I once heard class discussions described as “transient instructional events.” They pass through the class, the course, and the educational experiences of students with few lingering effects. Ideas are batted around, often with forced participation; students don’t take notes; and then the discussion ends—it runs
Faculty are increasingly looking for ways for students to collaborate, not only to improve learning, but to teach collaboration skills. Teachers generally do this with in-class collaborations, but the Internet opens up a wider world of collaboration possibilities between classes. Kristin Novotny, a core division
As online instructors, we have finally figured out that the web is a visual medium and have been replacing the long text documents that constituted our original lectures with engaging presentations that make use of images, video, and sound. But despite the shift, most of
Consider the following two ways to introduce an online lesson:1. In this module we will learn how gender differences are expressed in the traits of birds.2. Here are two photos of a robin, one male and one female. Tell me which you think is male,
“When we teach online, technology is a mediator between us and the students. Because of this intervention, the way in which we understand and experience the phenomenon of student engagement changes.” (p. 211) Claire Howell Major makes that observation in her new book, Teaching Online:
One of the fundamental causes of poor student performance is not knowing how to read academic work. They read for facts rather than underlying themes. It has been proven that the best note-taking method is one that forces active reading by having readers summarize positions
The life of a faculty member is filled with noisy busyness—planning class sessions, grading, meeting with students, advising, committee work, research, scholarship, and publications. We are consumed by the swirl of activities and the need to juggle all these responsibilities without dropping one of the
Although group testing is still not widely used, it is an approach more faculty are exploring. Creative approaches to design and unique features can prevent many of the problems associated with it. However, faculty are still very concerned with what happens when students discuss answers
How can we engage students who are enrolled in large courses so they become active learners? I used four activities designed to get students involved, support their efforts to learn, and personalize the material in an introductory psychology course. How well did they work? For
Let’s begin with what learning logs are not: diaries. They are a type of assignment by the Writing Across the Curriculum movement, and are designed to be one of the strategies that can be used to get students writing more—and writing in courses where they
