blog posts

• Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

  Feb 22, 2016 8:00 am0 views

  Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs). Want to get timely information about how well and what your students are learning? Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening. An additional benefit of using CATs is that they also serve as active learning strategies. The standard references on CATs is Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edition, by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (Jossey-Bass, 1993). This article from Vanderbilt Center for Teaching provides several examples and how to implement CATs in your classes.

• Five Ways to Improve Exam Review Sessions

  Mar 9, 2016 8:00 am3 views

  Five Ways to Improve Exam Review Sessions. Here are two frequently asked questions about exam review sessions: (1) Is it worth devoting class time to review, and (2) How do you get students, rather than the teacher, doing the reviewing? Instead of answering those questions directly, a more helpful response might be a set of activities that can make exam review sessions more effective.

• Writing Good Multiple Choice Test Questions

  Mar 9, 2016 8:00 am8 views

  Writing Good Multiple Choice Test Questions. Multiple choice test questions, also known as items, can be an effective and efficient way to assess learning outcomes. Multiple choice test items have several potential advantages: versatility, reliability, and validity. The key to taking advantage of these strengths, however, is construction of good multiple choice items. This article describes ways in which you can improve your multiple choice items.
  

• Five Types of Quizzes That Deepen Engagement with Course Content

  Mar 30, 2016 8:00 am0 views

  Five Types of Quizzes That Deepen Engagement with Course Content. Have you thought about ways in which to maximize the benefit of quizzes?  Have you used quizzes that rely on low-level questions where the right answer is a memorized detail or a quizzing strategy where the primary motivation is punitive, such as to force students to keep up with the reading. That kind of quizzing doesn’t motivate reading for the right reasons and it doesn’t promote deep, lasting learning. There are innovative ways faculty are using quizzes, and these practices rest on different premises. This article describes ways for students to learn content deeper.

• Boredom Busters – When Students Say the Reading is Boring

  Mar 30, 2016 8:00 am270 views

  Boredom Busters – When Students Say the Reading is Boring. For many students in classes, the struggle to comprehend a challenging text often results in disengagement, not increased effort. Academic reading can trigger an understandable defense mechanism in students; they can avoid the discomfort of some difficult tasks by calling the work “boring.” This is a special kind of boredom. Unlike the boredom we associate with repetitive or simplistic tasks – think assembly line work here – academic boredom results from cognitive overload rather than lack of stimulation. The brain has too much to deal with, rather than too little, and so it shuts down, says, “Thank you, but I’ve already had my fill today,” and defends the student against further stress by allowing him or her to “tune out” for the class. Academic boredom, or what composition scholar Charles Bazerman calls pseudo-boredom, is thus a type of guard dog against feelings of confusion and insecurity. This article describes some ways to help students understand difficult texts.
  

• Five Ways to Improve Exam Review Sessions

  Apr 13, 2016 8:00 am1 views

  Five Ways to Improve Exam Review Sessions. Here are two frequently asked questions about exam review sessions: (1) Is it worth devoting class time to review, and (2) How do you get students, rather than the teacher, doing the reviewing? Instead of answering those questions directly, a more helpful response might be a set of activities that can make exam review sessions more effective.

• Global Learning Through Short-Term Study Abroad

  Apr 13, 2016 8:00 am0 views

  Global Learning Through Short-Term Study Abroad. Faculty members and program directors agree that when working with a short time frame for study abroad, preparation is tantamount to success, both for the students and for the faculty member leading the group. Nearly all short-term programs are faculty-led, rather than exchanges with foreign institutions, and this setup provides many built-in benefits. Faculty, administrators, and program directors tend to agree that students get the most out of short-term programs that are highly structured, require ongoing reflection, and include in-depth experience working or studying with host country participants. Here are five best practices for short-term study abroad projects.

• The wrap-up: Ideas for the last day of class.

  Apr 28, 2016 8:00 am1 views

  The wrap-up: Ideas for the last day of class.  “When I was younger I recall having many good intentions about using the last day of class to reflect on and integrate what had happened during the semester.  Students would think about and share their Meaningful Learning Experiences, there would be significant bonding, perhaps a few tears shed, and we would all leave on a high note – in my imagination. In reality, I often use that day to catch up, students are exhausted and cranky, and they’re glad when I let them go early.” Adequate closure creates a sense of satisfaction for all involved and can reinforce the meaningful connections we’ve made with our students – connections that sometimes get lost or strained with end-of-semester stress. Read here for valuable suggestions such as letters to the future.

