Group items tagged

This article discusses an interesting approach to discussion participation in the syllabus: what's expected, what's "good" participation, and how do you get students motivated to participate?

If we want to help students take risks and cope with failure, we're going to have to make it transparent when we're doing that as scholars and teachers too.

One of the benefits of group work could be learning to negotiate different expectations about work styles in a group. Recognizing that up front, instead of 3/4ths of the way through the project when the wheels come off, might help students learn better in collaboration, and feel better about group work. I've seen exercises like this used in leadership or "team-building" exercises - there's no reason this activity wouldn't work with a committee or department.

We want independent, self-motivated learners, but we also know clear expectations are key to teaching disciplinary modes of thinking (and avoiding basic errors). How do you balance that tension?

The author discusses a report on the value of having students evaluate their peer's presentations in the political science classroom. Being required to evaluate their peer's presentations using the same criteria as the instructor uses, students report a greater understanding of the expectations for the presentations and gain more knowledge from the content of those presentations than they would have otherwise.

I have my students working in groups for lab sessions this term. Admittedly this falls outside the usual scope of what constitutes "group work" (i.e., a larger paper, research paper, project in lieu of an exam, etc.), but I still picked out a few pointers to emphasize when talking to my students about what I expect from them.

An interesting study out of Stanford. While drawn from experience with MOOCs, I think many of these principles are relevant to flipped classrooms at a small college as well. I was surprised by recommendations #3 and #4 (regarding "personal" vs. "professional" production values); I had expected high production values to be more important for classes with no face-to-face contact.

An interesting study out of Stanford. While drawn from experience with MOOCs, I think many of these principles are relevant to flipped classrooms at a small college as well. I was surprised by recommendations #3 and #4 (regarding "personal" vs. "professional" production values); I had expected high production values to be more important for classes with no face-to-face contact.

Interesting failure to replicate the 2014 study suggesting that longhand notetaking may be more effective than typing on a laptop. Perhaps we should expect our efficacy at using different writing tools to shift over time!

It's important to reserve some time for reflection at the end of the semester, to review where you thought your classes were going and where they actually ended up. (But don't forget to review the positive too - what worked as or even better than expected?)

Annotating your syllabus with your students is a great way to practice transparency, clarify your expectations, and check your assumptions.

We expect to upgrade to Moodle 2.5 this July; this page describes some of the coming improvements.

This testimonial brings up a crucial aspect of course design--making sure that you have reasonable expectations for your own workload when developing activities that require significant amounts of direction and feedback from the instructor.

Students tend to hate group work, and I've come to believe it's because we have an unrealistically high expectation of students' skills at working in a group. Walking the students through the skills which the group task requires, and accurate assessment of their abilities and team composition, seems like a good step in teaching students what group work will be like in the working world (as well as positioning the students for success at the course work).

The syllabus and the first days of class can help set up the classroom dynamic for the entire semester. Here are the strategies one professor uses to set up expectations for her courses, including rules for class discussion.

From a refreshing series on "teaching fails", a composition instructor describes the difficulty in scaffolding a research assignment that both provides clarity about expectations and allows for fruitful exploration. Here, the use of pedagogical and technological innovations (rubrics and screencasting) did not succeed in getting students to engage with the process--but I do think that they gave the instructor some evidence to better understand what went wrong.

Interesting calculator for estimating the amount of time your assigned work may be taking your students, with a review of the supporting research. How does this match your assumptions and expectations?