TECHNOLOGY PROMOTES REAL WORLD SKILLS
Meg Conlan has a good article about how using technology in the college classroom (F2F and virtually) is preparing students for the real world after graduation. She writes, "Landing that first post-grad job may be difficult, but many college
seniors think they’ve got the digital skills employers want, thanks to
their time on campus. That insight comes from McGraw-Hill Education’s third annual Workforce Readiness Survey,
which states that 52 percent of students surveyed believe that their
use of technology during college classes and study sessions will help
them secure a job."
HOW TO WRITE THAT PERFECT TEST QUESTION
Assessment tools offer tremendous advantages to both the instructor and
the learner, and are thus an important part of instructional design.
Despite their importance, developing quality assessments is not as
simple or straightforward as one might think. A great deal of care needs
to go into developing quality assessments to ensure that the question
actually assesses the target knowledge rather than something else, such
as test-taking skills. Additionally, the instructor needs to remain open
to revising questions based on learner performance—if all students get a
single question wrong or right, both are considered poor questions and
both should be removed from the test because they’re actually not
testing anything. Thus, instructors need to pay attention to student
performance on each individual testing item to ensure each one is doing
its job of actually assessing the target knowledge. Are you looking to improve your test-question writing skills. Here is an article with some basic tips.
GROUP WORK PROVIDES GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Dr. Lindsay Doukopoulos notes, "Teaching first-semester freshmen presents some unique challenges. You are
teaching them not only your subject, but also how to be college
students. One of the best strategies I have found is to begin with a
collaborative project that asks them to research their new home: the
campus." Read the entire article here.
Showing posts with label group work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label group work. Show all posts
Thursday, March 3, 2016
THAT FEEDBACK REALLY HURT
It took fewer than three semesters for Michael Howell to realize that he might need to change how he provided written feedback to his students. Dr. Howell, an associate professor at Appalachian State University, used sarcasm and wit in feedback to students during his early years as an instructor. Students complained that the feedback was negative and unhelpful. In one case, his feedback provoked a tearful response from one “grief-stricken” student. “Worst of all, most students were not performing any better on later assignments, despite being provided with copious, and what I considered helpful, feedback,” Howell writes. “Most of my feedback was simply being disregarded.”Howell shares his personal reflection in the introduction of a scholarly article published in the latest issue of the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. Howell reviewed the literature and identified five essential principles of written feedback for college instructors to follow. Check out “The Feedback 5”.
QUICK ACTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Integrating active learning experiences into your class can be simple and allow you to gauge the learning that has occurred. Here is one example called "Student Response to a Demonstration (or Other Teacher-Centered Activity)." After a classroom or laboratory demonstration, the instructor asks students to write a paragraph that begins with the phrase “I was surprised that . . . , ” “I learned that . . . ,” or “I wonder about. . . .” This lead allows students to reflect on what they actually got out of the teacher’s presentation. It also helps students realize that the day’s activity was designed for more than just entertainment. To find more quick and easy ways to implement active learning opportunities in your class, take a look at the Active Learning Manual on the Teaching and Learning Faculty Development page under Modules on Canvas.
WRITING AS A GROUP
Are you interested in how to promote collaborative learning among university students via instructor-guided writing groups? Faustin Mutwarasibo has an interesting article based on her research. She writes, "In their responses, students acknowledged having improved their interpersonal and collaborative skills through writing groups. Students also indicated that, while discussing and interacting with their group members and with the support from their instructor, they improved their English, gained new ideas and perspectives, and learned better about text coherence." Some strategies are proposed on how an instructor can help make group work a relevant and effective learning tool in the full article.
It took fewer than three semesters for Michael Howell to realize that he might need to change how he provided written feedback to his students. Dr. Howell, an associate professor at Appalachian State University, used sarcasm and wit in feedback to students during his early years as an instructor. Students complained that the feedback was negative and unhelpful. In one case, his feedback provoked a tearful response from one “grief-stricken” student. “Worst of all, most students were not performing any better on later assignments, despite being provided with copious, and what I considered helpful, feedback,” Howell writes. “Most of my feedback was simply being disregarded.”Howell shares his personal reflection in the introduction of a scholarly article published in the latest issue of the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. Howell reviewed the literature and identified five essential principles of written feedback for college instructors to follow. Check out “The Feedback 5”.
