A recent survey of 175 economics professors who teach basic principles of economics courses revealed a widely diverse set of grading practices for the course. These instructors taught at 118 different institutions, including doctoral degree-granting universities, two-year colleges, and everything in between. The findings are
How much will students remember from your course tomorrow, next week, next month, next semester, or next year? Let’s be honest, in most cases, not as much as we would hope or as much as they should. What’s at the root of this problem? Students
The “testing effect,” as it’s called by cognitive psychologists, seems pretty obvious to faculty. If students are going to be tested on material, they will learn it better and retain it longer than if they just study the material. And just in case you had
Interest in and use of peer assessment has grown in recent years. Teachers are using it for a variety of reasons. It’s an activity that can be designed so that it engages students, and if it’s well designed, it can also be an approach that
Good study skills are the key to successful performance on exams in college, and good study skills are what many of today’s college students don’t have. We can spend time pontificating about who bears the responsibility for these absent skills. We can philosophize about who
Flipped learning environments offer unique opportunities for student learning as well as some unique challenges. By moving direct instruction from the class group space to the individual students’ learning spaces, time and space are freed up for the class as a learning community to explore
Multiple-choice tests don’t get much respect. Maybe it’s because they’re associated with memorization, old-fashioned standardized tests, and other situations in which the answer is likely to be “C.”
Yet when properly designed, multiple-choice tests can be a vital addition to your testing tool box. Outlined
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When final paper time looms, students become increasingly anxious about the grammatical errors they believe lurk in their writing. That belief is so strong it can undermine their drafts. Even worse, students have come to expect that their professors will point out errors—and make corrections—that
Most conventional assessment strategies provide limited opportunities for instructors to realign teaching methods and revisit topics that students have not understood well. Teachers can communicate with students individually, but time constraints may prevent multiple individual conversations. Some students in the classroom are reluctant to ask
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