I’m with the 70%. At some point in every class, I say, “What questions do you have about this?” Seldom do students respond. However, if that same question is included in a quiz, about a third ask for more information or for help with something. According to Jean Twenge, … Read More
Category: Pedagogy
“Our challenge as culturally responsive teachers is knowing how to create an environment that the brain perceives as safe so it can . . . turn its attention to learning.”
Most often, “culturally responsive teaching” focuses on students of color and students who are linguistically diverse. After reading iGen by Jean Twenge, however, I would argue that students born between 1995 and 2012 have unique cultural characteristics that we need to be aware of. Twenge notes the … Read More
“The surprising result of this research was that self-transcendent purpose produced the strongest driver for students to persist through challenging academic tasks.”
Jim Lang’s wonderful book Small Teaching was the first one I reached for after finishing the profoundly disturbing book iGen last week, which described in precise, scientific terms the characteristics of many of the students who are entering our classrooms this fall. Lang’s book provides many research-based strategies for reaching … Read More
“In 2016, for the first time, the majority of entering college students described their mental health as below average.”
“Students rated sociability (e.g., friendliness, warmth) as significantly more important than did faculty.”
A 2014 study by Megan Gerhardt evaluated how instructors and students ranked contributors to teaching credibility. While everyone agreed that competence in subject matter and character are most important, students noted a desire for sociability that “has important implications for the classroom experience.” As Sarah Cavanagh observes, “one route … Read More
“Of the students who report having disabilities, the largest and fastest-growing group is students who have ‘invisible disabilities.’”
One of my greatest challenges as an English instructor is to address the learning needs of students with invisible disabilities, such as anxiety disorders. This population is growing at an astonishing rate. Between 2008 and 2016, the number of college students diagnosed with or treated for anxiety problems jumped from … Read More
“Education, when rightly understood, will be found to lie in the art of asking apt and fit questions…”
Bronson Alcott continues, “…and in thus leading the mind by its own light to the perception of truth.” Using discussion questions to develop ideas instead of using the rote learning method to reinforce “the” right ideas was considered outrageous in the 1820s. In fact, Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott) … Read More
“More often than we think, our limits are self-imposed.”
I once asked the director of our program for non-traditional college students what the biggest challenge was for these students. Was it ability? “No,” she said. “It’s their perception of their abilities. They don’t think they’re smart enough. Then they give up because they think they won’t make it.” These … Read More
The students felt that a few could carry the discussion for the rest of the class . . .
. . . while the majority of students adhered to a ‘norm of silence’ – not perceiving themselves as obligated to participate in the conversation (50). Jay R. Howard, a sociologist, calls this the norm of “the consolidation of responsibility,” which tends to be the default setting in the college … Read More
“Researchers found that students who wrote prolifically before high-stakes performances, like examinations and final papers, significantly improved their performance on their final work” (69).
Interestingly, in this study by Ramirez and Beilock (2011), as summarized by Gary R. Hafer in Embracing Writing, it didn’t matter whether students wrote about the subject matter or about their emotions and anxiety – what mattered was how frequently they wrote. Hafer makes a case for encouraging students … Read More
“This all sounds very messy”
What I’m looking for – perhaps what we’re all looking for – are learning principles that are most likely to lead to long-term retention – even if they’re messy. In Small Teaching, Jim Lang describes a learning principle called “interleaving” that requires two things: spacing out learning sessions, and … Read More
Five Intriguing Ideas from 2016 Books
This blog focuses on one idea from one book each week, and so selecting just five from the 50 or so that I’ve published in 2016 is a challenge. But after looking through them all, I have to say that the ideas that I enjoyed the most from the books … Read More
“Attributes like confidence, enthusiasm, and likability can be perceived in the briefest of exposures.”
In The Spark of Learning, Sarah Rose Cavanagh describes a study where students were asked to rate professors after seeing 30-second videos of lectures that had no audio. The students’ ratings predicted with surprising accuracy the professors’ actual end-of-semester evaluations. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that in teaching … Read More
“If anything has been learned from this century of research on learning, it is that learning is not one thing but many things.”
What I love about this book is its informed and nuanced contribution to the “lecture vs. active learning” discussion that has been bubbling up for some time now at college campuses. The authors say that decisions about teaching methodology must be based on learning outcomes. This isn’t new – I … Read More
The 10 Best Books for College Teachers — Part 2
My list of the books that have sparked the biggest changes in how and why I teach continues this week. What are your favorites? Share your recommendations in the “Leave a comment” box below or email me at CStover1@madisoncollege.edu.
6. For those who are looking for research on why … Read More