QUICK ACTIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Integrating active learning experiences into your class can be simple and allow you to gauge the learning that has occurred. Here is one example called "Student Response to a Demonstration (or Other Teacher-Centered Activity)." After a classroom or laboratory demonstration, the instructor asks students to write a paragraph that begins with the phrase “I was surprised that . . . , ” “I learned that . . . ,” or “I wonder about. . . .” This lead allows students to reflect on what they actually got out of the teacher’s presentation. It also helps students realize that the day’s activity was designed for more than just entertainment. To find more quick and easy ways to implement active learning opportunities in your class, take a look at the Active Learning Manual on the Teaching and Learning Faculty Development page under Modules on Canvas.
WRITING AS A GROUP
Are you interested in how to promote collaborative learning among university students via instructor-guided writing groups? Faustin Mutwarasibo has an interesting article based on her research. She writes, "In their responses, students acknowledged having improved their interpersonal and collaborative skills through writing groups. Students also indicated that, while discussing and interacting with their group members and with the support from their instructor, they improved their English, gained new ideas and perspectives, and learned better about text coherence." Some strategies are proposed on how an instructor can help make group work a relevant and effective learning tool in the full article.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
FACULTY LEARNING COMMUNITY BEGINS WORK
The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community kicked off with an abundance of enthusiasm and participation on Wednesday. So much so, that there is currently a waiting list of folks who would like to join the FLC. The Teaching+Learning Center is currently exploring the idea of opening another section of the FLC to accommodate the need. Participants discussed the profession of teaching, explored the syllabus, and examined the learning outcomes at the first faculty professional development session. The FLC is developing a set of group objectives as well. FLC members include: Nisha Aroskar, Robbie Burleigh, Emily Graves, Wes Harris, Susan Nealy, Jennifer Perkins, Todd Pourciau, Angela Pursley, Kathleen Schexnayder, Jeanne Stacy, and Lin Warmsley.
GROUP WORK TEACHES VALUABLE LESSONS AND SKILLS
Group projects are a great active learning experience that has proven benefits for student learning. Randall Hansen's article Benefits and Problems with Student Teams: Suggestions for Improving Team Projects published in the Journal of Education for Business lists a number of great suggestions that you may want to employ. Hansen says that we should emphasize the importance and benefits of teamwork by pointing out the special skills acquired that are useful in any job the student may be seeking. Team-building exercises help to build cohesive groups and promote engagement. If you are looking to have your students learn how to work with others whom they may not know (similar to most work environments), you should form the groups. The workload expectations should be reasonable and you should provide some class time for meetings. The goals of the project should have clearly defined learning objectives and you should require interim reports and group process feedback. Always remind the students that they should keep a log or journal of their experience that indicates their contributions and peer assessment should be part of the evaluation process.
THE RANKING BUSINESS EXPANDS
Did you know that the U.S. Department of Education is set to launch a rating system for all colleges and universities by 2015? It will apparently reward colleges with a high rating if they graduate large numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not saddle such students with heavy debt without graduating them. Once in place, the program would give larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans to students attending higher-rated institutions. The focus on college completion sharpened this past year, as campus leaders pursued national goals for higher-education attainment, and more states tied a portion of colleges' appropriations to performance measures such as graduation rates. Louisiana of course has the GRAD ACT. The US News and World Report ranking focuses on the national level. Washington Monthly started publishing a national rankings system as well in 2005. The rankings, whose most recent edition was published last month, "give high marks to institutions that enroll low-income students, help them graduate, and don't charge them an arm and a leg to attend," the magazine said.
CAN A ROBOT DO YOUR JOB
As the debate about the role of technology in education builds, two California community-college professors have published their own commentary on the automation of teaching—in the form of an illustrated comic according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Adam Bessie and Arthur King, who teach English and studio and computer arts, respectively, at Diablo Valley College, have weighed in with a piece of graphic journalism titled “Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers.” The comic, published by the left-leaning Truth Out, has been circulating among faculty members on California community-college e-mail lists. It was inspired by the introduction of an automated reading machine to score English-placement assessments at Diablo Valley College, Mr. Bessie said in an e-mail. Previously, English-department faculty members had created and reviewed the assessments manually, a collective exercise that gave them the opportunity to discuss standards, he said. “We were told that the robo-reader could do the same job as us for cheaper, which seemed an absurd notion,” Mr. Bessie said. “I had, before this, never heard of a robo-reader and thought that I had the one job that couldn’t be automated: that written human communication was one area that technology could augment, but not replace.”
