I recently had the great pleasure of reading Bill Bryson’s new book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants. It’s classic Bryson: a fascinating, well-told, hilarious overview of how the seven octillion atoms in every one of us make us what we are. Being a nonscientist,
What would a diverse group of people say if asked, “When you hear the word _________ (fill in the name of your field), what do you think it means?”
College student mental health is currently receiving a great deal of attention. Over the last few years, the frequency and severity of mental health issues reported on college campuses has dramatically increased. In a recent survey, 64 percent of respondents identified mental health–related issues as
Students often put in a great deal of time and energy into learning course material, yet their efforts are often less than fruitful. Week after week, we witness students arriving to lecture—seemingly prepared—armed with planners, Post-its, highlighters, and tablets. With such obvious effort poured into
Call me crazy, but undergraduate courses should be qualitatively different from their high school antecedents. One key change? At the college level, students should be moving toward understanding things instead of just knowing them. How can we introduce and reinforce the difference?
Please show me innovative teaching strategies I can actually use!
As educators, we are often seeking new and exciting ways to engage our students, only to find that our teaching load leaves little time for focusing on the more innovative approaches. This dilemma is compounded
Self-assessment is important for effective learning. Students who are skilled at examining their own thought processes can use the resulting information to learn and perform well in testing situations. In addition, those who effectively use feedback from exams can raise their level of learning. I
Students can learn from and with each other—that’s supported by multitudes of research and maybe in your own experience as well. The learning doesn’t happen automatically, and the group study doesn’t rule out the necessity of individual study. But study groups can improve exam scores
Do you see the same problems in student assignments time after time? Do you find that your students don’t act on the feedback that you have spent so much time providing?
Most teachers already spend time regularly reviewing course content. What’s different with these approaches is that they get students doing the reviewing and they do so with activities that model evidence-based exam preparation strategies.
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