Group items tagged

"When students hear essay they think: Five paragraphs, written to impress teacher, mostly to show that the student has been paying attention in class and/or doing the reading. Make sure to cite sources because: plagiarism. Also, use block quotes because that looks good. Don't forget the conclusion that summarizes everything staring with, "In conclusion." Never use "I." Contractions…bad. This is why most essays are unpleasant for students to write, and boring for instructors to read. They are treated not as an occasion to discover something previously unknown - to the author above all - but a performance for an audience of one, the teacher. One hoop among many to be jumped through as part of the college grind. Because of the disconnect, instructors often have a different hoop in mind, and so when students jump through the hoop they know, but it's not the hoop the instructor was envisioning we get…a debate about whether or not we should even assign essays. Instead of assigning essays, in my course, I now feature "writing-related problems.""

"We identified those who were perceived as being the most effective listeners (the top 5%). We then compared the best listeners to the average of all other people in the data set and identified the 20 items showing the largest significant difference.  With those results in hand we identified the differences between great and average listeners and analyzed the data to determine what characteristics their colleagues identified as the behaviors that made them outstanding listeners. We found some surprising conclusions, along with some qualities we expected to hear. We grouped them into four main findings:"

"A recently published game called "Gone Home" is testing the traditional progression of learning by flattening the story. Players have questioned whether it qualifies as a game since it doesn't include traditional points, prizes and leveling up (the game is self-titled as "a story exploration video game"). Critics have praised "Gone Home" as a new way of storytelling, and it's beginning to make its way into the classroom, as a viable substitute for traditional text. The game is non-linear and players have a great deal of agency for filling in the gaps to arrive at their conclusions.*"

"Adam Bernard Sanders, a high school student and winner of our 2019 Personal Narrative Contest, tells us why he likes to keep his conclusions "purposefully open-ended.""

"Analyzing the patterns of first paragraphs from 94 of the most compelling feature articles from The Atlantic, Fast Company, and NYT Opinion Editorials"