Once again I’m trying to clean out my collection of articles on teaching and learning. I’ve been collecting for years and have hundreds … yes, hundreds. Now that everything is available online there is no reason to keep the many stacks and boxes that have filled my office to overflowing. The problem, of course, is [...]
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That Content We Love
Posted Thursday, November 4th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerI had occasion this week to reread one of my favorite articles. In this piece Marshall Gregory explores teaching 18th Century British poetry, content he loves but that his students don’t find particularly compelling. Gregory’s honesty is at times brutal—the article is such a great example of how critical reflection can lead a teacher to new insights and deeper understandings.
Are We Answering Too Many Questions?
Posted Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 by Maryellen Weimer“For the most part, college students enrolled in beginning chemistry courses do not, during laboratory-based experiences, learn to follow directions. Instead they learn to depend excessively upon oral directions presented by the instructor in response to their queries.” (p. 103) When I happened on this quote (referenced in another article) it reminded me of my chemistry lab experience—I took a chemistry course with 20 beginning students as part of a first-year seminar program. The teacher, also our lab instructor, refused to answer questions in lab, and we hated him for it. Ask him a question and rather than answer he’d ask you a question back. It was infuriating—you had to figure everything out for yourself or with your lab partners.
A Great Book on Grading
Posted Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerI’ve just finished reading the second edition of Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson’s book on grading Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College). The book was first published in 1998, and since then it has established itself as the go-to book on grading. I see it referenced more often than any other [...]
Learning Goals for Students
Posted Thursday, October 21st, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerAs Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson point out in their venerable book on grading (now available in a revised 2nd edition) goals can motivate students. Unfortunately, too often they are motivated only by the goal of getting grades and getting courses out of the way. Walvoord and Anderson suggest you tell student you know they [...]
Valuing our Community College Colleagues
Posted Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerIn a 2009 editorial, John Moore lists some impressive figures about community colleges. There are almost 1,200 of them in the U.S., and they enroll 11.5 million students a year. About 60 percent of those students are attending college part time. Their average age is 29. Especially impressive is the fact that about 40 percent [...]
What Lectures Can Accomplish
Posted Thursday, October 14th, 2010 by Maryellen Weimer“I have never believed that there was intrinsic damage being done to students in what has been called the ‘sage on the stage’ model of teaching. I don’t think it’s always bad to listen to an expert talk about what she knows best, and I don’t think that the discussion format is inherently better than [...]
Students and Reading: Another Good Idea
Posted Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerThe quest to get students doing assigned reading and engaging with that material is one of those ongoing challenges faced by university and college teachers today. Simply assigning the reading, telling students to do it and making threats about what will happen if they don’t is rarely enough to get most of today’s students interacting [...]
Testing Knowledge–An Interesting Alternative
Posted Thursday, October 7th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerSometimes we do get stuck in ruts—we use the same kinds of test questions: multiple-choice, short answer, maybe a few fill-in-the-blank, some matching and an occasional longer essay question. We forget there are other options. Here’s an example, initially proposed in 1990.
Neutralizing Attitudes
Posted Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 by Maryellen WeimerSounds like a bit of jargon, doesn’t it? It probably qualifies as such but what the term refers to is of interest. Researchers in the 50s who were trying to explain criminal behavior coined the phrase which describes “justifications for deviance that are seen as valid by the delinquent but not by the legal system or society as large.” (These researchers, Sykes and Matza, are quoted on p. 295 in the article referenced below). If deviant actions can be justifiable then the offender avoids moral culpability.