• The Last Class: A Critical Course Component

  Apr 28, 2016 8:00 am0 views

  The Last Class: A Critical Course Component. There has been significant and well-deserved attention paid to the first class. This class is critical in setting the tone and expectations of the course. Unfortunately, the same amount of attention has not been paid to the last day of class. To us, this class is as important as the first. It is the class where the professor has an opportunity to celebrate the learning of the students. Unfortunately, this day is usually saved for final exam review, finishing up projects or dealing with logistical details like date, time, and location of the final or where to pick up graded term papers. The course ends with a whimper instead of a bang. Think about different ways in which to make this last day as important as the first day of class as a way for celebration and reflection.

• Is Praise Enhancing or Undermining Student Motivation?

  Aug 29, 2016 8:00 am0 views

  Is Praise Enhancing or Undermining Student Motivation? Research has found that praise can actually undermine performance and self-esteem in many contexts. One study found that praise for intelligence leads to the belief by the recipient that their intelligence is fixed, and thus not something that they can influence through action or effort (Dweck, 2007).  A more effective feedback is to switch from praise for intelligence or achievement to praise for effort and process, rather than product. People have control over their level of effort, and if they see that the effort will be recognized, they tend to give more of it. This article describes how to provide more effective feedback that will help students to improve.
  

• Why Students Should Be Taking Notes

  Aug 30, 2016 8:00 am8 views

  Why Students Should Be Taking Notes. Students nowadays can be pretty demanding about wanting the teacher’s PowerPoints, lecture notes, and other written forms of the content presented in class. And a lot of teachers are supplying those, in part trying to be responsive to students but also because many students now lack note-taking skills. The problem is that “the ability to take in information and make it one’s own by processing it, restructuring it, and then presenting it in a form so that it can be understood by others (or by oneself at a later point)” is one of those “basic skills” that is useful throughout life. This article defines a 3-part note restructuring assignment to help students improve and learn from their class notes.

• Save the Last Word for Me: Encouraging Students to Engage with Complex Reading and Each Other

  Sep 14, 2016 8:00 am3 views

  Save the Last Word for Me: Encouraging Students to Engage with Complex Reading and Each Other.  Online discussions are often implemented in college classes to allow students to express their understanding and perceptions about the assigned readings. This can be challenging when the reading is particularly complex, as students are typically reluctant to share their interpretations because they are not confident in their understanding. This can inhibit meaningful interactions with peers within an online discussion.  Through a review of research, we found that more structured discussions tend to exhibit higher levels of shared cognition (deNoyelles, Zydney, & Chen, 2014).

• Ready to Flip: Three Ways to Hold Students Accountable for Pre-Class Work

  Sep 14, 2016 8:00 am7 views

  Ready to Flip: Three Ways to Hold Students Accountable for Pre-Class Work. One of the most frequent questions faculty ask about the flipped classroom model is: “How do you encourage students to actually do the pre-class work and come to class prepared?” This is not really a new question for educators. We’ve always assigned some type of homework, and there have always been students who do not come to class ready to learn. However, the flipped classroom conversation has launched this question straight to the top of the list of challenges faculty face when implementing this model in their classrooms.  Here is an article that suggests several ways to prepare for your class.
  

• Caring about Students Matter

  Sep 27, 2016 8:00 am2 views

  Caring about Students Matter. Good teachers care about their students. We all know that, but sometimes over the course of a long semester, it’s easy to forget just how important it is to show our students we care about them. But it isn’t always easy to care about students. We may care theoretically, even actually, but when we’re tired, stressed by all that our academic positions require, and pulled by what’s happening at home, showing that you care isn’t all that easy. And then there are those students who themselves so clearly don’t care—about us, our course, their major, or their learning. This article explains why caring is important and how to convey that concern.

• Time to Do This! Informal Early Feedback (IEF): A Valuable Opportunity for Just-in-Time Feedback.

  Sep 27, 2016 8:00 am0 views

  Time to Do This!  Informal Early Feedback (IEF): A Valuable Opportunity for Just-in-Time Feedback.  Student evaluations of teaching are an important part of the feedback that instructors receive. This feedback can be especially helpful when it is collected during the semester. Our students can tell us if we are clear, accessible, respectful or timely. They may also be able to tell us if the activities we give them are well aligned with the ways we evaluate their learning. Responding to students’ comments by discussing them in class, and making changes as appropriate, can lead to increased motivation, better learning, and possibly improved end-of-semester student ratings. Here is a description of the process and sample forms for you to adapt. You can contact CITL for assistance to create the form and/or analyze the results. 

