Best Practices & Dismal Failures

[The Comedian]

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Teachers, Professors, Students, Scholars!

I'm always on the lookout for stories of the classroom that highlight an effective lesson, activity, test, lecture, etc. . . . Or, conversely, those classroom ideas that seemed so great at the time, but flat-lined when born out in the classroom.

Would anyone like to share classroom stories of best practices and dismal failures?

I'll add a few to this thread in a little while, I have to finish my soup then run off to class.

[Niamh]

When i was in college in DKIT, i had an archeology Tutor who was so enthusiastic about teaching the subject that it made the class quite enjoyable and made us students attend his classes. Pure stress free envoirnment. Also he liked to finish his classes off with a joke which would have us all in stitches and bouncing out of the classroom. Once he held us back a couple of minutes insisting that he had one more very important thing to say before we left and then whipped out to pages from an argos catalogue and asked us which wardrobe he should buy. :D another time he told us that there was going to be a special guest in the class. The whole class we waited for a special guest who hadnt turned up, all the while wondering what the waves and squiggles at the end of the acitates on the projector were, when suddenly on the final one, at the very end of class... was Mr Tickle... or special guest. :p