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HH7023 Teaching and Learning Strategies in Histories and Humanities

• Status: Elective
• Credit Weighting: 5 ECTS
• Semester/Term: Michaelmas term
• Contact Hours: 6
• Module Staff:
  Co-ordinator: Director of Postgraduate Teaching and Learning
  Module teachers: Prof. Anna Chahoud, Dr Timothy Stott, Dr Joseph Clarke
• Pre-requisite / Target audience: students in year 2-4 of the PhD programme who have completed HH7021 Research Training 1

Leaning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Discuss key approaches to the delivery of lectures and tutorials
• Structure a plan for the teaching of a tutorial
• Assess student work
• Consider appropriate strategies for teaching using visual media and teaching languages
• Evaluate and reflect upon student feedback 

Leaning Aims

The aim of this module is introduce different aspects of teaching and presentation in the context of a third level institution and to support teaching assistants in the School of Histories and Humanities in their day-to-day teaching activities and professional development.

Module Content

The contact hours of this module are offered in the form of three half-day workshops which will include the following content:

In this seminar we will consider curriculum design and the conduct of small group teaching. How much preparation should a teacher undertake for seminar style classes – and what sort of preparation should be undertaken? How can teachers ensure students are and continue to be engaged? How should teachers plan seminars and structure discussions? How best might teachers integrate student presentations into classes online and in-person? How should teachers cater for absent students? We will also consider how student work should be marked, and discuss the extent of feedback, the nature of appropriate comment and how to establish what mark the work should be given. Issues relating to plagiarism will also be discussed.

Building upon the tutorials available on the College’s Virtual Learning environment (Blackboard), this class will discuss how to negotiate the online environment through which some of our teaching might take place in 2024-25. What challenges does teaching through online platforms raise? How should one manage online classroom dynamics? How might one use Blackboard’s discussion forums and Blackboard collaborate or Zoom in small group teaching? Participants are asked to prepare by viewing the tutorials found here:  

https://www.tcd.ie/CAPSL/resources/eLearning-staff/blackboard.php

This session invites participants to consider the teaching and learning contract between student and lecturer implicit in the teaching environment. Issues include: What are appropriate and inappropriate dynamics of small group teaching in person and online? What ground rules should you lay down as a teacher?  How should teachers assess and respond to student problems? What problems are likely to be encountered by tutors?  At what stage, if any, should you inform someone else of a student’s academic or personal problems? Whose advice should you seek and whom should you inform? How ‘involved’ should you become?    

Pre-requisite / Target audience

Teaching Assistants registered for teaching for the first time in the current academic year

Bibliography

In at the Deep End: Teaching in Higher Education, available in pdf at https://www.tcd.ie/CAPSL/resources/teaching-learning/

Assessment Details

1. 1. Submission of a portfolio of work, to include (a) a teaching philosophy statement and (b) a tutorial lesson plan on maximum 2 sides of A4 (please email to pghishum). Each item contributes 30% of the total module assessment and the portfolio is assessed on a pass/fail basis.
2. 2. Marking of student essays, as part of a Teaching Assistantship (to be assessed by coordinator of the module on which you teach). Worth 40%.

Deadline for these items: Monday 20th January 2025.