blog posts

• "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.

• What’s an Empowered Student?

  Apr 2, 2015 8:00 am11 views

  What’s an Empowered Student? When students are empowered, they learn more and learn better. Some things that instructors can do are to provide accurate descriptions of those actions learners must take in order to succeed. Create authentic assignments and delineate the tasks and steps to achieve and support student efforts through coaching. In this article, Weimer provides more strategies. 

• Going Multimodal: 5 Tips for Making the Switch to Multimodal Assignments

  Apr 8, 2020 2:00 pm11 views

  (From Faculty Focus) Going Multimodal: 5 Tips for Making the Switch to Multimodal Assignments. With written communication becoming increasingly multimodal—from newspaper websites to your social media feed to your learning management system’s announcements page—researchers and practitioners alike have made the case for the value of multimodal assignments. While much of this work focuses on the theoretical changes, this article offers practical suggestions for faculty members with limited experience designing multimodal assignments who’d like to convert some of their traditional assignments to multimodal ones. An assignment is multimodal if it invites students to engage in more than one medium of communication, or if it gives students the opportunity to select from several potential media.

• Fizzle or Finale: The Final Day of Class

  Apr 25, 2019 4:15 pm11 views

  Fizzle or Finale: The Final Day of Class. Many courses end with a fizzle.  Frank Heppner (2007) aptly says, “In most classes, The Last Lecture was about as memorable as the rest of the class had been – that is, not very.”  The final class should bring the course to an appropriate conclusion or finale. “For many..., the last day of class comes and goes without ceremony, yet it provides an opportunity to bring the student-teacher experience to a close in a way that students appreciate and enjoy” (Lucas and Bernstein, 2008). How can you make the final day into a finale? 

• Three Ways to Engage Students In and Outside the Classroom

  Sep 3, 2018 4:45 pm11 views

  Three Ways to Engage Students In and Outside the Classroom. When students become directly engaged in the learning process, they take ownership of their education. The following learning activities have helped me to engage students in and outside the classroom. The strategies also help keep my teaching relevant, fresh, and creative. They are: a) get real, b) see a show, and c) breathe fire.

• The Art of Cold Calling

  Oct 19, 2021 2:15 pm11 views

  (from Harvard University The Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning). The Art of Cold Calling. If you are looking to better engage students in the classroom, cold calling can be a great way to spark discussion and foster an inclusionary environment. Yes, this method can be used to set the tone for class expectations, but it isn’t about shaming the unprepared. Done right, cold calling can serve up meaningful dialogue while also allowing a variety of students a chance to contribute, whether it’s by offering a deserving nod to an oft-prepared student or highlighting another’s expertise and background. Unsure how to properly use cold calling in your classroom? Let’s explore the why, who, and how.

• Teaching Tip: Ending a Course

  Dec 7, 2017 11:15 am11 views

  The last few days of a course are often hectic for both teachers and students, and it is easy to miss out on a final few chances to wrap up the learning that has occurred throughout the semester. As Maier and Panitz (1996) note, ending a course with only a final exam often leaves students with a feeling of dread or inadequacy, rather than with a sense of accomplishment. A better goal for teachers is to help our students leave the course with a solid idea of what they have learned and how they can carry that new knowledge and skill base into future experiences. Here are a few ideas of how you can end your semester in a meaningful way.

• The Rhythms of the Semester: Implications for Practice, Persona

  Jan 13, 2022 10:30 am10 views

  (from Faculty Focus). The Rhythms of the Semester: Implications for Practice, Persona. We begin each semester on a different note than we end on. The early weeks hold promise and high hopes, both often curtailed when the first assignments are graded. The final weeks find us somewhere between being reluctant or relieved to see a class move on. There is an inexplicable but evident interaction between our teaching persona and the persona a class develops throughout a semester. Some structural factors influence both: among them—the type and level of a course, the discipline, the time of day, and whether the students are a cohort or a unique collection of individuals. Using our understanding of the effects and predictability of the arc, we can help students effectively navigate through the highs and lows of a course. 

• Can Anything be Done about Students Multitasking?

