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
Individual courses and degree programs give us the opportunity to move students along a developmental continuum. Content complexity grows across course sequences, as does student understanding of it. But are students growing as learners in the same way? Are we designing learning experiences so that
It has never been more evident that we live in a global society. Upon graduation or even sooner, our students will be working with people from other countries and cultures, which means they must learn to become globally competent if they are to enter the
Faculty are urged to turn classrooms into activity centers where lively discussion serves as an antidote to bored students zoning out of class lectures and zoning into images and words appearing on their screens of various sorts. Eliminating boredom in my classrooms is welcomed, but
“Online classes are often intimidating for first-time students,” writes David St Clair. “They wrestle with the gnawing fear that their class has no anchor in the physical world and that there will be no one there to address their fears and concerns.” (p. 129) His
It seems that everywhere online faculty turn, they are being told about the importance of making their courses “mobile friendly.” This is because nearly all students are on mobile devices, which gives faculty a couple of reasons to design for such devices.
Coaches teach by modeling. They don’t just tell a player “your swing is wrong.” They show the player the proper technique. Similarly, an apprentice learns from a master primarily by copying what they see the master do.
A central goal of education is teaching critical-thinking skills. Inquiry-based teaching is an excellent path to this goal. Based partly on the philosophy that “humans are born inquirers,” the method focuses on student discovery over pushing information from the instructor. Along the way, the students
Classroom Assessment Techniques, or CATs, are simple ways to evaluate students’ understanding of key concepts before they get to the weekly, unit, or other summative-type assessment (Angelo & Cross, 1993). CATs were first made popular in the face-to-face teaching environment by Angelo and Cross as
Language influences thought and action. The words we use to describe things—to ourselves and others—affects how we and they think and act. It’s good to remind ourselves that this powerful influence happens in all kinds of situations and most certainly with language related to teaching
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