Failure is a regular column topic—specifically, the need for students and their teachers to reorient to it as an opportunity for learning. Our natural inclination makes us want to run from it. We don’t need to intentionally fail; plenty of it happens without intention, and
I have never used videoconferencing in my online courses on grounds that they undermine the “anywhere, anytime” convenience of online learning. But with Zoom now becoming ubiquitous in the working world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have come to see that videoconferencing skills are
Students take notes on an assigned chapter—one page front and back. In addition to these notes that preview the content, students prepare reflective notes that connect the current reading with other content and generate questions about it. Both sets of notes are turned in and
In our previous article, we explored retrieval practice, spaced practice, and metacognition as strategies that provide more durable learning experiences for students. In our work as learning designers in the Colleges of Earth and Mineral Sciences and Business at Penn State University, we incorporate all
It always takes me longer than I plan when I do anything with my books. I look for one book and see another I haven’t looked at for a while. I look for something in a book and find something else of interest. Case in
While most springs terms are done, our past and current students still have to face their emotions in response to George Floyd’s death, the national and international riots, and what this all says about race relationships. This customizable letter to students is meant to help.
A healthy academic community treats its members as honest people. As scholars, we presume that our colleagues earned their degrees without cheating, that they report the results of their research accurately, that they write their own papers. When we think of our colleagues as honest
Have you done all you can do to design learning that will truly stick? In this article, we’ll share tips for how we implement three primary learning strategies—retrieval practice, spaced practice, and metacognition—in the courses we support in our roles as learning designers in the
Transitions are liminal spaces. We move through them from one place to another. In writing, transitions build bridges between paragraphs. They give readers a sense of where they’re headed. But in some transitions that space in between feels less like a bridge and more like
Faculty who move from face-to-face teaching to online teaching must decide how to facilitate student interaction in a web environment. Nearly all use the asynchronous threaded discussion forum that is a central feature of all learning management systems (LMSs). Some also use synchronous video conferencing,
