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Five Ways to Promote a More Inclusive Classroom

The graduation gap continues to exist between traditional and nontraditional students. Although the classroom experience has not been the focus of most institutions’ retention and persistence efforts, faculty can and do play a major role for improving the retention and success of all students. It’s a topic covered extensively in my new book, Creating the Path to Success in the Classroom: Teaching to Close the Graduation Gap for Minority, First-Generation, and Academically Unprepared Students, released earlier this month. While recognizing that there are no easy answers, I offer ideas that can be incorporated in, or modified to align with, faculty’s existing teaching methods. Following are a few excerpts from chapter two, where I suggest five steps for promoting an inclusive classroom:

Kathleen F. Gabriel, EdD May 21, 2018

Using Appreciative Inquiry with Internship Learning Contracts

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a conceptual framework that intentionally asks positive questions as a process to create shared meaning among participants by integrating stories that focus on success, possibilities, and achievement. The approach can be transformational for students, especially those who are engaged in internships, practicums, and/or capstone projects. The basic tenet is to generate awareness of strengths through appreciative dialogues while implementing strategies that align with individual and organizational desired outcomes and goals. The initiative occurs first between the student and the seminar instructor and then later expands to include others, such as practicum/internship site supervisors, co-workers, and clients.

Kris Owens, EdD, and Jill Sudak-Allison, PhD May 18, 2018

The Benefits of Study Groups

Maybe we should be making a stronger pitch for student-led study groups. There’s all sorts of research documenting how students can learn from each other. But, as regularly noted here and elsewhere, that learning doesn’t happen automatically, and some of us worry that it’s not likely to occur in a study group where there’s no supervision and distractions abound. Recent findings should encourage us to give study groups a second look.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD May 16, 2018

Strategies for Discussing Religion in Secular Studies Classes

Religion. Faith. Spirituality. Some faculty may view these phenomena as significant influences on the human experience, others as challenges to intellectualism and the scientific method. There are also academics who struggle with their position, perceiving the power embedded in these ideologies and practices as potentially beneficial as well as restrictive. Most would agree that theology elicits a range of strong and often-personal reactions. Why, then, would faculty teaching secular studies courses want to raise the topic of religion in their classes when they could play it safe and leave the subject entirely to the specialists, their colleagues in religious studies?

Miriam Rosalyn Diamond, PhD May 14, 2018

An Argument for Grading Participation

Many of us have visions of a classroom full of bright-eyed students scribbling notes, nodding thoughtfully, and laughing at our jokes. The reality of the college classroom experience can be quite different, and student engagement sometimes feels like a difficult prize to earn.

Brooke D. Taylor, PhD May 11, 2018

Cheating: Can We Be Doing More to Promote Academic Integrity?

The most common approach to cheating involves trying to prevent it—multiple versions of a test, roving observation during tests, software that detects plagiarism, policies that prohibit it. However, if we look at cheating across the board, what we’re doing to stop it hasn’t been all that successful. Depending on the study, the percentage of students who say they’ve cheated runs between 50% and 90% with more results falling on the high side of that range. Can we be doing more? Here are some ideas.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD May 9, 2018

Lectures still dominant teaching method in STEM

Massive Study Finds Lectures Still Dominate STEM Education

An analysis of more than 2,000 college classes in science, technology, engineering and math has imparted a lesson that might resonate with many students who sat through them: Enough with the lectures, already.

Scott Schrage May 7, 2018

Ten Tips for Hosting a Web Meeting

I’ve been working in the Innovation in Learning Center at the University of South Alabama since 2012, helping faculty use technology to improve their learning outcomes. During that time, I’ve found web conferencing situations to be some of my most rewarding and frustrating experiences. Web conferencing applications enable instructors to extend the benefits of live classroom interaction into online spaces. They also allow students to meet together online as they collaborate and grow in their knowledge and skills. When it all comes together, it’s a beautiful thing.

David Walker May 4, 2018

Learning Objectives: Where We Start and Where We End

On the surface, learning objectives don’t seem all that complicated. You begin with an objective or you can work backwards from the desired outcome. Then you select an activity or assignment that accomplishes the objective or outcome. After completion of the activity or assignment, you assess to discover if students did in fact learn what was proposed. All that’s very appropriate. Teachers should be clear about what students need to know and be able to do when a course ends. But too often that’s where it stops. We don’t go any further in our thinking about our learning objectives. There’s another, more challenging, set of questions that also merit our attention.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD May 2, 2018

Responding to microaggressions in college classroom

Responding to Microaggressions in the Classroom: Taking ACTION

The term “microaggression” was coined in 1970 to name relatively slight, subtle, and often unintentional offenses that cause harm (Pierce, 1970). Since then, a substantial body of research on microaggressions has demonstrated their prevalence and harmful effects (Boysen, 2012; Solorzan, et. al., 2010; Suárez-Orozco, et. al., 2015; Sue, 2010).

Tasha Souza, PhD April 30, 2018

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