Teaching Strategy Resource Shelf

Getting Students to Read: Important Considerations

Sep 11, 2014 8:00 am

Getting Students to Read: Important Considerations. “Whenever faculty get together to talk about student writing or critical thinking, they inevitably turn also to problems of student reading.” (Bean, 1996, p. 133). Think carefully about why and how you assign required readings. You can reduce your own and your students’ frustrations by thinking about these important ways to incorporate readings into your course. Click here to read the IDEA article.

Ten Rules of Good (and Bad) Studying

Sep 10, 2014 8:00 am

Ten Rules of Good (and Bad) Studying. Students may not be aware that they are using some unhelpful strategies when they are studying. Think about sharing with your students strategies such as explanatory questioning and simple analogies to help them more deeply encode what they are learning. Click here for a list of helpful studying strategies.

101 Things to Do in the First Three Weeks of Class

Aug 28, 2014 8:00 am

101 Things to Do in the First Three Weeks of Class. Want a successful start to the semester? How about setting expectations, learning students’ prior knowledge, motivating and engaging your students? Here are several strategies to implement right away.

The Three Most Time-Efficient Teaching Practices

Aug 28, 2014 8:00 am

The Three Most Time-Efficient Teaching Practices. As we start our semester, it is important to look at how effective and efficient we can be with our time. Here are three suggestions from Linda Hodges (U. of Maryland, Baltimore Co.) on how to be more productive in our class preparation, while also promoting better student learning.

A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop

Jun 12, 2014 8:00 am

A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop. This latest research by Mueller & Oppenheimer, reported in Scientific American, states that students who used longhand to take notes remembered more and had a deeper understanding of the materials. Reasons for better understanding and learning were because students were engaged in listening, digesting, and summarizing as they took notes. See the article here.

What Faculty Can Do to Support Student Notetaking Skills

Jun 12, 2014 8:00 am

What Faculty Can Do to Support Student Notetaking Skills. It is problematic when students take incomplete and/or inadequate notes, especially when the content is on essential, often complex material. There are a number of strategies that the instructor can do during the lecture to enhance students’ notetaking. Here are some of them from the U. of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.

The Final Class Sessions: Providing Closure

May 2, 2014 8:00 am

The Final Class Sessions: Providing Closure. The end of the semester can be stressful for instructors as well as students. If you have a few minutes in this last session, take the opportunity for all to reflect about where the students started and how much they have learned. Here are some tips from the University of Minnesota. Click here to read the strategies.

What Do You Do on the Last Day of Class?

May 2, 2014 8:00 am

What Do You Do on the Last Day of Class? Much of the literature on the last day of class notes three primary uses of this last class session: final examination preparation, completing course evaluations, and reflecting on the course. Given the importance of this last day it is worth just a bit of effort to think through the best use of your final minutes of the course. Here are some thoughts from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Strategies When Writing Objective and Subjective Exams

Apr 10, 2014 8:00 am

Strategies When Writing Objective and Subjective Exams. When deciding the structure of your exams, here are two articles to assist you when creating objective (e.g., multiple-choice or true/false tests) and subjective (e.g., essay and short-answer) exams.

Preparing the Final Exam