The Common Reader Faculty Learning Community kicked off with an abundance of enthusiasm and participation on Wednesday. So much so, that there is currently a waiting list of folks who would like to join the FLC. The Teaching+Learning Center is currently exploring the idea of opening another section of the FLC to accommodate the need. Participants discussed the profession of teaching, explored the syllabus, and examined the learning outcomes at the first faculty professional development session. The FLC is developing a set of group objectives as well. FLC members include: Nisha Aroskar, Robbie Burleigh, Emily Graves, Wes Harris, Susan Nealy, Jennifer Perkins, Todd Pourciau, Angela Pursley, Kathleen Schexnayder, Jeanne Stacy, and Lin Warmsley.
GROUP WORK TEACHES VALUABLE LESSONS AND SKILLS
Group projects are a great active learning experience that has proven benefits for student learning. Randall Hansen's article Benefits and Problems with Student Teams: Suggestions for Improving Team Projects published in the Journal of Education for Business lists a number of great suggestions that you may want to employ. Hansen says that we should emphasize the importance and benefits of teamwork by pointing out the special skills acquired that are useful in any job the student may be seeking. Team-building exercises help to build cohesive groups and promote engagement. If you are looking to have your students learn how to work with others whom they may not know (similar to most work environments), you should form the groups. The workload expectations should be reasonable and you should provide some class time for meetings. The goals of the project should have clearly defined learning objectives and you should require interim reports and group process feedback. Always remind the students that they should keep a log or journal of their experience that indicates their contributions and peer assessment should be part of the evaluation process.
THE RANKING BUSINESS EXPANDS
Did you know that the U.S. Department of Education is set to launch a rating system for all colleges and universities by 2015? It will apparently reward colleges with a high rating if they graduate large numbers of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not saddle such students with heavy debt without graduating them. Once in place, the program would give larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans to students attending higher-rated institutions. The focus on college completion sharpened this past year, as campus leaders pursued national goals for higher-education attainment, and more states tied a portion of colleges' appropriations to performance measures such as graduation rates. Louisiana of course has the GRAD ACT. The US News and World Report ranking focuses on the national level. Washington Monthly started publishing a national rankings system as well in 2005. The rankings, whose most recent edition was published last month, "give high marks to institutions that enroll low-income students, help them graduate, and don't charge them an arm and a leg to attend," the magazine said.
CAN A ROBOT DO YOUR JOB
As the debate about the role of technology in education builds, two California community-college professors have published their own commentary on the automation of teaching—in the form of an illustrated comic according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Adam Bessie and Arthur King, who teach English and studio and computer arts, respectively, at Diablo Valley College, have weighed in with a piece of graphic journalism titled “Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers.” The comic, published by the left-leaning Truth Out, has been circulating among faculty members on California community-college e-mail lists. It was inspired by the introduction of an automated reading machine to score English-placement assessments at Diablo Valley College, Mr. Bessie said in an e-mail. Previously, English-department faculty members had created and reviewed the assessments manually, a collective exercise that gave them the opportunity to discuss standards, he said. “We were told that the robo-reader could do the same job as us for cheaper, which seemed an absurd notion,” Mr. Bessie said. “I had, before this, never heard of a robo-reader and thought that I had the one job that couldn’t be automated: that written human communication was one area that technology could augment, but not replace.”
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
UNCOVERING THE SIGNS OF SUCCESS
The second week of classes is upon us. How are your students doing? You can actually tell a lot about how well your students will do in your course at this point. Are they engaged in the class? Have they visited with you outside of the class? If you are teaching an eLearning class, have they accessed the material yet? Are they participating in the discussion board conversations? It is not too late to give them some great advice on how to successfully navigate your course. Talk with them about successful strategies you used in college. Bring in someone who excelled in your class last semester to give a talk about the methods they used to succeed. Ask your students to map out a schedule for their college work. It should be integrated with their other responsibilities. This will provide them a realistic look at what it will take to succeed in college. Of course, implicit in all of this is you will become much more engaged with your students and that is a proven retention technique.
