The purpose of practice teaching is to give instructors an opportunity to stand in front of a group of their peers and deliver a brief lesson (5-7min) on a topic that is of interest.

How to prepare for a practice teaching lesson

The following seven steps are a guide to assist you in developing your lesson. Depending on how much time you spend during the lesson on each part, you may not be able to include all of these steps. In general, it is a good teaching practice to strive to incorporate all of these steps. For the advanced practice teaching lesson it may not be feasible.

1. Select a topic: What do you want to teach your students?
2. Determine your learning goals: What do you want students to identify, solve, analyze and/or construct?
3. Develop an introduction: What are some real-world examples or practical applications for this subject? What are some historical or personal anecdotes that would motivate student interest?
4. Develop the main body: What information do the students need to know? What examples, questions, or problems would help them understand this information the best?
5. Develop an activity: How can you facilitate student interaction with the concepts from the lesson?
6. Check for student understanding: What are some specific questions you can ask your students?
7. Develop a conclusion: What are the main points that you want to summarize?

Develop an introduction

Plan a short creative introduction to stimulate interest and thinking.  In this practice teaching example, the principles of a binary search are applied to the UM student directory.

Download .mov file or .mpg file of Mike Moffit's example (19.4 MB, 1 min. 57 sec.).

Develop the main body

Create an outline for the lesson based on the learning goals you developed.  You are encouraged to prepare a handout or an overhead to help clarify things.  In this practice teaching example, the instructor explains the three principles of mathematical modeling.

Download .mov file or .mpg file of Sarah Root's example (16.1 MB, 1 min. 37 sec.).

Develop an activity

Plan an activity to get students to interact with each other. Decide precisely what you want them to do, and plan clear instructions for the task.  As an example, the instructor directs the students to conduct experiments with penny tosses to prove the central limit theorem.

Download .mov file or .mpg file of Sarah Womack's example (19.9 MB, 2 min.).

For another example, this instructor gives the class a problem to solve together about pressure change with height after a mini-lecture on the subject.  

Download .mov file or .mpg file of Sean Holleran's example (13.8 MB, 1 min. 23 sec.).

Check for student understanding

Design the specific questions you will ask.  Write down precisely how you can state them, and then paraphrase them, so that you are prepared with more than one way to ask the questions. Try to predict the answers your questions will generate.  In this practice teaching example, the presenter asks the students questions about the principles of mathematical modeling using an in-class problem about Geppetto's Wood Carving Incorporated.

Download .mov file or .mpg file of Sarah Root's example (19.5 MB, 1 min. 57 sec.).

More information

For more information on teaching strategies and engineering resources go to the following websites:

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/teachings.html

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/engin.html