Teaching Tone & Pacing

TEACHING TONE & PACING 

TONE 

• Be willing to be wrong 
• Build in actual assignments that require faith integration 
• High school is teacher-centered learning vs University is student-centered learning 
• “Nobody ever called on me so I never answered.”—but give them a quick out, so it feels safe
• Pray for a love for your student

PACING 

• Don’t over-assign 
• Offer frequent, quick, and substantive feedback 
• Break your big projects down into several segments across the semester, so an assignment is completed over time
• Pacing of semester – change what comes when in the course sequence

GRADES 

• Think about offering quizzes that test assigned reading 
• Go back to students with their work and ask them to do more with it for extra research, association contests 
• Extra-credit for a syllabus quiz 
• Consider participation grades (attendance policy—make sure this is there) 

OTHER  

• Pair up high-achieving students with students who need help 
• Study groups?  Require meet 2-3 times and then let them choose to continue meeting or not. Have them submit meeting minutes. Learning is social. 
• Chronicle series: “small changes”