Archive : Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
882. When Coaching and Testing Collide
June 17, 2008
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"I have often written that collaboration is a marriage of insufficiencies; that students can work together in ways that scaffold and support each others' learning, and in ways that support each others' knowledge. Now I call for a marriage of sufficiencies to overcome the essential tensions between individual work and collaborative performance, coaching support and independent assessment, the mentor as an agent of zealous advocacy and the mentor as a steward of the commons."
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Posted by markep on June 17, 2008
878 Academic Advising in the New Global Century
June 03, 2008
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Viewing academic advising as an educational process moves it from a paradigm of teaching that focuses on information or inputs to a paradigm of learning that focuses on outcomes for student learning. In this way, academic advising supports key institutional conditions that have been identified with promoting student success. Such conditions include setting high expectations, providing support, offering feedback, and facilitating involvement in learning through frequent student contact with faculty and staff.
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Posted by markep on June 3, 2008
875. Hey, You! Pay Attention!
May 27, 2008
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The students sit in class, tapping away at their laptops as the boring old law professor mechanically plods through his lecture. Except one. Instead of hunching over a portable computer or a notebook, he's playing solitaire with a deck of cards on his desk. The professor halts his droning. "What are you doing?" he demands. The student shrugs. "My laptop is broken," he says.
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Posted by markep on May 27, 2008
874. Online Tutorial for Designing Effective and Innovative Courses
May 20, 2008
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"Is it time to really shake the tree and do something about one of your courses? Do you have a great idea for an innovative course but aren't quite sure where to start in designing it? If so, you might try using the following online tutorial designed to provide practical and effective help for faculty members interested in designing or redesigning a course."
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Posted by markep on May 20, 2008
871. Designing Courses
May 15, 2008
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"At CTL, we have found helpful the concept of learning-centered course design, in which the teacher designing the course first identifies the learning goals of the course, and then "works backwards:"designing the course from the perspective of what we hope our students will have learned from the course when it is over, and then figuring out how best to help them achieve these goals."
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Posted by markep on May 15, 2008
870 Teaching Large Evening Classes
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"How can faculty effectively teach, control, or even simply keep awake the students in such classes, many of whom start their days very early in the morning with family responsibilities?"
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Posted by markep on May 15, 2008
869. Design with Learning in Mind
May 08, 2008
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In the classroom when you give encouraging words to one student, you are simultaneously giving positive feedback to all the students. But online students never hear these words to other students. Nor do they hear you say "good morning" and see a smile from you each class period. None of those cues are available to students in Web-based courses. Instead, for online students, everything becomes verbal; it takes lots of verbal positive reinforcement to replace all those visual cues that are not happening.
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Posted by markep on May 8, 2008
864. Parallel Journaling: Students and Teachers in a Classroom Assessment Experiment
April 18, 2008
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In the (Parallel Journal Project) PJP, both I and selected students kept a journal throughout the quarter wherein we reflected on the teaching and learning experience. These journals were discussed regularly, and then aggregated at the end of the quarter to create a collective teaching/learning journal.
Posted by markep on April 18, 2008
859. Making the First-Year Classroom Conducive to Learning
March 27, 2008
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"Traditionally, writing assignments assess what students have learned. Writing-to-learn serves a different purpose. In these exercises, students write to and for themselves in order to collect their thoughts and get them down on paper, where they can be examined and revised. Typically, writing-to-learn exercises are short: a few sentences, perhaps a paragraph or two. Although faculty often collect and skim what students have written in order to see what they are thinking, writing-to-learn exercises are usually not graded."
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Posted by markep on March 27, 2008
858. Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning
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"Four panelists were invited to respond to one or more of the following questions: What is interdisciplinary thinking? How does interdisciplinary research inform teaching? What kind of student work does interdisciplinary teaching and learning produce? What are the pressing questions for you or for Stanford?"
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Posted by markep on March 27, 2008
857. Do Your Students Really Understand You Assignments?
March 20, 2008
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"Academic tasks constitute much more than a list of specific instructions and criteria in a course outline. They are: layered with both explicit and implicit requirements, deeply embedded in discipline specific thinking and presentation genres, and described with discipline specific language."
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Posted by markep on March 20, 2008
856. Creating Windows on Learning
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"Through this kind of documentation and exchange questions about teaching that once might have lead merely to migraines-or to a growing sense of isolation and disillusionment-lead to discussion, research, experimentation, data collection and further inquiry."
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Posted by markep on March 20, 2008
854. Faculty/TA Teaching Teams
March 13, 2008
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"TAs enter the "Colleague-in-Training" stage of development when they gain experience and confidence in their authority as teachers by emulating their faculty role models. They are now open to new ideas and ready to employ creative approaches to teaching (p.11). TAs can best learn these new ideas and creative approaches by observing faculty model effective and innovative teaching practices and noting their overall approach and attitude toward teaching in their discipline".
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Posted by markep on March 13, 2008
852 Does Your College Really Support Teaching and Learning?
March 06, 2008
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"The shortcoming of too many of these discussions focused on student learning, however, is that faculty-and the role that faculty play-is often an afterthought. While the integration of the diverse aspects of a student's educational experience can only be a good thing, we cannot lose sight of the fact that at most of our institutions, learning is "classroom-centered": the majority of student learning either takes place in or is directed through classroom activities. In order to affect any kind of widespread change in student learning, we need to offer specific pedagogical support to faculty who will play an essential role in that change."
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Posted by markep on March 6, 2008
849. Supporting Student Success Through Scaffolding
February 21, 2008
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"These (scaffolds) are forms of support temporarily provided by instructors when introducing new content and making assignments. Novice learners, like construction workers, need structures of temporary support during their efforts to build something new; once the initial phase of construction is in place, the scaffolds can be withdrawn."