NATIONAL EXPERT COMING TO CAMPUS
Dr. Barbara Millis will visit BRCC to deliver a faculty development workshop on Thursday, February 28 at 3:00 PM. Dr. Millis is a nationally recognized faculty development expert and currently serves as the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She will be presenting material and leading discussions on the topic of how collaborative work can be used to improve student learning. Her approach is hands-on and you will leave the workshop with examples, ideas, and the tools to begin to implement new active learning methods immediately. Look for reservation information in an evite arriving soon.
ABSTRACTS DUE SOON
If you are looking for a conference that can help you expand your teaching toolkit by learning from your peers, you might be interested in the South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning. There is a call for proposals that closes February 15. While this year's conference theme is Teaching and Technology, they are looking for all sorts of work within the scholarship of teaching and learning arena. The conference in Mobile, Alabama will take place May 13 and 14.
DOES USING TECHNOLOGY IMPROVE STUDENT LEARNING
Although technology can be a great teaching tool, many professors do not think that it improves student learning. That is the feeling that emerged from a recent report by David R. Johnson who says, "There is little or no indication that innovative pedagogy motivates technological use in the classroom, which sort of flies in the face of how the use of information-based instructional technologies is usually presented." The report suggests, technology is more often used by professors for managerial reasons, such as to help with the demands of growing class sizes. Mr. Johnson said the findings show a gap between how universities market their use of technology—often framing technology as more sophisticated than prior approaches to instruction—and how the faculty actually uses it.
The second week of classes is upon us. How are your students doing? You can actually tell a lot about how well your students will do in your course at this point. Are they engaged in the class? Have they visited with you outside of the class? If you are teaching an eLearning class, have they accessed the material yet? Are they participating in the discussion board conversations? It is not too late to give them some great advice on how to successfully navigate your course. Talk with them about successful strategies you used in college. Bring in someone who excelled in your class last semester to give a talk about the methods they used to succeed. Ask your students to map out a schedule for their college work. It should be integrated with their other responsibilities. This will provide them a realistic look at what it will take to succeed in college. Of course, implicit in all of this is you will become much more engaged with your students and that is a proven retention technique.
NATIONAL EXPERT COMING TO CAMPUS
Dr. Barbara Millis will visit BRCC to deliver a faculty development workshop on Thursday, February 28 at 3:00 PM. Dr. Millis is a nationally recognized faculty development expert and currently serves as the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She will be presenting material and leading discussions on the topic of how collaborative work can be used to improve student learning. Her approach is hands-on and you will leave the workshop with examples, ideas, and the tools to begin to implement new active learning methods immediately. Look for reservation information in an evite arriving soon.
ABSTRACTS DUE SOON
If you are looking for a conference that can help you expand your teaching toolkit by learning from your peers, you might be interested in the South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning. There is a call for proposals that closes February 15. While this year's conference theme is Teaching and Technology, they are looking for all sorts of work within the scholarship of teaching and learning arena. The conference in Mobile, Alabama will take place May 13 and 14.
DOES USING TECHNOLOGY IMPROVE STUDENT LEARNING
Although technology can be a great teaching tool, many professors do not think that it improves student learning. That is the feeling that emerged from a recent report by David R. Johnson who says, "There is little or no indication that innovative pedagogy motivates technological use in the classroom, which sort of flies in the face of how the use of information-based instructional technologies is usually presented." The report suggests, technology is more often used by professors for managerial reasons, such as to help with the demands of growing class sizes. Mr. Johnson said the findings show a gap between how universities market their use of technology—often framing technology as more sophisticated than prior approaches to instruction—and how the faculty actually uses it.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
ASKED AND ANSWERED
Elizabeth Barkley's book Student Engagement Techniques: A handbook for college faculty, is quickly becoming a classic in the student engagement arena. Noticing that a gap existed in the BRCC Library's collection, the T+LC asked that this book be purchased. We are excited to tell you that it is now available for circulation (LB 2342.92 B34). Special thanks to Associate Dean Jacqueline Jones who facilitated the purchase. Barkley's book is full of terrific ideas that you can implement in your course immediately. It should quickly join Ken Bain's book, which is frequently referenced on this blog, as one of the most circulated resources from the faculty development section.
