In a chapter on discussion written by a teacher recognized as a master of the discussion technique, C. Roland Christensen walks us through the options a teacher has when figuring out how to respond to a student’s answer. He uses a “decision tree” (developed by systems researchers) to help him sort through the various options.
Christensen [...]
Archive for October, 2009
How to Respond to a Student’s Answer
Posted Thursday, October 29th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerA Long Life of Learning
Posted Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerMy much-loved Aunt Barbara died last week, 10 days past her 100th birthday. It was time—her mind had left her several years ago.
Barbara loved learning and that love filled her final decades with richness and reward. She matched her broad and eclectic interests with a fierce commitment to mastering new ideas and skills. At 94, when she could barely operate her TV remote and was just about to move into assisted living, she begged me to help her pick out a computer.
Mastery and Performance Orientations
Posted Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 by Maryellen Weimer“Students with mastery orientation seek to improve their competence. Those with performance orientations seek to prove their competence.” (p. 122)
It’s a quote that succinctly captures how what students believe about themselves as learners affects how they approach learning. A mastery orientation means that students believe that they have some control over factors related to [...]
Generational Stereotypes
Posted Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerMano Singham (a colleague whose work I greatly admire) makes such an important point in a viewpoint piece published in the October 11, 2009 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. He thinks we are getting carried away with generational stereotypes. Rather than being monnikers that identify whole generations (like baby boomers), they have become [...]
Pronouncements about Teaching
Posted Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI had breakfast with a good colleague this morning. We were following up on a conversation we’ve been having electronically. It started when I recommended a book that my colleague said he’d read; however he objected to all the “pronouncements” made by the author. He was referring to how this author tried to distill research [...]
Overparticipators and Peers
Posted Thursday, October 8th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI am discovering that overparticipators have been studied quite extensively in the speech communication field. Researchers there refer to these students who contribute more often than they should as “compulsive communicators” and those researchers have developed a “talkaholic” (now there’s some fanciful jargon) scale to determine if a student is. The scale relies on self [...]
The Learning Question
Posted Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerA neighbor of mine has an 18-year-old friend who started his first year of college at the end of August. Last weekend he came home for the first time. My neighbor asked him what he’d learned so far in college. I complimented my neighbor for asking that question instead of the more common, “How are [...]
‘Pedagogy of Ironic Minimalism’
Posted Thursday, October 1st, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerThis fall marks Robert Nash’s 41st year in the classroom. When asked about retirement plans, he reports telling colleagues that he’ll go when they carry him out in a box and bury him on the main university green.
“So much of what I’ve learned about teaching in the academy over four decades can be summarized in [...]