Performing among peers is never easy. I’ve seen great teachers tremble before a group of colleagues as they speak about an instructional practice they’ve developed. The fear grows out of not finding respect among equals. Academic professionals end up having lots of experience in peer
Last September, we issued a call for information on handouts—how do you use them, how well do they work, what learning goals are they especially well-suited to accomplish? As with previous calls, you responded with an array of examples, advice, insights, and opinions. What’s clear
When you use group work—say, for a project or assignment—do you appoint group leaders? André (2011) was under the impression that most of us use leaderless groups, and that hunch was confirmed by a review of 104 Journal of Management Education articles in which teachers
Free riders—those who don’t do their fair share of work in a group—frustrate students, especially when they get the same grade as everyone else in the group. A lot of students don’t realize there are ways groups can deal with free riders—ways that make it
To help direct students in their learning during the pandemic, we as faculty have been tasked with harnessing a range of digital technologies. Acquiring these additional skills has been easier for some, more challenging for others. Faculty at Northern Arizona University, where I teach, moved
I read a quote this week that has been following me around. It expresses a view fairly common among faculty, I suspect. The article (D’Abate et al., 2018) in which it appears focuses on the need for teachers to support students’ work in groups. The
Plagiarism detection reports from companies such as Turnitin are the primary way that faculty identify cheating on written work. But my experience in working with hundreds of faculty has shown me that most misread these reports because they have not received proper instruction on how
In recent years, student dropout rates in STEM programs have received a lot of attention. The problem is often referred as the leaky pipeline, and that is a harmful metaphor. It implies that we can “plug the holes” (Cannady et al., 2014), or worse, that
Research has demonstrated that visuals improve learning for many students. Medina (2008) notes that “we learn and remember best through pictures, not through written or spoken words” (p. 1), while Dunlap and Lowenthal (2016) state that “people learn and remember more efficiently and effectively through
My interest in making exams more about learning and less about grades continues. I’m also a realist: exams will always be about grades. But could they please be at least a bit more about learning? The best way to increase learning focus is with strategies
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