Group items tagged

I've heard from multiple people who are not satisfied with the quality of online discussion in their classes. Their concerns sound like the ones in this article - they get more student-to-professor writing than real "class discussion", and what they get is often dominated by the better students. This article poses 2 responses: ask for private journaling instead of public discussion, and then use the writing intentionally during class time.

I found two really interesting takes in this article - the idea of different formats (paper vs. electronic documents) for different forms of writing and audiences, and the idea that there's a benefit to not having a delete key on your paper journal.

An interesting application of blended learning theory to the advising process, describing ways in which a student's curation of an electronic portfolio could feed into (and benefit from) the advising process. From the International Journal of ePortfolio.

Special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education focusing on trans* issues in higher education settings. Includes some good articles about access to education and success in college for trans* students.

Billed as the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the writing (and sharing) of excellent syllabi, this is an interesting approach to the teaching commons. Is this a viable approach to the twin problems that many syllabi have moved off professors' web pages and into the Learning Management System (a.k.a. Moodle), and that those syllabi which are on the web haven't been peer reviewed?

A set of principles which apply not only to science labs but any collaboration, department, and scholarly organization. The rules are, of course, not "simple" to do at all, but they are clearly stated and explained.

"A meta-analysis of 62 studies involving 11,837 students indicated that... students participating in SL programs demonstrated significant gains in five outcome areas: attitudes toward self, attitudes toward school and learning, civic engagement, social skills, and academic performance. ... Furthermore, as predicted, there was empirical support for the position that following certain recommended practices--such as linking to curriculum, voice, community involvement, and reflection--was associated with better outcomes." (This link requires Kenyon authentication; the full citation is doi: 10.1177/105382591103400205 Journal of Experiential Education September/October 2011 vol. 34 no. 2 164-181.)

This chapter explores the challenges of assessing multicultural learning in a service-learning course and offers a variety of strategies for measuring student development.

An explanation of the "constructionist" pedagogical theory, in the growing context of the "Maker" movement. I have tended to consider the Makers as people concerned with physical objects, from 3D printing to knitting; this article makes explicit that writing (in any media) is also "Making."

Short, accessible articles summarizing literature and best practices around student course evaluations.

A study of images used by articles in selected history journals from 2000 to 2009 shows no increase in the use of images, despite the boom in online images generally and digitized historical images in particular. How should this impact digitization strategies and visual literacy efforts?

We've had some experiments at Kenyon with making videos for lab methods. Making them well is no small commitment, but it looks like we're not alone in thinking that some processes are better shown than written down. (h/t to Jen Smith for the link.)

A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology "found that after using a search engine, people were more confident in their ability to explain an unrelated topic." This poses an interesting question for the lit review component of research assignments - how do they affect students' self-perception of learning? What do you do to help students accurately assess their own ability to answer questions? Hat tip to Simon Garcia for the link.

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

One issue in discussions of college writing is how to incorporate writing practice into STEM courses. Some Kenyon professors in STEM subjects include journal assignments and process descriptions into their courses. Here are some suggestions on similar metacognitive "writing to learn" approaches, including guidelines for feedback to students.

I was particularly interested by the finding that mind wandering which is related to the subject may actually be good for learning - if you ask the questions which encourage the students to wander that way.

"It wasn't until a professor assigned a research project that required collective thinking - and actually showed us how much better our work could be with multiple minds put to a task - that I became convinced that collaboration is a fundamental and teachable humanities skill." Danica Savonic describes a project to have essays from her introductory college writing course published in a pedagogy journal.