I was looking something up and happened on this brief identification of the defining characteristics for problem-based learning (PBL). Not only does it offer a great review, but it reminds us why PBL is such a powerful pedagogical strategy.
Blog » Improving Teaching
Replacing Lab Reports
Posted Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerWhen I took an ungraduate chemistry course a few years back, I loved lab, but I have to admit writing up the lab reports seemed like so much busy work. Each report had specified sections, and the lab manual offered advice on what to put in the sections, depending on the experiment. I remember trying [...]
Metaphorical Mirrors
Posted Thursday, January 28th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerMuch of what we do in the classroom is habitual. We do it so often that we can look at it and still fail to see the underlying assumptions. The question then, raised by the authors of the article referenced below, is this: “How do individuals discover and challenge tacit taken-for-granted assumptions in their teaching practice?” The authors suggest that teachers use “metaphorical mirrors.” They do a workshop during which they challenge faculty to probe a personal pursuit (hobby, activity, interest, or sport) and extract from it metaphors that might point to assumptions they make about teaching and learning.
A New Word
Posted Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerHere’s an interesting new word: “courseocentricism,” obviously related to words like ethnocentricism and egocontricism, it’s defined as “a kind of tunnel vision in which we become so used to the confines of our own course that we are oblivious to the fact that our students are taking other courses whose instructors at any moment may be undercutting our most cherished beliefs.” (p. 157)
When Students are Struggling with the Content
Posted Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 by Maryellen Weimerhad lunch a couple of weeks ago with a group of about 20 math faculty, all of whom teach at a community college. We talked about what makes math so hard for students and covered the usual suspects—students haven’t had enough rigorous math in high school; they aren’t willing to work hard enough; at the first sign of trouble, they bail concluding there’s no way they’ll ever be able to figure it.
The Study Strategies that Work in Your Field
Posted Thursday, January 14th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerThere’s a piece coming out in the February issue of the newsletter that highlights content from an article written by a political scientist who teaches quantitative content to math averse students. It’s a very pratical piece but also a great model—of pedagogical scholarship and of something we should all consider doing.
The author’s basic premise [...]
Learning from Experience
Posted Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerI meet regularly, usually over breakfast, with my good friend and colleague Larry. We share our papers, ideas, and good stuff we’re reading. I am so lucky to have this wonderful pedgogical colleague. I’ve been working on a paper that explores the knowledge bases for teaching, one of which is the experiential knowledge faculty derive [...]
The Power of Examples
Posted Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerI’m searching for something in an old issue of The Teaching Professor, wishing along the way that we’d done a better job of indexing content in the newsletter but rediscovering all sorts of good things that I’ve forgotten. Case in point: here’s a great quote about examples.
“Examples are instructional workhorses: they carry a great deal [...]
PowerPoint Dos and Don’ts
Posted Thursday, September 24th, 2009 by Maryellen WeimerThe use of PowerPoint is widespread now in college classrooms. Compared with the old transparencies of overhead projector days, it gets all sorts of points for legibility and glitz. But a lot of the problems with the way faculty used overheads still prevail. So please take these gentle do and don’t reminders in the spirit [...]