blog posts

• Students and instructors have different expectations about classroom etiquette

  Jan 3, 2018 3:30 pm4 views

  While some behaviors would be considered rude and offensive in any context, others are a matter of individual interpretation. For example, some instructors are bothered if students wear hats, eat in class, slouch, etc. while others are not. Moreover, what is considered appropriate (or rude) classroom behavior can vary strikingly from one culture to another. For example, members of one culture might be comfortable addressing professors by first name, while members of another find this disrespectful. Finally, standards of courtesy vary from discipline to discipline and department to department. To complicate matters further, even in the context of a single class the boundary between appropriate and inappropriate behavior can be subtle and difficult to navigate. Here are some strategies in navigating diverse expectations.

• Student Resistance to Learner-Centered Teaching

  Oct 31, 2011 8:00 am5 views

  Student Resistance to Learner-Centered Teaching. Have you worked hard to incorporate a variety of strategies to engage your students?  Do you feel that your students actually prefer that you just lecture? Richard Felder provides a number of considerations to explain student resistance and ways to overcome it.  Click here for the article.

• Student Motivation to Learn

  Mar 6, 2013 8:00 am4 views

  Student Motivation to Learn. Have you ever said, “My students just aren’t motivated”?   Here is a model that defines extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and provides research-based strategies to motivate students to learn. Click here to learn more. 

• Student Experts.

  Mar 5, 2009 8:00 am9 views

  Student Experts. Have students become experts on key points through-out the semester. Students can be responsible for a small part of a lecture where their "key point" is featured.

• Strategies When Writing Objective and Subjective Exams

  Apr 10, 2014 8:00 am18 views

  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.  

  • Improving Multiple-Choice Tests
  • Improving Essay Tests

   

• Strategies to Warm Teaching While Maintaining High Expectations

  Nov 9, 2022 8:45 am21 views

  (from Scholarly Teacher). Strategies to Warm Teaching While Maintaining High Expectations. In a landmark article, Chickering and Gamson (1987) noted that a principle of good practice in undergraduate education is communicating high expectations. Hattie and colleagues (Donohoo et al., 2018; Hattie & Yates, 2013) reported that having high expectations is one of the strongest predictors of learning. It is noteworthy that these researchers speak of high expectations rather than rigor. Although some feel that high expectations are synonymous with rigor, these concepts are not the same. Increasingly, the meaning of rigor and how it is demonstrated is being questioned (Supiano, 2022). Traditionally, the old-school concept of rigor leads to “washing students out,” teaching a “gate-keeping course,” and ensuring that many students earn lower grades. Some faculty wear student failure as a badge of honor that supposedly demonstrates their rigor. Jack and Sathy (2021) argue that it is time to get rid of “rigor,” and replace it with more inclusive teaching practices that still hold high standards for our students. In other words, moving from the teaching-oriented concept of rigor to a more learning-oriented concept of high expectations. To help students to do their best, along with maintaining high expectations, we can create warmer teaching strategies that focus on compassion and support for our students and their learning. Student success, not failure, should be our badge of honor. 

• Strategies to Share with Your Students on How to Prepare for Final Exams

  Dec 7, 2017 1:30 pm9 views

  Finals week can be a stressful time for all students–I know it is for me. So, knowing how to properly prepare for finals is the key to avoiding stress and acing every single one of your exams. Of course, all students would love to relax by receiving massages or by the healing power of dogs before finals (I sure would!).  But, we all know this isn’t really possible. There needs to be a uniform way to assess our performance as students and it has to happen at some point (hence, “finals”). So how else can we lower stress and know that we’re on the right track to excel in each course? Well, here are some proven methods that will have you focused and better prepared for final exams.

• Strategies to Assess Student Learning

  Sep 19, 2012 8:00 am2 views

  Strategies to Assess Student Learning.  Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are quick, easy to implement strategies that provide valuable information about how well your students understand the content.  They can be used on a daily basis to provide valuable feedback for both you and your students. Why wait until the first exam to see how your students are doing.  Click here to learn more or register for our Oct. 5th CTE workshop.