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Posted by markep on February 21, 2008
848. It's All About Time!
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"Rather than treating time as fixed and success as variable-the usual formula in our educational system-I believe we need to initiate a reform that begins by reversing the two. Otherwise, we are destined to guarantee that student success rates look just like a normal curve or worse, like a skewed distribution in which only a small number actually achieve sufficiently to succeed."
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Posted by markep on February 21, 2008
845. The Paradox of the Chinese Learner
February 07, 2008
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"One suggestion is that this superior ability of Chinese students to use memorization to assist in concept development stems from their very earliest experiences of language learning as children. Chinese (also Korean and Japanese) mothers are reported to use more verbs and other relational words in the "baby talk" they address to their infants and fewer nouns, while English-speaking mothers use more nouns and focus more on object naming."
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Posted by markep on February 7, 2008
844. The Rules of Engagement: Socializing College Students for the New Century
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You and the professor will greet each other appropriately at the beginning and end of each class meeting. Every class meeting is an important event and the professor is the central person in the process. Since the professor will say "Hello" to the students, they should also return the "Hello," in a clear and audible voice, to start the day's proceedings. Similarly, as students exit the room at the end of the class, they should make eye contact and say something like "Thanks," or "'Bye, Dr. Williams." Dr. Williams will also say, "Good-bye," and appreciate your thoughtfulness.
Posted by markep on February 7, 2008
842. The Habit of Learning
January 31, 2008
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"Academics often "teach their research," but few "research their teaching," at least formally, for a host of good reasons, not least being the investment required to become conversant in theories and methodologies outside one's primary academic community. However, with rapid change in the practice of engineering spurring new educational requirements and approaches to teaching, there is ample opportunity and need for those interested in educational research to provide insight into effective pedagogy."
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Posted by markep on January 31, 2008
840. When to Use PowerPoint
January 24, 2008
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Presenters fail to establish ethos, their most powerful appeal. Ethos is the personal appeal of the speaker. It is classified by Aristotle as an "artistic proof" that the speaker fashions in his presentation. It involves both verbal and nonverbal elements of the message and must be carefully managed for a presentation to succeed.
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Posted by markep on January 24, 2008
836. In Order to Learn: How the Sequences of Topics Affect Learning
January 14, 2008
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"The order of presentation of material influences the speed of learning as well as what is learned, how it is learned, and sometimes even if it is learned. Theoretical and empirical work can make suggestions about how to use these effects to advantage in the classroom."
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Posted by markep on January 14, 2008
834. Death to the Syllabus!
November 29, 2007
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SPECIAL NOTE: As is customary at this time each year, the Tomorrow's Professor Mailing List will take a holiday break during December. The next posting will appear on Thursday, January, 3, 2008. Happy Holidays to everyone.
Reminder: You can comment on this or any past posting by going to: http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/
It is time to declare war on the traditional course syllabus. If there is one single artifact that pinpoints the degradation of liberal education, it is the rule-infested, punitive, controlling syllabus that is handed out to students on the first day of class.
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Posted by markep on November 29, 2007
829. The Case for Inductive Teaching
November 08, 2007
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"Higher education is filled with strongly held beliefs that do not always stand up to rigorous scholarly analysis; for example, "You can't be an effective teacher unless you're actively engaged in research" or "Students learn more by working individually than by cooperating in teams." Another well-entrenched tenet of traditional instruction is the notion that students must first master the underlying principles and theories of a discipline before being asked to solve substantive problems in that discipline."
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Posted by markep on November 8, 2007
827 Educating for Democracy
November 01, 2007
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"We believe that youth political engagement is ripe for the same kind of success story if educators in control of opportunities and incentives begin to pay serious attention to this important domain. We are confident that efforts to foster students' political development will pay off, thus helping to ensure the informed and capable citizenry necessary for a healthy democracy."
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Posted by markep on November 1, 2007
825. Leading Initiatives for Integrative Learning
October 25, 2007
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"Developing the ability to make, recognize, and evaluate connections among disparate concepts, fields, or contexts is what integrative learning is all about. Breadth and depth of learning remain hallmarks of a quality liberal education. Yet, today, there's a growing consensus that breadth and depth are not enough."
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Posted by markep on October 25, 2007
824. 11 Things You Could Start Doing Today for the Benefit of Your Students' Writing
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"The spread of the writing process and writing across the curriculum movements means that today's faculty who teach or use writing in their courses understand that it is both a process and discipline-based. Still, our experience with colleagues tells us that teachers continue to look for new strategies to engage student writers and boost their own teaching effectiveness. We've put together a list of practices that are doable and "no-tech," yet each has the potential to transform the ways you assign, discuss, and comment on student work."
Posted by markep on October 25, 2007
821. Doing Less Work, Collecting Better Data: Using Capstone Courses to Assess Learning
October 11, 2007
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Folks:
The posting below looks at the contributions capstone courses can make to student assessment. It is by Catherine White Berheide, professor of sociology, Skidmore College. The article is from Peer Review, Spring 2007, Vol. 9, No. 2 http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/. Peer Review is a publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities [www.aacu.org/peerreview] Copyright © 2007, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis@stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Coping with the Passive-Aggressive Faculty Member
Posted by markep on October 11, 2007
818 Quick-thinks: The Interactive Lecture
September 27, 2007
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A study by Ruhl, Hughes and Schloss (1987) compared lectures presented without pauses with lectures where, every 12-18 minutes students paused for two minutes and discussed and reworked their notes (without interaction with the teacher). Students in the latter group performed better on free-recall quizzes and on a comprehension test. In fact, the differences were so large that they would have raised the performance of the experimental students' one-two letter grades (depending on grading scales used).
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Posted by markep on September 27, 2007
817. Advocacy on Controversial Matters
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"To approach a topic sincerely and in depth, a professor must unveil and reveal her own thinking on it. Gold argues that the cost of substituting a neutral stance for one's own genuine view is too high. The instructor who lacks passion and conviction becomes insincere and shallow."
