It’s easy to get focused on how much students don’t know. We all have stories—such as my student who, when I said “paradigms,” heard “pair of dimes”—that we laughingly share with colleagues. Much more serious is the absence of all sorts of essential information and
The past 18 months brought us to see systemic challenges and disparities in higher education. The new emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion has pushed each of us to recognize hidden barriers and inequities that our students have been dealing with all along. In my
Interleaving is the process of alternating between concepts during learning by periodically returning to earlier ones. Studies have shown that interleaving content promotes retention (Richland et al., 2005; Rohrer, 2012; Rohrer et al., 2015). Rohrer suggests that this is because interleaving helps students distinguish between
Originally, I added a few lines from a prose poem at the end of the compilation of reader responses to our queries about the questions teachers ask students. I wasn’t sure; the content fit, but it was poetry. My excellent editor called it a “swerve,”
Sometimes courses with large enrollments spawn useful innovations, and this study looked at one empirically. Large courses almost always mandate the use of multiple-choice tests, and incorporating quizzes in these courses can present sizeable logistical challenges. To cope with that situation in a large microbiology
The importance of grades to students is difficult to overstate. The teacher arrives in the classroom with a set of exams and papers, and feel the tension start to rise. Eyes dart nervously from the stack to the teacher—will she pass them back now or
As educators, we usually start right into our teaching at the beginning of class, assuming that students are ready to learn. But when my students arrive in class, they are more often than not extremely stressed out. They might have had to rush to class
Before 2020, we thought students coming to class in pajamas was unprofessional but also a “college thing.” Last semester, Tom recorded a student taking an exam shirtless while lying in bed. Sarah’s student had technological difficulties during a test. When she told him to just
As the number of neurodivergent students continues to rise nationwide, the student population filling our classrooms reflects this increase. As college professors we often find ourselves unprepared for the challenges of teaching these students. We might even confuse a student’s disruptive or uncooperative behavior for
I recently reviewed an active learning workshop, and that’s gotten me wondering about active learning strategies and where we are in our thinking about them. We do know the answers to two questions. First, active learning strategies work—not all the time or uniformly but regularly.
