The skills that students learn in our courses, such as organization, critical thinking, problem solving, and time management are essential.Do students ever ask you that question? As an assistant professor of mathematics at a community college, I regularly get the question. Most of my students
Well-known cognitive psychologist Richard Mayer offers a succinct analysis of motivation in his excellent workbook monograph titled Applying the Science of Learning. He begins with a definition: “Motivation is an internal state that initiates and maintains goal-directed behavior.” (p. 39) This means that motivation is
Talk with almost any faculty member and they will tell you that many (sometimes it’s most) of their students are unprepared for college. They lack basic skills in reading, writing, and computation but also don’t have very effective study habits and techniques. Most teachers try
One of the biggest failures of higher education is punishing student failure. A bad performance on an assignment is preserved and carried all the way to the final grade. This makes students adverse to risk and obsessed with grades.
Academic rigor is the gold standard for college courses. Faculty want their courses to be intellectually rich and challenging experiences for students. The content they teach is important, and learning it in deep, lasting, and meaningful ways is not accomplished without effort.
Students will naturally start losing motivation in a college course over time. This is an even bigger problem in online courses, where students can easily feel distanced from the instructor and each other. As an instructor, I notice this as a steadily deteriorating quality of
When final projects are submitted, no one likes to believe that their students haven’t “tried,” but sometimes it’s hard to draw any other conclusion. Most of us work with at least a few (sometimes more) students whose papers are littered with errors. When we are
Most students find it difficult to think of famous historical personalities as real people. They also read texts without realizing that there are tangible personalities behind them. I have found one of the most effective ways to give flesh and blood to the past is
It’s hardly a new subject. Every teacher knows it’s essential, and every teacher tries to motivate students. But it’s just as true that all teachers have experienced those days when they don’t feel particularly motivated, when the content seems old and tired, and when students
There’s a big cohort of students who want learning to be fun and easy. A lot of learning isn’t either. Most faculty get worried if the word fun is attached to a course they teach. It can mean they’re entertaining more than educating. What happens
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