With end-of-term deadlines, grading turnarounds, and rapid student emails, it is easy to get overwhelmed in December. Then, when your inbox quiets and holiday chaos has begun, online course questionnaires (OCQs)—IUB’s version of student ratings of instruction—suddenly appear. If you’re like me, you stare at the email announcing their availability for a few days before… Read more »
Entries by Sarah Pedzinski
Course Design for Graduate Students: You’ve Got This!
Midway through the 2022 spring semester, I walked into my classroom and was greeted by one of my students giving her classmates an impromptu presentation on educational best practices, punctuated with examples of work I’d been doing in her classroom. Despite the student’s praise and the fact that she was connecting claims and evidence (a… Read more »
Quick Tip: Use Attendance Questions to Increase Student Engagement and Build Classroom Community
Let’s face it: getting students to participate in class is a challenge. My discussion-based sections of English composition sometimes felt more like Old Western standoffs than the collaborative learning communities I was striving for. After much trial and error, I found a simple practice that amped up the volume in my classes: attendance questions. Research… Read more »