Bloom's Sixth

The spread of evidence-based teaching practices highlights a growing paradox: Even as instructors work to evaluate student learning in creative, multidimensional ways, they themselves are generally judged only through student evaluations. Students should have a voice. As Stephen Benton and William Cashin write in a broad review of research, student evaluations can help faculty members improve their courses and help administrators spot potential problems in the…

Learning matters. That may seem like a truism in the world of education – at least it should be – but it isn’t. All too often, schools and teachers, colleges and professors worry more about covering the right material than helping students learn. They put information above application. They emphasize the what rather than the why and the how. In an essay in Inside Higher Ed, Stephen Crew of Samford University makes an excellent case for…

Kerry Ann Rockquemore offers excellent advice about what she calls “the teaching trap.” (There was a link, but the page no longer exists). By that, she means putting so much of yourself into your teaching that you have no time or energy for research, writing or life outside the office. She writes: “If you find yourself coming to campus early and staying late, if you’re spending every weekend grading and preparing for the next week’s classes, if you’re answering student’s text messages into the wee hours of the night, if you’re sacrificing sleep and/or pulling all-nighters in order to…

Chris Brown and Bob Hagen accepted the university degree-level assessment award for work that they and others have done in the environmental studies program. Chris Fischer, right, accepted the Chris Haufler Core Innovation Award on behalf of the physics department. Joining them at the Student Learning Symposium on Saturday were Provost Jeff Vitter, left, and Haufler, second from right. (Photo by Lu Wang) Chris Brown sees assessment as a way to build community. It brings together faculty members for much-needed discussions about learning. It helps departments explain to colleagues,…

Faculty often see the benefits of online education for students but not for themselves, Karen H. Sibley and Ren Whitaker write in Educause. Development of online courses takes precious time away from other activities that generate greater rewards for faculty. The way to change that, Sibley and Whitaker argue, is to offer incentives to move into online education. They give these examples: Providing compensation as salary, research funds, or time (e.g., a course buy-out) Appealing to a…

Active learning helps students learn in deep, meaningful ways, as study (There was a link here, but the page no longer exists) after study has shown. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. On the contrary, students who have grown accustomed to sitting through lectures with one eye on their phones and one foot out the door often rebel at changing to hands-on exercises, in-class discussion among dozens or hundreds of students, peer learning, group projects, and other techniques that force them…

Let’s peer into the future – the near future, as in next semester. Or maybe the semester after that. You’ll be teaching the same course that is wrapping up this week, and you’ll want to make some changes to improve student engagement and learning. Maybe some assignments tanked. Maybe you need to rearrange some elements to improve the flow of the course. Maybe you need to give the course a full makeover. By the time the new semester rolls around, though, the previous one will be mostly a blur. So why not take a few minutes now…

After third grade, elementary students spend little time on in-class writing assignments, even though research shows that additional time improves both the quality of writing and the comprehension of written work. That’s the distressing news from the Hechinger Report, whose recent article explores research in K-12 writing instruction. In English classes, U.S. students write an average of 1.6 pages a week, and most assignments (in English and in other classes) usually require a…

At a meeting of the CTE faculty ambassadors last week, Felix Meschke brought up a challenge almost every instructor faces. Meschke, an assistant professor of finance, explained that he had invited industry professionals to visit his class last semester and was struck by how engaged students were. They asked good questions, soaked up advice from the professionals, and displayed an affinity for sharing ideas with speakers from outside the…

Participants in the Best Practices Institute work on a backward design exercise at the Spahr Engineering Classroom. I’m always surprised at the common themes that emerge when faculty members talk about teaching. Goals and challenges transcend disciplinary boundaries, allowing for robust discussions about learning; class design and preparation; assessment; the struggles of students, and other areas of teaching. In discussions Tuesday at CTE’s Best Practices Institute,…