It is easy to forget that learning is not a simple transfer of information from the head of the teacher to the head of the student. Students build knowledge in their own heads through a combination of external cues and reflection.
Gamification of learning has become a hot topic in education as of late. But instructors are understandably puzzled about how to gamify their courses. Should they just add a Jeopardy PowerPoint to one of their modules, or do something else?
Traditional academic papers often undermine motivation by failing to show students the real-life applications of their subject. But with a little thought, you can craft assignments that add pizzazz across multiple areas of study. These activities provide students with opportunities to think more critically, analyze
As faculty, it is easy for us to fall into the trap of “The Expert’s Blind Spot.” This is the well-established tendency of experts to not be able to understand the troubles of novices because the expert either never encountered the problem or has long
As online instructors, we have finally figured out that the web is a visual medium and have been replacing the long text documents that constituted our original lectures with engaging presentations that make use of images, video, and sound. But despite the shift, most of
Faculty are increasingly looking for ways for students to collaborate, not only to improve learning, but to teach collaboration skills. Teachers generally do this with in-class collaborations, but the Internet opens up a wider world of collaboration possibilities between classes. Kristin Novotny, a core division
Consider the following two ways to introduce an online lesson:1. In this module we will learn how gender differences are expressed in the traits of birds.2. Here are two photos of a robin, one male and one female. Tell me which you think is male,
“When we teach online, technology is a mediator between us and the students. Because of this intervention, the way in which we understand and experience the phenomenon of student engagement changes.” (p. 211) Claire Howell Major makes that observation in her new book, Teaching Online:
One of the fundamental causes of poor student performance is not knowing how to read academic work. They read for facts rather than underlying themes. It has been proven that the best note-taking method is one that forces active reading by having readers summarize positions
Augmented reality (AR) is a growing field that offers new ways for teachers to engage students. Augmented reality allows people to view objects on their mobile device with content overlaid on the screen. For instance, when looking at a storefront, the user might see a
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