Many of our students don’t read well. They read slowly, struggle with the vocabulary and retain little. They need stronger reading skills—to succeed in college and in life. We need to encourage them to read deeply, to read for understanding and retention, but how do we do that? Roberts and Roberts suggest six ways to entice students to read at deeper levels.
Read more ›I had an email last week asking if I’d recommend sharing “really bad” rating results with students. The note came in response to last week’s blog post, which identified several benefits gained from sharing and discussing rating feedback with students.
Read More ›In a study exploring what motivates students to provide faculty feedback about teaching and learning, results indicated students find it “desirable” when faculty share the results of the anonymous feedback they have provided the instructor. The study’s author identifies five reasons why it’s beneficial to share feedback results with students.
Read More ›Last week I heard an interesting interview with Winifred Gallagher, author of a new book, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. She’s a science writer and the book looks at recent brain research on attention and focus. She was so articulate, knowledgeable and able to explicate complicated research. I’ve put her book near the top of my “must read” list.
Read More ›I’m preparing some materials related to participation. It’s given me cause to reread some of the research on participation in the college classroom. Although not particularly uplifting, I thought you too, might benefit from a brief review of some of the findings.
Read More ›I’m sure it’s pretty clear by now that pedagogical literature is one of my main passions. I am totally convinced that reading good materials on teaching and learning helps faculty improve instructional practice at the same time it motivates the effort good teaching requires. I am equally convinced that most teachers don’t read as much of this literature as they should, although readers of this blog are probably exceptions. To advance the cause of scholarship on teaching and learning, as in to make more faculty aware of good resources, I read widely, across disciplines, around and between them. It makes my day when I discover something new, albeit with chagrin when I don’t discover it in as timely a manner as I should.
Read More ›I’m making my way through a long, but thoughtful and well-documented report, “Creating a Culture for Scholarly and Systematic Innovation in Engineering Education.” It is an impressive piece of work and one beneficially read by faculty and academic leaders interested in education innovation in any field. (Find the report at www.asee.org. The link is in the upper left hand corner of the American Society for Engineering Education’s homepage.)
Read More ›
