As you plan a new course or revise an existing one, when do you decide on a text? I worry that many of us make that decision early on and then use the text to anchor our course design decisions. What gets included in the course as well as how it’s presented are often strongly influenced by what’s in the text and how it’s presented there. As the authors below point out, that’s not the role the text should be assuming in course planning.

My recent foray into using MP3s to teach college level English classes came out of my need to reach more of my non-traditional students. I saw a trend developing where more adults than ever were seeking a college education or even returning to college to change careers, and it only followed that I had a responsibility as an instructor to try and reach these students. It also became apparent in my classroom that I wanted to not only reach, but to retain these non-traditional students who seemed to become easily frustrated with the more traditional lecture and textbook methods.

Because we know that active engagement in collaborative projects can create a synergy among students that often surpasses what can be learned individually, we find ourselves designing assignments that create opportunities for students to collaborate and learn from one another. Also, the ability to work together in teams is a skill needed in today’s workforce. So for many reasons, assignments that foster collaboration have become essential parts of a well-designed course.

I was interested in the conclusions of a study done in Great Britain that asked students about their perceptions of and experiences with feedback provided by teachers. The researchers wanted to learn more about how students defined feedback and what feedback they had found useful. Students in the study, most of whom were upper division, understood feedback more broadly than it tends to be defined in the literature. They saw it “as a complex, holistic process involving multiple ongoing feedback channels and did not focus primarily on written feedback.” (p. 27) In their focus groups, students commented on the verbal feedback teachers offered—in response to questions they asked the teachers, about the answers they offered in response to teacher questions, about a completed assignment, performance on an exam, or overall progress in the course. Given the content of the comments, many of them seem like remarks teachers made in passing—that they weren’t planned feedback activities but responses that grew out of an interaction with the student. In some cases, teachers may not have even been aware that they were providing feedback.

I work in a department that regularly enrolls 250 students in first-year classes, as do many other departments in colleges and universities. In my case, the situation is complicated by a small graduate program, too few teaching assistants, and an inability to break the larger classes into smaller sections for discussion. This makes for a very challenging teaching situation. I use groups in the large class one day per week, using activities I described previously in The Teaching Professor (March 2003). Since then, I have worked on solving the staff problem with senior undergraduate students. I call them classroom assistants (CAs).

Handouts—for many of us they are an essential part of teaching, but conceptually they are not something to which we devote much mental energy. With summer approaching or during the current break between semesters, maybe a review of what handouts can be used to accomplish might motivate us to reconsider how we use them. Could it be time to explore some other options?

Are our students learning? Are they developing? Are we having an impact? These questions are only a small sample of those that faculty ask before, during, and after each course that they teach. Faculty often attempt to answer such questions using the evidence they have—student remarks during class and office hours, student performance on examinations or homework assignments, student comments solicited via teaching evaluations, and their own classroom observations. While these forms of evidence can be useful, such informal assessments also can be misleading, particularly because they are generally not systematic or fully representative.

It will probably not shock any instructor to learn that students cram for exams. What may be a bit surprising is the percentage of students who do: somewhere between 25 percent and 50 percent, depending on the study. In the research reported in the article referenced below, approximately 45 percent of students admitted to cramming.

As digital natives, today’s college students have instigated a transformation of the learning process. The Internet and immersive user-generated online worlds like Second Life are changing the way that college students gather and process information in all aspects of their lives. At a time when students will turn to Google rather than visit the library, or search Wikipedia instead of asking for a reference librarian, professors need to rethink how we use technology in our classrooms.