• An Innovative Learning Strategy for Exams: 2-Stage Exams and 2-Stage Reviews

  Oct 11, 2016 8:00 am2 views

  An Innovative Learning Strategy for Exams: 2-Stage Exams and 2-Stage Reviews. Students take an exam individually. Once they complete the exam they turn it in and get into a group with 3 other students. The students then take the identical test but this time they work together on the questions. There is one answer sheet for the group so they all have to come to agreement on each answer. Listening to their peers and arguing for their case helps them to understand the answer better, even if they had gotten the question correct on their individual test. This also works well for a review when students begin a new class and the instructor wants to review the prerequisite material.  Directions for this strategy for taking and review the exam are here.
  

• A Simple Invitation - Please See Me.

  Oct 11, 2016 8:00 am3 views

  A Simple Invitation - Please See Me.  It all began with a simple message that I wrote on the tests or assignments of students who were struggling: “Please see me so we can discuss your performance on the test (or assignment). Let’s see what we can do to improve your grade.” Although initially I was not collecting data on the effectiveness of my “invitation,” I soon realized that most of students—about 80 percent—responded to it. Notably, those who met with me began to do better on future tests; their assignments improved as well.
  

• Build-in Self-Assessment to Develop Critical Thinking: A Case for Annotation

  Oct 27, 2016 8:00 am29 views

  Build-in Self-Assessment to Develop Critical Thinking: A Case for Annotation. If we want students to be critical thinkers, we must routinely and explicitly give them structured practice opportunities to critically examine their own thinking. Squeezing two or three metacognitive activities into a hectic semester teaches students that such reflection is only for special occasions. Rather, student self-evaluation should be a daily course routine.  As an alternative to time-consuming, discrete, self-reflective assignments, we’ve turned to annotation as a built-in flexible routine to bolster any stage of the learning process. Annotation can help define grading criteria and reinforce course ideas.  

• Thinking Creatively and Critically

  Oct 27, 2016 8:00 am31 views

  Thinking Creatively and Critically. The posting below gives some excellent suggestions on how to help your students think more creatively and critically. It is by Rebecca Brent and Richard M. Felder and is from Chemical Engineering Education, 48(2), 113-114 (2014).  Check out Felder's website for more articles on teaching . Two popular targets on the list of Things These Students Can't Do are creative thinking (coming up with innovative ideas) and critical thinking (making judgments or choices and backing them up with evidence and logic). Some examples are: idea generation and prioritization, explanation of unanticipated results, and problem formulation.

• Courses That Are Hard, but Not Too Hard: Finding the Sweet Spot

  Nov 9, 2016 8:00 am4 views

  Courses That Are Hard, but Not Too Hard: Finding the Sweet Spot. Courses need to be challenging, but when they become too hard, students stop trying and little learning results. So how do we find that sweet spot between hard and not too hard? More importantly, how do we create that sweet spot in our own courses through the decisions we make about content, assignments, and exams?  One solution is to give students opportunities to work on content in class and then listen closely to their conversations. Are they working hard, experiencing some frustration, but finally figuring it out? How much effort are they expending? Additional strategies, including exam wrappers, are discussed.

• Exam Wrapper

  Nov 9, 2016 8:00 am3 views

  Exam Wrapper. Here’s a strategy that helps students look at more than the grade when an exam is returned. An exam wrapper (I like the name) is a handout attached to the exam that students complete as part of the exam debrief process. The wrapper directs students “to review and analyze their performance (and the instructor’s feedback) with an eye toward adapting their future learning.” (Ambrose et al, 2010, p. 251). Here is a more detailed description of the exam wrapper strategy.
  

• Final Exam Review Ideas

  Nov 29, 2016 8:00 am7 views

  Final Exam Review Ideas. In a study of student perceptions of teacher misbehaviors, Kearny, Plax, Hays and Ivey (1991) report that a common complaint by students involved “unfair testing” practices. Faculty misbehaviors related to tests as reported by students were trick questions, ambiguous questions, tests too difficult, and no exam reviews.  Here are some ways to help students prepare for the final exam and to reduce student anxiety. (Weimer, 1998).

