By offering students a supportive group for writing assignments and research projects, students can form strong learning communities and feel less isolated when they see others around them struggling to generate ideas, craft thesis statements, or write creative transitions. Allowing students to develop friendships around writing is one way to help them to see writing—often viewed as a chore to procrastinate until the last minute—in a more positive light.

“I don’t think teachers teach it well enough. I don’t think they teach well enough citing, and what to do, and how to take the words, and how many words you can take without being considered plagiarism. They just say, ‘Don’t plagiarize.’ But they never tell you what to do to not plagiarize.” (p. 655)

The ending of a course deserves greater attention than it typically receives. While we have thoroughly ritualized the start of a new semester often somewhere between weeks 11 and 14, what seemed like reasonable plans are regretfully sidelined and we launch into catch-up overdrive.

Dr. Peter M. Saunders, director of Oregon State University’s Center for Teaching and Learning, has heard the horror stories, and understands why faculty were hesitant to use clickers in the early years.

Now here’s a good idea—developed and used in a large, nonmajors chemistry course. In groups of four, students worked on the development of “a current or historical idea in the field of chemistry.” (p.35) The teacher helped by suggesting potential topics such as chemical bonding and the law of the conversion of matter. Based on their interests, students developed a short proposal for their topic. In it they addressed how they planned to limit the topic. After work had started on the project, students submitted an outline describing how they were going to address the various parts of the assignment (which are explained in the article). This enabled the teacher to provide the group feedback on their progress early in the process.

Problem-based learning, the instructional approach in which carefully constructed, open-ended problems are used by groups of students to work through content to a solution, has gained a foothold in many segments of higher education.

In their review of literature section, the researchers listed below summarize findings from a number of studies regarding student questions. “It is well documented that student questions in the classroom are very infrequent and unsophisticated.” Averages reported in six different studies range from 1.3 questions per hour to 4.0. According to this research, teachers ask many more questions than students do—perhaps that’s to be expected, but should 96 percent of the questions asked in the classroom be teacher questions?

A recent study published in the Journal of College Science Teaching found that poor students did not attend optional help sessions scheduled just prior to three exams in an introductory biology course. I didn’t find the results surprising, and I’m thinking you won’t either. Typically it’s the best students who show up for review sessions (just like it’s often the best teachers who come to the teaching workshops). There is no need to excoriate them for showing up—they are good students because they take advantage of opportunities that help them learn the material.

How often does this happen to you? You pore over students’ writing assignments, adding what you feel are insightful and encouraging comments throughout each paper. Comments you hope your students will take to heart and use to improve their writing next time around. Then you return the papers and the students quickly look at the grade and stuff the paper into their backpacks … perhaps mumbling something under their breath as they do.