• Strategies in the First Few Weeks for Future Success

  Jan 18, 2011 8:00 am5 views

  Strategies in the First Few Weeks for Future Success. Beginnings are important. Whether it is a large introductory course for freshmen or an advanced course in the major field, it makes good sense to start the semester off well. Good beginnings help in creating rapport, setting the tone and expectations, and making  effective first connections with the course content. Click here for 101 strategies

• Strategies for Starting the Semester Well

  Dec 10, 2018 10:15 am8 views

  Strategies for Starting the Semester Well. Whether you have been teaching for several years or are beginning to teach your very first semester, being prepared for the start of the semester will help make the transition successful for you and your students. The following is a list of strategies you can use the first day and into the first weeks of the semester that will help you create an engaging, motivating, and organized classroom environment.

• Strategies for Preventing Student Resistance

  Oct 19, 2021 2:15 pm8 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Strategies for Preventing Student Resistance. When teachers try something different in the classroom and students resist, the teacher may back down. Often, this is due to fear of what will happen to their student evaluations and contract renewals. There is little doubt that the potential for student resistance in response to attempting a new teaching strategy is a widespread fear of many instructors. Even the rumor that another instructor who tried innovative approaches may have experienced student resistance could be enough to deter instructors from ever trying these teaching methods themselves.

  While addressing student resistance in a classroom when it arises is no doubt a key concern for many instructors, preventing student resistance altogether would seem to be the ultimate goal. Here are several such teaching strategies, connected where possible to the research literatures.

• Strategies for Better Course Evaluations and Analyzing Student Feedback

  May 14, 2019 2:15 pm7 views

  Strategies for Better Course Evaluations and Analyzing Student Feedback.  Here are four steps to better course evaluations: make course expectations explicit, establish clear criteria for grading, get formative feedback early, and analyze student feedback. 

• Strategies for a Successful Start of the Semester

  Jan 12, 2012 8:00 am1 views

  Strategies for a Successful First Start of the Semester. Prepare yourself and your students for a successful semester. Here are 101 strategies for introducing course content, setting expectations, and gathering important background information about your students.  Click here for the list.

   

• Stop Giving Them Answers: Make Them Think!

  Apr 13, 2021 1:15 pm101 views

  (from Faculty Focus) Stop Giving Them Answers: Make Them Think! Higher education has recently changed in faster and more dynamic ways than anticipated. COVID-19 is an immediate factor, but the access to information is more prevalent now than 15 years ago. Many students’ learning habits do not include long nights in the library reading through textbooks or searching through library stacks. Information is at students’ fingertips, and the desire for immediate access to information is only growing. There is a real sense in which students want answers now, and as educators, we are tasked with cultivating the intellect, which is a laborious process. “Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful” (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014). In other words, deep learning is hard work. We know this, and we are faced with convincing students that deep learning is meaningful and rewarding.

  Consequently, we are charged with developing and refining our students into professional learners who are efficient at thinking critically, completing tasks, and ready to enter the “real world.” As Nagro et al. (2018) stated, accomplishing this means structuring our classrooms to emphasize student choice and allowing authentic learning through individual and group activities.

• State of Mind in the College Classroom

  Dec 3, 2020 2:45 pm7 views

  (from Faculty Focus) State of Mind in the College Classroom. (NOTE: Even though this article is from 2018, it is even more relevant during these unanticipated times). There’s a mental health crisis on today’s college campuses. According to research conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness: one in four college students have a diagnosable illness, 40 percent do not seek help, 80 percent feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities, and 50 percent have become so anxious that they struggle in school.

  How can faculty support students who are facing these issues? Showing students kindness goes a long way. Creating a classroom environment that exudes kindness and concern for students’ well-being sends a message to students that not only do we care about them, but we support them. Facilitating this type of classroom environment can enable students to take the necessary steps to approach their instructor when they are having a difficult time. A safe and supportive classroom environment helps students begin a conversation about the challenges they are dealing with during the semester. This in turn can lead faculty to assist a student in exploring support services available to them on campus, so they do not have to suffer in silence.

