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.

Video is a powerful and increasingly common pedagogical tool - but what's the experience like for a student with a disability, or just one who forgot her headphones?

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?

Interesting example of games designed to provoke ethical discussions, and an example of how they can be used in class.

James Lang offers a set of strategies to get students to read the syllabus, and to actually internalize the information in it. I've recommended syllabus quizzes to many faculty members, but I'm intrigued by the way Lang suggests personalizing them with open-ended questions.

I'm actually a big fan of pop quizzes - I think they motivate students to keep up, and provide useful diagnostic information to the teacher. However, in-class quizzes chew up valuable face-to-face time, require manual grading (which slows their utility), and as this article points out, are deeply unfair to students with some disabilities. This article suggests other ways to hold a "pop quiz" which are equally accessible to all students (and potentially provide information faster to the faculty member). Hat tip to Erin Salva for the link.

A remarkably even-handed article which really does take the provocative title as a question. Design thinking might well provide a useful problem-solving mode for interdisciplinary efforts and curricular coherence.

An example assignment from the HASTAC Pedagogy Project suggests having students submit their bibliographies in process to peer review. Getting students to review one another's sources can help them think about their own, and breaking out the research step fights the tendency to write the whole paper at the last minute. (A similar collaborative feature is available in RefWorks, a web-based citation manager available through Kenyon LBIS.)

Students tend to hate cumulative exams - partly because they're harder (which is good and proper) and partly because they may not feel prepped for them. This article suggests some teaching strategies which you can use to help students integrate material across the semester.

What are your opinions on grading group work? How do you balance formative and summative comments, group and individual grades, your grading and intra-group feedback?

Conversations about portfolios often suggest them as a solution to one problem at a time, whether that problem is integrative learning, student self-representation outside the college, or institutional (and departmental) assessment. This article tries to juggle 4 very different ways of looking at portfolios at the same time. Such a view might help us understand how many benefits might flow from a pedagogy which includes portfolio construction.

The "special pedagogical challenge" of a course - or, Jay Howard argues here, a discipline - is the key concept or skill which must be unlocked to truly enable thinking like a member of the discipline. (Sometimes it's actually disabusing students of their incorrect beliefs about the subject.) This article focuses on finding that skill in sociology. What's your discipline's special challenge?

We complain about students' distractability, but what can we do in the classroom to practice holding focus?

In a hyperactive age and an academic culture which tends to reward quick thinking, how can we model the process of slowing down to notice details and let ideas form? Most faculty are aware of the importance of not always calling on the most eager students; this article suggests 7 other kinds of pauses which you could introduce in your classes to give students room to mull over the topic.

"Just to have someone from the university come up and say, 'You belong here' and 'We're so excited to have you here,' " (a first-generation student) says, "that would have changed everything for me."

HASTAC's Pedagogy Project is a website collecting syllabi and course projects which use digital tools or highly collaborative approaches. If you're wondering how to use new forms of communication in assignments, or if you've got a great example to share, this will be a great resource!

At our ODEI/CIP book discussions, there was a lot of concern about stereotype threat. "Stereotype threat refers to being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group." This stress has been linked to reduced performance in a number of academic and social areas. Put another way, recognizing and removing sources of stereotype threat can be a good way to create inclusive environments where everyone can succeed.

An excellent episode of the "Teaching, Learning, and Everything Else" podcast on civic engagement and service learning, reflecting on experiences at Drew University and Xavier University of Louisiana.

An interesting description of the "peer instruction" model used to achieve active learning in large lecture classes by Eric Mazur.

Registration is still required, but Google has discounted their professional-level GIS tool from $399/year to $0.