EMBRACE THE RUBRIC MATRIX
A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the instructor's performance expectations for an assignment or a piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of different levels of quality associated with each component. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, and so on. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, and to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts. Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria helps to ensure that the instructor's grading standards remain consistent across a given assignment. Rubrics can be constructed by the instructor or even have input from the students. The key for full effectiveness is to distribute the rubric to your students when you make the assignment. There are a number of good websites that can get you started building a strong rubric including one from Blackboard and the University of Colorado-Denver.
COLLEGE 101
While you are visiting the Library, you might want to pick up a copy of Upcraft, Gardner and Barefoot's book Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student: A handbook for improving the first year of college (LB 2343.3 U63). The chapter entitled Inside the First-Year Classroom offers some sage advice for those looking to improve student learning. "What once appeared as the most effective and efficient way to teach and learn--the research university model of faculty who create knowledge and deliver it to students through lectures--falters under today's learning demands and with today's students. While practically it may be too cost-effective an instructional method to abandon totally, the diversity of students in background and learning style, their developmental position, and what we know about human learning all argue for using classroom strategies that actively involve students." They go on to list a number of active learning methods you can use in place of strictly lecturing to your students.
ADDING RUNGS TO THE LADDER
"The certificate is the odd man out in the debate over college completion. But the rarely discussed and little-understood certificate is the fastest-growing form of college credential, and a key component of work force development and the completion agenda." Paul Fain shared that and other bits of information in a column he wrote earlier this year about a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, that found that certificates make up 22 percent of all college awards, up from 6 percent in 1980. Certificates are earned through seat time in a classroom, the study notes, with more than half taking less than a year to complete. Industry-based certifications, which are often confused with certificates, are typically awarded based on tests.
Elizabeth Barkley's book Student Engagement Techniques: A handbook for college faculty, is quickly becoming a classic in the student engagement arena. Noticing that a gap existed in the BRCC Library's collection, the T+LC asked that this book be purchased. We are excited to tell you that it is now available for circulation (LB 2342.92 B34). Special thanks to Associate Dean Jacqueline Jones who facilitated the purchase. Barkley's book is full of terrific ideas that you can implement in your course immediately. It should quickly join Ken Bain's book, which is frequently referenced on this blog, as one of the most circulated resources from the faculty development section.
EMBRACE THE RUBRIC MATRIX
A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the instructor's performance expectations for an assignment or a piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of different levels of quality associated with each component. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, and so on. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, and to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts. Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria helps to ensure that the instructor's grading standards remain consistent across a given assignment. Rubrics can be constructed by the instructor or even have input from the students. The key for full effectiveness is to distribute the rubric to your students when you make the assignment. There are a number of good websites that can get you started building a strong rubric including one from Blackboard and the University of Colorado-Denver.
COLLEGE 101
While you are visiting the Library, you might want to pick up a copy of Upcraft, Gardner and Barefoot's book Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student: A handbook for improving the first year of college (LB 2343.3 U63). The chapter entitled Inside the First-Year Classroom offers some sage advice for those looking to improve student learning. "What once appeared as the most effective and efficient way to teach and learn--the research university model of faculty who create knowledge and deliver it to students through lectures--falters under today's learning demands and with today's students. While practically it may be too cost-effective an instructional method to abandon totally, the diversity of students in background and learning style, their developmental position, and what we know about human learning all argue for using classroom strategies that actively involve students." They go on to list a number of active learning methods you can use in place of strictly lecturing to your students.
ADDING RUNGS TO THE LADDER
"The certificate is the odd man out in the debate over college completion. But the rarely discussed and little-understood certificate is the fastest-growing form of college credential, and a key component of work force development and the completion agenda." Paul Fain shared that and other bits of information in a column he wrote earlier this year about a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, that found that certificates make up 22 percent of all college awards, up from 6 percent in 1980. Certificates are earned through seat time in a classroom, the study notes, with more than half taking less than a year to complete. Industry-based certifications, which are often confused with certificates, are typically awarded based on tests.
