I’m reading other blogs now that I’ve started writing this one. My favorite so far is one on knitting written by an expert knitter. It’s funny, very informative, and some days even a bit inspirational. But overall I have to confess that I’m mostly unimpressed, especially with blogs devoted to higher education topics ... maybe you can recommend some better ones.

The article referenced below suggests that we aren’t being as insightful about class participation as we should be. We don’t think carefully about why we’re using this strategy—as in what goals we hope it accomplishes. But more than that, we don’t look at the results our methods produce. Example: we cold call students (that’s the jargon for calling on students who aren’t volunteering) with the intent of making them accountable for assigned reading or homework. For students, it’s still a gamble—maybe you won’t be called on and if you are, there’s a good chance you won’t be called on immediately again. If cold calling is about who’s coming to class prepared, then the questions focus on information recall. Are these the kind of questions that make students think and foster engagement with content? It’s a great article that constructively challenges us to take stock of beliefs, actions and benchmarks with respect to participation.

In the March issue of The Teaching Professor I wrote an article exploring teacher control in the classroom. I described my attempts to figure out how much control is enough — enough to show the seriousness of learning and my commitment to creating a climate conducive to it, but not so much that rigid rules dampen the motivation to learn. A number of readers responded. Here's a couple of their comments along with an interesting quote I discovered shortly after I wrote the article.

“I believe that I should continuously improve my teaching skills and the content of my courses. This includes keeping the material current with the state of the art in the academic literature and in practice; finding new ways to make the material appeal to students’ curiosity; making efficient use of class time; and introducing new pedagogical tools that recognize diverse learning styles and enhance my ability to reach my students.”

“What professors do in their classes matters far less than what they ask students to do.”

I recently received a reference to a well-reasoned, well-referenced analysis exploring why “minimal guidance” during instruction does not work. The article appears in a well-respected educational psychology journal which means there’s specialized nomenclature which does not make it particularly easy reading for an outsider. “Minimal guidance” (as opposed to direct instructional guidance) means that learners, rather than being presented with information, must discover or construct it for themselves. The referent includes discovered based approaches, problem-based learning, inquiry learning, experiential learning and approaches based on constructivist theories of education.

I use an American Heritage dictionary that belonged to my now 97-year-old aunt. She’s descended into dementia and no longer recognizes or communicates sensibly with those of us in this world. But her dictionary is well-used and annotated. An arrow leads from the word “parsimony” to the top margin where she has written “tightwad.” Besides extra synonyms, in some places she tries out the word in a sentence. Near the word “etiology” she has written, “The etiology of conflict in the Middle has a long and sordid history.” Sometimes there are personal admonitions. “Good word! Remember to use it.”

Have you ever wondered how class session duration impacts students and learning? Is it better for students to meet in hour class sessions three times a week, hour-and-a-half sessions twice a week, or once a week for three hours?

I’m knee deep, some days it feels more like waist deep, in the research on student ratings. I’m still on that chapter on ratings for my book. What a sea of information!