If it's not broke...fix it anyway

Teaching the same course year after year offers ample opportunity for pulling out those yellowed powerpoints and coasting.  It also offers ample opportunity to fine-tune, experiment, revise, and perfect (whatever that means in teaching) the course.  So, for the third time in as many years, I'm revisiting and revising my Logic course.

The main thing I aim to do this semester is to genuinely "flip" the Logic classroom, even more than last year.  I think this trendy term is probably overused and widely misunderstood.  Often, it seems to be code for a growing impatience with lecture, or maybe just resignation about attention spans that seem shorter and shorter each year (mine included!).  Some of the components of a flipped classroom, however, are likely to be quite useful in a class like Logic.

For example, I've been slowing building a small library of online tools for students.  Last year, I added to my collection of midnight white board videos that students can watch at their leisure.  These videos show my iPad screen as I work through logical problems, and though students don't see me, they hear my voice talking through the problems.  I use a free app, so there aren't really editing tools.  In that sense, students get the benefit of seeing and hearing Logic in the field, mistakes, swear words, and all.

I'm also revising those old, yellowed powerpoint lectures and posting them online prior to class.  I'm going to try to avoid using them as actual lectures in class this semester.  The greatest liability in my teaching is that I really enjoy doing Logic, and I especially enjoy having an audience!  So, I could spend whole class periods just showing my students how well I solve logical problems; but of course we know that students will learn better if they are the ones doing the problem-solving.  So my goal is to spend most class periods in Logic workshops.  Students will, of course, have to be prepared, but the only way to help them to develop those habits is to just expect them.  We'll see how that goes.

My other big experiment this semester is in using ungraded "badges."  My trusty undergrad apprentices are helping to make online badges for "leveling up" in class (such as badges in Venn Diagramming, Truth Tabling, etc.).  I'm generally suspicious of gamification in education, but perhaps badges will help to create community and a sense of accomplishment and belonging (via Logic) with this Harry Potter generation.  More on that later.