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Posted by markep on September 27, 2007
816. Theories and Models of Student Change in College
September 20, 2007
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"Psychosocial theories of development fall into two categories. The first group, which deals with overall development, has been dominated by Arthur Chickering's seven vectors model since it first appeared (Chickering, 1969). The second cluster of psychosocial theories deals specifically with identity formation overall or with specific aspects of identity, such as those relating to gender, race-ethnicity, or sexual orientation."
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Posted by markep on September 20, 2007
812. CLASSE - The Missing Link?
September 06, 2007
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"It's the first time in my career," says Smallwood, "that I have faculty calling me asking me to come to evaluate their class. This has been unheard of in my 25 years. Giving the CLASSE and putting it together with the FSSE, faculty see that as a lot more valuable than the standard end of semester student evaluation."
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Posted by markep on September 6, 2007
811. My Child Doesn't Test Well
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"The third source of not testing well, lack of "automaticity," may well be the major culprit. In the context of test taking, automaticity refers to the ability to recall quickly relevant facts, procedures and routines and to apply these without thinking too much about it. "
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Posted by markep on September 6, 2007
810. The Socratic Method: What it is and How to Use it in the Classroom
August 30, 2007
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"The Socratic professor aims for "productive discomfort," not panic and intimidation. The aim is not to strike fear in the hearts of students so that they come prepared to class; but to strike fear in the hearts of students that they either cannot articulate clearly the values that guide their lives, or that their values and beliefs do not withstand scrutiny."
Read the full entry for "810. The Socratic Method: What it is and How to Use it in the Classroom"
Posted by markep on August 30, 2007
804. Live Green or Die - Can Engineering Schools "go green" Fast Enough to Save Our Planet?
June 05, 2007
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There's a real climate of collaboration right now," says Jamieson, who cites such factors as the increase in public interest, industry's need to meet environmental regulations and concerns over the availability and cost of oil and gas.
Posted by markep on June 5, 2007
801. Teaching in the U.S. Classroom
May 29, 2007
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"While students in the U.S. are taught as early as elementary school that "there is no such thing as a stupid question," many international TAs and international faculty are stunned by the boldness and occasional naïveté of their students' questions."
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Posted by markep on May 29, 2007
800. How to Prepare New Courses While Keeping Your Sanity
May 22, 2007
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"You'll spend an outlandish amount of time on the course-ten hours or more of preparation for every lecture hour. You'll start neglecting your research and your personal life just to keep up with the course preparation, and if you're unfortunate enough to have two new preps at once, you may no longer have a personal life to neglect. Your lecture notes will be so long and dense that to cover them you'll have to lecture at a pace no normal human being could possibly follow; you'll have no time for interactivity in class; and you'll end up skimming some important material or skipping it altogether."
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Posted by markep on May 22, 2007
797. Teaching for Transformation: From Learning Theory to Teaching Strategies
May 15, 2007
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"Transformative learning is in clear contrast to the more common process of assimilative learning, the type of learning that takes place when students simply acquire new information that can easily fit into their preexisting knowledge structures. Whereas some college-level courses are aimed at assimilative learning, most courses require at least some level of transformative learning."
Posted by markep on May 15, 2007
794. i can rite ... can u rite 2?
April 30, 2007
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"To make matters worse, words are seemingly misspelled on purpose: certainly a student who misspells 'separate' as 'seperate' and 'sulfur' as 'sulfer' has a very different intent than one who misspells 'see you' as 'cu' and 'hate' as 'h8'. Acronyms are used with-out definition, and they are used so frequently as to render entire passages as cryptic as a secret code."
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Posted by markep on April 30, 2007
790. How to Create Memorable Lectures
April 17, 2007
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"In general, students capture only 20-40 percent of a lecture's main ideas in their notes (Kiewra, 2002, p. 72). Without reviewing the lecture material, students remember less than 10 percent after three weeks (Bligh, 2000, p. 40). All instructors hope that their lectures will be the exception, but these numbers present a clear challenge: How can we guarantee that students learn and remember what we teach? How do we create and deliver lectures that stay with students long past the last few minutes of class? In this newsletter we take up this challenge, by considering how students attend to, make sense of, and absorb new information."
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Posted by markep on April 17, 2007
789. Engaged Learning (and the Core Purposes of Liberal Education)
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..."we believed that by engaging students, by involving them in demanding service-learning and community-based research experiences, the academy could force them to consider their own privilege; challenge their assumptions of entitlement and self-indulgence; help them recognize that learning has implications for action and use; help them develop skills and habits of resiliency; and make them aware of their responsibilities to the larger community."
Read the full entry for "789. Engaged Learning (and the Core Purposes of Liberal Education)"
Posted by markep on April 17, 2007
788. 'The Brave New World' of Classroom Technology
April 11, 2007
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"Today there will be no death by PowerPoint," Byers announced to the group of about 40 students and educators gathered in the Hartley Conference Center to hear his lecture, titled "Teaching in the Era of YouTube." "We are just going to use everything else. I am going to show you some of the tools I use when I teach."
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Posted by markep on April 11, 2007
786. Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from Your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning
April 03, 2007
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"The goal, in other words, is to use technology to free yourself from the need to "cover" the content in the classroom, and instead use class time to demonstrate the continued value of direct student to faculty interaction and discussion."
Posted by markep on April 3, 2007
785. Why Good Teachers Have Bad Classes: And What You Can Do About It
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"In this issue of Speaking of Teaching, we address the issue of why even the best, most knowledgeable teachers occasionally find themselves teaching a course that is just not working. In this introduction we propose several effective approaches to the problem, and then in the following pages listen to the reflections of one Stanford professor who found himself in a class that was not working. Finally we offer a list of excellent books that can help you avoid-or at least respond constructively to-a bad class."
