As a writing teacher, I’ve discovered that counseling writers to sequence details logically does more for their writing, their readers, and their intellectual development than encouraging them to take risks or to make art. Plot ...
A host of studies have shown that feedback is one of the most important elements of learning (e.g., Hattie, 2009; Wiggins, 2012). These studies also show that students are generally starved for good feedback. Their ...
How many of us teachers have had this experience? You spend an afternoon reading student work and providing detailed feedback. You return the work convinced that your notes will help students deepen their learning and ...
I decided last spring to implement a new teaching strategy: individual midterm conferences with every student enrolled in my classes. That’s approximately 75 students total. Throughout my years of teaching, I’d heard colleagues report that ...
In August 2017, Inside Higher Ed featured an article describing a controversial “stress reduction policy” that was part of a professor’s course syllabus at the University of Georgia. The policy was intended to prevent the ...
Do you see the same problems in student assignments time after time? Do you find that your students don’t act on the feedback that you have spent so much time providing?
How do we get students to act on the feedback we provide? When papers are returned, they look at the grade first and then (but not always) briefly peruse the comments. Do they read them ...
A recent survey of 175 economics professors who teach basic principles of economics courses revealed a widely diverse set of grading practices for the course. These instructors taught at 118 different institutions, including doctoral degree-granting ...
When final paper time looms, students become increasingly anxious about the grammatical errors they believe lurk in their writing. That belief is so strong it can undermine their drafts. Even worse, students have come to ...
As teachers, we spend countless hours staying up late, reading essays, and making comments to help our students improve. We walk a delicate line, wanting to give students enough support to develop their papers while ...