Discussion is a staple in most teachers’ repertoire of strategies, but it frequently disappoints. So few students are willing to participate and they tend to be the same ones. The students who do contribute often do so tentatively, blandly, and pretty much without anything that sounds like interest or conviction. On some days it’s just easier to present the material.

Many college students struggle with their reading assignments. As a teacher educator with expertise in reading development and disability, I find it useful to model effective reading strategies and provide immediate feedback on those strategies frequently used by students. One versatile method I use with undergraduates involves examination of what they underline (or highlight). Throughout the semester, I ask students to refer to their assigned readings and share with the class passages they underlined and reasons for their selection. In this way, the types of thinking that accompanies purposeful, active reading become more apparent.

Students find discussions disillusioning just about as often as faculty do. In the analysis referenced below, students objected when a few fellow classmates dominated the discussion; when the discussion wandered off topic, making it difficult to ascertain main points; and when students participated just for the sake of participating.

At a teaching center I visited recently this quote was posted on a bulletin board: “A teacher’s constant task is to take a roomful of live wires and see to it that they’re grounded.” The quote was attributed to E.C. McKenzie.

Two of the big buzzwords in higher education are “student engagement” and “teacher effectiveness.” One way to address these intertwined issues is to improve the quality of student-teacher interactions both inside and outside the classroom.

If you’re interested in having students learn something about how groups function as they participate in a group project, you might consider having them do some journaling about their group experience.

We are bombarded with information about online course supplements and the newest interactive multimedia components, all touted as the best approach to engage today’s learners in the online environment. Dedicated practitioners puzzle over how, when, and where to incorporate multimedia within their online courses and further agonize over the potential effects of choosing not to do so.

In one of my favorite A Midsummer Night’s Dream passages by William Shakespeare, Theseus comments on the creation of poetry. Informing us that the “poet’s eye” in a “fine frenzy rolling” glances from “heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,” we learn about the process of making sense of the world and composing something about it.

I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with a group of about 20 math faculty, all of whom teach at a community college. The lunch was good but the discussion was even better.