Research on the effectiveness of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) continues to accumulate. In part, the findings are impressive because the method is highly prescribed, which means it’s being used similarly at a variety of institutions, with different student cohorts and in a range of fields, although most of the research on the method has been done in chemistry.

This weekend I saw a diagram with visual representations of teacher-centered instruction juxtaposed to graphics illustrating learner-centered approaches. I heard myself telling someone that I used to think of them as separate, and I still see value in understanding the differences between them. But thinking about them dichotomously is not how I think about them now—thanks to a re-read of some of Parker Palmer’s work and a great article written for the newsletter by colleagues Ricky Cox and Dave Yearwood (January, 2013).

During the opening keynote at the 2011 Teaching Professor Conference, Elizabeth F. Barkley, a professor at Foothill College and author of Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2010) presented on a topic titled "Terms of Engagement: Understanding and Promoting Student Engagement in Today’s College Classroom."

Most of us are aware of the important benefits that cooperative learning offers for student achievement (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 2007). We frequently use, or seek out these strategies to further engage our students in the content and enhance the learning environment. However, when it comes to our growth as teachers, we typically don’t employ this practice with ourselves. Teaching traditionally occurs in isolated silos. At best, some of us may have conversations with colleagues either prior to or after a course, but we almost never collaborate during the actual class.

It used to be called team teaching, but that term is now used less often to describe the collaboration of colleagues when they jointly teach the same course. Multiple instructors may be involved in the course, each delivering a freestanding module; or two instructors may do the course together, each in class every day with all course activities and assignments integrated. And there are variations of each of these models.

When I was in college (for 12 years I might add) there were really only three sources of information available to students: 1) Instructor 2) Textbook 3) Library. This was not such a distant past. A mere two decades ago I finished my undergrad, and I graduated with my PhD in 2001. I don’t think learning, or even how we learn, has changed all that much since then. But what has changed is access to information and how that access might actually distract from learning.

Findings from over 1,000 U.S. colleges and universities over five-year period reveal significant reduction of unoriginal writing and rapid adoption of online grading.

The January 15 post on group testing generated a nice collection of comments, more interesting alternatives, and requests for references.

In the part one of this article, we started our exploration of assessment ideas for your online courses. We explored the value of designing ample opportunities for formative feedback. We examined the value of authentic assessments and the dangers of using assessment as a punishment. We also reflected upon alternatives or enhancements to the traditional letter grade system, as well as designing with the realization that most learners approach our courses as a buffet rather than a pre-served meal, and the implications for our assessment plans.