In recent years, the phrase active learning has become commonplace across the academic disciplines of higher education. Indeed, most faculty members are familiar with definitions that go something like this: Active learning involves tasks that require students not only to do something, but also to
Fear of student resistance prevents many college teachers from adopting active learning strategies. That’s unfortunate, because these strategies have been shown to significantly increase student learning, improve retention in academic programs, and provide especially strong benefits to traditionally underrepresented student groups. Addressing two key questions
How do students think about assignments? A lot never get past the idea that they’re basically unpleasant things faculty make them do. What does interest a lot of students is finding out what the teacher wants in the assignment, not so much what the assignments
When students do poorly on an assignment, faculty generally chalk it up to either a) lack of effort or b) lack of intelligence. But problems in product are usually problems in process, and often students lack the “self-regulated learning strategies” needed to be successful (Wandler
When I see yet another survey asking faculty their opinions about whether online teaching can achieve learning outcomes as well as face-to-face teaching, I immediately ask why they are using face-to-face teaching as the standard of quality education. Why are they not asking whether face-to-face
We seem to have advanced from the traditional web page to an “appified” world where we use a specific app to reach what we want on the web rather than a web browser, whether we are checking the weather, posting on Facebook, or sending a
Have you ever thought, “There has to be a better way!” while grading your online learners’ discussions? It is no secret that grading student discussions is time consuming, laborious, and tedious, considering the disproportionate amount of time required to give solid, quality feedback on a
Students regularly talk to one another about homework and course assignments. They discuss what they think the teacher wants, offer advice about what to study, and sometimes look at one another’s work and provide feedback. That feedback runs the gambit from generic commendations like, “that
“This is not a C paper!” “This answer deserves more points.” “Half of my work on this problem is correct, but I got less than half credit.” Grades are terribly important to most students, so when they object to a grade, they often do so
A recent issue of the journal Issues in Accounting Education published teaching statements written by the 2016 winners of the Cook Prize, a national prize that recognizes superior teaching in accounting. Part of the statement, written by Billie M. Cunningham, who teaches accounting at the
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