Plagiarism detection reports from companies such as Turnitin are the primary way that faculty identify cheating on written work. But my experience in working with hundreds of faculty has shown me that most misread these reports because they have not received proper instruction on how
In recent years, student dropout rates in STEM programs have received a lot of attention. The problem is often referred as the leaky pipeline, and that is a harmful metaphor. It implies that we can “plug the holes” (Cannady et al., 2014), or worse, that
Research has demonstrated that visuals improve learning for many students. Medina (2008) notes that “we learn and remember best through pictures, not through written or spoken words” (p. 1), while Dunlap and Lowenthal (2016) state that “people learn and remember more efficiently and effectively through
My interest in making exams more about learning and less about grades continues. I’m also a realist: exams will always be about grades. But could they please be at least a bit more about learning? The best way to increase learning focus is with strategies
I am proposing an assignment that grows out of an interesting piece of research (Neu, 2015) in which students collected images of those they’d approach and avoid as potential group members. When interviewed, students identified the social cues, conveyed by features such as hair style,
Few metaphors have generated more objections than equating students to customers and education to a product. It faces challenges on multiple fronts. Tuition dollars do not buy grades or a degree. Education does not come with a money-back guarantee, and the customer is not always
Universal Design for Learning guidelines suggest that institutions provide a text alternative to videos, podcasts, and other media that use sound. This has traditionally been a laborious process of transcribing content manually after a recording is made. Although some faculty instead script their audio ahead
Financial experts have long known that various “nudges”—techniques and policies that influence people while still leaving them with freedom of choice—can induce people to save more of their income. One such technique uses visualization: technology can create imagined images or avatars of our older selves,
If you have studied a foreign language, you know that you start forgetting what you learn soon after you stop using it. But this phenomenon is not restricted only to foreign languages. In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus identified a “forgetting curve” when he
Part of the lasting impact of the scholarship on teaching philosophies highlighted in my previous column results from the activities the authors (Beatty et al., 2009) developed to help faculty find their way to beliefs and a philosophy. The first, a guided imagery exercise, uses
