In higher education, assignment titles often serve a functional purpose, indicating the sequence of assignments rather than their specific objectives. However, intentionally structuring assignment titles
Rubrics are a valuable tool that supports student growth and facilitates instructor grading and feedback (Suskie, 2018). As instructors, we see this value; unfortunately, many
I would like to take you on a journey back to mid-December when we were on winter break. Maybe you were curled up by the
Giving feedback in university courses allows for the provision of supportive ideas for improvement, elaboration, and/or heightened thinking as students prepare for job factors outside
Since the onset of COVID-19 several years ago, the popularity of online learning has rapidly increased. Due to the flexibility, many students prefer pursuing their
This article first appeared in the Teaching Professor on October 15, 2018. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. In August 2017, Inside Higher Ed featured an article describing a controversial “stress
You just submitted grades and you’re getting ready to teach again. You remember how your classes went, but each time you start planning, you wonder
Thank-you notes make people happy. For as much joy as they give me, I don’t send them enough. In fact, I think writing thank-you notes is a dying art. They’re overlooked forms of positive closure. Gratitude on its own is powerful, and when it’s exchanged, it feels amazing. After I thought about what notes of gratitude could accomplish, I started emailing thank-you notes to my students, waiting until well after the semester for the most impact.
Providing detailed feedback is a critical component of effective teaching. Feedback serves as a one-to-one conversation with students and can be a powerful tool to teach course content, mentor students, and help them to develop a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006). Decades of research have identified the characteristics of good feedback as expedient, specific, and related to the expectations of the task (Nichols & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006). Feedback must also provide students with information about how to improve their work, which is focused on future learning (Sadler, 1989).
“Are students getting it? How do I know?” Instructors answer these questions through a variety of assessments, from small, informal methods such as asking students if they have questions, to formal, graded methods such as multiple-choice exams and research papers. These assessments provide cognitive feedback, whether in the form of a score, a correction, lack of an answer, or an abundance of questions. But is that the whole picture? While these assessments can help us gauge how well students are “getting it,” it often fails to explain why or why not.