Participation and Discussion

Countless studies document that many instructors are quick to intervene when they see students struggling with the material. Most instructors perceive wrong answers as something they should correct. When students misunderstand, teachers perceive it as signaling the need for greater instructor involvement. But what else

When making classroom decisions, too often our main focus is the standards, learning objectives, and/or discipline competencies that must be addressed by the end of the course. Instead, we should focus on the students who sit in our classrooms and how we can best help

I was looking at one of my old teaching and learning books, Kenneth Eble’s 1988 book The Craft of Teaching. Some parts are now a bit dated, but many are not. It was one of those books that greatly influenced how a lot of us

Here’s the scenario: Students are taking a chemical thermodynamics course. The instructor solicits clicker responses to a conceptually based multiple-choice question. Students answer individually, write a brief explanation in support of their answer, and indicate how confident they are that their answer is correct. They

We all know faculty who do; often we do so ourselves. But overall, how many faculty grade participation? Would you guess a majority? What reasons justify our decisions to grade or not to grade participation? Those questions help get at our assumptions about participation, and

At one time or another, most of us have been disappointed by the caliber of the questions students ask in class, online, or in the office. Many of them are such mundane questions: “Will material from the book be on the exam?” “How long should

A few years ago, I felt that if students could wean themselves from relying on me to orchestrate class discussions, the activity would become richer and many of these problems would be solved. With this in mind, I decided to try “leading” a discussion without