Using CPS in Masterworks of British Literature

1
Using CPS in Masterworks of British Literature

• Dr. Elizabeth Cullingford
• College of Liberal Arts
• With support from
• College of Natural Science Ctalk/CPS Project
• Dr. Charles Chiu and Dr. Art Woods

2
Impact on Class Attendance

• Invaluable attendance check for this large
  section of sophomore English
• Students doing poorly often hassled their TAs,
  who worried about these students, but 80 of the
  time they proved to have poor lecture attendance,
  which TAs found very reassuring
• 5 of grade was lecture attendance

3
Intersperse lectures with Q/A sessions

• Affords a break from lecturer's voice
• Redirects focus to text
• Switch for students from passive to active
• Students enjoy pressing buttons and seeing
  histogram of results that pops up immediately
• No more than 2 or 3 questions per lecture.

4
Two categories of Questions

• Factual questions
• Served as reading checks, to determine whether
  students are prepared
• Alerted students to the level of detail that will
  be required on tests
• Were a great tool for teaching of close reading
• Used to emphasize a theme, incident, or character
  that is important to the day's lecture
• Often began with a relevant quotation that
• caused students to read important passage
  closely
• led into a theme for the day
• WHICH
• required the lecturer to choose something crucial
  to ask

5
Two categories of Questions

• Opinion questions
• tell you what students think about an incident,
  character, or symbol
• all options should be possible answers, though
  some more interesting than others (this is not
  about right/wrong)
• alert them to potential readings they may not
  have considered, so lecturer can explore those
  readings with them
• helps lecturer to lead into a big point (e.g.,
  femme fatale in La Belle Dame, religion in Jane
  Eyre -- which led to test question on the subject
  so that students in attendance can pick up
  certain clues about what will be on tests)
• responses can afford a quick-witted lecturer an
  angle worth exploring.

6
Follow-up to Class

• Questions (with answers to factual ones) were all
  posted on Blackboard after the lecture (they were
  very heavily consulted by students).
• Made sure to include some of this material on
  tests.

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Conclusions

• CPS use takes a great deal of time if it is to
  work well.
• Would definitely use it again because it really
  helped to focus what was important about the
  lectures and the course. 
• It provided a great transition from one point to
  another. 
• Could be effective in a class with as few as 30
  people, but not in a seminar

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Additional Information

• Ctalk UT CPS Site
• http//www.ph.utexas.edu/ctalk/
• CITs UT Profiles/Gallery
• http//www.utexas.edu/academic/cit/gallery/utprofi
  les/cps/cullingford.html
• CITs Frequently Asked Questions
• http//www.utexas.edu/academic/cit/howto/labinstru
  ctions/cpsfaqs.html