If you asked students to tell you what makes a course hard, what would they say? Would their answers be the same as yours? Would it be a problem if they weren’t?
Over the years, course syllabi have evolved from a simple document that outlines course objectives and requirements to an intimidating, multi-paged contract of terms and conditions for successful course completion. A number of writers have proposed syllabus makeovers, including some who’ve suggested the syllabus be
Students aren’t all that excited about most of their assignments. Given the chance not to write papers, not to take exams, or not to complete group projects, most students would happily take advantage of the opportunity. But those are all assignments they’re used to, ones
We’ve all experienced failed learning activities, such as painful class sessions, online disasters, or group projects gone wrong.
When we analyze what went wrong, we usually wring our hands and lament the state of college students today, but is it possible that we ourselves
My wiper blades needed to be replaced. I hate these kinds of tasks; they make me feel completely inadequate. But I was doing a lot of reading about learning, and I was looking for concrete examples in my own life to help me better understand
Regardless of whether you’ve been teaching for 15 years or 15 minutes, how to act and what to do on the first day of class seems to be something many faculty are constantly revising. The impact of the lasting nature of the first impression may
You’ve decided you need to update, redesign, refresh your course. Maybe for your own reasons, such poor student performance. Or perhaps you want to try a new technique or a tool. Or maybe your reasons are external, such as a change in the curriculum or
Previous research and firsthand experience for most of us verify that attendance in class improves performance. Many of our students would still like to believe otherwise, but the positive relationship between attendance and performance reported in the research is robust and long-standing.
In a good
The shift toward student-centered learning has transformed our classrooms, and it’s no longer enough to be a subject-matter expert. Instructors have to not only know the material their students need to learn, but they also have to have a reasonably good grasp of how students
The Oxford Dictionary defines “syllabus” as “an outline of the subjects in a course of study or teaching.”
“Students who read a good syllabus are more likely to feel that course strategies have been designed to help them reach their goals, rather than merely as