Read the full entry for "785. Why Good Teachers Have Bad Classes: And What You Can Do About It"
Posted by markep on April 3, 2007
781. Questioning the Best Learning Technology
March 06, 2007
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"The criterion for bringing technology into my courses should always be: will this enable me to pose questions that better engage my students, spark their curiosity, and push them to think critically and, ultimately, to learn?"
Read the full entry for "781. Questioning the Best Learning Technology"
Posted by markep on March 6, 2007
780. Homework Habits: If it is Broken, Fix It
February 26, 2007
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Some students appear to be extremely steadfast with their homework habits following poor performance on exams in the early stages of both courses. Indeed for such students that it would be in their interest to try a different homework approach, only 30% showed a change in how they complete homework. Thus, it may be incumbent upon the instructor to highlight, if necessary, the need for change in homework study habits as soon as possible and suggest ways of doing so, e.g. tutors, study groups and/or instructor's office hours. In doing so, students may discover the benefits of applying different homework strategies.
Read the full entry for "780. Homework Habits: If it is Broken, Fix It"
Posted by markep on February 26, 2007
778 Virtually Authentic: Using the Internet to Bring the World to Students
February 20, 2007
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"We were in Fort Yates, ND, on the border of South and North Dakota. The program was dealing with grasslands prairie. We had experts talking about prairie, and we were on the prairie, in the open. As we're doing the show we're noticing the wind picking up. And the experts are talking about how sometimes you can have dust storms. All of a sudden I looked up and I see this wall of dust heading towards us. It looked like the movie, Hidalgo, where you see the big wall of dust coming through . . . the tumbleweeds started flying around us. I turned the camera so that you could see the tumbleweeds, and then all of a sudden you could see this wall of dust come through. It was neat for the kids on the other end, 'cause they were living a moment with us, and it was pretty exciting.
Read the full entry for "778 Virtually Authentic: Using the Internet to Bring the World to Students"
Posted by markep on February 20, 2007
776. The Case for Common Examinations
February 13, 2007
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"Providing a continuing occasion for faculty inquiry and discussion, insuring grade comparability across classes, making instructors more reflective about their grading practices, dampening the effects of grade inflation, and encouraging students to be more intentional about their curricular choices-these are significant benefits of common examinations that far outweigh the increased time and effort required of faculty."
Read the full entry for "776. The Case for Common Examinations"
Posted by markep on February 13, 2007
773. Why Problem-Based Learning?
February 02, 2007
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"What worked in the classroom a decade (or two or three) ago, however, will no longer suffice for the simple reason that past approaches fail to develop the full battery of skills and abilities desired in a contemporary college graduate."
Read the full entry for "773. Why Problem-Based Learning?"
Posted by markep on February 2, 2007
771. Modalities of Teaching and Learning
January 29, 2007
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"A little reflection, however, shows that the end of learning cannot be restricted to the mastery of facts, however broad, however privileged. For we also expect someone who has finished a course of education to be able to do some things he or she could not do, or do so well, beforehand. A second type of learning addresses this expectation. It involves the acquisition of skills."
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Posted by markep on January 29, 2007
767. Team Teaching: Benefits and Challenges
January 12, 2007
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"Team teaching boasts many pedagogical and intellectual advantages: it can help create a dynamic and interactive learning environment, provide instructors with a useful way of modeling thinking within or across disciplines, and also inspire new research ideas and intellectual partnerships among faculty. To experience the full benefits of team teaching, however, instructors must adjust their course planning and classroom management strategies to accommodate a collaborative approach."
Read the full entry for "767. Team Teaching: Benefits and Challenges"
Posted by markep on January 12, 2007
766. Teaching as an Imposition
January 08, 2007
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"There's the story of a new dean who, after 20 minutes watching an experienced professor facilitate small groups expertly working on a problem, sidled up to whisper that he would come back to observe on a day when the professor was "actually teaching."
Read the full entry for "766. Teaching as an Imposition"
Posted by markep on January 8, 2007
763. Learning to Teach: Sharing the Wisdom of Practice
January 04, 2007
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"Unlocking the doors of the classrooms of both teacher educators and teachers addresses a critical need in teacher learning, both for novices and seasoned professionals, and contributes another way to think about the debates currently raging on quality teaching and the value of teacher education programs."
Read the full entry for "763. Learning to Teach: Sharing the Wisdom of Practice"
Posted by markep on January 4, 2007
762. Student Portfolios: An Alternative Way of Encouraging and Evaluating Student Learning
November 17, 2006
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"Given dramatic changes in the teaching and learning landscape, what does research tell us about teaching vitality among experienced faculty? While studies support the presence of some unhappiness and malaise, overall they conclude that senior faculty devote considerable energy to teaching and student concerns. Studies further suggest that the effectiveness of tenured faculty as teachers is less related to time spent on teaching than to an enlargement of teaching styles and relationships with students."
Posted by markep on November 17, 2006
760. The High Risks of Improving Teaching
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"But the ugly truth this man experienced so sharply continues to haunt efforts to improve teaching: student resistance presents one of the biggest obstacles to improving teaching, followed closely by poor and certainly uneven support from administration for pedagogical reform."
Read the full entry for "760. The High Risks of Improving Teaching"
Posted by markep on November 17, 2006
759. Teaching for Transformation: From Learning Theory to Teaching Strategies
November 10, 2006
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Transformative learning is in clear contrast to the more common process of assimilative learning, the type of learning that takes place when students simply acquire new information that can easily fit into their pre-existing knowledge structures. Whereas some college-level courses are aimed at assimilative learning, most courses require at least some level of transformative learning.
Posted by markep on November 10, 2006
757. Calling All Students...Come In, Students...
November 03, 2006
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"Despite the possible pitfalls, PRS (Personal Response Systems) appears to have the potential to change the way that students and instructors interact with course content. Students who are forming opinions and drawing conclusions in response to PRS queries are likely to be much more engaged with the content than they would be if they were merely deciding which portions of a lecture to render as notes on a page."