• Starter Activities to Begin Any Class

  Feb 3, 2021 8:45 am23 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Starter Activities to Begin Any Class.  What can you implement in your classes that can review content, establish a foundation for the day’s topic, encourage student participation, and get students prepared for the day’s activities?  Whether you call them starter activities, bell work, or focusing activities, a predictable, formatted, content-based beginning of class activity can be used to achieve these goals.  Beginning of class activities have previously been used to gain student attention, provide accountability, review material, engage with new content, or establish routines. To gain students’ attention, class might begin by using multi-media, hands-on activities, surprising events, humor, or appealing to students’ emotions (Davis, 2009). Or class might start with a repeating set of slides, asking students to sequence steps or sketch a content-related drawing (Honeycutt, 2019). Here are some suggestions. 

• Six Things Faculty Can Do to Promote Student Engagement

  Mar 2, 2021 2:15 pm21 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Six Things Faculty Can Do to Promote Student Engagement.  Starting with redefining participation. Let it include more than verbal comments. Invite students to contribute electronically—with an email or post on the course website—with a question they didn’t ask in class, a comment they didn’t get to make, or a thought that came to them after class. Remind students that listening is also part of participation! Model and promote good listening skills. For example: “Did you hear wht Fredric just said? That’s an explanation also belongs in your notes.” Other strategies to promote student engagement include defining what learning is and designing authentic assignments and learning experiences. 

• Six Things Faculty Can Do to Promote Student Engagement

  May 19, 2020 2:15 pm15 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Six Things Faculty Can Do to Promote Student Engagement.  Start with redefining participation. For example, let it include more than verbal comments. Invite students to contribute electronically—with an email or post on the course website—with a question they didn’t ask in class, a comment they didn’t get to make, or a thought that came to them after class. Remind students that listening is also part of participation! Model and promote good listening skills. For example: “Did you hear wht Fredric just said? That’s an explanation also belongs in your notes.” Other strategies to promote student engagement include defining what learning is and designing authentic assignments and learning experiences.

• 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.

• Should Effort Count? Students Certainly Think So

  Apr 12, 2012 8:00 am10 views

   

  Should Effort Count? Students Certainly Think So. Students and instructors have different ideas about how a course grade should be determined.This article by Maryellen Weimer shares student and faculty beliefs about what percentage of the course grade should be assigned to effort and to performance.With this knowledge, you'll be better prepared to prevent and respond to grade disputes. Click here to read the article.

   

   

   

   

   

• Should Effort Count? Students Certainly Think So

  May 7, 2015 8:00 am2 views

  Should Effort Count? Students Certainly Think So. In a recent study, a group of 120 undergraduates were asked what percentage of a grade should be based on performance and what percentage on effort. The students said that 61% of the grade should be based on performance and 39% on effort. Historically, grades have been thought of as measures of performance. Is effort a viable dimension of a course grade? Should you get credit for trying if you don’t succeed or just barely succeed? This article raises a number of thought-provoking questions.

• "She Didn't Teach. We Had to Learn it Ourselves"

  Apr 2, 2015 8:00 am11 views

  "She Didn't Teach. We Had to Learn it Ourselves"  A faculty member had received on her student ratings this comment: "This teacher should not be paid. We had to teach ourselves in this course." I remember another faculty member telling me about similar feedback, which was followed later with a comment about how the course "really made me think." Two possible reasons for these comments are students being overly dependent on the instructor for their learning and no rationale is provided for a specific assignment or action. This article shares ways in which to reach a balance between student and faculty goals.

• 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.

• 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).

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

  Oct 25, 2015 8:00 am2 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).  Here is the article describing the strategies.

• Sample Syllabus Quiz Questions

  Jan 21, 2021 8:30 am1232 views

  (from ASU Teach Online). Sample Syllabus Quiz Questions. A syllabus quiz acts as a contract to verify understanding of important elements of the syllabus. The purpose of a syllabus quiz is not only to familiarize students with the syllabus content, but also gives students a chance to reflect on questions that were asked in previous terms. This helps the instructor avoid answering the same questions repeatedly, and a syllabus quiz can ensure that students are responsible for their own learning.

