Before 2020, we thought students coming to class in pajamas was unprofessional but also a “college thing.” Last semester, Tom recorded a student taking an exam shirtless while lying in bed. Sarah’s student had technological difficulties during a test. When she told him to just
As the number of neurodivergent students continues to rise nationwide, the student population filling our classrooms reflects this increase. As college professors we often find ourselves unprepared for the challenges of teaching these students. We might even confuse a student’s disruptive or uncooperative behavior for
I recently reviewed an active learning workshop, and that’s gotten me wondering about active learning strategies and where we are in our thinking about them. We do know the answers to two questions. First, active learning strategies work—not all the time or uniformly but regularly.
Too often, asynchronous online discussions morph into students making only perfunctory postings to fulfill the bare minimum requirements. We blame students, but the deeper issue is that the discussion forum is foreign to students because real conversations aren’t planned. How often have you sat with
“Practice makes perfect!”
Although the perfection part remains elusive, we’ve all experienced how practice improves performance. But why? What changes during practice? And why do those changes result in better performance? Those questions matter to teachers and students. As teachers we regularly advocate that students
In a former job as a program director for two online master’s degrees, I was required to write a weekly blog post for students on a topic related to the program or school. These postings were designed to create a sense of attachment to the
Connectedness and relationships are important for students’ learning experiences. But online instructors may be tempted to think it is too challenging to fully engage all of their students. How can instructors whet their students’ appetites and keep them coming back for more? In this article,
A couple of months ago we posted a series of questions about teacher questions—the ones they ask students—and asked for your answers. Here’s a compilation of those responses with a few of my comments sprinkled throughout.
Course planning for the coming academic year is either underway or about to start. It offers a chance to look at how learning experiences—exams, assignments, and activities—are sequenced in a course and what they add up to collectively. Assembling learning experiences so that they effectively
Universal Design for Learning (UDL), developed by CAST, is an international framework for educators to design content for all learners. The UDL framework guides the design of instructional goals, assessment, methods, and materials that can be customized and adjusted to meet individual needs.
Magna Publications © 2024 All rights reserved