Read the full entry for "757. Calling All Students...Come In, Students..."
Posted by markep on November 3, 2006
756. Uses and Abuses of Student Ratings
November 02, 2006
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"By the end of their graduate school experience, new faculty have usually received substantial feedback from credible and credentialed graduate professors. When students, whose credibility is suspect, provide negative feedback to them, it is understandable that the results create defensiveness and skepticism. When initial experiences with student ratings are negative and there is no confirmatory evidence from trusted sources, the value of student ratings will often be challenged. The credibility of any process requires trust. One of the best ways to establish trust is to gather and use information appropriately."
Read the full entry for "756. Uses and Abuses of Student Ratings"
Posted by markep on November 2, 2006
753. Making Teaching and Learning Visible
October 24, 2006
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"The course portfolio provides a framework within which you think about your course design, ask yourself if your classroom practices are working, and assess the level and range of student learning that goes on in your classroom. Unlike a teaching portfolio, which might summarize all of the courses that you teach, a course portfolio is focused on a single course. More importantly, a course portfolio seeks to minimize the wheelbarrow effect of simply collecting all of your homework, handouts, and examinations into one unexamined pile. "
Read the full entry for "753. Making Teaching and Learning Visible"
Posted by markep on October 24, 2006
750. Benefits of Learning Teams
October 10, 2006
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"In addition, gone forever is the relentless pursuit to cover the content. The teachers in our sample report that team-based learning allows them to cover more course material than in a typical lecture class. Perhaps Lucas says it best when she comments that, after almost ten years of teaching, she has stopped worrying about having to cover "every concept." She believes that her students have developed the critical thinking skills to seek out and acquire information on their own."
Read the full entry for "750. Benefits of Learning Teams"
Posted by markep on October 10, 2006
748. Pipeline or Pipedream: Another Way to Think about Basic Skills
October 05, 2006
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"The long-term solution to the problem of under-preparation and student failure must be systemic, addressing alignment of curriculum and assessment across the educational sectors."
Read the full entry for "748. Pipeline or Pipedream: Another Way to Think about Basic Skills"
Posted by markep on October 5, 2006
746. Barn Raising: Collaborative Group Process in Seminars
October 01, 2006
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"Football coaches are apt to get a lineman angry before a game; all he has to do is beat hell out of the guy across from him. But coaches have cause for concern if the quarterback is angry. The quarterback needs all his smarts; he cannot afford the functional cortical damage caused by the mid-brain firing off the fear and anger signals. So we are going to offer here a collaborative model for the seminar."
Read the full entry for "746. Barn Raising: Collaborative Group Process in Seminars"
Posted by markep on October 1, 2006
745. Using Class Discussion to Meet Your Teaching Goals
September 28, 2006
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"Make sure students understand that discussion is not simply an invitation to restate their opinions. Remind them: The goal of critical thinking is to examine your own assumptions and evidence, not just to criticize the thinking of others who disagree with you!"
Read the full entry for "745. Using Class Discussion to Meet Your Teaching Goals"
Posted by markep on September 28, 2006
740 Faculty Performance Reviews
September 10, 2006
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"There are three prerequisites for effective faculty performance reviews: setting expectations, establishing clear guidelines, and establishing performance criteria and standards."
Read the full entry for "740 Faculty Performance Reviews"
Posted by markep on September 10, 2006
738 Getting More "Teaching" out of "Testing" and "Grading"
September 05, 2006
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"Assessment can actually be one of your greatest teaching tools and a way to connect with your students, but this requires rethinking the role of assessment in your course."
Read the full entry for "738 Getting More "Teaching" out of "Testing" and "Grading""
Posted by markep on September 5, 2006
736. Keeping Discussion Going Though Questioning,
June 27, 2006
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"The question remains, what conditions inhibit dialogue and what measures can be taken to overcome them? This chapter and the next will focus on a variety of ways to make discussion a process of continuous discovery and mutual enlightenment. Getting students to view problems more critically and creatively helps keep discussion fresh. How teachers maintain the pace of the discussion, how they use questioning and listening to engage students in probing subject matter, and how they group students for instruction all affect how the discussion proceeds and how motivated the students are to participate in similar discussions in the future."
Posted by jbink on June 27, 2006
735. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Review)
June 22, 2006
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"Over time, he learned that raters really only needed to pay attention to one type of exchange to be able to predict with nearly perfect accuracy which couples were most likely to divorce or break up. The thin slice Gottman needed was that of contempt. If one or the other partner expresses contempt during their discussion, it is very probable that the relationship is doomed. If Gottman hears contempt, then "blink", he knows what is likely to happen."
Posted by markep on June 22, 2006
734. A Whole New Mind for a Flat World
June 20, 2006
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"So far we've gotten away with it, although sharply declining engineering enrollments in recent years should be a red flag. We can't count on getting away with it much longer, however. The relentless movement of industry to computer-based design and operation and offshoring of skilled functions and entire manufacturing operations is not about to go away. On the contrary, as computer chips get faster and developing countries acquire greater expertise and better infrastructure, the movement will inevitably accelerate. "
Posted by markep on June 20, 2006
729 Playing as Pedagogy
June 01, 2006
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Despite student enthusiasm for such assignments-and her view of her Mills years as "magical"-Corn put such playful experimentation behind her when she began teaching at Stanford in 1980. The times had changed, she said. "I wasn't at Berkeley anymore. We had gotten past what people called the sixties-which was really the 1970s."
