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"Many faculty members assume students enter the college classroom with the disposition to be successful. The reality is many students enter the classroom lacking the dispositions to be successful or make the necessary improvements to positively impact their learning outcomes. Although it's easy to identify such problems, it is harder to address them. Faculty must find ways to influence students' thoughts that impact their behaviors and achievement of the body of knowledge and skills sets prescribed by the discipline. "

"Teaching students to transfer their knowledge, say many faculty members and administrators, is also imperative in a world in which troves of information are a mouse-click away. If professors continue to see themselves as dispensers of content, they will have little of lasting value to offer. But if they can train students to transfer their knowledge, students will be endowed with a skill that can serve them long after they graduate."

"Essentially, digital (and physical) mind mapping allows students to view the entire forest instead of a single tree. As they create a mind map, they capture the wider ecosystem of information by visually connecting short keywords and phrases rather than writing complete sentences. Upon later review-for retention, exam preparation or papers-the mind map is like a CD. You jump right to the information that interests you. In contrast, linear notes are like audio tapes-you waste time wading line by line through the content in hopes of getting to what you want. This more efficient use of space (and time) lets students see how normally unconnected ideas might fit together. Thus, the mind maps doubles as a store of information and an engine of creativity. Using it in the classroom and even giving mind mapping assignments forces students to break the linearity of their earlier education."

"By having students actually create music, Mr. Kapur and Mr. Cook hope to show the value of understanding computer science. Using a music program that responds in real time provides "instant gratification," Mr. Cook added, and can interest students who weren't originally attracted to computer programming."

"A good university should facilitate the zone of exploration where we promote new ideas, accept failure, reward creativity, breed innovation, and foster interdependent learning. This is important for our students today and may even be more important for the "screeners" generation who will be here before we know it."

"tools for creating, publishing, and distributing digital content have been come more and more user-friendly, allowing instructors to create their own textbooks, should they have time and inclination to do so, tailoring the content to their particular course."

"In Eastern cultures, Stigler says, it's just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle."

"That's what happens to the majority of undergraduate projects in the humanities. Heroic research is undertaken, and the student suffers mightily during the writing process. But after being submitted for a grade, the results of all that work are filed away, never to be read again. (Of course, the same could be said of most dissertations and many academic monographs.) It's as if we've entered the print revolution while most of us are still illuminating manuscripts. What are we doing all this work for-one might ask-if not to make some kind of impact on the world? And why should anyone continue to pay for it?"

"All technology was not created equal for access by these students, and their proficiency is often predicated by the amount of patience and determination required to complete a given task. What this facility with technology in digital natives belies is an ability to approach new classroom learning tools with the same tenacity that they put towards more gratifying technological pursuits."

"But you lose much more than you gain. If you believe, as I do, that education is a collaborative exploration of ideas, you've immediately restricted the class's ability to explore a subject together. You've determined the course in advance, so students will not be able to make any meaningful contributions to its direction. If you stumble onto an interesting detour in your thinking, you might be able to veer off for a while, but the inexorable pull of the fixed list's itinerary will ineluctably drive you on."