Teaching and Learning

Boost Your Student Ratings by Creating Evidence of Student Learning

Student ratings can provide helpful and legitimate feedback. Unfortunately, all too often, students give very little time or thought to end-of-course evaluations, or they use them as an opportunity to make mean-spirited comments about the instructor. And, all things being equal, an instructor who teaches a challenging course will score lower than an instructor whose course is less rigorous.

Mary Bart September 12, 2011

Using Mind Maps as a Teaching and Learning Tool to Promote Student Engagement

Creating an environment that engages students in the learning journey is not always easy. Sometimes as faculty members we ask ourselves, “Are we taking this learning journey by ourselves?” Several years ago as I began my scholarly exploration of the utility of mind mapping as a teaching and learning tool to foster critical thinking, my colleague and I instituted a mind mapping learning activity which has helped to promote student engagement in the classroom.

Genevieve Pinto Zipp September 7, 2011

An Innovative Way of Analyzing Critical Thinking Skills

The goal of most majors is to develop the kind of critical thinking skills students will need to address the not clearly defined and conceptually complicated problems that most professionals regularly face. Faculty in the Finance Department at Seattle University wondered if they were preparing their majors to solve these kinds of problems.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD September 6, 2011

Eight Lessons about Student Learning and What They Mean for You

A new edition of a classic book on the curriculum suggests eight lessons from the learning literature with implications for course and curriculum planning. Any list like this tends to simplify a lot of complicated research and offer generalizations that apply most, but certainly not all, of the time. Despite these caveats, lists like this are valuable. They give busy faculty a sense of the landscape and offer principles that can guide decision making, in this case about courses and curricula.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 30, 2011

Student Entitlement: Six Ways to Respond

Student entitlement can be defined academically: “a self-centered disposition characterized by a general disregard for traditional faculty relationship boundaries and authority” (p. 198), or it can be described more functionally: “a sense that they [students] deserve what they want because they want it and want it now.” (p. 197)

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 26, 2011

The Front Row: A Small Group Feel in a Large Class

Frustrated with the traditional lecture format in an upper-level chemistry class that enrolled more than 100 students, and envious of my teaching assistants who spent time in small recitations working on problem solving with my students, I designed an approach I call the “The Front Row.” It brings a small group feel into a large classroom.

John Allison August 19, 2011

Collaborative Teaching: Reflections and Lessons Learned

It’s not “serial teaching” or “a lot of little mini courses stuck together” or “sequenced solo teaching” as team teaching too often is, but rather

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 16, 2011

Structuring Discussion to Engage Students

Instructors face a Herculean challenge in managing discussion – whether the discussion is face-to-face or online. To be an effective instructor, it is important to learn how to facilitate discussion, and keep the dialogue flowing without veering off topic.

Nachamma Sockalingam PhD August 12, 2011

Shy Students in the College Classroom: What Does it Take to Improve Participation?

When I was in college I never raised my hand. Never. I didn’t raise my hand when I thought I knew the answer. I didn’t raise my hand even when I knew the answer with 100% absolute certainty. And I didn’t raise my hand when the professor was practically pleading for someone, anyone, to please participate.

Mary Bart August 2, 2011

Help Students Develop Lifelong Learning Skills with Web 2.0 Tools

A University of Colorado at Denver student in Joni Dunlap’s learning design course has a question about embedding music into a slideshow presentation for an assignment he was working on. He tweets about it and immediately hears back from people in the community of practice who offer resources that help him quickly complete the task.

Mary Bart July 18, 2011

Teaching and Learning

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