Posts Tagged ‘assignment strategies’
February 1 - Student Self-Assessment: A Sample Assignment
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
For me examples are like pictures; worth a 1,000 words. In the previous post I wrote about the need to intervene in the development of student self-assessment skills, leaving the process less to chance and making it more the result of purposeful intervention. At a recent Teaching Professor Workshop, I saw an assignment that illustrates that kind of intervention. It was from a 100-level, Introduction to U.S. Government course, but is adaptable to any course. The assignment has two parts and they are the first and last pieces of work students complete in the course.
December 16 - Making the Review of Assigned Reading Meaningful
By: Sarah K. Clark, PhD in Effective Teaching Strategies
The typical college student dreads hearing, “Let’s review the chapters you read for homework.” What generally ensues is a question and answer drill in which students are peppered with questions designed to make clear who has and hasn’t done the reading. In reality, these exchanges do little to encourage deep thought or understanding of the assigned reading. They produce awkward silences during which students squirm in their seats, hoping to become invisible. Other times students decline to answer for fear of giving the wrong answer. Almost all the time a negative tone permeates the classroom during this review. I decided to restructure the way that I approached reviews of reading assignments, and found that by doing things differently, I could change both the tone and outcomes of the review activity. I’d like to share some of the ideas and techniques that I have found useful:
September 7 - Using Mind Maps as a Teaching and Learning Tool to Promote Student Engagement
By: Genevieve Pinto Zipp in Teaching and Learning
Creating an environment that engages students in the learning journey is not always easy. Sometimes as faculty members we ask ourselves, “Are we taking this learning journey by ourselves?” Several years ago as I began my scholarly exploration of the utility of mind mapping as a teaching and learning tool to foster critical thinking, my colleague and I instituted a mind mapping learning activity which has helped to promote student engagement in the classroom.
June 21 - A Role for Student Choice in Assessment?
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
Giving students some choice about which assignments they will complete or letting them decide how much the assignments will count in a grading scheme are learner-centered strategies that help develop student responsibility for learning. The ideas are simple: rather than a teacher mandated sequence of assignments, students are presented with assignment options and they decide which ones they will complete. Or, students do all the teacher selected assignments but determined what percentage of the grade each assignment is worth. Lots of variations are possible. In my graduate course on college teaching, students completed all five assignments, with each being worth 10 percent of their grade. I gave students the other 50% of their grade and let them divvy up that amount between the assignments.
March 18 - Assignment and Assessment Strategies that Keep Students on Track
By: Teresa K. Dail, PhD in Online Education
Technology enables students to connect with each other, the instructor, and the content. However, distractions—in the form of real-time electronic conversations and a barrage of dozens of commercial and personal interjections—can be omnipresent. Perhaps the online instructor needs to provide his/her own steady stream of engagement that can serve to interrupt (at least temporarily) the flow of extraneous information that competes for both time and focus.
September 10 - Modular Assignments: Learning Episodes for Diverse Students
By: Rolland Fraser in Instructional Design
On our campus, we have growing numbers of nontraditional students. The demands on their time out of class are numerous—work, family, and military obligations. It is my job to meet them where they can learn and benefit.
September 9 - Less Stress at the Semester’s End
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching and Learning, Teaching Professor Blog
There is no question that many students experience pretty serious burnout by the end of the semester. It’s easy for us to recognize it because we experience it ourselves. Even so, I have to admit I was surprised by the findings of a survey of one cohort of business majors.
February 2 - Replacing Lab Reports
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Faculty Development, Teaching Professor Blog
When I took an ungraduate chemistry course a few years back, I loved lab, but I have to admit writing up the lab reports seemed like so much busy work. Each report had specified sections, and the lab manual offered advice on what to put in the sections, depending on the experiment. I remember trying
September 1 - Reading Assignment Strategies that Encourage Deep Learning
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Effective Teaching Strategies
When given a reading assignment, some students feel they have met their obligation if they have forced their eyes to ‘touch’ (in appropriate sequence) each word on the pages assigned. How can we entice students to read the material we assign, and how do we help them develop strategies for deep comprehension and retention of
July 21 - Problem-solving Exercises that Promote Intellectual Development
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Learning Styles
In a Journal of Engineering Education article (referenced below), Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent propose an instructional model that promotes the intellectual development of science and engineering students. Among a number of conditions they identify as being relevant to intellectual development, they suggest particular kinds of problems for students to solve. Their list (summarized below)
