen minutes), in the middle, or at the end (in the last fifteen minutes). This post will share a quick overview of small teaching techniques to implement in these sections of a course session – the beginning, middle, and end. Links for more information for each segment of class will be provided.
The First Fifteen Minutes
Imagine the first minutes of class from the student perspective. They are logging on or shuffling into seats. They are finding something to write with and opening their notebooks or laptops. Most are likely tucking devices away after scrolling through social media or reading a news headline. In those first minutes of class, students’ minds are elsewhere. As the instructor, we must strive to find a way to capture the students’ attention in order to transition them from these thoughts about their own worlds and into thinking about the course. There are several ways to help focus students on the material at the beginning of class. They include sharing:
- An interesting photo or video
- A headline
- A powerful quote/paragraph
- An anecdote
Each of these examples can be used to review material from the previous class session, preview information in the current class session, or help students to transfer their learning by helping them to make connections between course material and the outside world. These warm up activities can serve as important connectors between class sessions so that each session’s content is linked to the session before and after. In just fifteen minutes, you can not only re-engage the students’ minds but also use this critical time to enhance their recall of previous material, begin thinking about the upcoming session material, or see how the course relates to the broader world. This link will take you to more information about the four examples.
The Middle of Class
It is important to take time during the middle of a class session to gauge student understanding. The research is conflicted on the average student attention span, but we encourage faculty to break their lectures into fifteen minute segments. Once content has been delivered for fifteen minutes, whether through lecture or other direct instruction method, we have an opportunity to engage in a formative assessment of student learning. Incorporating a formative assessment provides information that is not only critical to the faculty member but is also helpful to student learning. Karpicke and Blunt (2011) found that when students were tested on material, they were better able to recall that material in future re-tests. This ‘testing effect’ that they found asks students to practice retrieval of information which can lead to better recall in the future. Formative assessment techniques like the ones explained below ask students to stop and think about the material, helping to solidify the information into their memory. There are many formative assessment techniques that can be used. For a more in-depth look at examples, check out our previous post on small teaching techniques to use during the middle of class.
The Final Fifteen Minutes
The last fifteen minutes are a prime opportunity to enhance student learning by incorporating a small teaching technique. When students are allowed to leave class without closing their thinking on the day’s material, they are less likely to retain that material. It can be tempting to continue to teach new content into the final minutes of class, but there are several small teaching strategies that can be used in the final fifteen minutes to enhance student learning, such as connecting, summarizing, and sharing the muddiest point. Check out our post on the final fifteen minutes.
This post presented ideas to implement small teaching techniques into the beginning, middle, and end of a class session. If you would like to discuss ways to incorporate these ideas into your teaching, make an appointment with an Instructional Designer in the Center for Teaching and eLearning.
If you would like to learn more about Lang’s concept of small teaching, there are several resources available. Consider requesting his book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning from the library. He also visited University Park in January 2020. The recordings of his presentations are available on the Media Site Library.
Presentation 1: Small Teaching: From Minor Changes to Major Learning
Presentation 2: Teaching Distracted Minds
References:
Horton, W. K. (2012). E-learning by design. Pfeiffer.
Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 331(6018), 772-775. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199327
Lang, J. (2020). Small teaching: From minor changes to major learning [Video]. https://live.libraries.psu.edu/Mediasite/Play/f169bddf458a455cae07850b5c8e14b21d?catalog=8376d4b24dd1457ea3bfe4cf9163feda21
Lang, J. (2020). Teaching distracted minds [Video]. https://live.libraries.psu.edu/Mediasite/Play/77c23163c9a24f31851fb4c0e74604341d?catalog=8376d4b24dd1457ea3bfe4cf9163feda21
Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning. Jossey-Bass.
Lang, J.M. (2015, November 15). Small changes in teaching: The minutes before class. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from https://www.chronicle.com/article/small-changes-in-teaching-the-minutes-before-class/