Posted by markep on June 1, 2006
727 Enhancing Learning with Laptops in the Classroom
May 25, 2006
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"The real question requires more elaboration: What can we do with laptops in class that (1) has genuine learning value for students (is interactive, participatory, experiential, or hands-on) and (2) cannot be done as well or at all without a laptop, at least not in class? In fact, many of the laptop activities suggested here could be done as homework on any kind of Internet linked computer. So why not just assign computer activities to be done out of class and forget about laptops?"
Posted by markep on May 25, 2006
725. The Lecture Club
May 18, 2006
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"Establishing a Lecture Club on campus provides an opportunity for instructors to observe their peers in action and to benefit from ensuing discussion of techniques for improving their own teaching. The program provides a simple low cost way of developing a community of teacher scholars."
Posted by markep on May 18, 2006
719. Three Levels for General Education Assessment
April 27, 2006
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"Campuses typically use one or more of three basic approaches to assessing the general education program, focusing at the course, program, or institutional level"
Posted by markep on April 27, 2006
718. Teaching as Dialogue
April 25, 2006
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"Dialogue is a performative art, a fast-form in which the agenda must remain partially loose, tailored to those who are actually present, each day."
Posted by markep on April 25, 2006
716 Learning About Student Learning From Community
April 18, 2006
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"But imagine a different way of thinking about institutional research as a capacity to work closely with faculty to explore questions about what students are actually learning. Such a shift would mean asking much tougher, more central questions: What do our students know, and what can they do? What do they understand deeply? What kinds of human beings are they becoming-intellectually, morally, in terms of civic responsibility? How does our teaching shape their experience as learners, and how might it do so more effectively?"
Posted by markep on April 18, 2006
713. A GRADUATE EDUCATION FRAMEWORK FOR TROPICA
April 06, 2006
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"When asked whether an independent India would follow the British pattern of development, Mahatma Ghandi replied, "It took Britain half the resources of the planet to achieve this prosperity. How many planets would a country like India require?" The challenge of addressing the seemingly contradictory objectives of environmental conservation and economic development is particularly urgent in tropical countries, which often have both high biodiversity and some of the world's lowest standards of living."
Posted by markep on April 6, 2006
712. PROFESSORS PREACH TEN COMMANDMENTS OF TEAM TEACHING
April 04, 2006
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"Instead of standing at a lectern together-in Landy's words, "like some kind of two-headed president"-Landy took the lead as lecturer, with Anderson positioned at the center of the room as "kibitzer," setting up some of Landy's points and interjecting his own."
Posted by markep on April 4, 2006
711. A TEACHING MANIFESTO
March 31, 2006
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"Do not force or blackmail them into coming to class through devices such as sign-up registers, pop-quizzes, unavailability of class material in print, etc. Design the course such that students who prefer so can follow the course without attending any lectures."
Posted by markep on March 31, 2006
704. ACTIVITY BREAKS - A PUSH FOR PARTICIPATION
March 07, 2006
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"Since the attention span of almost all students is between 10 and 20 minutes, you can expect to lose most of your students if you lecture for 50 minutes straight. Even professionals fall victim to the "my eyes glaze over" syndrome. Not only do students tune out once that "dead" period is reached, the energy level of the class also flags. The solution might be to......"
Posted by markep on March 7, 2006
699. CONTEMPLATIONS AFTER FORTY YEARS OF TEACHING
February 17, 2006
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"Dave felt that I surely had a few words to say about my past experiences that would be of help to new professors. Further, he suggested that I could possibly comment on some of the new teaching methods that are currently discussed and occasionally even implemented. I am glad to comply with his request even though I have to admit that I practice no spectacular new techniques. But my students like what I have been doing as expressed in numerous enthusiastic teacher evaluations. What I do is simply the following:"
Posted by lagace on February 17, 2006
698. A POSSIBLE MODEL FOR HIGHER EDUCATION: THE PHYSICS REFORM EFFORT
February 14, 2006
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In their landmark wake-up call to higher education "From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education," Barr & Tagg 1995 wrote: "A paradigm shift is occurring in American higher education. Under the traditional, dominant 'Instruction Paradigm' colleges are institutions that exist to provide instruction. Subtly but profoundly, however, a 'Learning Paradigm' is taking hold, whereby colleges are institutions that exist to produce learning. This shift is both needed and wanted, and it changes everything."
Posted by lagace on February 14, 2006
697. WHY INTEGRATIVE LEARNING? WHY NOW?
February 10, 2006
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"An early cartoon in the always-insightful Dilbert series captures well one of the defining features of our time. In the cartoon, a character uses a teacup on its side to represent the human brain. An enormous fire hose sprays water in the direction of the cup to illustrate the information overload that characterizes so much of modern life. As one might expect, nothing stays inside the cup, while water sprays everywhere on the page. Today's college student needs more than ever a developed capacity to make sense of this flood of information flowing into his or her consciousness every day. "
Posted by lagace on February 10, 2006
696. PREPARING FACULTY FOR PEDAGOGICAL CHANGE: HELPING FACULTY DEAL WITH FEAR
February 07, 2006
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"In unguarded moments with close friends, we who teach will acknowledge a variety of fears: having our work unappreciated, being inadequately rewarded, discovering one fine morning that we chose the wrong profession, spending our lives on trivia, ending up feeling like frauds. But many of us have another fear that we rarely name: out fear of the judgment of the young."
Posted by lagace on February 7, 2006
693. FIVE SHORT STORIES ON TEACHING
January 27, 2006
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"When my son was about five, we were walking along the cliffs overlooking the ocean. "Dad, can you tell me what makes the waves?", he asked. I told him I didn't know if I could explain it to him - that it was quite complicated. "But will you try?", he responded - as if the limitation were mine and not his."
Posted by lagace on January 27, 2006
692. NEW MULTI-DISCIPLINARY COLLEGE CURRICULUM
January 24, 2006
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"Wal-Mart: A College Curriculum" is a 36-page, multi-disciplinary curriculum designed for college and university professors to incorporate into their undergraduate courses. The material is structured not as an integrated course curriculum, but rather as a series of five modules that allow faculty to select the parts that pertain to their own areas of teaching. Over 70 readings offer a variety of perspectives - some supportive of Wal-Mart and others critical. Introductions to each module, as well as discussion questions based on the readings and suggested assignments, are also included."
