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

Students will ultimately perform better if we focus on effort and process (things which anyone can change) instead of talent and output (which can seem immutable).

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

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.

While written primarily for a K-12 audience, this pamphlet includes good specific techniques for assisting a student suffering from concussion symptoms (including tips on recognizing students who might not have disclosed a problem to you).

I know there's a Kenyon professor who hands out a list of "movies you should see if you want to get my jokes." What do you do to bridge the gap between your cultural references and the multiple cultures of our students?

Using the IDEA course evaluation survey, this report looks at 4 questions specific to the student's relationship with the faculty member and provides specific suggestions of things the faculty member can do to increase rapport with students.

The productive (and appropriate) use of data about student use of online resources is going to be an interesting part of teaching in the future, and a difficult one.

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...

Kenyon is part of the "Turning the Tide" initiative, which aims to change college admissions by prioritizing community engagement and depth over breadth of extracurricular achievements. If this changes our student body, how will it change our classrooms?

Interesting studies about students non-academic use of computers during class time. On one hand, we need to remind students that multitasking (of this kind) is a myth, and that they need to learn the skill of occasionally being "disconnected". On the other hand, if the student is "fighting boredom", it's not actually the device's fault...

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

One way to get students thinking about privacy issues is to put them in control of publishing their own work.

"Students select or reject majors based in large part on the quality of the first college instructor they have in the discipline, new research finds."

This week, we read the last chapters in Small Teaching, which focus on the emotional dimension of student experience. Here is one suggestion from an immunology professor on making personal connections with students as a way to improve their performance in your course.

This article touches on some of the concerns about rubrics I often hear from faculty, especially that rubrics cause students to "write to the rubric". The author suggests making rubrics focused on generally beneficial writing habits. Another issue mentioned is the variance of rubrics between faculty, but that seems healthy given that writing assignments are also thinking assignments, and patterns of thinking may vary significantly from course to course.

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.

Lynn Gillette uses a definitional grading system to prioritize meaningful preparation for class. His Class Preparation Assignments (don't call them homework!) help students learn to read disciplinary material, serve as a structure for better note taking, and allow for more discussion and active learning in his classes.

Chemistry instructor and author of a new book on teaching first generation college students gives tips on how to help students improve the quality of their studying.

Taking a cue from James Lang's Small Teaching, John Warner uses the minutes before class to establish a classroom environment that invites student participation.