• School’s Out! Almost. Strategies for the Last Day of Class

  Nov 29, 2016 8:00 am57 views

  School’s Out! Almost. Strategies for the Last Day of Class. The first day of class usually gets all the attention, and the last day of class is often neglected. By the end of a semester, the energy of most students and instructors has waned, and both have settled into comfortable routines. Too often, activities (if there are any) for the last day of class are cobbled together the night before, or the instructor gives a bland ‘wrap-up’ lecture summarizing the previous weeks. This is the challenge: how to create a last day of class that leaves students thinking about what a great course they took, and leaves you wanting to teach it again next year. Here are ways to make the last day substantive, engaging, and meaningful.

• Is Your Syllabus a Boring One Or a Promising One?

  Jan 12, 2017 8:00 am6 views

  Is Your Syllabus a Boring One or a Promising One?  Rather than read aloud your syllabus on the first day, how do you lively up a boring syllabus?  Clip art? More jokes? Perhaps even just one joke? A better method would be to adopt the idea of the "promising syllabus," a concept developed by Ken Bain, whose book (What the Best College Teachers Do, 2004). He doesn't claim to have originated the idea of the promising syllabus -- he discovered it, he said, from his review of the syllabi of outstanding college and university teachers, in which he found a common approach and some common features. "The promising syllabus," Bain wrote via e-mail, "fundamentally recognizes that people will learn best and most deeply when they have a strong sense of control over their own education rather than feeling manipulated by someone else's demands." A promising syllabus contains three key components.

• Make the Most of the First Day of Class

  Jan 12, 2017 8:00 am4 views

  Make the Most of the First Day of Class.  The first day of class always creates some nervousness, even for seasoned instructors. It helps to have a mental checklist of objectives to accomplish so that you and your students come away with the impression that the course is off to a good start. The first class meeting should serve at least two basic purposes: a) to clarify all reasonable questions students might have relative to the course objectives, as well as your expectations for their performance in class. As students leave the first meeting, they should believe in your competence to teach the course, be able to predict the nature of your instruction, and know what you will require of them and b) to give you an understanding of who is taking your course and what their expectations are. These two basic purposes expand into a set of eight concrete objectives that will maximize opportunities in your first day.

• Courses That Are Hard, but Not Too Hard

  Jan 25, 2017 8:00 am7 views

  Courses That Are Hard, but Not Too Hard. Finding the Sweet Spot. Courses need to be challenging, but when they become too hard, students stop trying and little learning results. So how do we find that sweet spot between hard and not too hard? More importantly, how do we create that sweet spot in our own courses through the decisions we make about content, assignments, and exams? Finding that perfect balance is not particularly easy or straightforward. Based on research, students do not prefer easy courses, but ones that are “Challenging”, but not “too difficult.” Here are some ways in which to find the line of demarcation of hard and not too hard.

• Teaching with Discussions

  Jan 25, 2017 8:00 am6 views

  Teaching with Discussions. One of the most challenging teaching methods, leading discussions can also be one of the most rewarding. Using discussions as a primary teaching method allows you to stimulate critical thinking. As you establish a rapport with your students, you can demonstrate that you appreciate their contributions at the same time that you challenge them to think more deeply and to articulate their ideas more clearly. Frequent questions, whether asked by you or by the students, provide a means of measuring learning and exploring in-depth the key concepts of the course. Be planful in how you start maintain, and finish the class discussion.

• In the next few weeks, administer an Informal Early Feedback (IEF)

  Feb 9, 2017 8:00 am0 views

  In the next few weeks, administer an Informal Early Feedback (IEF). Student evaluations of teaching are an important part of the feedback that instructors receive. This feedback can be especially helpful when it is collected during the semester. Our students can tell us if we are clear, accessible, respectful or timely. They may also be able to tell us if the activities we give them are well aligned with the ways we evaluate their learning. Responding to students’ comments by discussing them in class, and making changes as appropriate, can lead to increased motivation, better learning, and possibly improved end-of-semester student ratings. Check this site for directions and sample IEF forms.
  

• Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) for Immediate Feedback on Student Learning

  Feb 9, 2017 8:00 am20 views

  Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) for Immediate Feedback on Student Learning.  Want to get timely information about how well and what your students are learning? Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening. An additional benefit of using CATs is that they also serve as active learning strategies. The standard references on CATs is Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edition, by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (Jossey-Bass, 1993). This article from Vanderbilt Center for Teaching provides several examples and how to implement CATs.