Friday, September 7, 2012
NO SUCKERS ALLOWED
As you transform your course using a student-centered approach, you should consider using group work learning experiences. W. Martin Davies has a good research article that outlines the benefits of group work while acknowledging the problems that may arise like free-riding and the sucker effect. The article provides solutions as well as providing a good background for this type of active learning method. Davies notes, "Groupwork is one of the most expedient ways—along with work placements—of ensuring that students develop transferable skills for life-long learning (teamwork, leadership, project management skills, communication skills). This has largely been in response to industry demands for more flexible workers."
DID YOU DO THE READING
Are you assigning reading material but finding that your students never even crack the book open? Using some type of formative assessment will usually solve that problem. One of the more popular methods is to give a reading quiz on the material you assigned. Here is an option suggested by Paulson and Faust at Cal State-L.A. Active learning depends upon students coming to class prepared. The reading quiz can also be used as an effective measure of student comprehension of the readings (so that you may gauge their level of sophistication as readers). Further, by asking the same sorts of questions on several reading quizzes, you will give students guidance as to what to look for when reading assigned text. If you ask questions like "What color were Esmerelda's eyes?" you are telling the student that it is the details that count, whereas questions like "What reason did Esmerelda give, for murdering Sebastian?" highlight issues of justification. If your goal is to instruct (and not merely to coerce), carefully choose questions which will both identify who has read the material (for your sake) and identify what is important in the reading (for their sake).
MODELS OF EXCELENCE
The Aspen Institute holds an annual competition to recognize the best community colleges. In fact, they award $1,000,000 in prizes in addition to the publicity and honor of being chosen. The Institute changed its criteria for evaluating community college performance, and this year's list includes 40 different institutions, meaning one-third of last year's eligible colleges were bumped. The process is based on graduation rates, degrees awarded, student retention rates and equity in student outcomes. Out of the 120 institutions that submitted nomination packets, they have narrowed the competition to ten and that list includes: Brazosport College (TX), Broward College (FL), College of the Ouachitas (AR), Kingborough Community College-CUNY (NY), Lake Area Technical Institute (SD), Santa Barbara City College (CA), Santa Fe College (FL), Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (KY), Walla Walla Community College (WA), and West Kentucky Community and Technical College (KY). This is definitely a list that BRCC would like to be on next year.
As you transform your course using a student-centered approach, you should consider using group work learning experiences. W. Martin Davies has a good research article that outlines the benefits of group work while acknowledging the problems that may arise like free-riding and the sucker effect. The article provides solutions as well as providing a good background for this type of active learning method. Davies notes, "Groupwork is one of the most expedient ways—along with work placements—of ensuring that students develop transferable skills for life-long learning (teamwork, leadership, project management skills, communication skills). This has largely been in response to industry demands for more flexible workers."
DID YOU DO THE READING
Are you assigning reading material but finding that your students never even crack the book open? Using some type of formative assessment will usually solve that problem. One of the more popular methods is to give a reading quiz on the material you assigned. Here is an option suggested by Paulson and Faust at Cal State-L.A. Active learning depends upon students coming to class prepared. The reading quiz can also be used as an effective measure of student comprehension of the readings (so that you may gauge their level of sophistication as readers). Further, by asking the same sorts of questions on several reading quizzes, you will give students guidance as to what to look for when reading assigned text. If you ask questions like "What color were Esmerelda's eyes?" you are telling the student that it is the details that count, whereas questions like "What reason did Esmerelda give, for murdering Sebastian?" highlight issues of justification. If your goal is to instruct (and not merely to coerce), carefully choose questions which will both identify who has read the material (for your sake) and identify what is important in the reading (for their sake).
MODELS OF EXCELENCE
The Aspen Institute holds an annual competition to recognize the best community colleges. In fact, they award $1,000,000 in prizes in addition to the publicity and honor of being chosen. The Institute changed its criteria for evaluating community college performance, and this year's list includes 40 different institutions, meaning one-third of last year's eligible colleges were bumped. The process is based on graduation rates, degrees awarded, student retention rates and equity in student outcomes. Out of the 120 institutions that submitted nomination packets, they have narrowed the competition to ten and that list includes: Brazosport College (TX), Broward College (FL), College of the Ouachitas (AR), Kingborough Community College-CUNY (NY), Lake Area Technical Institute (SD), Santa Barbara City College (CA), Santa Fe College (FL), Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (KY), Walla Walla Community College (WA), and West Kentucky Community and Technical College (KY). This is definitely a list that BRCC would like to be on next year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)