  A syllabus quiz helps to clarify any misconceptions about course content or policies, such as late work. Important procedures can be reviewed and technical issues can be covered. The course structure and where to locate due dates can be included, as well as the instructor’s preferred method of communication. Providing immediate feedback after completing the syllabus quiz will minimize confusion. Here are some sample questions to ask. 

• 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.
  

• Role-Play: An Often Misused Active Learning Strategy

  Mar 23, 2011 8:00 am48 views

  Role-Play: An Often Misused Active Learning Strategy. Role-playing can enliven discussions and give students the opportunity to explore different sides of an issue.  The paper, from the POD Network Teaching Excellence Essay Series, contains an overview of role-playing and a role-playing technique you can use at any point in the semester.   Here is the link.

• Rethinking Deadline and Late Penalty Policies…Again

  Aug 7, 2019 3:00 pm17 views

  Rethinking Deadline and Late Penalty Policies…Again. Recurring discussions regarding the syllabus pertain to handling excuses, extension requests, and late work, because teachers regularly deal with those issues. Suggested remedies range from giving one-time grace to assuming deception as the norm. If you have been a teacher for any length of time, you already have some sort of policy and have maybe modified it more than once. With this article, I am providing a peek at how and why I morphed from a rigid to a more flexible deadline/late penalty policy and what I observed as a result.   

• Rethinking Deadline and Late Penalty Policies…Again

  Aug 17, 2022 10:30 am8 views

  (From Faculty Focus). Rethinking Deadline and Late Penalty Policies…Again. Recurring discussions regarding the syllabus pertain to handling excuses, extension requests, and late work, because teachers regularly deal with those issues. Suggested remedies range from giving one-time grace to assuming deception as the norm. If you have been a teacher for any length of time, you already have some sort of policy and have maybe modified it more than once. With this article, I am providing a peek at how and why I morphed from a rigid to a more flexible deadline/late penalty policy and what I observed as a result.   

• Research on Student Note-taking: Implications for Faculty and Graduate Student Instructors

  Mar 31, 2014 8:00 am32 views

  Research on Student Note-taking: Implications for Faculty and Graduate Student Instructors. Research on note-taking indicates that taking notes in class and reviewing those notes (either in class or afterward) have a positive impact on student learning.  Unfortunately, students’ notes are often inaccurate or incomplete.  What can faculty do to encourage and enable more successful note-taking.  Here is the article from the U. of Michigan teaching center. 

• Research Highlights How Easily, Readily Students Fabricate Excuses.

  Mar 13, 2019 2:30 pm9 views

  Research Highlights How Easily, Readily Students Fabricate Excuses. When students are unable to comply with some aspect of an academic task (e.g. due date, assignment length, quality of work), there is potential for them to communicate reasons as to why they were unable to complete the task to their instructor. At this point the students have a choice, in which case they can either provide legitimate reasons for not being able to complete or to submit their coursework, or they can communicate something which is a deliberate attempt to deceive the instructor. This study described found that individuals do engage in reporting claims in an attempt to deceive their instructor even when motivated by academic tasks with low academic consequences and, possibly more alarmingly, that many students possess great confidence in their abilities to “get away with” reporting fraudulent claims. 

• Research-Based Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity

  Jan 18, 2011 8:00 am0 views

  Research-Based Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity. You can lessen the number of academic integrity violations you'll face by presenting your students with a clear policy at the beginning of the semester.  This essay, part of the POD Network Teaching Excellence Essay Series, describes what such a policy should contain, how it should fit into your course, and how to present it to your students. Click here to learn how.

• Research-Based Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity

  Oct 24, 2013 8:00 am10 views

  Research-Based Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity. Our campus, like many others, has a definition of academic integrity and outlines what academic integrity infractions are. But is this enough to prevent cheating? Michele DiPietro writes that it is important to understand the motivation for student cheating and implement strategies that promote academic integrity. Click here for the article.