  Jan 31, 2018 12:15 pm10 views

  The amount of multitasking students do during class and while studying is alarming. Consistently, in response to surveys, more than 85% of students say they have their phones on in class, are looking at texts as they come in and during class, and between 70 and 90% say they respond to texts in class. And this is happening in courses with policies that prohibit or significantly curtail the use of electronic devices. What we’re seeing in class also happens when students study outside of class. There it is most often a case of task switching (toggling between separate tasks, attending to each independently for a short period of time). This article reviews some of the research findings on reducing students’ multitasking.

• Grading and Performance Rubrics

  Feb 19, 2020 9:00 am10 views

  Grading and Performance Rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both.

• 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.

   

   

   

   

   

• 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.
  

• Assigning Course Grades

  Apr 26, 2021 9:45 am10 views

  (from University of Illinois Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning). Assigning Course Grades. The end-of-course grades assigned by instructors are intended to convey the level of achievement of each student in the class. These grades are used by students, other faculty, university administrators, and prospective employers to make a multitude of different decisions. Unless instructors use generally-accepted policies and practices in assigning grades, these grades are apt to convey misinformation and lead the decision-maker astray. When grading policies are practices that are carefully formulated and reviewed periodically, they can serve well the many purposes for which they are used. What might a faculty member consider to establish sound grading policies and practices? With careful thought and periodic review, most instructors can develop satisfactory, defensible grading policies and procedures.

• A Mountain of Grading

  May 18, 2021 11:15 am10 views

  (from Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching). A Mountain of Grading. Now that the final exams are almost over, do you find yourself facing a large mountain of grading? And, perhaps, you wonder if you are spending more time grading than your students spent completing that assignment?  Consider the notion of “light grading” where you limit your comments or notations to those your students can use for further learning or improvement.  Here are some suggestions on how to do that.

• Why Are You Teaching That?

  May 21, 2015 8:00 am10 views

  Why Are You Teaching That? My undergraduate experience wasn't as bad as that, but it left a lot to be desired. If you look through everything you're teaching and consider how useful it might ever be to the students, you'll certainly find some "need-to-know" material-things all graduates in your field should know and instructors in subsequent courses will assume they know. You'll also find material that makes you wonder "Why am I teaching this stuff?" If you're like most of us and have more jammed into your course than you can comfortably cover, consider cutting down on some of that superfluous material. Here are some candidates for cutting: It is adapted from Felder, R.M. (2014). "Why are you teaching that?" Chemical Engineering Education, 48(3), 131-132

• Faculty Interventions Can Help Student Success

  Jun 10, 2020 12:00 pm10 views

  (from Inside Higher Ed). Faculty Interventions Can Help Student Success. A new research paper shows that feedback and interventions from professors can have positive impacts on student success. The paper, "My Professor Cares: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Faculty Engagement," was published this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research. The researchers conducted several experiments, starting with a small pilot on an introductory microeconomics course, according to the brief. The premise was then scaled up to more than 43 classes and 4,000 students at a university. In the experiments, faculty sent "strategically timed" emails to students that included information about how to succeed in the class, the student's current standing and a reminder of when the professor was available. The results from the pilot group were successful.

• Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science

  Sep 5, 2019 2:00 pm10 views

  Helping Students Memorize: Tips from Cognitive Science. I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, “How do we help students learn in courses where there’s a lot of memorization?” He explained that he taught introductory-level human anatomy, and although the course wasn’t all memorization, it did challenge students’ capacity to retain dozens of new terms and concepts. The question itself is tricky because most teaching professionals are heavily invested in the idea that learning isn’t about being able to regurgitate facts on an exam. We also worry, and with good reason, that emphasizing rote learning steals time and effort away from the deeper thinking that we want students to do.  Here are some techniques that target this specific teaching and learning challenge.  

• Getting Students to Act on Our Feedback

  Oct 9, 2014 8:00 am10 views

  Getting Students to Act on Our Feedback. “I’m still pondering why students don’t make better use of the feedback we provide on papers, projects, presentations, even the whole class feedback we offer after we’ve graded a set of exams. Yes, we do see improvement as we look back across a course, but we also see a lot of the same errors repeated throughout the course.”  Learn how to improve your comments to help your students develop an action plan based on your feedback for the next assignment.

• 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.

