Oregon State University Ecampus

I thought this was a funny and insightful explanation into why smart academics find it impossible to write directly or clearly. It's kinda long (ironically?) but eventually starts listing a few good (specific) insights. Thought yall might enjoy from a "how can we improve communication and content" perspective.

Great article -- and a real issue in some online courses, where we often need more of a technical writing style, such as numbered lists for directions instead of super-long paragraphs. Thanks for sharing!

(Educause registration required for access to this pdf; OSU is an institutional member of Educause.)

"First, student engagement in educationally purposeful activities is positively related to academic outcomes as repretsented by first year student grades and by persistence between the first and second year of college." "Second, engagement has a compensatory effect on first-year grades and persistence to the second year of college at the same institution"

"The results suggest that the lowest-ability students benefit more from engagement than classmates, first-year students and seniors convert different forms of engagement into academic achievement, and certain institutions more effectively convert student engagement into higher performance on critical thinking tests.

Thought this was a nice easy read regarding a topic that comes up each year. We all know educational games should tackle more than memorization and that multiple choice questions offer a puerile level of analysis, but seems like we keep falling back into these two traps. Looking forward to tackling new projects that treat learning as the ally instead of the goal, and encourage exploration more than stepping through checklists. Just sharing because I enjoy chewing this stuff over all the time.

Abstract: The growth of online learning within education has corresponded to an increase in use of asynchronous discussion. Asynchronous discussion is a form of interaction that is mediated rather than directed, and is characterized by a time lag in the interactions between discussants. In this paper we conducted a brief narrative review of the literature on asynchronous discussion. We argue, initially, that discussion is necessary, but not sufficient, for successful pedagogic outcomes-especially in the case of online learning. We identified areas of agreement within the literature on what can be considered the key factors for successful asynchronous discussion.

Abstract: This is the largest and most comprehensive metaanalysis of undergraduate STEM education published to date. The results raise questions about the continued use of traditional lecturing as a control in research studies, and support active learning as the preferred, empirically validated teaching practice in regular classrooms.

This site gives examples for each of the "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" from Chickering and Gamson (1987) and also references Chickering and Ehrmann's (1996) "Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever."