For many years now, highlights from individual research studies that compare the effects of various active-learning strategies with lecture approaches have appeared in The Teaching Professor. Consistently, the results have favored active learning. But beyond a couple of small integrative analyses, what we’ve had so
In almost a decade of teaching, I find myself lamenting that I still have to remind students to arrive on time, bring the proper materials, and pay attention to lectures. Despite admonitions and penalizing grades, students still use cellphones, do the bare minimum to pass
A “flipped exam” is how the authors describe this unique group exam activity. The students, all enrolled in a post-baccalaureate program at Wayne State University School of Medicine, had applied to the medical school and not been accepted, but showed promise. This 10-month program helps
Nothing works quite as well as a good question when it comes to getting the intellectual muscles moving. Given the daily demands of most academic positions, there’s not much time that can be devoted to reflection about teaching. But good questions are useful because they
Course frameworks and structures have been changing during the past few years, in large part as a result of the many new options technology makes possible. For example, flipped courses change where most of the content acquisition occurs. Rather than teachers presenting in class with
Students often think of class sessions as isolated events—each containing a discrete chunk of content. Those who take notes during class will put the date along the top and then usually leave a space between each session, which visually reinforces their belief that the concepts
An email query about teaching personas reminded me how much I haven’t figured out about our teaching identities. I’m still struggling with very basic questions and wondered if a conversation here might not get us all thinking more about how we present ourselves as teachers.
A lot of students are in love with their highlighters, especially those bright, fluorescent-colored ones. They use them to highlight course materials, sometimes underlining whole pages of text. When I first saw a text so fluorescent that it all but glowed, I wondered why in
The university population in the United States has grown increasingly diverse in the past 30 years, with international students making up between 10 percent and 20 percent of the enrollments at many universities. For the vast majority of international students, English is not their first
The benefits of group work are well known. Students develop critical thinking and enhanced reflection skills (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004). Group work promotes transformative learning while establishing a sense of community. There is a sense of positive interdependence when we are all in this together
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