Why this article is worth discussing: For most teachers, change keeps their courses fresh and invigorated. It’s an antidote to all about teaching that doesn’t change: content fundamentals, courses taught, passive students, exams, assignments, and grading—a list we can polish off with committee work. Despite
The importance of small group dynamics is hard to overstate. Group functioning directly influences how well students learn the content, what they learn about working with others, and the attitudes they take with them from the experience. Most groups experience problems; while they usually start
Discussing course content with your classmates requires a different kind of conversation than the casual exchanges that occur between students. It’s harder to talk when you don’t know much about the subject when it’s not easily understood. As result, you may find discussions with classmates
Why is this article worth discussing: College doesn’t offer students much guidance or practice self-assessing. In college, teachers grade student work. Students don’t have the expertise or objectivity that accurate assessments require. But some teachers have explored approaches that develop students’ self-assessment skills and work
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
How do you study for exams? Are you using evidence-based strategies? Did you know there are ways to study that improve exam scores? Educational psychologists and others have researched study strategies extensively, and their findings show that some approaches consistently produce higher test exam scores.
Prior to a scheduled exam, student prepare a study game plan. They describe how they would normally study for an exam in this course. Then they select two research-based study strategies, not regularly used, and agree to try them out as they prepare for the
This detailed article proposes a research-based conceptual model of how students learn. It identifies nine cognitive challenges that stand in the way of learning:
This summary highlights an article in which Kornell and Bjork, educational psychologists, review findings mostly from their own research. Their work explores “self-regulated study,” which involves “decisions students make while they study on their own away from a teacher’s guiding hand” (p. 219). It’s a
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
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