As he reflected on his upcoming 60th birthday, Rob LaZebnik, a writer for The Simpsons, saw his worst fear coming true: He was becoming boring. Rather than embracing the challenge and growth that comes from novel experiences, he found himself settling into the comfort of
Group work is a fixture in college courses, with faculty using it for any number of reasons: to promote engaged learning, to prepare students for future work in their careers and communities, and even to reduce grading load. In thinking about how to ensure that
Most professional program curricula focus on the required specialized knowledge and skills to meet the profession’s needs. Yet graduates need more than subject matter competencies to meet the requirements of their professional work. Our graduates must be capable of solving complex problems and have dynamic
Hey, you. Yes, you. When was the last time you told your students, colleagues, or (gulp) administrators how thankful you were for them? Or jotted down a gratitude list as you went about your workday?
As an undergraduate I didn’t reflect on my learning. I did what I needed to pass my classes but never thought about how I was growing my knowledge base and skills. I was like most students, but this isn’t the best way to learn, for
A vital part of preparing to teach is considering what will most benefit the students we encounter. To be successful across a variety of domains, students need instruction on how to engage in critical thinking, synthesize and evaluate information, and self-evaluate their own learning and
While there has been considerable interest in cognitive science in education, limited numbers of educators are using this information to inform teaching and learning. That’s according to Weinstein et al. (2018), who identify six effective cognitive learning strategies: spaced or distributed practice, interleaving, retrieval practice,
Another of those loosely defined but favorite words in higher education, metacognition is mostly understood superficially—“thinking about thinking.” We consider it broadly, generically, as it relates to learning. The mental processes involved are not easy to observe or measure. Even though most academics have good
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
Sometimes it isn’t all that easy to see that you’ve learned something or are in the process of doing so. I have sat with many students, handed them something written early in the course and asked them to look it in light of something they’ve