Posted by lagace on January 24, 2006
691. TEACHING AND RESEARCH: THE TABLES TURNED
January 18, 2006
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"Faculty members emerge from the library or laboratory and heave a sigh of relief: "Thank goodness I've finished all my research for this year! Now I can get on with my real work!" Rushing back to the classroom, they throw themselves with relish into the job they have trained to do through years of graduate study, the labor for which they are recognized and rewarded by their peers and their institutions: the "real work" of teaching."
Posted by lagace on January 18, 2006
690. OVERVIEW OF SERVICE-LEARNING
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"This country cannot afford to educate a generation that acquires knowledge without ever understanding how that knowledge can benefit society or how to influence democratic decision-making. We must teach the skills and values of democracy, creating innumerable opportunities for our students to practice and reap the results of the real, hard work of citizenship." (Campus Compact, 1999)
Posted by lagace on January 18, 2006
689. DEATH BY POWERPOINT*
January 17, 2006
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"The point of this column is not to trash transparencies and PowerPoint. We use PowerPoint all the time-in conference presentations and invited seminars, short courses, and teaching workshops. We rarely use pre-prepared visuals for teaching, however-well, hardly ever-and strongly advise against relying on them as your main method of instruction."
Posted by lagace on January 17, 2006
685. BUILDING THE TEACHING COMMONS
January 03, 2006
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"Drawing in part on their involvement in Carnegie's work on the scholarship of teaching and learning, Huber and Hutchings argue that a "teaching commons" is now emerging-a conceptual space in which communities of educators committed to inquiry and innovation come together to exchange ideas about teaching and learning and use them to meet the challenges of educating students."
Posted by on January 3, 2006
682. INTEGRATIVE LEARNING FOR LIBERAL EDUCATION
November 22, 2005
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What's new today is that institutions are seeking to help students see the larger patterns in their college experience, and to pursue their learning in more intentionally connected ways. To put it a bit differently, the capacity for integrative learning--for connection making--has come to be recognized as an important learning outcome in its own right, not simply a hoped-for consequence of the mix of experiences that constitute undergraduate education.
Posted by lagace on November 22, 2005
680. TECHPED: DON'T BE LEFT IN THE E-DUST
November 14, 2005
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"He sits at the computer with headphones piping music from an iPOD to his ears. Ten different MSN chat windows blink and chime on the computer screen. An online role-playing game is minimized on the Windows taskbar. A music video blares from a TV in a corner of the room. A calculus book lies nonchalantly open by the cell phone, which itself sits next to the PC. He is doing his homework. He is real. He is a 21st Century Learner."
Posted by on November 14, 2005
678. REFLECTIVE COMMENTS
November 08, 2005
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"I'll never forget that day. My first thought was: "Why is that student talking to me like this?" I can still picture the classroom, a snapshot, as though looking over my own shoulder toward the student. No one moved. And I can still feel the silence, the long, long silence. My cheeks burned. My throat shriveled shut. Finally I mumbled something that was supposed to be coherent. Later in my office, after the shock had worn off, I tried to come up with a better answer, but every attempt was pitiable. They were all pitiable because the student was right: There was no reason for them to learn what I had told them."
Posted by on November 8, 2005
676. EXCELLENCE; AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL
October 31, 2005
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"Early on in this new routine, every nurse was handed two phone
numbers-the home phones of the medical school dean and the university
president-and told that if a physician didn't follow protocol and
refused to abort the procedure, they were to phone one of these
numbers, even at 3 a.m. That only happened once. The infection rate
at Johns Hopkins for that procedure is now approaching zero."
Posted by markep on October 31, 2005
675. A PRUDENT PERSPECTIVE ON "THE PERILS OF POWERPOINT®"
October 26, 2005
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"If presenters wish to be successful to any degree, they must learn how to have a bit of style to enhance their presentation. Even a novice can manipulate PowerPoint® to his or her liking with minimal training and experience. On the other hand, PowerPoint® presentations can be tailored to fit even complex discussions. "
Posted by markep on October 26, 2005
674. IN THE CLASSROOM, EASY DOESN'T DO IT
October 25, 2005
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" Faculty members have a responsibility to the world to coax the very best from their students because they will certainly become the next generation of leaders. Where they go from here, what they accomplish, how they impact the world, depends in large part on how much we are able to push and nurture their development. I want every student to leave my class at the end of the semester saying, "I didn't know that I could work so hard, and I didn't realize that I could learn so much." Anything less is unacceptable. "
Posted by markep on October 25, 2005
673. DIGITAL LIBRARIES: HOW DO YOU GET STUDENTS TO USE THEM?
October 20, 2005
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"Digital libraries are quickly becoming the norm at colleges and universities here and abroad as ways to expand the materials available to students and to help them hone their research skills. But this laptop generation-whose idea of research is a quick troll through Google-needs to be encouraged to explore its school's digital libraries."
Posted by markep on October 20, 2005
667. SERVICE-LEARNING IN UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION: WHERE IS IT GOING?
September 29, 2005
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"Service-learning is now a major national movement at every educational level, and is a particularly powerful force in undergraduate education. Connecting academic study with community service through structured reflection is widely recognized as contributing to learning that is deeper, longer-lasting, and more portable to new situations and circumstances. Campus Compact recently reported a three-fold increase in just four years in the number of full-time faculty teaching service-learning courses, from 14 per campus in 2000 to 40 per campus in 2004."
