Group items tagged

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.

Do you talk to your students about their study habits? Do you structure assignments to lead them into good habits? This Washington Post article summarizes a 2013 study on the effectiveness of 10 commonly used learning techniques. (The original study is linked from the Post article, and available to us free through OhioLINK.)

This will be an interesting topic to watch. How can we help students learn the habits of complex thinking, and unlearn the habits of shallow thinking? If the best practices of effective study become automatic, the student will be more able to focus on new ideas.

There's a survey instrument attached which you can use to have students reflect and report on how they study for exams. They can then ask themselves if their approach is working - or you could tally the data and tell them which approaches are being used by the students getting the best grades.

A qualitative study on the ways students use print and ebooks differently for personal reading and academic work. While the researcher admits that the study is self-selected and not generalizable, it presents interesting evidence about student preferences and decision making in reading generally.

The New York Times reports on a recent study further confirming the benefits of regular, low-stakes testing. Benefits included grade and attendance improvements compared to a former class of equal size and notable improvements among students from lower-income households.

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.)

People learn best when they are forced to retrieve the information and concepts repeatedly over time but most people haven't learned to study in ways that do this. Consequently, it may be more effective to move from the common practice of giving a few, high-stakes tests to giving numerous low stakes quizzes to assess and improve learning.

If a student's level of academic stress is one reason they abuse "study drugs" like Adderall or Ritalin, then pedagogies which reduce stress might have a positive impact on this campus health issue. Also note the point that just being more focused doesn't make cramming a productive study technique...

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").

Interesting studies on the double-edged sword of "resilience" in the face of discrimination.

Good conversation about the ways in which we can use the study of memory and motivation to help us and our students follow through on our intentions to work and study well.

Academic publishing house John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has teamed up with TED to produce instructor material for a recently launched series of videos called the "TED Studies." The link takes you to a press announcement from Wiley, in which there is a link to the first two inaugural courses. One of these is in psychology, the other is in statistics. The instructor material is online in these first two cases, but I cannot see where Wiley precludes potential print material in the future. I also cannot find the TED Studies area of the TED web pages, and I am trying to discover the difference between TED Studies and the previously announced TED-Ed initiative. I will update this comment when I can find more information.

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.

This case study shows how blogs can be used to diversify writing assignments and scaffold student learning.

The author discusses recent research indicating that students spend most of their study time using the least effective study techniques and speculates on what teachers can do to promote the most effective techniques.

How can we encourage students to take their time with serious study instead of rushing through reading and assignments?

Recent research suggests that an irregular and inadequate sleep schedule makes learning new concepts the next day significantly harder.

The article reports on a meta-analysis of 225 studies on the effectiveness of active learning techniques in undergraduate STEM classrooms. If anybody needs more evidence that techniques to actively engage students are more effective than the traditional passive lecture and listen classrooms, this report offers compelling numbers. Students in those traditional classes are found to be 1.5 times more likely to fail than those in classes with active learning components. Students in active learning classes earn grades that are, on average, 6% better than their counterparts in traditional classes.

Another article on Active Learning.

A quick list of 8 tips which students could use to learn more deeply. Hat tip to Judy Holdener, for recommending this article.