Group items tagged

I've spoken with faculty who are using Problem-Based Learning effectively in their classrooms but were not aware the practice had a name, nor that it had a substantial body of research literature. Here's a sample that outlines the reasons it is an effective practice, best practices, and practical examples plus a brief discussion of the constructivist principles at work. It comes to us at Kenyon through JSTOR.

I think dismissing "best practices" entirely is a bit extreme, but there are some good points about reflecting and adapting if a "best practice" isn't producing the outcome you want. What's really great in this article, though, is the way Bonnie Stachowiak talks about drawing inspiration from high profile exemplars for practices when can be authentic to her style.

Moving from the use of open educational resources (OERs) to an "open educational practice" helps students to understand themselves as knowledge creators in a community, and not just as information consumers. This article focuses on class projects to edit Wikipedia articles, which is only one example of an open educational practice, but an easy one to start with.

This week in our Small Teaching book club, we were discussing the value of monitored practice versus the stress that public feedback can generate in classrooms. Here, John Warner makes some observations about private and monitored practice and suggests that real time feedback is best suited to honing discrete skills

Interesting context as we look at expanding students' participation in the high-impact practices as part of the Kenyon 2020 plan.

This tutorial from Indiana University on recognizing (and avoiding) plagiarism is wordy, but the "Examples" and "Practice" sections in particular would be useful to students.

What do classes look like as you move from infrequent, high-stakes assignments and exams to frequent grading of low-stakes activities? Warnock makes a number of claims, backed up by the literature - students become more confident and motivated, there's less incentive to cheat, the dialogue between students and faculty improves. I particularly like the last half of the article, where he talks about the practical elements of increasing informal writing or quizzing in a course.

"Rechtschaffen (2014) notes that "Students are told to pay attention a thousand times in school, but rarely are they taught how" (p.10), and we have observed that before our focusing activities students generally seemed distracted, stressed, and irritated. After the focusing activity, their posture became more relaxed and they seemed more receptive to learning."

Good list of formal practices for classroom discussion which can get students more organized and more broadly participating in class. I was particularly taken with the URL for this page, which calls them "speaking-listening techniques".

Good mix of practical tips for managing your grading and pedagogical tips for helping students learn to do college-level writing.

Some interesting thoughts here about the differences between "shyness" and "introversion", and the way your classroom participation practices can help or hinder students. Also an interesting reflection on participation in the scholarship of teaching and learning, as the author deals with resistance to her original article.

I noticed a number of tables at yesterday's Celebration of High Impact Practices where students were displaying their work on small laptop screens. How can we improve this experience for the next celebration - and what other venues for showcasing student work could we be using?

The authors describe ways in which design thinking gives students a chance to practice interdisciplinarity and engage with big questions. What if students were encouraged to bring those skills to bear on campus issues?

This article promotes two teaching strategies that cognitive psychology research has shown to be effective: spaced practice, which brings students back to the same topics periodically throughout a course, and retrieval practice, which uses quizzes and class discussions to reinforce study.

These really are easy habits, and I have employed most of them in my classes over the years. Of course, some are easier to pull off than others! Habit number 3 reminded me of something from my grad school days to the point that I felt compelled to post the very first comment.

Five things that went right. Five images to link with them. I was moved by this amazingly simple form of reflective pedagogical practice.

Much of the information about undergraduate research is written by professors for professors. This article gives the students a voice, as 5 students from the University of Central Florida give their insights on what practices made their research experiences worthwhile.

It seems early for this, with a week of classes and a week of exams left to go, but perhaps these tasks are good mental breaks from all the grading. They also might form the technical side of good reflective practice.

A critique of an article published by USA Today titled"'Flipped classrooms' may not have any impact on learning." Research into the effectiveness of classroom practices is vital, but the USA Today article makes the article title's striking pronouncement based on unfinished and very limited "preliminary research."

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.)