Posts Tagged ‘active learning’
January 11 - How Students Learn: Thoughts from a Favorite Author
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
We all have our favorite authors … of course, most of mine write about teaching and learning. I read everything I can find written by my favorites and they remain favorites because their writing seldom disappoints. Peter J. Frederick, a history professor at Wabash College—he may be retired by now—is one of my favorite authors.
July 12 - How Do You Engage Your Students? More Tips from Conference Attendees
By: Mary Bart in Effective Teaching Strategies
As we mentioned in the June 28 and July 5 posts, during the opening keynote at The Teaching Professor Conference, Elizabeth F. Barkley, a professor at Foothill College and author of Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2010) presented on a topic she titled Terms of Engagement: Understanding and Promoting Student Engagement
July 5 - More Tips on Active Learning
By: Mary Bart in Teaching and Learning
As we mentioned in the June 28 post, during the opening keynote at The Teaching Professor Conference, Elizabeth F. Barkley, a professor at Foothill College and author of Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2010) presented on a topic she titled Terms of Engagement: Understanding and Promoting Student Engagement in Today’s College
June 28 - Student Engagement Tips from Teaching Professor Conference Attendees
By: Mary Bart in Effective Teaching Strategies
During the opening keynote at The Teaching Professor Conference, Elizabeth F. Barkley, a professor at Foothill College and author of Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2010) presented on a topic she titled Terms of Engagement: Understanding and Promoting Student Engagement in Today’s College Classroom.
June 27 - Designing Effective Clicker Questions by Going Beyond Factual Recall
By: Mary Bart in Instructional Design
At one point, a General Chemistry course at Penn State Berks had a success rate of about 50 percent, giving the multi-section course the dubious distinction of having one of the lowest GPAs on campus. After a thorough redesign, the course now consistently achieves a success rate of well over 70 percent, while the student ratings of the course and the instructors have never been higher. The key element in this chemistry course’s redesign? Clickers.
May 23 - Tips for Creating a Participatory Classroom Environment
By: Mary Bart in Teaching and Learning
All too often students shuffle into class, take notes while the professor lectures for 50 minutes or so, and then pack up and leave. Rinse and repeat throughout the semester. Some might never raise their hand, offer their opinion, or even learn the name of the person sitting in front of them.
February 24 - Learning through Teaching
By: John Orlando, PhD in Teaching and Learning
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.” — Oscar Wilde
Russell L. Ackoff tells a wonderful story in the podcast for the book he wrote with Daniel Greenberg “Turning Learning Right Side Up:”
After lecturing to undergraduates at a major university, I was accosted by a student who had attended the lecture. After some complimentary remarks, he asked, “How long ago did you teach your first class?”
February 9 - Defining Active Learning
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
There’s a definitional “looseness” about many of the terms commonly used in higher education. I know, I’ve written about this in previous blogs, but when terms are bandied about assuming everybody defines them similarly, that’s a recipe for misunderstanding. Equally important, we can be using terms without having done the intellectual homework necessary to precisely understand their referents.
October 22 - A New Way to Help Students Learn Course Vocabulary
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Effective Teaching Strategies
Most college students struggle with the vocabulary of our disciplines. In their various electronic exchanges, they do not use a lot of multisyllabic, difficult-to-pronounce words. And virtually all college courses are vocabulary rich—unfamiliar words abound. Most students know that the new vocabulary in a course is important. They use flash cards and other methods to help them memorize the words and their meanings for their exams. Two days later, the words and their meanings are gone.
October 7 - Testing Knowledge–An Interesting Alternative
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Educational Assessment, Teaching Professor Blog
Sometimes we do get stuck in ruts—we use the same kinds of test questions: multiple-choice, short answer, maybe a few fill-in-the-blank, some matching and an occasional longer essay question. We forget there are other options. Here’s an example, initially proposed in 1990.
