One of the points made regularly here on the blog and in the Teaching Professor newsletter is that students can learn from each other. It’s one of basic tenets of my educational philosophy, and support for it keeps growing across fields and research methodologies. I also believe that faculty regularly underestimate just has much students can learn from other students.

Looking for a great way to encourage students to accept responsibility for their learning? Learning contracts may accomplish that goal more effectively than almost any other instructional strategy. True, they aren’t viable when classes are large, and they aren’t likely to work well when students are very dependent learners. But for independent study projects, in small seminars and for more mature learners, they can effectively demonstrate what it means to take charge of one’s learning.

I’ve just put the May issue of the newsletter to bed, but I’m still thinking about an essay submitted by Huntly Collins, a journalism prof at La Salle University. Actually what Huntly shared was a much longer essay she’d prepared for her third-year review. I just culled a few prize paragraphs. Despite being a new college teacher, (it’s a second career after a highly successful one as a reporter), Huntly has learned some lessons that still escape others who have been teaching for years. Take this one for example.

“Rapport” is one of those words faculty frequently toss out when I ask them to describe the climate for learning in a classroom. I always snicker a bit at how many one-word answers the question engenders. Of course, the teacher asks for elaboration when the students respond with single words.

If you read this blog, you probably don’t need to be convinced of the need to regularly engage and involve students actively in learning. But I’m also pretty certain you have colleagues who still lecture almost exclusively and who to varying degree express concerns about active learning. I thought you might find this list of common concerns and responses to them useful.

Which of the factors listed below would you predict students would say are the most important when they are deciding which courses to take?

I’ve been reading a book on engineering education. Actually it’s a call to redesign engineering education, and it’s based on an impressive study that involved visits to 11 mechanical and electrical engineering program at six very diverse institutions, a review of about 100 self-study reports from 40 different school (prepared for the accreditation process), as well as interviews with student and faculty and classroom observations. The call for reform is based on a mountain of data.

On one of my recent road trips, I had a stimulating conversation with two colleagues during which we discussed group work and the challenge of designing good activities for groups. Although the problems that emerge when students work in groups cannot be completely prevented by well-designed activities, they can certainly be made to occur less frequently or to lesser degrees. Let me offer some examples.

Most faculty have seen test anxiety firsthand. It’s that hot, sweaty smell that lingers in a classroom after students have finished an exam. It’s that student who comes to the office to discuss an exam and can answer in detail questions missed on the exam. It’s the student who doesn’t follow directions on the exam or the one who selects the correct option but then regularly changes the answer. Test anxiety manifests itself in various ways and to varying degrees.