Shana Oliver has done an exceptional job of pulling together all of the best ideas that have emerged from the research about faculty and student engagement. The article provides a nice concise list of ten ways you can use to engage under-performing students. She writes, "What is the intended goal of the lesson? Remember, there is one essential question per lesson, and students must be able to answer this question by the end of the lesson. With essential questions, teachers really have to be intentional about what they want the students to be able to do, and it has to be at the highest-level of learning. The students have to be able to analyze and apply; they cannot just answer the question with a yes or no. It has to be an extended response. An essential question must be "multi-skill" in order for it to be a good one." To read the rest of the article, click here.
ADOPT A BEAR TIPS
If Santa Monica College had relied solely on data analytics to predict whether Jaime J. would succeed, the picture would have looked bleak. He was, after all, a financially struggling, first-generation Hispanic student who was juggling a job with classes. His math skills were shaky. But there was more to the picture than that. Using a 30-minute online assessment that focuses on noncognitive skills, advisers at the two-year institution in Southern California learned that Jaime was also a conscientious student with good study habits who had long dreamed of becoming a computer engineer. The college assigned him a success coach (the college’s dean of counseling and retention), who met with Jaime weekly to keep him motivated. Continue reading.
GRADING IS ABOUT LEARNING
When students talk about the grades we’ve “given” them, we are quick to point out that we don’t “give” grades, students “earn” them. And that’s correct. It’s what the student does that determines the grade. But that statement sort of implies that we don’t have much of a role in the process—that we’re simply executing what the grading policy prescribes. We shouldn’t let that response cloud our thinking. Who sets up the course grading policy? Who controls it? Who has the power to change it or to refuse to change it? It’s these policies that involve us up to our eyeballs. Continue reading.
