In a September 2012 post I briefly highlighted a number of studies documenting that most students don’t multi-task well. When they’re texting, looking at Facebook, or cruising on the Internet and listening to a lecture or discussion and trying to take notes, they aren’t dealing
Few, if any, technological tools generate stronger personal reactions among educators than PowerPoint, possibly because of its rampant popularity. According to information design expert Edward Tufte in his book The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, “PowerPoint itself has transcended mere software status to become a cultural
As part of a keynote panel discussion for the Improving University Teaching Conference in Santiago, Chile (July 2013), I was asked to ponder the issue of “30 Years of Active Learning.” Active learning has a much longer history than that, but I have had 30
Getting students to do their assigned reading is a struggle. Most teachers don’t need anyone to tell them what the research pretty consistently reports. On any given day, only 20 to 30 percent of the students arrive at class having done the reading. Faculty are
In an article billed as a “field guide” to constructivism, three authors from the sciences focuses on cognitive constructivism and aims to equip faculty with what they need in order to determine how constructivist a learning activity is. The authors propose that constructivist activities can
I teach history and geography at a small college in rural Ohio, and like many in my profession, I’ve been watching the development of massive open online courses with some concern, particularly since MOOCs started being absorbed into curricula. In the office-door debates I engage
A study on student texting that confirms what most of us know: doing two things at the same time does not mean that both are being done equally well.
The online classroom can be a space that supports and showcases student creativity. The learning management system can become a place where students expand their learning beyond traditional online means. With a host of free tools available on the Internet, online students have the ability
During a recent Magna Online Seminar, Linda Enghagen, an attorney and professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, responded to two commonly asked questions about use of copyrighted videos in online courses.
In an age where a school’s web page is its most important information tool, most websites now include faculty biographies. But what do you find in those bios? The faculty member’s PhD- granting institution, publications, research interests, etc. In other words, nothing that is of
