Spilled Cup Labs

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How

Group classes

On the calendar page, teachers can enter an event that contains the following:

• A link to their teacher profile page
• The course name
• Course description
• Date(s), time(s), platform or place the class will meet
• What students would be appropriate (age, subject-knowledge level, language level)
• Whether the class will be recorded:
  • It will not be recorded
  • It will be recorded but will be viewable by the attendees only
  • It will be recorded and will be viewable by the general public
• Method of instruction (brief description of teaching methods)
• (optional) Reason for teaching the class
• link to click to apply to take the class

Student responsibilities

A student who applies to take a class will submit the following information to their teacher and it will be up to the teacher to decide whether to accept the student:

• User name
• If they are also a teacher, a link to their teacher profile page
• Name they want to be called by in class
• Birth date
• Self-assessed subject-knowledge level
• Native language
• Self assessed level in the language used in the class
• (optional) Reason for taking the class

A student will not get thrown out of the program for being a "bad student" however a teacher might refuse to continue teaching a student, in which case the student is encouraged to find another class where the teacher is more able to help. A student will only get thrown out of the program for breaking the rules of the organization.

Students should keep in mind the teachers are inexperienced, and should be prepared to help the teachers out.

Examples:

If there are language learners in the class, native speakers could help them out, or set an example for how to communicate.

Students could help teachers brainstorm how to present ideas in more entertaining or understandable ways.

Students could help teachers create lesson materials or create transcripts of the class and translations.

Lesson Planning

Not all classes need a lesson plan. A teacher can experiment with impromtu teaching versus structured lessons.

Students might appreciate seeing the syllabus and/or lesson plan(s) before deciding to take the class, especially if there are experimental methods involved that the student is curious about.

Students and fellow teachers might be willing to help create plans and materials - feel free to write in your course description that you welcome other teachers to participate in your class, or welcome input from students.

Feedback

Teachers at the beginning might not yet be at a stage where they can tolerate complaints. They will be of course able to tolerate support and encouragement. If a teacher's purpose is to learn to feel comfortable in front of a group, it might be all they can do to simply be present in front of the group without feeling naseous.

Because most of the teachers that students will encounter will be extremely inexperienced, students should assume that feedback will not be appreciated unless the teacher provides a specific mechanism for providing the feedback.

A good teacher will of course provide a specific mechanism for students to provide feedback.

Teachers will determine if and how they will provide feedback on their students' progress.

Assessment

As this is a lab, teachers and students are encouraged to develop some method of assessment, in order to measure the progress or failure of the students and, by inference, the progress or failure of the teacher. Assessment is a form of feedback.

There is no requirement to do any assessments. Some assessments are helpful, some aren't.