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In the liberal arts, we can be rightly skeptical about teaching "job skills"... but how can we help students develop their sense of what makes their lives more meaningful and fulfilling, including employment?

One administrative reaction to increasing computer use in the classroom is to try and lock down the computers tighter. There's something to this, in terms of protecting a group resource - but it can also create a distracting challenge for students who just want their school iPad to work like their home one does. Sometimes trust and active supervision work better than technical lockdowns!

If true peer review of student writing seems to take too much time, and you've noticed that students are reluctant to assign each other bad grades, maybe peer ranking provides a useful middle ground.

Should you give your students your PowerPoint slides? The jury is still out on that one, but this article does list a few classroom strategies you can use to teach students what "good notes" really are and how they should be taking them and studying with them.

This is tricky for the CIP - at the same time that faculty need a space to wrestle with sensitive topics (and even vent occasionally), students can add to and benefit from our conversations about teaching and learning.

I like the idea of having students set goals for themselves, which could create a stronger sense of agency and lead to clearer feedback from instructors about what the student should be trying to accomplish in the course. But the authors note that this approach assumes a level of executive function on the part of the student that may be detrimental to some.

One thing I learned as Helpline manager is that the stereotype that today's students are "good with computers" is a gross generalization. students (and most people) are good at _doing some things_ with computers. If we're asking them to use an unfamiliar system, especially for a complex task, it would be time well spent both to introduce them to the tool and check in on how they used it.

"Over-committed" is a word which frequently comes up when talking about today's students. Perhaps this would be a helpful tool in getting students to think about their schedules.

An experiment analyzing over 1,200 undergraduate papers at a selective liberal arts institution found that requiring students to complete a tutorial on academic honesty substantially reduced the likelihood of plagiarism.

From the article: "Exam wrappers are short activities that direct students to review their performance (and the instructor's feedback) on an exam with an eye toward adapting their future learning... Exam wrappers ask students three kinds of questions: How did they prepare for the exam? What kind of errors did they make on the exam? What could they do differently next time?"

What do you do in teaching or advising to help students understand that the key to success in college is not "what you did in high school, but more of it"?

Could a clickbait writing style get students more "engaged" with your syllabus? The answer will shock you. (Or at least slightly amuse you.)

How do we talk with students about the way we use the data available in systems like Banner, Moodle, and online textbooks? Would national standards like this help?

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 know how your students prepare for your course? Which scholarly processes do you model for them?

Three good suggestions for classroom activities which get groups of students interacting deeply with course content. Notice how these would work whether your "flipped" classroom relies on videos or more traditional out-of-class reading.

"By carefully considering what our syllabi are for, what they should include, and - most essentially - what they really communicate to our students, we can create a document that does a significant amount of heavy lifting for us. That document articulates a set of promises about what the course can do for students when they accept our invitation and take ownership of their learning in this collective enterprise."

On this podcast, Saundra McGuire discusses the ways she's seen student achievement improve by working lessons in study skills into her classes. Are there basic (or basic-seeming) learning skills you'll be encouraging your students to use this semester?

As we prepare to welcome new colleagues and students, remember that even the simple gesture of showing that you're working hard to learn a person's preferred name makes a big difference.

Do you allow rewrites or makeup exams? David Gooblar argues that these can be important opportunities for students to learn from their errors. (Also some good examples, alternatives, and disagreements in the comments.)