learning outcomes
Assessing Online Learning: Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities
If you want insight into how to assess online learning at the course, program, and institutional levels, you’ll want to download this new special report that will help you create more effective online assessment exercises and strategies.
Experiential Learning: Bridging the Gap Between Engaged and Disengaged
Not all disengaged students fall into the stereotype of the slacker who comes late to class (if at all), or is as easy to spot as Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In fact there are a number of students who are masters at playing the game … doing just enough to get by … attending class but not really participating, much less engaging with the content.
Incorporating Diversity-related Materials into the Curriculum
Incorporating material that addresses diversity issues in classes has positive effects on a number of learning outcomes. The success of efforts to make curricula more diverse depends to a large degree on faculty willingness to incorporate these materials because control of the curriculum remains in faculty hands—both collectively, in terms of course and program approval processes, and individually, in terms of daily decisions about what to teach.
Understanding Learning Styles Research and Instruments
Research on learning styles now spans four decades and occurs across a wide spectrum of disciplines, including many quite removed from psychology, the disciplinary home of many of the central concepts and theories that ground notions of learning style.
The ECHO Model of Experiential Learning
As educators we hear and heed Peter McLaren’s warning, “You can’t teach people anything … You have to create a context in which they can analyze themselves and their social formations and lives.” 1 We believe the creation of this context must be our aim as educators, and this context must be balanced between theory
How to Make Course Evaluations More Valuable
The major benefit any conscientious professor seeks in course evaluations is in gaining useful student feedback. Yet most rating instruments generate vague, unjustified student comments. Quantitative scales provide ambiguous statistics for such generic instructional areas as preparation, fairness in grading, etc., but they don’t include any formative commentary. Open-ended questions ask students what things the
How to Reduce Social Loafing in Your Online Course
Are you having trouble getting your online students to contribute equally to team projects? If so, perhaps you should try varying the membership of these teams because, according to a study by Brian Dineen (see reference below), doing so can reduce social loafing and improve online collaboration.
Recent Seminars
Five Keys: Engaging Faculty in Learning Outcomes Assessment
Assessment has woven itself into the fabric of academic life and is now critical for everything from accreditation to funding. This seminar looks at both the value of different assessments and the “pain-free” ways busy faculty can incorporate them.
audio Online Seminar • Recorded on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
Building Student Engagement: First Classes
In yesterday’s post I provided tips on how to use the syllabus to build student engagement. In this article I offer some suggestions on how to get students involved in the first few classes to ensure a more engaging course throughout the semester.
Building Student Engagement: The Syllabus
In this, the first installment of a six-article series on building student engagement, I offer some suggestions on how to use the syllabus to help you set a tone of engagement and excellence right from the start.
