Put down the pool floats, fruit smoothies, and sunblock: the fall semester is beginning! As you begin to prepare your courses, you may find yourself overwhelmed with choices about course design, assignment sheets, and student engagement. Sometimes, the easiest way to incorporate innovative teaching in these busy semester moments is through simple interventions with large… Read more »
Tag: active learning
Active Learning is a Game Changer: Try the Crowd-Crumple Activity
As we’re entering the flow of the fall semester, you might find yourself wondering how to keep your students awake, engaged, and – oh yeah – actually learning! Lectures can be helpful for us to convey information, but if you really want to see students reach those learning goals, it’s time to try something besides… Read more »
QuickTip: Find short activities that boost student learning in class and online
All IU campuses now have access to the 3rd edition ebook of Classroom Assessment Techniques: Formative Feedback Tools for College and University Teachers. This book describes over 50 techniques to help instructors quickly gauge student learning, indexed by teaching goal, cognitive goal, or discipline. One popular technique is the Background Knowledge Probe (p. 125-129), used… Read more »
Memory Matrices: A Game-Changing Tool for Enhancing Retention
Introduction As the spring semester draws to a close, congratulations are in order! Hooray – you made it! You’ve reached the finish line, and it’s time to celebrate your accomplishments. Take a well-deserved break, catch up on some rest, and indulge in some leisure reading. But even as you recharge, it’s never too early to… Read more »
Three Ways to Get Your Students Talking
Welcome to October! The temperature is dropping, the leaves are changing, and our students have entirely forgotten how to use their voices—or at least, that’s what it can feel like. Read on for a few proven ways to encourage discussion in your courses. Question Brainstorm If students are silent when you ask questions they might… Read more »
Implementing Successful Peer Review Practices
Peer review—the process of engaging students in providing feedback on each other’s work—is one of the most productive practices for courses that integrate any form of writing. While receiving useful feedback from their peers, students discover how others approach writing tasks. In doing so, students learn how to give, receive, and integrate feedback—skills that are… Read more »