Most students begin college, the academic year, and new courses motivated and optimistic. Many first-year students expect to do well because they were successful in high school. Some are right, but others will only find similar success if they work much harder than they did
I’ve always said no, effort shouldn’t count. When students pleaded, “but I worked so hard,” or “I studied so long,” I would respond with the clichéd quip about people with brain tumors not wanting surgeons who try hard. Besides if students try hard, if they
There’s an excellent article on grading in a recent issue of Cell Biology Education-Life Sciences Education. It offers a brief history of grading (it hasn’t been around for all that long), and then looks to the literature for answers to four key questions.
Do grades motivate students? The answer is yes, but it’s not an unqualified yes. Below are highlights from a couple of first-rate studies that illustrate those qualifications, and they aren’t the only studies to do so.
To reach the “selfie” generation enrolled in my Freshman Seminar class, I have used their tendency toward narcissism to help them discover how they spend their time and what part social media plays in their college experience. Drawing on the work of Nonis, Philhours, and
Student excuses—don’t you feel as though you’ve heard them all? “My Dad’s in the hospital.” “I’ve been sick with the flu.” “My computer hard drive has crashed.” How often do students offer truthful excuses? “The assignment turned out to be way harder than I anticipated
With the increased use of group work in college courses, exploration of the role of peer assessment has broadened, as has its use. In one survey, 57 percent of students reported that their faculty had incorporated peer evaluations into group assignments. We’ve done articles on
Five faculty, all belonging to the same interdisciplinary sociology department, decided that collectively they could improve student writing skills better than they could individually. “Our approach emphasizes that a collective effort need not be a department-wide, institutionalized one. Indeed, faculty can still collaborate and students
A thoroughly referenced article seeks to answer why science faculty members are slow to adopt evidence-based teaching practices, despite what the authors describe as “heroic dissemination” of information on these practices. The folks on the science side of the house have evidence that use of
Faculty members who are new to teaching online often don’t know the important role that an instructional designer plays in helping create effective learning experiences. Creating an online course entails more than simply posting materials online. For the faculty member, it requires an understanding of
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