• Research-Based Principles about Teaching and Learning

  Feb 8, 2012 8:00 am18 views

  Research-Based Principles for Teaching and Learning.  Dr. Susan Ambrose, Director of the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon, is the co-author of "How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching."  She will be on our campus to present a workshop for graduate students on Feb. 22nd and the plenary talk at the Faculty Retreat on Feb. 23rd. (Registration is required).  To learn more about these teaching and learning principles, click here.

• Remotely Hands-On: Teaching lab sciences and the fine arts during COVID-19.

  Aug 25, 2020 3:15 pm26 views

  (From Inside Higher Ed). Remotely Hands-On: Teaching lab sciences and the fine arts during COVID-19. This is the COVID-19 era, in which instructors who teach fundamentally hands-on courses across fields are finding ways to make remote learning work. McGreal stated, “it’s an exciting chance for us to do some things for an online format that will make our face-to-face classes better than ever before.” Take ice carving. McGreal plans to save the videos he’s made of fish and swan carvings for his students this semester and share them with his classes going forward. That way, he said, students can watch the videos in advance of class and be more prepared to attempt their own sculptures when they meet. “They’re coming into our worlds now instead of a steel, sterile classroom, and it makes you feel more comfortable.”  For STEM: Michelle Stocker, assistant professor of geobiology at Virginia Tech, agreed that “for this semester we can make it work. I wouldn’t necessarily say we like doing this at all, though.” The upper-level course is designed to be challenging and extremely hands-on, with students handling skeletal materials for 2.5 hours at a time. Students can’t interact with the materials as they can in the lab. So Stocker asks them to interact with each other more. Students are encouraged to virtually share bones they found on COVID-19-safe walks in the woods, for example, and the class works to identify the animal and what might have happened to it.  Here is additional information for simulations and the arts.

• Reliable Sources: Promoting Critical Thinking in the [Mis]information Age.

  Feb 25, 2019 2:30 pm6 views

   Reliable Sources: Promoting Critical Thinking in the [Mis]information Age. Information cannot always be trusted. Despite popular opinion regarding the devastating impact of the Internet on the modern age, the inherent untrustworthiness of information is not new. Satire, misinformation, and disinformation have been circulating for centuries, even long before the printed word. However, thanks to the relative ease of creating and sharing content online, our students are confronted with publications created solely to entertain, persuade, and incite via incorrect or incomplete statistics. The traditional steps of the research process--such as resource evaluation--have seemingly fallen to the wayside in deference to instant gratification and confirmation bias.  Making critical thinkers of burgeoning researchers in an age of information overload and “fake news” requires three steps to help students and faculty alike reevaluate the nature of research as it is viewed in and outside of the classroom.

• Reflective Teaching

  Dec 13, 2022 5:00 pm13 views

  (from UC Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning) Reflective Teaching.  Reflecting on our teaching experiences, from the effectiveness of assignments to the opportunities for student interaction, is key to refining our courses and overall teaching practice. Reflective teaching can also help us gain closure on what may have felt like an especially long and challenging semester.

  The goal of critical self-reflection is to gain an increased awareness of our teaching from different vantage points (Brookfield 1995). Collecting multiple and varied perspectives on our teaching can help inform our intuitions about teaching through an evidence-based understanding of whether students are learning effectively. Stephen Brookfield, in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, proposes four lenses to use when examining and assessing our teaching. 

• 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.
  

• Reading Textbooks: The College Plague

  Feb 4, 2020 5:15 pm0 views

  Reading Textbooks: The College Plague. First, let’s acknowledge this universal epidemic. College students despise reading textbooks and e-books that cover content with academic information. Fortunately, I discovered a cure for the reading plague that only requires five teaspoons of ingestion: 1) survey 2) question 3) read 4) retrieve and 5) review. In my class, I have found the SQ3R Method to be a step-by-step approach to learning and studying from textbooks. Although it took my students time and practice to master this method, it has been valuable in regards to preparing students for more content-driven class discussions, increased retention and understanding of information, strategic study skills, and test preparation.

• Reading Circles Get Students to Do the Reading

  Feb 12, 2015 8:00 am4 views

  Reading Circles Get Students to Do the Reading. Eric Hobson reports that on any given day and for any given assignment, 20 to 30 percent of the students have done the reading. When students don’t do the reading, they hear about the text, but they do not actually experience it or do anything that develops their reading skills. When students are placed in reading circles, with a rubric and assigned roles, they improve their reading skills, their self-confidence, and ability to express their ideas.

