Ask HN: (CS Lecturers) How do you make class interesting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: (CS Lecturers) How do you make class interesting?

8 pointsabhisuri974 comments

Right now, Im an undergrad teaching JS but I've noticed myself that my lectures tend to be a bit one-sided. But when I attempt to spice it up by asking questions to the class, I get cricket-chirps and painful awkward silence. What tips do you all have?

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I tie the concepts back to stuff I've done in industry and try to assign homework and projects that teach skills relevant to new technologies or stuff they may do at work. I tend to use "interview questions" to the class and that tends to generate discussion. While I stick to the expected curriculum, I prioritize content to stuff that is likely to be used again. Students appreciate this.

On a more superficial level, I put memes in slides.

This was for a databases class. Very important nowadays, but known to be one of the more boring classes.

Unfortunately this is the reality of undergrad. Most kids are scrolling facebook, the others are extremely shy and afraid of saying something stupid.

I'd say the biggest hurdle to get over is showing the students that it's okay to speak up and get the answer wrong, it's ok to say something silly without penalty.

All the lecturers I've seen who made the classroom engaging would simply not move forward until someone has answered the question. Eventually you get the situation where 1 - 3 people regularly answer the questions just to get the class going. In this case the approach professors would take is to then ask sections of the room where no one has answered.

Thank you for wanting to make your classroom engaging I hope this helps!

Please take a look at the work Greg Wilson did on the matter. There's a book entitled "How to Teach Programming (And Other Things)[0]", and a second book entitled "Teaching Tech Together[1]"

[0]: http://third-bit.com/2017/05/31/how-to-teach-programming.htm...

[1]: http://teachtogether.tech/en/

You could try doing some "ice breaker" games if the size of the class allows it. Maybe your students are just to shy to speak up. These are usually short sessions gently forcing people to say something loudly at the beggining of the lecture. Good luck!

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