Posted by markep on September 29, 2005
665. WHAT MAKES A GOOD TEACHER?
September 22, 2005
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"I have learned that when I am comfortable, complacent, and sure of myself I am not learning anything. The only time I learn something is when my comfort, my complacence, and my self-assurance are threatened. Part of my own strategy for getting through life, then, has been to keep myself, as much as possible, off balance. I loved being a student, but being a student meant walking into jungles where I was not sure my compass worked and didn't know where the trails might lead or where the tigers lurked. I grew to like that temporary danger. I try to inject some danger into my own courses, if only to keep myself off balance. When I feel comfortable with a course and can predict how it will come out, I get bored; and when I get bored, I am boring. I try, then, to do all I can to keep myself learning more. I do that in part by putting myself in threatening situations."
Posted by markep on September 22, 2005
663. THE PERILS OF POWERPOINT
September 15, 2005
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"Faculty often pressure their deans to make every classroom a "smart classroom," and those fuddy-duddy faculty too slow to embrace this quickly-emerging technology are considered Luddites, resisters to change, out of step with modern student expectations. Technology can be a boon to pedagogy, but it is not without its perils. Before jumping headlong into the rushing tide of PowerPoint presentations, consider these cautions and criticisms about this popular teaching tool:"
Posted by markep on September 15, 2005
660 NEGOTIATION
September 06, 2005
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"Negotiation is an informal process aimed at getting the parties in a dispute to play creative roles in arriving at a solution that they can live with. It might be led by one of the parties or conducted formally or informally by a third party. It might take place in the student union over lunch or in an office or conference room. Negotiation might all happen in one sitting, or, much more likely, over several short sessions. In academic settings, ombudspersons can play an important role in the process as shuttle diplomats, witnesses, or both."
Posted by markep on September 6, 2005
654 LIFE ON THE TENURE TRACK - RELATING TO STUDENTS
August 16, 2005
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"Before coming to Assumption, I saw myself as an explorer leading a band of shipmates on exciting intellectual journeys. I had studied the maps; I knew how to navigate; I had done the research, and my excitement and intellectual curiosity would inspire my crew to follow me into dark and mysterious places. They had signed up for the voyage, and I expected them to follow me willingly, even enthusiastically. After all, once we reached the new land, they would all have an equal share in the intellectual treasure."
Posted by markep on August 16, 2005
653. ENHANCING TEACHING THROUGH PEER CLASSROOM OBJECTIVES
August 11, 2005
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"Even the "best and brightest" must be given systematic training in two essential skills: conducting the observation in a systematic, research-oriented manner and providing effective feedback within the broad context of sound pedagogical practices."
Posted by markep on August 11, 2005
652. TEACHING FOR TIPS
August 09, 2005
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"Tough grades send a loving message (agape with a touch of eros). With an eye to the future, where the consequences of laziness are more serious than grades, they say "work harder." Yet these days, even many administrators don't believe that students need tough grades. The student who earns a D probably forgets what I've expressed in conferences and written on his papers. I hope he understands the grade as an expression of concern rather than as a form of punishment. But he probably focuses instead on that one crude letter, that 2.0."
Posted by markep on August 9, 2005
650. THE PEDAGOGICAL COLLOQUIUM
August 02, 2005
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"We need new Ph.D.'s who have some clue about teaching. We want them to be scholars, of course. But on their first day, we put them in a classroom to teach trusting young people who have paid a great deal of money to learn at our institution. Couldn't you send us some people who can do that?"
Posted by markep on August 2, 2005
640. BALANCING UNDERTEACHING AND OVERTEACHING
June 30, 2005
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"It seemed the pendulum had swung all the way in my teacher-centered classroom-all the way to an extreme of overteaching. From that point on I realized that I needed a framework to make teaching decisions and determine the right course of action for my teaching practice. What follows outlines my quest to find the golden mean where I strike the right balance between doing too little for my students, or underteaching, and doing too much for them, or overteaching."
Posted by markep on June 30, 2005
636. THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING WITH OTHERS
June 16, 2005
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"The pedagogical approaches described in this chapter may involve a different type of teaching for some faculty members. As described by Jean MacGregor (2000), in learning communities, teams of individuals need to sail a single vessel. "For a sustained period of time-a quarter or a semester or even a year-teaching teams commit themselves to a course or program with a common group of students. Sailing together requires teamwork, collaborative skills, and collective responsibility that are less familiar to those of us in the habit of sailing solo."
Posted by markep on June 16, 2005
635. THE VIRTUAL STUDENT - CULTURAL ISSUES
June 14, 2005
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"What are some of the cultural issues that may emerge in an online class and how can an instructor plan for and deal with them? Joo (1999) identifies a number of areas where cultural issues may come into play: content, multimedia, writing style, writing structure, and web design. In addition, the roles of the students and instructor in an online course may also raise some cultural issues.
Posted by markep on June 14, 2005
632. LEFT-BRAINED VERSUS RIGHT-BRAINED: WHICH IS THE BETTER FOR LEARNING?
June 02, 2005
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"Almost everyone has heard about this research on learning, memory and hemispheric specialization in a general way, but reviewing it in a bit more than the usual level of detail may enhance its value to our teaching."
Posted by markep on June 2, 2005
630. ENCOURAGEMENT, NOT GENDER, KEY TO SUCCESS IN SCIENCE
May 26, 2005
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"If women are dropping out of the sciences twice as fast as men, it is no wonder that politicians and industry leaders proclaim the need to hire math and science professionals from outside the United States. Before we can honestly talk about the need to outsource, we have to examine how we are keeping half the nation's talent from entering and advancing in these disciplines."
Posted by markep on May 26, 2005
629 FISHBOWLS
May 24, 2005
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"Critical to the success of fishbowl activities is that the observing students not share their reflections right away, but give the students in the fishbowl an opportunity to demonstrate what they know. Being silent and observing are important skills taught through this exercise and ones that active, engaged learners may have some difficulty mastering."
Posted by markep on