New college students come to postsecondary education with some accurate expectations. They expect that college will be harder than high school. Most anticipate having to study more. But they also expect that those study approaches that served them well in high school will work equally
Donald R. Bacon, editor of the Journal of Marketing Education and notable pedagogical scholar, points out in the journal’s Editor’s Corner that perceived learning and actual learning are “distinctly different constructs.” An accurate understanding of those differences needs to be part of our thinking.
It is the beginning of the semester and faculty and students are excited about their classes. There is something about meeting your new students, a feeling you are transforming the lives of citizens. So, if the students are excited, why then, soon after the semester
“I suspected that my students were not reading the assigned textbook and articles with the attention or consistency I had intended.”
The skills that students learn in our courses, such as organization, critical thinking, problem solving, and time management are essential.Do students ever ask you that question? As an assistant professor of mathematics at a community college, I regularly get the question. Most of my students
Well-known cognitive psychologist Richard Mayer offers a succinct analysis of motivation in his excellent workbook monograph titled Applying the Science of Learning. He begins with a definition: “Motivation is an internal state that initiates and maintains goal-directed behavior.” (p. 39) This means that motivation is
One of the biggest failures of higher education is punishing student failure. A bad performance on an assignment is preserved and carried all the way to the final grade. This makes students adverse to risk and obsessed with grades.
Talk with almost any faculty member and they will tell you that many (sometimes it’s most) of their students are unprepared for college. They lack basic skills in reading, writing, and computation but also don’t have very effective study habits and techniques. Most teachers try
Academic rigor is the gold standard for college courses. Faculty want their courses to be intellectually rich and challenging experiences for students. The content they teach is important, and learning it in deep, lasting, and meaningful ways is not accomplished without effort.
Students will naturally start losing motivation in a college course over time. This is an even bigger problem in online courses, where students can easily feel distanced from the instructor and each other. As an instructor, I notice this as a steadily deteriorating quality
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