For Those Who Teach

Collaborative Note-Taking for Students

Here’s how collaborative notes typically work: on a rotating basis, students (usually one or two) take notes during class and then post them online. The collaborative notes are intended to support rather than replace individual note-taking, although they do provide absent students information about content

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Skills: Which Ones Do Students Say They’re Learning?

We know what skills we want college students to learn. We list them in institutional mission statements, descriptions of our programs and majors, and our syllabi. We know what skills employers want graduates to obtain in college. They tell us, especially when students don’t have

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Improving Student Discussions

How students discuss content in courses continues to be a concern Whether the exchange occurs the classroom, in a group, or online, most of us have heard students making assertions, never mentioning evidence, feeling free to comment when they are unprepared, and mostly agreeing with

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On Bad Test-Takers

“One of the best ways to be bad at something is to tell yourself that you are bad at it” (Holmes, 2021, p. 293). This applies to students who believe they can’t take tests. “Despite the prevalence of the bad test-taker as part of the

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Overcoming the Challenges of Student Peer Review

In last week’s column, I cautioned that while peer review has many benefits, these aren’t automatic, and there’s also the potential for harm. Here’s a rundown of the challenges that come with the strategy and ways to minimize them. The peer-review activities themselves can be

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The Benefits of Student Peer Review

Students can learn a lot from peer assessment, whether they look at each other’s written work (papers, lab reports, informal reaction papers); presentations (speeches, panel participation, online discussion facilitation); performances (art, athletics, theatrical musical); or other contributions (group work). The ultimate responsibility for grading remains

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Finding and Fixing Student Mistakes

Students need feedback that helps them improve, and that includes identifying their errors. Without corrective feedback, efforts to improve limp along. But do students need what we typically dish out? I was a bit disconcerted by findings in a recent cross-disciplinary survey. The researchers (Knight

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Fostering Collaboration on Group Projects

How do we get students to collaborate on group projects? Too often their involvement feels forced, their engagement superficial, and their interest minimal. Students do not learn content or develop collaborative skills unless they connect with the task and one another.

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A Deeper Look at Self-Assessment

I’ve been refining my thinking about self-assessment with help from a colleague and some reading. Much of what I’ve been considering applies to teacher self-assessment as well. Self-assessment is another of those loosely used terms that refers to different activities. It’s regularly equated with self-reflection,

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The Teaching Professor Conference 2024

June 7-9, 2024 • New Orleans

Connect with Fellow Educators at The Teaching Professor Conference!