A person’s first exposure to an academic course can be daunting. As an instructor, this will be you the first time you teach it. It will be your students on their first day of class. A glance at the course calendar will not help. In typical fashion, the weeks of the semester roll on with huge amounts of reading and epic level assignments.
The value of competing against yourself - Ipsative assessment is the practice of determining a student’s progress based on their earlier work. Many assignments and rubrics are designed to measure student work in the normative assessment mode; that is, against a static set of criteria -- often necessarily so.
“A shift is taking place in the focus of pedagogical practice on university campuses all over the world as students across a wide variety of disciplines are learning by making and creating rather than from the simple consumption of content….University departments in areas that have not traditionally had lab or hands-on components are shifting to incorporate hands-on learning experiences as an integral part of the curriculum.
Use service learning in your course to help students gain perspective. As an instructor, you strive to encourage students to learn, strengthen their understanding by adding depth to their knowledge, and give them real world experience through service learning. Service learning is another facet of active learning. Ask students to apply what you teach.
On my first day of high school I was given a slip of paper with the combination to my book and coat locker. I carried that slip of paper with me for a week, glancing at it several times a day until the set of three numbers was firmly in my memory.
Withdrawing a student results in a “W' on her transcript (as opposed to the possible “F' you foresee without significant improvement) and would not factor into her GPA. There are multiple considerations when deciding whether to withdraw a student. Consider the following scenarios, options and implications.
The other day I asked an emeritus faculty member where he derived his teaching style from. Looking back on a stunning 35 years of instructional experience, he said he had a great mentor instructor in undergraduate school and thought, “I want to be like him.'
You’re probably familiar with the old joke in which a man’s wife notices him cutting the ends off the ham before baking it. He tells her that’s the way his dad does it and it’s a key secret to the wonderful taste. When the man’s wife finally asks her father-in-law about it he laughs and replies, “That’s not it! If I don’t cut the ends, the ham won’t fit in my pan.'
The flipped classroom is one in which, unlike traditional methods, lectures and instruction take place outside of synchronous class time, usually in the form of instructor videos or screencasts, while homework and group activities take place during class.
Hey all! I’ve decided to supplement some of my podcasts with vidcasts as well. Since vidcasts are so great for giving tutorials, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and use this as […]
Last week we talked about how designing some tension into discussions can yield a more engaging student experience. This is often my first suggestion when I hear from faculty that student discussions seem lacking. This week the inquiry centers around timing. Just like hosting a dinner party, timing the various course elements is critical when designing student interactions.
Designing quality discussion prompts can be a challenge whether building an online discussion forum or trying to better engage the classroom learner. As instructors, we’ve all asked questions of our students that failed to lead them to our verdant garden, blossoming with student ideas. Instead, at one time or another, we’ve led students to deserts of superficial or pat answers that lay shriveled in darkness with only the chirping of crickets as adulation.
