Preparing to Teach

course design

The Last Class Session

By the time the end of the course rolls around, it’s hard to think creatively about what to do on the last day. Depending on the course, the last day may be accompanied with feelings of joy, sadness, relief, or all three.

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Course Workload

What is it? The amount of work it takes to do well in a course? The amount of time it takes to complete the work assigned in a course? The amount of time students actually spend studying and completing assignments? It’s a term that’s often

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Textbook Reading

Two Options That Improve Textbook Reading

Many students don’t do the reading before class. Most surveys report that less than 50 percent of students have read the assigned material before it’s dealt with in class or online. Most faculty don’t need to be persuaded of this fact. They regularly deal with

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Student working on assignment at library.

Could Your Assignments Use a Tune-Up?

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

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Student Group Research Projects

Student Group Research Projects

It’s a favorite assignment in upper-division major courses—have students collaborate on a research project. The rationale is straightforward. Students learn how to do research by doing it. Of course it depends, but in most fields, students new to research find it a daunting process that

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College student writing assignments

Writing Assignments: A Self-Assessment for Faculty

Do your writing assignment focus on the product or the process? How about your students? Where do you think their focus is?

At the end of the day, our students aren’t going to take from our courses the products they developed and use them in

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Writing assignments. Student on laptop

Writing Assignments: A Self-Evaluation for Students

I teach online at an open enrollment institution, which means I get students at all levels of writing ability. Many of them are solid writers with a good understanding of the different steps of the writing process. But I also have students who are just

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