Do people learn in the same way or different ways? According to cognitive science, the answer is the former. There are general principles of learning that apply to everyone, such as the importance of attention and the value of good learning strategies like spacing and
When watching a movie, you might use the first few minutes to decide whether you will like it or not. This same phenomenon also happens in the classroom: the initial moments often set the tone for the entire session. Many educators discuss using the first
Instructors in face-to-face courses can roughly gauge how well students understand the material by facial expressions and audience response systems. This immediate and informal feedback enables them to adjust their teaching in real-time. But this is not the case in asynchronous courses. Students have to
My mother was not your typical 1990s Beanie Babies collector. She didn’t care whether the little pellet-filled critters that she scavenged for at flea markets and rummage sales and on eBay were in mint condition or whether their heart-shaped name tags were still intact.
As educators, we’re all deeply invested in our students’ learning journeys. We’ve likely all experienced the challenges of assessing performance in ways that genuinely reflect what students know and can do. For many of us, traditional grading systems, with their reliance on letter grades, have
Students generally come into an online class from a background of face-to-face education, and this background often creates expectations that cause students problems in an online class. For example, face-to-face classes meet according to a fixed schedule. But students need to create their own schedule
A common piece of teaching advice—“Teach them like they are your own children”—takes on new meaning when a close friend’s children, one of your relatives, or your own children get ready to go to college. If you have tried giving your children advice, you, like
I am a political science professor. And we are in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election campaign. My classes are going about how you’d imagine: students are excited, sometimes talking over one another, and occasionally throwing out wild hypotheticals.
Many research studies have underscored the importance of teaching presence in asynchronous online courses, with the benefits including higher student satisfaction, reduced isolation, and enhanced emotional engagement (Oyarzun et al., 2018).
This semester I am teaching an undergraduate biology course on biofeedback, self-regulation, and intergenerational resilience. One of the books we read is Robert M. Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. The book’s thesis is that humans experience chronic stress in ways that animals like zebras
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