Posts Tagged ‘engaging students’

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:


November 16 - The Five R’s of Engaging Millennial Students

By: Mary Bart in Teaching and Learning

The first indication that the Millennial Generation may be different from previous generations is to consider how many different names we have for the generation and the people who belong to it. They’re referred to as Generation Y, Nexters, Baby Boom Echo Generation, Echo Boomers, Digital Natives, Generation Next, Generation Me and, of course, Millennials.


December 17 - A Vision of Students Today, as Told by Students

By: Mary Bart in Teaching and Learning

A Vision of Students Today is a short video created by Michael Wesch, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, and 200 KSU students. Since being uploaded to YouTube in Oct 2007 it’s been viewed more than 4 million times. Even if you’ve already viewed it, it’s worth a second look. It describes some of the most important characteristics of students today, as told from the student perspective.


December 1 - Education Remix: Unlocking Creativity to Boost Learning

By: John Orlando, PhD in Teaching with Technology

When considering the major advances in communication — from the printing press, to the telephone, to television — each medium shared the characteristic of allowing either one-to-one communication or one-to-many communication. But social media changed all that. For the first time in history “many” can speak to “many,” and this has radically changed our world.


April 9 - Three Strategies for Engaging Students through Multimodal Course Design

By: Rob Kelly in Online Education

Like many new online instructors, Laurie Lorence, an English instructor at San Diego Community College, initially created online courses that were fairly linear and mostly text. She quickly realized that such an approach would not work for her students, particularly those in her pre-college learning courses.


December 18 - Why It Can Be Hard to Get to Know Your Students

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching and Learning

Getting to know your students is important, but as Dean A. McManus (referenced below) points out, it’s not always easy and may, in fact, be one of the few things that get worse with experience. Here’s why:


October 28 - Tools of Engagement: Technologies and Strategies for All Learning Styles

By: Mary Bart in Online Education

How do you motivate online learners?

It’s an age-old question that continues to stump online instructors as well as the managers of distance education programs trying to solve the attrition problem that continues to drag down this otherwise thriving segment of higher education.


October 2 - Effective Strategies for Improving College Teaching and Learning

By: Mary Bart in Free Reports, Teaching & Learning

What we teach and how we teach it are inextricably linked. This special report helps you discover new ways to build strong connections between the two with strategies for engaging students, giving feedback, creating a climate for learning, and more.