• Do Quizzes Improve Student Learning? A Look at the Evidence

  Feb 23, 2017 8:00 am14 views

  Do Quizzes Improve Student Learning? A Look at the Evidence. There’s a lot of talk these days about evidence-based instructional practices. Recently I’ve been trying to locate the evidence that supports quizzing, wondering if it merits the evidence-based label. Tracking down this evidence in our discipline-based research is challenging because although quizzing has been studied across our disciplines, it’s not easily searchable. What this evidence tells us is that given a particular set of conditions, quizzes produce positive results, in most cases a range of them. And that gives us three things to consider: quizzes are an evidence-based instructional strategy only in a general sense; to determine if quizzes produce the desired results, evidence is needed; and consideration of the instructional design is of profound importance. Additional details are here.

• Three Guidelines and Two Workarounds for Tackling Makeup Exam Policies

  Feb 23, 2017 8:00 am5 views

  Three Guidelines and Two Workarounds for Tackling Makeup Exam Policies. Are you one of the many instructors who loathe makeup exam requests? Makeup exams often create more work and can put us in the awkward position of judging the truthfulness of our students’ excuses. Although we can’t avoid makeup requests entirely, we can better prepare ourselves and our students by having a transparent and fair makeup exam policy. When designing your policy, always ask yourself: Does the policy allow students to learn what you want them to learn in your course? Here are three guidelines for an effective makeup exam policy and two possible workarounds

• Learning with Students vs. Doing for Students

  Mar 8, 2017 8:00 am6 views

  Learning with Students vs. Doing for Students. Here’s a quote, “I see myself as a learner first, thus I create my classes with learners, not for them ….”  When I think about classes I think about myself as a teacher first. So, I’ve been trying to imagine facing a teaching task from the perspective of a learner. The quote represents another push away from teaching and toward learning. But the preposition “with” makes it something more than just another admonition to be more learner-centered. Classes are created with learners, not for them. Even given my long-standing interest in learner-centered teaching, I have to be honest and admit, I created courses and now create workshops for learners, not with them.  Perhaps here is a way by doing beneficial things for students if I use what I have learned by doing things with them.

• Are Happier Students Better Performers?

  Mar 8, 2017 8:00 am9 views

  Are Happier Students Better Performers? The importance of student happiness cannot be underestimated as a determining factor in academic performance, especially in the context of today’s universities. However, teachers can be empowered in their roles as holistic educators and become positive mentors for their students, providing understanding, empathy and encouragement. Furthermore, they can also train students in developing their emotional resilience. This should be given particular emphasis in this day and age, where students are increasingly vulnerable to the negative effects of boredom, stress and frustration in their university courses. So, teachers have an increasingly important role as contributors to student happiness.  It can be said that a truly happy student is likely to excel in his academic pursuit.

• Test Anxiety: Causes and Remedies

  Mar 23, 2017 8:00 am15 views

  Test Anxiety: Causes and Remedies. There hasn’t been a lot written recently about test anxiety, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer an issue for a significant number of students. Those of us who don’t suffer from test anxiety—and I’m betting that’s most faculty—can find it hard to be sympathetic. Life is full of tests, and students need to get over it. Besides, if students have studied and prepared, there’s no reason for them to feel excessively anxious about a test. Perhaps we should start by reestablishing that test anxiety is a legitimate problem. A significant amount of research says that it can affect students in kindergarten right on up through college and graduate school.  Teachers can’t cure test anxiety. But they can offer remedies that students should be encouraged to try. Information about good study strategies should be included in every course.

• Testing what you’re Teaching without Teaching to the Test

  Mar 23, 2017 8:00 am5 views

  Testing what you’re Teaching without Teaching to the Test. Have your students ever told you that your tests are too hard? Tricky? Unfair? Many of us have heard these or similar comments. The conundrum is that, in some circumstances, those students may be right. Assessing student learning is a big responsibility.  Assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes, projects, and presentations) that are haphazardly constructed, even if unintentionally, can result in scores and grades that misrepresent the true extent of students’ knowledge and leave students confused about what they should have been learning. Fortunately, in three easy steps, test blueprinting can better ensure that we are testing what we’re teaching.
  