• Rapport Matters in the Classroom

  Jan 22, 2014 8:00 am1 views

  Rapport Matters in the Classroom. Many studies have found respect and consideration for students to be imperative in effective teaching. Students were more likely to understand the content of a lecture if the lecturer interacted with them in a way that encouraged involvement, commitment, and interest (Ramsden, 2003). This IDEA paper describes several strategies for you to implement and the underlying research for using these strategies. Click here to read this article.

• Raising Student Motivation During the Pandemic

  Oct 20, 2020 8:00 am183 views

  (From Tomorrow’s Professor). Raising Student Motivation During the Pandemic. In spring 2020, faculty across the country stood up to the challenging task of not only transitioning and adapting to online modes of instruction but also multi-tasking through learning new technology, advising, having online office hours, attending official meetings, responding to students who would request Zoom meetings outside of office hours, and much more. Everyone came together with one underlying motive—students’ benefit. Now, as we look forward, we need to make decisions based on a long-term perspective. Student motivation will be a major concern, irrespective of which study model is adopted: online, blended, hybrid, or a myriad variation. For simplicity, I have clubbed all variants of remote/online learning modes and termed them as Pandemic learning modes. This article delves into approaches for constructive student engagement that can help raise student motivation.

• Providing Timely and Frequent Feedback

  Oct 9, 2014 8:00 am2 views

  Providing Timely and Frequent Feedback. If students are to benefit from feedback, it must not only be timely and frequent, but also useful for improving performance by addressing three areas: what students did well, what students need to improve on, and how to make this improvement. Although giving detailed feedback is important, it may be even more important to give it in a timely manner. Click here to read about helpful types of feedback.

• Providing Constructive Feedback to Students

  Oct 3, 2012 8:00 am1 views

  Providing Constructive Feedback to Students. Students typically focus on the grades they receive and not carefully read the written feedback. What are the types of comments that will help your students learn from your feedback?  Click here for suggestions on types of effective comments and questions you can provide. 

  
  

• Promoting Student Motivation

  Feb 22, 2012 8:00 am1 views

  Promoting Student Motivation.  According to an article from the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list, the best way to motivate and engage students is to show them the relevance and significant of the material.  This article will show how to use case studies, guest speakers, and other strategies to  promote intrinsic motivation.

   

• Promoting Deep Learning through Clickers

  Sep 25, 2013 8:00 am4 views

  Promoting Deep Learning through Clickers. Maximize discussions and promote deep learning in your classes by carefully crafting your clicker questions. These questions can identify common student misconceptions, challenge students to select the one best answer, and provide an opportunity for peer assessment. Click here to learn about these different types of clicker questions.  

• 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.

• Preparing the Final Exam

  Apr 10, 2014 8:00 am4 views

  Preparing the Final Exam. As the semester is coming close to an end, now is a good time for instructors to start thinking about the final exams. A common complaint is that the finals do not always test the kinds of knowledge that was asked for in the homework or quizzes or presented in exams. Whether this perception is accurate or not, it’s still an excellent starting point in preparing your exam.  Here are some helpful strategies offered by the teaching center at Berkeley University. 

• Practical Considerations in Online Learning: Asynchronous and Synchronous Environments.

  Aug 14, 2020 10:30 am80 views

  (from Tomorrow’s Professor). Practical Considerations in Online Learning: Asynchronous and Synchronous Environments.  Online classes can be conducted either synchronously (real-time virtual classrooms or chat) or asynchronously, meaning that postings are staggered. Our preference, based on our experiences with online teaching, is for the asynchronous environment. It is the creation of community in that environment to which all of our previous discussion relates. The asynchronous environment allows participants to log on to the class or discussion at any time, think about what is being discussed, and post their own responses when they wish. However, recent advances in synchronous technology, as well as increasing skill with its use, are helping us see the benefits of this form of technology in community building and the delivery of an online class.