Perfect mini vacation in #WaveWatching pics, and a podcast episode on pedagogy for large classes

I’m in my podcast phase again… And still on the Tea for Teaching show! Just listened to an older episode where Anna Logan and Ann Marie Farrell talk about pedagogy for large classes.

One thought towards the beginning of the episode really resonated with me (and I needed to write this blogpost just to make sure to not forget): As impossible as it might feel to build a relationship with a large class as a teacher, think of the experience of watching an artist perform live. Even as one out of hundreds of people in the audience, knowing fully well that the artist could not possibly have noticed you in the crowd, it can still feel like there is some kind of personal connection that forms and remains with you afterwards. And this is not to say that you should feel like some celebrity on a pedestal, but that there are ways to interact with a large crowd in ways that make people feel valued and seen. And some might be as easy as smiling at people while moving through the crowd, or being approachable for questions (or autographs? ;-)), or even just looking like you want to be there — ask, listen, and respond.

Other suggestions of how to build a relationship with a large class are not super surprising — use think-pair-share! Use a backchannel (and let it be monitored by a student, who then reads out the questions)! Wear a headset and move around the room (but what I loved here: use a microphone in a foam dice that can be thrown to students that put up their hand, so they can speak at a normal voice and there is no hectic running around with microphones in a large lecture theatre [pro tip given here: only throw it to students that have put up their hand; do not just throw it into the crowd randomly. Otherwise people are happy to use your head for target practice and throw it back])!

I also really enjoyed the discussion around how they work with student representatives to encourage active participation in the large class: Meeting the representatives before a course starts and asking for their help in teaching the first few sessions by answering questions and asking some. To make that easier, the student representatives get prepped with the content of what will be covered during those sessions, the questions that will be asked, ideas for how to answer them, and ideas for questions they could ask. By modelling engagement with a teacher, whether other students know that the representatives are “planted” to do that or not, other students are encouraged to also actively engage. And after the first few sessions, a culture of engagement has been established and no “planting” is necessary anymore.

As nerve-wrecking as it always is, I kinda miss teaching real students and large groups!

On to some wave watching: Back in March, I had an amazing mini vacation and I cannot believe that I did not post any pictures from it until now! We were so lucky to spend two days in Ystad, here seen from the water.

We were so lucky with the weather!

It’s also a beautiful place to swim, just sand on the bottom, no algae (at least in March…)

And I LOVE watching waves break on a beach! This image makes me so happy!

Interesting shape of the beach here with all those little bays. I wonder how they formed?

Also always fascinating: When the sea looks almost flat, and then, out of nowhere, waves start to appear close to the beach when the water gets shallow enough to slow them down so they build up…

What was also really fun to watch? How the sides of the jetty reflect the incoming waves in this interesting pattern!

It’s one wave crest that bumps into the _|‾|_|‾|_|‾|-shaped sides of the jetty as it (the wave crest, that is) propagates towards the beach, and then gets broken up into all these small waves radiating outwards.

And some more of those waves… I was fascinated!

We even had a view of the jetty from our room!

Also fascinating: How different the wave fields are on the upwind and downwind side of the jetty! (Good thing it’s a jetty, i.e. built on fill, not a pier, built on piles, otherwise the waves would just go through ;-))

Close-up of the waves…

And here a picture of the jetty, in case you did not fully appreciate my description earlier (_|‾|_|‾|_|‾| is not too bad me thinks!)

I remember how lovely it was to swim here, I wish I could go back!

Ah, and one last beach picture. This is from the same walk where I spotted the sign of the featured image in this post…