• Building Professor-Student Relationships in an Age of Social Networking

  Feb 7, 2016 8:00 am9 views

  Building Professor-Student Relationships in an Age of Social Networking. Sometimes the only interactions we may have with students occurs online. In this article are some insights shared by one professor on how to have a good rapport with students online while avoiding any miscommunications and maintaining a professional relationship. Also, included are a few suggestions for establishing authority and professional boundaries while still maintaining professor-student relationships characterized by warmth and friendliness. 

• 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.

• 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.

• Organic Online Discussions: Saving Time and Increasing Engagement

  Mar 11, 2020 8:45 pm9 views

  Organic Online Discussions: Saving Time and Increasing Engagement. I used to dread online discussions as much as many students do. However, after implementing a simple change, I was as eager to join my online discussions as I was to talk with my students in classroom conversations. The modification is easy:  I adjusted the structure of my online discussions from students starting threads (you know the drill, post-and-reply-to-two) to the instructor starting them, which creates a more organic discussion structure similar to classroom conversations. This simple modification, along with asking open-ended questions from the deep end of Bloom’s Taxonomy, creates discussions that support student learning and engagement with the material and each other.

• 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. 

• The Teaching Exchange: Fostering Critical Thinking

  Mar 22, 2022 8:45 am9 views

  (From Vanderbilt University The Center for Teaching) The Teaching Exchange: Fostering Critical Thinking. There are two general approaches that I find helpful in producing a classroom setting conductive to critical inquiry. These involve 1) the establishment of an environment in which both parties, student and teacher, function as partners in inquiry, and 2) the employment of a set of questioning strategies specifically geared to the acquisition of higher-order thinking and reasoning skills.

  Central to making students feel they are partners in a community of learners is the creation of a climate of trust, so that students feel safe in offering their own ideas. I try to foster a sense of “we-feeling” by asking, for example, “How can we explain this development? What does it mean to us?” Using plural pronouns creates a dialogue that has less of an adversarial tone and underscores the idea of students and teachers as partners in inquiry. I have also found that learning student names as quickly as possible is essential for developing trust. I give students a rationale for the value of an interactive classroom. I assure them that interaction is not designed to embarrass them, but rather to facilitate learning and make the subject matter more interesting. This lets students know they have some control over class proceedings and that their insights and contributions will be validated in our mutual quest for understanding. Here are some additional strategies. 

• Checklist for the End of the Semester.

  May 9, 2018 9:00 am9 views

  As the semester is coming to a close, when all is still fresh in your mind, it’s the perfect time to review, reevaluate, renew, and recycle. Here is a short checklist of things you can do now to make things easier, more efficient, and more productive next semester; e.g., review your syllabus, update your lesson plans and review your assignments and exams.

• Syllabus Format May Enhance Understanding of Course Requirements

  Aug 11, 2022 4:30 pm9 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Syllabus Format May Enhance Understanding of Course Requirements. Over the years, course syllabi have evolved from a simple document that outlines course objectives and requirements to an intimidating, multi-paged contract of terms and conditions for successful course completion. A number of writers have proposed syllabus makeovers, including some who’ve suggested the syllabus be offered in newsletter style. Others have proposed quizzing students on the syllabus as a way to encourage them to read it carefully.

  We decided to try these two ideas and investigate if they helped students understand four essential course requirements: course objectives, course policies, procedures for late work, and the number of exams. Each of us created one traditional course syllabus and one graphically enhanced syllabus in newsletter format, randomly distributing each type on the first day of class. We quizzed students on the course requirements on the second day of class. Both syllabi contained identical content. One of our goals as instructors is to place the responsibility for learning experiences on students. We thought a more engaging syllabus format might be more intellectually invigorating and better at connecting students with the course. Moreover, for those of us who include student learning objectives (SLOs), we hoped that offering them in this format might stimulate more self-regulated student learning. So, which syllabus format is better for students?

   

• Ten Rules of Good (and Bad) Studying

  Sep 10, 2014 8:00 am9 views

  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.

• Blogs, Wikis, and Discussion Boards

  Oct 6, 2021 4:45 pm9 views

  (from Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center). Blogs, Wikis, and Discussion Boards. Blogs, wikis, and discussion boards are web-based platforms through which students can create and share content as well as interact with each other and the instructor. There is quite a bit of overlap in the feature sets of these tools, however, how they tend to be authored, organized, and used offer distinguishing characteristics. This chart describes who is responsible for creating and sharing the content, the type of content, and the default approach to content organization (See "How do I know if it's a good fit?" for typical educational uses and examples.) 

