Do you have students who don’t deliver good work? Sometimes it’s a case of not having the necessary skills, but not always. Students with skills have been known to deliver papers that show promise but aren’t well organized, fail to explore interesting ideas deeply, haven’t
Fresh from winter break, my students want to test my boundaries—and they should. But even as they challenge me, many of my students will also limit themselves by defining their intelligence and talents as fixed traits. Each semester I hear the familiar refrains: “I’m not
When I meet with faculty, I often talk about the importance of moving our conversations about teaching beyond the “tips and tricks” to the kind of thought-provoking discussions that help promote, motivate, and sustain our growth as teachers.
Why this article is worth discussing: Student engagement
When students consider majoring in the humanities or social sciences, it’s only a matter of time before they hear—or are reminded—about the comparatively dim career outlook for graduates of these programs. Many students, perhaps with a parent or trusted advisor also expressing concern about the
Recently I had reason to revisit Paul Pintrich’s meta-analysis on motivation. It’s still the piece I most often see referenced when it comes to what’s known about student motivation. Subsequent research continues to confirm the generalizations reported in it. Like most articles that synthesize the
As teaching professors, we try to change students, whether it’s a change that increases their factual knowledge, one that gives them a new way of thinking, or one that develops an important new skill. Frustration, stress, and tension frequently accompany change, especially change that involves
Some students are more challenging to teach than others. They require pedagogical skills of a different and higher order. Sometimes it’s easier to sigh and just turn away. And that’s legitimate in the sense that students (indeed, people of all sorts) have to figure things
A month into last fall’s first-year writing course, one of my students emailed me and politely explained that he found one of the reading assignments offensive.
We met in person to discuss his concerns. On some level, our conversation was productive. I explained my reasons
What if there were a simple classroom exercise that could create positive and lasting effects on the academic performance and persistence of students—in particular, students who are under-represented in your field?
It turns out there is. More accurately, there are a number of such exercises—let’s call
The word “motivation” comes from a root that means “to move,” and really, motivation is about what moves us to begin something or to persist in a situation—in this case, a learning situation. Motivation is a driving force. It can be considered an external driving
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