We get a lot of submissions to the newsletter describing various and sundry games that faculty have devised to help students review, gain confidence in dealing with new vocabulary, apply material they have learned to different problems, and get involved and engaged with content. Some of the games follow popular TV shows like Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Others mirror other forms of cultural entertainment like speed dating, and some are totally unique.

Do students have the right to remain silent in class? I continue to struggle with that question. It definitely depends on the course. If you want to learn French, you really can’t do that without speaking. But what about history or environmental biology?

Jennifer Moore, an assistant professor of elementary education at a small teaching-focused university in Alabama had several “intellectual awakenings” when she recently took three graduate courses simultaneously. Her institution needed a reading specialist and she looked on taking the required courses as an opportunity. One of the three courses was offered online; the other two in the more traditional lecture format. Here’s how she describes one of her “intellectual awakenings.”

Social loafing is the research jargon for group members who don’t carry their weight—the free riders, the ones that hard-working group members hate and the ones that make faculty wonder if it’s ethically responsible to use group work.

Cramming—now there’s a timely topic given the fast approaching end of fall courses. Do students cram for your exams? For the exams of your colleagues? In those bygone days, did you ever resort to cramming?

• For semesters, terms and courses that end and then begin again—if only they would end sooner and begin later.
• For students (sometimes not very many) who come to class prepared and ready to learn.
• For students (sometimes too many) who don’t come prepared and don’t care about learning. From them we learn humility and how far we can stretch to reach.
• For students who figure it out and forget to hid their joy.
• For PowerPoint that makes content look way more impressive than overheads ever did and projects with bulbs less likely to burn out.
• For librarians who navigate data bases and run search engines, skilled and delighted to show students and faculty how they too can manage information.
• For email that brings notes from now successful former students. And extra gratitude for those willing to admit what we told them was right.
• For grading software that corrects errors, assigns meaningful comments, and tallies the points. For that day when it’s available and let it be soon.
• For new colleagues who can’t believe they’re getting paid to do what they’d almost do without pay but are happily doing for almost no pay.
• For old colleagues still in love with their content and on fire in their classrooms.
• For department heads who care about teaching with something other than lips.
• For questions with answers that raise questions in a knowledge circle that expands but never breaks or ends.
• For minds still nimble and restless enough to pursue those answers that raise questions.
• For classrooms with furniture that moves, for clean floors, empty trash cans, chalk in the tray, a computer that stands ready, for places and spaces that convey the sanctity of learning.
• For feedback that helps students to grow and faculty to flourish.
• For a job, less like work, more like a vocation with meaning and purpose, that on good days makes a difference and on bad ones still holds promise.

—Maryellen Weimer

Students not doing the reading or other assigned homework—I’ve already done more than several blog posts on the topic and lots of articles in the newsletter. Hopefully all the “coverage” has offered grist for your thinking and new strategies worth trying. Despite all the previous “coverage,” I’m still finding there is more to be shared on the topic.

This may not be the best time of the semester to bring this up: Some students are already getting on your nerves? Nonetheless, I thought you might be interested in a typology that identifies the different ways students nag their professors. Usually we think of nagging as something children do to parents or spouses do to one another, but some researchers think it happens in the classroom. Here are the seven different kinds of “nags” perpetrated by students on their teachers.

Have you ever constructed your own student rating form? If you haven’t, you ought to consider doing it. First, the reasons why: It’s a chance to get student feedback on those aspects of instruction that matter most to you and that reflect the activities and learning opportunities in which your students participate. Most end-of-course rating instruments still ask for feedback on didactic instruction: Did the instructor present material that was clearly organized? How well did the lectures hold your attention? Did the instructor incorporate adequate visuals? If you regularly use active learning strategies, questions like these offer no feedback on the effectiveness of those approaches.