• Assigning Course Grades.

  Nov 30, 2022 10:45 am9 views

  (from UIUC CITL) Assigning Course Grades. The end-of-course grades assigned by instructors are intended to convey the level of achievement of each student in the class. These grades are used by students, other faculty, university administrators, and prospective employers to make a multitude of different decisions. Unless instructors use generally-accepted policies and practices in assigning grades, these grades are apt to convey misinformation and lead the decision-maker astray. When grading policies and practices are carefully formulated and reviewed periodically, they can serve well the many purposes for which they are used.

  What might a faculty member consider to establish sound grading policies and practices? The issues which contribute to making grading a controversial topic are primarily philosophical in nature. There are no research studies that can answer questions like: What should an "A" grade mean? What percent of the students in my class should receive a "C?" Should spelling and grammar be judged in assigning a grade to a paper? What should a course grade represent? These "should" questions require value judgments rather than an interpretation of research data; the answer to each will vary from instructor to instructor. But all instructors must ask similar questions and find acceptable answers to them in establishing their own grading policies. 

• 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.

• 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.
  

• Using Social Media to Retain Contact with Students in the Shift to Online Education.

  Jun 25, 2020 3:30 pm8 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Using Social Media to Retain Contact with Students in the Shift to Online Education. COVID-19 has upended normal social connections that develop between students and professors. We are missing the connections that develop through casual interactions in office hours, pre-class discussions, post-class questions, and any other in-person interaction. These social connections are important for student retention, academic development, diversity, and inclusion. As we thoughtfully shift our courses online, we must also strategically consider how to best replicate or innovate to develop social connections. The purposeful use of social media presents a great opportunity for educators to connect with their students and recreate some of the social connections that are lost due to online education, while also providing new ways of developing connections. We present 10 tips for using social media to maintain and develop social connections.

• Can Gamification Drive Increased Student Engagement?

  Jul 13, 2022 5:00 pm8 views

  (from EDUCAUSE Review). Can Gamification Drive Increased Student Engagement? New methodologies in learning can create new distractions for students, especially with remote learning. Gamification may hold the secret to increasing student engagement and keeping classrooms whole. Gamification is not a new concept in learning. It has been used for centuries in some form or another. The advent of wireless technologies has given gamification new life—creating unique ways to leverage it for even greater learning. This is especially true in hybrid learning environments, where gamification could increase student engagement and create a greater sense of community as the classroom expands beyond physical walls.

• 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.   

• 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.

• Maximizing Student Achievement and Interest

  Sep 5, 2012 8:00 am8 views

  Maximizing Student Achievement and Interest. Teachers' content knowledge and instructional skills play a critical role in improving students' academic achievement.  Here are seven ways offered by Walter Jacobs to keep in mind as we begin a successful start of the semester.  Click here to read these important strategies.

• Creating Cartoons to Spark Engagement and Learning

  Sep 5, 2019 11:00 am8 views

  Creating Cartoons to Spark Engagement and Learning. As instructors, we are constantly looking for new ways to capture our students’ attention and increase their participation in our classes, especially in the online modalities. We spend countless hours crafting weekly announcements for classes and then inevitably receive multiple emails from our students asking the very same questions. The question remains, how do we get them to read our posts? It was precisely that problem I was trying to solve when I came across several articles touting the benefits of comics in higher education classrooms. I knew I couldn’t create an entire comic book, but I wondered if I could create a content-related cartoon that would not only capture students’ attention and maybe make them laugh, but also interest them enough that they would read the entire announcement or post. After a positive response, I decided to provide my online and face-to-face students the opportunity to try their hand at cartoon creation. This activity provide more ways for students to develop higher levels of assimilation and creation (Bloom’s Taxonomy, 2001)

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

• How Diversity Makes Us Smarter

  Feb 26, 2015 8:00 am7 views

  How Diversity Makes Us Smarter. The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. Yet, the first thing to acknowledge is that good diversity, such as expertise, is beneficial, but even more so is social diversity, such as ethnicity, race, gender.  This article states that it is social diversity that promotes creativity, innovation, and higher cognitive action in our work environments and team projects. 

