Group items tagged

"Our real goal is to improve how students integrate new information. We want to change them. While what we have to teach our students may get them a first job, it will not on its own get them a second job-especially one that may not yet even exist. We want our students to be able to learn new things, analyze new knowledge, integrate it into their thinking, and change their minds when necessary." Jose Bowen argues that we should treat both technology and disciplinary content as tools, in pursuit of the larger cognitive changes we try to create in the liberal arts.

Kenyon is part of the "Turning the Tide" initiative, which aims to change college admissions by prioritizing community engagement and depth over breadth of extracurricular achievements. If this changes our student body, how will it change our classrooms?

It seems like this article raises as many questions as it answers. The first, of course, is whether the CIP is doing enough to provide the elements which do support deep change. But I think we also have to ask, if incentives don't produce deep change, what do they support and is that enough?

I'm intrigued by Bowen's idea of courses which offer "a playlist of 25 different types of explanations in different languages using different approaches to a single concept" to support different learning preferences. Despite the title, this idea could apply to MOOCs, tuition-based online courses, and face-to-face "blended" courses. (The assertion that the pedagogical innovation will come from MOOC-land and not established campuses is also intriguing, and troubling...)

Do you encourage students to form study groups like this? There are some interesting ideas at the end about ways to change your course design to encourage group study outside of class.

"Like great art, a great course disturbs its audience. But if it is too disturbing, the audience may withdraw (figuratively or even literally). If it is too affirming, it is just entertainment; fun, but with no real impact."

A description of the author's process for grading with his iPad. The comments section includes some good alternatives, including Word's "Track Changes" feature, as well as a few suggestions of classroom strategies which improve students' receptiveness to paperless feedback.

Mastery learning promises more individualized educational experiences within a class. Students who reach a benchmark of skill or content mastery can move on to the next unit, allowing them a deeper educational experience; students who struggle get more opportunities for review and feedback. It's extremely challenging to build a syllabus this way; this article cites some educators who are finding that the flipped classroom model can also aid a mastery learning orientation. If this all sounds like too much chaotic change, it might be worth considering whether particular elements of a course could be converted to a mastery orientation, without upsetting the whole apple cart.

A group of disabilities studies scholars have released a template letter designed to convince publishers to make more books available in accessible formats. It's a good reminder that everything is negotiable, but you have to ask. (Similar to author's addenda in the open access movement, if enough people start requesting these riders, publishers will see a new reason to change their standard practices.)

This paper serves as a guide to starting a portfolio project. It focuses on the "learning portfolio" as a tool which encourages the student to reflect on their own learning, with special attention to their own progress. I was particularly taken with the point that a portfolio can be an appropriate tool at any level of the curriculum - an individual course or set of courses, the program or department level, or the whole institution - though of course, that choice will change the purpose of the portfolio, and therefore its design.

A brief discussion of the "double-loop" theory of learning, with references and the suggestion that this theory addresses cultural change as much as individualized learning.

Greg Rosenbaum, K'10 and producer of the SXSWedu conference, used this Prezi during his talk at Kenyon next week. (The video will be on the CIP's YouTube channel soon.) It's a good outline of the many factors we're juggling in education; it's also a fine example of the way Prezi can make the structure of an argument apparent.

Our discussions about writing often come around to whether students actually read (and internalize) the comments. Sometimes we hear about students not knowing how to turn on Track Changes or the GradeMark panel in Turnitin, so at the most basic level electronic comments do introduce friction for some students. What do you think of the research project proposed here - do students actually approach electronic feedback differently?

This is Paul Andersen, a high school teacher in Bozeman, MT. He was 2011 Montana Teacher of the Year, and he has delivered Ted talks and is a prolific web video producer. In this video he describes some of the trends in the evolution of educational text books, but, moreover, he touches upon some recurring deep problems in teaching modern students. These are problems for teachers, especially us at the higher end of education as the students coming our way will be more demanding of our product. I think this is a large driving force for pedagogical change. I thought this was a tough one as far as tags are concerned; if you have better ideas for a tag, please send it my way.

Three interesting, and very different, tips for ways to use the moments before class. Which resonates most with you - building relationships, displaying context, or "creating a sense of wonder"?

Do you respond to students' reflective writing? How might their reflections change if you did?

The study focuses on the pedagogical implications of the widespread use of the digital format. However, while changes in the teaching-learning dynamic and the teacher-student relationship were at the core of the study, related issues concerning supply, support and infrastructure rapidly became part of its fabric. These topics include the quality of image resources, image functionality, management, deployment and the skills required for optimum use (digital and image "literacies").

"In writing, as in learning, openings matter. Don't fritter them away." 4 ways you can use the opening of class to help students transition their attention into your course, from James Lang.

I like James Lang's movie example here - how can you keep students "on the edge of their seat" to find out what happens in the final minutes of a class period?

"One of my biggest regrets as a teacher of writing is that for many years, I didn't make students write enough." John Warner argues for changes in course designs to give students a lot more practice with shorter writing formats.