• Rubrics: An Undervalued Teaching Tool

  Apr 12, 2017 8:00 am10 views

  Rubrics: An Undervalued Teaching Tool. English teachers know a few things about managing the paper load. But managing isn’t leading. We should do more than manage the load; we should lead our students through the writing process (invention, drafting, and revising) to help them become independent thinkers who can effectively present their ideas to an audience. Rubrics offer an effective way to guide thinking and learning in any course that requires a paper or writing-intensive project.
  

• Why Open-book Tests Deserve a Place in Your Courses

  Apr 12, 2017 8:00 am5 views

  Why Open-book Tests Deserve a Place in Your Courses. With the proliferation of learning management systems (LMS), many instructors now incorporate web-based technologies into their courses. While posting slides and readings online are common practices, the LMS can also be leveraged for testing. Purely online courses typically employ some form of web-based testing tool, but they are also useful for hybrid and face-to-face (F2F) offerings. Some instructors, however, are reluctant to embrace online testing. Their concerns can be wide ranging, but chief among them is cheating. Instead of wasting valuable time to deter cheating, open-book tests shift the onus of responsibility onto the students themselves. They are the ones who must track down answers and page through online notes.

• Preparing Your Students for Final Exams

  Apr 26, 2017 8:00 am5 views

  Preparing Your Students for Final Exams. Final Exams are stressful to make, to give, to take, and to grade—not to mention, a critical element in the evaluation of students. Typically comprehensive, they carry more weight than mid-terms and other tests given throughout they semester, and provide that “final” opportunity for students to demonstrate what they’ve learned. But, as reported in an article in UC-Berkeley’s New Faculty Teaching Newsletter, students often complain that “final exams do not always test the kinds of knowledge…asked for in homework or quizzes or presented in lectures” (Tollefson, 2007). Whether this complaint is valid or not, it is important that we devote our best effort to creating good final exams. Here are nine helpful suggestions to prepare your students.

• Alternatives to Traditional Testing

  Apr 26, 2017 8:00 am41 views

  Alternatives to Traditional Testing.  It is too late now to change, but you should keep this in mind for next semester when you think of diverse ways of assessing student learning. For many courses of varying format and size, across many disciplines, reasonable alternatives to traditional tests (i.e., paper-based T/F or Multiple Choice) exist. In fact, oftentimes the alternatives may even be advantageous to promote student learning and be more authentic means of students demonstrating what they have learned at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (synthesis, analysis, evaluation).  Here are some suggestions.

• First Impressions: Activities for the First Day of Class

  Aug 9, 2017 9:45 am282 views

  The old expression that you never have a second chance to make a first impression is certainly true in the classroom. Early in my career, I tried several first-day-of-class strategies, ranging from briefly introducing the course and dismissing students early to spending the entire time reviewing policies and procedures, but I began to feel that I was missing an important opportunity. Students are never more attentive than they are on the first day of class, when they’re eager to determine what kind of professor they’re dealing with, and although it is tempting to delay the real work of teaching and learning until the class list has stabilized, it can be difficult to change even the subtle norms that are established during this initial class. Several years ago, I tried a new approach, and I’ve been using it with great success ever since. Here are some strategies to help students begin using the skills they need.

• First Day of Class Activities that Create a Climate for Learning

  Aug 9, 2017 9:45 am286 views

  There’s no discounting the importance of the first day of class. What happens that day sets the tone for the rest of the course. Outlined below are a few novel activities for using that first day of class to emphasize the importance of learning and the responsibility students share for shaping the classroom environment.

• Does It Matter How Students Feel about a Course?

  Sep 13, 2017 4:00 pm2 views

  A line of research (done mostly in Australia and Great Britain) has been exploring what prompts students to opt for deep or surface approaches to learning. So far this research has established strong links between the approaches taken to teaching and those taken to learning. If teachers are focused on covering large amounts of content and do so with few attempts to involve and engage students, students tend to learn the material by memorizing it, often without much understanding of it. The 18-item instrument these researchers developed contains three subscales: one with questions associated with positive emotions such as pride, hope, and confidence, and two that measure negative emotions, one associated with frustration, anger, and boredom and the second with anxiety and shame. All three of these analyses “show significant relations between students’ emotional experience, their approaches to learning and their learning outcomes.” (p. 816). The more pragmatic question involves what teachers can do to help student have positive emotional experiences in the course.

