Which of the factors listed below would you predict students would say are the most important when they are deciding which courses to take?
Archive for March, 2009
Course Characteristics that are Most Important to Students
Posted Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerUnsettling Discoveries from Analysis of Engineering Education
Posted Thursday, March 26th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI’ve been reading a book on engineering education. Actually it’s a call to redesign engineering education, and it’s based on an impressive study that involved visits to 11 mechanical and electrical engineering program at six very diverse institutions, a review of about 100 self-study reports from 40 different school (prepared for the accreditation process), as well as interviews with student and faculty and classroom observations. The call for reform is based on a mountain of data.
Designing Group Work
Posted Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerOn one of my recent road trips, I had a stimulating conversation with two colleagues during which we discussed group work and the challenge of designing good activities for groups. Although the problems that emerge when students work in groups cannot be completely prevented by well-designed activities, they can certainly be made to occur less frequently or to lesser degrees. Let me offer some examples.
Does Test Anxiety Hinder Performance?
Posted Thursday, March 19th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerMost faculty have seen test anxiety firsthand. It’s that hot, sweaty smell that lingers in a classroom after students have finished an exam. It’s that student who comes to the office to discuss an exam and can answer in detail questions missed on the exam. It’s the student who doesn’t follow directions on the exam or the one who selects the correct option but then regularly changes the answer. Test anxiety manifests itself in various ways and to varying degrees.
Simple Self-Assessment Activities
Posted Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerThe last post explained how self-assessment is an important professional skill and how it’s a skill students should be learning, but aren’t in college. Here are some quick and easy ways to work with students on developing the skill.
Self-Assessment Should Play a Central Role in Review and Revision
Posted Thursday, March 12th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI’ve been reading some articles on self-assessment—as in having students look at their own work and come to some conclusions about its quality. Most faculty don’t let students self-assess and for good reasons. Most students can’t get past the grade they would like to the one they deserve. Moreover, several of the studies I’ve read document that when given the opportunity, given the criteria, and even given some guidance, students still see the activity as an opportunity to figure out what the instructor wants and/or would likely give them on the completed work. Almost none of them see self-assessment as a useful skill.
Round-abouts and the Ivory Tower
Posted Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI was on the way from the Portland airport to my Dad’s place, being driven by a childhood friend who now runs a pick up and delivery business. We left the four lane and followed winding country roads on our way to Forest Grove, a small town at the base of the coast range in Oregon. We came to an intersection. There wasn’t a stop sign or a stop light but there in the middle of open fields was a beautifully landscaped round-about, two lanes wide. Down the road another half mile was another. Not the place you’d ever expect to find round-abouts. “Excuse me,” my friend said, “but that’s what people with education do.”
Problem Solving: A Simple Definition
Posted Thursday, March 5th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerWe do tend to get carried away with lofty academic definitions—they are precise and detailed—but sometimes simple captures the essence in a much more compelling way. I’ve read all sorts of definitions for problem solving, most sounding something like this: “any goal-directed sequence of cognitive operations.” Fine, but put that definition alongside this one: “what you do when you don’t know what to do.”
The Meaning of Learner Empowerment
Posted Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerSometimes when words get bandied about, their meanings become less precise and that loss of meaning is overlooked because we all think we know what the term means. Case in point: empower, as in empowered learners or empowering instructors. Some faculty object to the verb empower because they think it means students taking charge and [...]
