Preparing to Teach

When the Assigned Reading is Too Hard

If students are struggling to understand the assigned reading, teachers can opt for something easier to comprehend or they might consider this strategy developed and used by theology professor Ruth Anne Reese. She purposefully assigns students reading materials written at a level most of her

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Tips from the Pros: Transforming the Online Syllabus

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

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Learning Logs

Let’s begin with what learning logs are not: diaries. They are a type of assignment by the Writing Across the Curriculum movement, and are designed to be one of the strategies that can be used to get students writing more—and writing in courses where

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Building Global Competence

Building Global Competence into Postsecondary Curricula

It has never been more evident that we live in a global society. Upon graduation or even sooner, our students will be working with people from other countries and cultures, which means they must learn to become globally competent if they are to enter the

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A Democratic Syllabus

It was a syllabus used in a small, upper-division political science seminar, which explains the name and the question of interest to the teacher of the course. “Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process?”

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Creating a Syllabus for a Large Online Course

A well-organized syllabus is essential for any online course, particularly large online courses. Peggy Semingson, associate professor of literacy studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, teaches online courses to groups of up to 300 to 400 students and finds that the syllabus plays

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If students are struggling to understand the assigned reading, teachers can opt for something easier to comprehend or they might consider this strategy developed and used by theology professor Ruth Anne Reese. She purposefully assigns students reading materials written at a level most of her beginning seminary students find challenging. Students must read all the assigned chapters. However, in groups of 3–5, they are assigned one chapter and given the task of becoming experts on that chapter. That means reading the chapter more than once and taking advantage of available resources they need to understand it, including dictionaries, the internet, and fellow group members. For the rest of the assigned chapters, each student prepares two or three thoughtful questions about the content in those chapters which they turn in at the beginning of a class session. Students then assemble in their groups and Reese distributes the student questions to the group that is “expert” on that chapter. The expert group has 15 minutes to select three to five questions that they discuss and answer as a group. Reese encourages them to select challenging questions. During the whole class discussion, each expert group reads and responds to the questions they have selected. Class discussion follows. Reese notes that approach can also be used in online discussion forums as well as face-to-face classes. As for what makes the strategy effective, Reese writes, “This tactic helps students to embrace the knowledge they have gained as their own rather than as a set of notes and explanations copied down from the teacher.” (p. 188) It's also a confidence building technique. Students discover that careful reading, use of resources and collaboration with colleagues enable them to gain understanding of material that at first pass looks way too difficult to figure out. Success at this juncture motivates students to tackle subsequent reading assignments using the same approach. They learn that the payoff from raising questions and digging deeper is more comprehension.  Reference: Reese, R. A., (2015). Book learning: Raising questions and becoming an expert. Teaching Theology and Religion, 18 (2), 188.