• To Improve Learning, More Researchers Say Students Should Feel Like They Belong in the Classroom

  Sep 13, 2017 5:00 pm8 views

  About a third of the students who started college in 2009 have since dropped out, joining the millions of young adults who never entered college in the first place. Several years into a massive push by both the federal government and states to increase postsecondary graduation rates, education policymakers across the country are asking what else they can do to get more students to and through college. There’s one seemingly simple solution according to David Yeager, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin: Tell students they belong in higher education. However, they caution, the oft-used term growth mindset – the self-belief that a student’s abilities can grow through hard work and effort – doesn’t mean just praising kids for trying. Here is a description of the important student toolkit that focuses on qualities like grit, persistence, and learning from mistakes.

• Improving Your Test Questions

  Sep 26, 2017 9:45 am2 views

  An effective test can accurately measure what students know but also the kind of knowledge and the depth of that knowledge.  It can also provide you with key information regarding alignment of the learning objectives stated at the beginning of the course with what is being assessed in your exam. Implementing key testing principles and making good decisions regarding exam types, test items, and grading are ways to ensure that student learning is accurately measured. Here are some tips from our Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. You can also register for our CITL workshop on Oct. 4th (Improving Our Testing and Grading of Student Achievement) to learn more.

• How Should I Study for the Exam?

  Sep 26, 2017 9:45 am1 views

  When an exam approaches, virtually all students agree they need to study and most will, albeit with varying intensity. Most will study the same way they always have—using the strategies they think work. The question students won’t ask is: How should I study for this exam? They don’t recognize that what they need to learn can and should be studied in different ways. 

  When they get a good grade on an exam, students regularly attribute the success to luck. Students’ success as learners would advance if they had a larger repertoire of study strategies, if they could match study strategies with learning tasks, and if they constructively confronted how they studied with how they performed. Students need help on all three fronts, but courses are already packed with content. Most teachers have time to do little more than admonish students to study hard, avoid cramming and memorizing minutia, and abstain from any sort of cheating. Here is a short survey to administer to your students and how to start a short discussion on “How to study for this exam."

• Facilitating Class Discussions: Understanding Group Development and Dynamics.

  Sep 26, 2017 4:00 pm28 views

  Facilitating discussions requires the ability to engage different perspectives and skills in response to the needs of the group. How well a group works together depends upon the dynamics among participants and the ability of the facilitator to gauge and respond to these dynamics. An effective facilitator works to create an inclusive learning environment while being prepared to set boundaries and rules when necessary. Yet, even experienced facilitators can be confronted with situations or individuals that prevent the group from functioning. This essay describes some reflective practices that can prepare facilitators and participants for productive group discussions.

• How Good Are Your Discussion Facilitation Skills?

  Sep 26, 2017 5:00 pm7 views

  Successfully leading and guiding student discussions requires a range of fairly sophisticated communication skills. At the same time teachers are monitoring what’s being said about the content, they must keep track of the discussion itself. Is it on topic? How many students want to speak? Who’s already spoken and wants to speak again? How many aren’t listening? Is it time to move to a different topic? What’s the thinking behind that student question? How might the discussion be wrapped up?  Most of us are not trained discussion facilitators. Here is an empirically developed instrument that can be used to more clearly identify the various skills involved in effective discussion facilitation and to gather student feedback that can help you assess yours.

• Six Causes of Student Resistance (to Learning)

  Nov 2, 2017 8:45 am1030 views

  A lot of students just don’t seem all that interested in learning. Most faculty work hard to help students find that missing motivation. They try a wide range of active learning strategies, and those approaches are successful with a lot of students but not all students. Stephen Brookfield writes about students who are beyond being passive about learning—they just plain resist it. He suggests that teachers can’t respond successfully unless they are knowledgeable about the sources of resistance to learning. Here are the reasons for student resistance.

• Hang In There! Dealing with Student Resistance to Learner-Centered Teaching.

  Nov 2, 2017 8:45 am23 views

  Student-centered teaching methods like active and cooperative and problem-based learning make students take more responsibility for their learning than traditional teacher-centered methods do, and the students are not necessarily thrilled about it. All college instructors who have tried the former methods have experienced student resistance-and if they were getting high evaluations when they taught traditionally, their ratings may have dropped when they made the switch. Click here to learn more.

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Types of Test Questions

  Nov 14, 2017 9:00 am6870 views

  It’s good to regularly review the advantages and disadvantages of the most commonly used test questions, such as multiple-choice, true-false, short answer, and essay.  Also important is to think about the considerations when using the test banks that now frequently provide these questions. There are also several interesting variations that build on the above options.