Bloom's Sixth

By Doug Ward The end of a semester is always hectic, but it’s important to spend time reflecting on your classes while things are still fresh in your mind. Did students learn what you had hoped? If not, what do you need to change the next time you teach the class? What activities or assignments led to unexpected results or fell short of your expectations? What readings did students struggle with and how can you help students grasp them better? What discussion areas resulted in a mostly silent classroom? What elements of your syllabus did students find unclear and need revision? Those…

Jennifer Roberts doesn’t hold back when describing her first attempt at active learning in a large lecture course. “It was a train wreck,” said Roberts, a professor of geology who is now chair of the department. “It was bloody. Students were irate.” Jennifer Roberts works with students in Geology 101. This was in Geology 101, a required course for geology majors and one that typically draws a large number of engineering students. Starting in 2013, Roberts worked with a…

I’ve been doubtful about the emergence of a Generation Z. Strangely, Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen, along with some reassurances from Pew Research, have me reconsidering. Before I get to Hogwarts and …

Enrollment at Kansas regents universities declined again this year. I say again because enrollment has declined each year since 2011. The decline – 5.7% since 2011 — is relatively small, but it illustrates the challenges of a state university system that has become increasingly dependent on student tuition dollars to finance operations. It also illustrates the challenges that regents…

A recent meeting at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine achieved little consensus on how best to evaluate teaching, but it certainly showed a widespread desire for a fairer system that better reflects the many components of excellent teaching. The National Academies co-sponsored the meeting earlier this month in Washington with the Association of American Universities and …

Watching David Johnson’s class in digital logic design is a bit like watching synchronized swimming. After a few minutes of announcements, Johnson and half a dozen GTAs and undergraduate teaching fellows fan out across an Eaton Hall auditorium as 60 or so students begin to work on problems that Johnson has assigned. David Johnson works with a student during Introduction to Digital Logic Design. A hand goes up on one side of the room. Johnson approaches, and students around him listen intently as he asks questions and quietly offers advice. Across the aisle, a group of four young men…

Ann Austin calls for a show of hands during her keynote address at the Teaching Summit. We know the story well. We helped write it, after all. As instructors and students and administrators, we have lived the story of modern higher education. And yet, despite the familiarity of that story – or perhaps because of it – we continue to struggle with its meaning and direction. Ann Austin, an education professor and administrator at Michigan State, told participants at KU’s annual…

A colleague’s daughter recently finished her first year of college. In high school, he said, she had never really had to study to get good grades. In college, though, she had to adjust her study habits and her thinking after her early grades dipped below the A’s and B’s she had routinely – and easily – received. That sort of dip in grades is common among traditional freshmen as they learn to live away from home for the first time, deal with the liberation and temptations of personal independence, and try to make sense of the academic expectations of college. How they deal with that jolt can…

AUSTIN, Texas – How do students view effective teaching? They offer a partial answer each semester when they fill out end-of-course teaching surveys. Thoughtful comments from students can help instructors adapt assignments and approaches to instruction in their classes. Unfortunately, those surveys emphasize a ratings scale rather than written feedback, squeezing out the nuance. Christina Ormsbee and Shane Robinson of Oklahoma State explain results of a qualitative survey of student views of teaching at their university. To address that, staff members from the …

When we started an end-of-semester teaching event four years ago, we referred to it simply as a poster session. The idea was to have instructors who received grants from the Center for Teaching Excellence or who were involved in our various programs create posters and then talk with peers and visitors as they might at a disciplinary conference. In this case, though, the focus was on course transformation and on new ways that instructors had approached student learning. As the event grew, we decided to call it the Celebration of Teaching, and it has become exactly that. We didn’t do an…