Posts Tagged ‘student learning’
April 11 - What Can Be Done to Boost Academic Rigor?
By: Mary Bart in Teaching and Learning
When it comes to college students and studying, the general rule most first-year students hear goes something like this. “For every one credit hour in which you enroll, you will spend approximately two to three hours outside of class studying and working on assignments for the course.” For a full-time student carrying 12 credits that equals at least 24 hours of studying per week.
April 1 - Activities that Promote Deep, Lasting Learning Not Used Enough
By: Linda Suskie in Trends in Higher Education
Academically Adrift is provoking plenty of discussion throughout American higher education, and with good reason. While there are valid concerns about the methodology, instrumentation and overreaching inferences of Richard Arum’s and Josipa Roksa’s research study, many of their conclusions are important ones that have been confirmed by others.
March 15 - Using Screen Capture Software to Improve Student Learning
By: Rob Kelly in Teaching with Technology
By using Podcasts, vodcasts, and screen capture software to provide supplemental and remedial materials, instructors can focus on higher-order learning activities during class, says Dave Yearwood, associate professor and chair of the Technology Department at the University of North Dakota. In an email interview with The Teaching Professor, Dr. Yearwood shared some ideas for getting started.
March 14 - Academically Adrift: Findings & Lessons for Improvement
By: Mary Bart in Online Seminars
The provocative new book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses sparked intense debate. So what’s next? Join the conversation on what can be done to improve academic rigor in the face of larger class sizes, shrinking budgets, and competing priorities.
March 10 - The Facts on Higher Order Thinking
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog
I just read a study that pretty much blew my socks off. An article highlighting the details will appear in the March issue of The Teaching Professor. I’ll give you the nutshell version here. The researchers were interested in finding out if there was empirical evidence to support the frequent criticism that introductory courses are fact filled with little content that challenges higher order thinking. Beyond anecdotal evidence, this research team didn’t find much empirical documentation so, being biologists, they decided to look at introductory-level biology courses.
November 15 - Teaching Strategies That Help Students Learn How to Learn
By: Sara Coffman in Effective Teaching Strategies
What skills do you wish your students had prior to taking your course? Reading comprehension, time management, listening, note-taking, critical thinking, test-taking? Let’s face it, most students could benefit from taking a course in learning how to learn. But who wants to take a study skills class?
October 14 - Do More Tests Lead to More Learning?
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Educational Assessment
Most college teachers assume that more tests are better than a few. Why? What caused us to decide on three or four unit tests followed by a final? Is there evidence that students don’t do as well in courses where there are only a midterm and a final? Why do we think that more tests might be better? And what do we mean by better? Higher grades? More learning?
September 1 - Five Steps to Improving Program-Level Assessment Practices
By: Mary Bart in Educational Assessment
Student learning outcomes assessment can be defined in a lot of different ways, but Lisa R. Shibley, PhD., assistant vice president for Institutional Assessment and Planning at Millersville University, has a favorite definition. It’s from Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education by Barbara E. Walvoord and states that student learning outcomes assessment is “the systematic collection of information about student learning, using time, knowledge, expertise, and resources available in order to inform decisions about how to improve learning.”
August 23 - The Benefits of Making the Shift to Student-Centered Teaching
By: Mary Bart in Effective Teaching Strategies
Would you let your students decide when you hold office hours?
How about whether projects are worth more points than exams, or vice versa?
Would you let your students decide some of the topics that will be covered in the course?
July 20 - Student Learning: Six Causes of Resistance
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Effective Teaching Strategies
A lot of students just don’t seem all that interested in learning. Most faculty work hard to help students find that missing motivation. They try a wide range of active learning strategies, and those approaches are successful with a lot of students but not all students.