• Students as Forgotten Allies in Preventing Cheating

  Mar 29, 2018 8:00 am7 views

  Faculty are pretty much focused on preventative measures, which are essential, but there are a couple of other issues rarely mentioned in the literature or in our discussions. Students who don’t cheat usually aren’t on our side when it comes to enforcing cheating policies. In one study, almost 93% of the students said they had witnessed another student cheat, but only 4.4% said they had ever reported a cheating incident (Bernardi, et. al., 2016) Students are in a bind—they don’t want to rat out fellow classmates, some of whom may be friends. If they do and word gets out, they are labeled as “snitches” and “tattletales” — told to mind their own business and otherwise berated. With serious social consequences like these, it takes real courage to do the right thing.

• Considerations About Exams When Teaching Remotely

  Apr 21, 2020 2:45 pm7 views

  (from The Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning). Considerations About Exams When Teaching Remotely. Exams remain a popular form of capstone assessment. There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is their efficiency— for students to review large swaths of the material covered over the entire semester with an eye to synthesis and distillation. By comparison with a research paper or other common forms of end-of-term assessment, final exams ordinarily have the distinct advantage of standing "outside" the term, giving students the impetus to reflect back on the totality of their learning without consuming significant amounts of in- or out-of-class time during the semester itself. With the move to remote teaching the ordinary boundaries between synchronous, in-class work and asynchronous, out of class assessment are already changing, and the extrinsic motivation of grades—on which, admittedly, final exams depend rather more than other, more generative forms of capstone assessment—has decreased significantly. Given these facts, how might you modify your plans for testing students? 

• Test Construction: Some Practical Ideas

  May 2, 2011 8:00 am7 views

  Test Construction: Some Practical Ideas.  Majority of our courses include some kind of final exam.  This guide from the University of Texas at Austin presents a very thorough method for constructing tests that accurately assess students' learning.  Here is the guide.

• 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. 

• Is My Teaching Learner-Centered?

  Jun 6, 2022 11:30 am7 views

  (from Faculty Focus). Is My Teaching Learner-Centered? It’s hard to say—we have no definitive measures of learner-centeredness or even mutually agreed upon definitions. And yet, when we talk about it, there’s an assumption that we all understand the reference.

  My friend Linda recently gave me a beautifully illustrated children’s book that contains nothing but questions. It reminded me how good questions, like beams of light, cut through the fog and illuminate what was once obscured. And so, to help us further explore and understand what it means to be learner-centered, I’ve generated a set of questions. For the record, these questions were not empirically developed, and they haven’t been validated in any systematic way. However, they do reflect the characteristics regularly associated with learner-centered teaching.  Questions like these can be useful in helping us to confront how we teach. They produce the most insights when asked sincerely and answered honestly. For most of us, there’s a gap between how we aspire to teach and how we actually teach. Given the less-than-objective view we have of ourselves as teachers, it’s easy to conflate aspirations with actualities. 

• 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.
  

• Cameras and Masks: Sustaining Emotional Connections with Your Students in an Age of COVID19 (Part 2 of 2)

  Sep 21, 2020 10:15 am7 views

  (From Stanford’s Tomorrow’s Professor). Cameras and Masks: Sustaining Emotional Connections with Your Students in an Age of COVID19 (Part 2 of 2) Several colleagues mentioned that when they arrive at a point in their synchronous class where they want to have a full class discussion, they request that students turn their cameras on, if they are not on already. They report their participation rates go up when they do this. After the discussion is over, students can turn the cameras off again. But be prepared to lose some participants.

   An instructor told me that he was “struggling somewhat to get more than a couple people to talk during the Zoom sessions. It was suggested that instructors give students the option to turn their cameras off, so I told the students that while I prefer their cameras to be on, they can go dark if it slows their internet too much. After I announced this policy during class, there was a steep drop in the number of students whose faces I can see. The main problem is that it’s now very hard to tell if they’re paying attention unless they speak up, but I’ve also found it somewhat disconcerting. If I were to do it over again, I’d tell them they can let me know if they have a reason they need to have their camera off, but otherwise we learn best when we can see each other.” This comment again highlights the importance of discussing your camera-on/off policies with students at the outset and working toward a collectively-agreed policy. Remember to be flexible and empathetic.