There are several reasons why students may not keep up with assigned readings in your course.
Students might lack:
- either the general or the discipline-specific skills necessary to focus on the relevant aspects of the reading.
- background knowledge to fully comprehend readings.
OR
Students might not perceive:
- a sufficient payoff for keeping up with the reading, or believe they get equall benefit in waiting until it is time for an exam to read.
- the relevance of readings to other course material or to their own lives.
- the amount of assigned reading as unrealistic.
These tips address motivation.
From Carnegie Mellon:
Ensure relevance.
Review the readings every year to see if they still meet the objectives of the course. Are they relevant and interesting? Do they reflect emerging issues in the discipline? Are they timely or dated? Do they marginalize or tokenize certain groups? After reviewing your readings, you might choose to add or subtract readings to increase their salience to students and to reflect the frontier of the field.
Point out the relevance of the readings.
Make sure students understand why the readings have been selected by highlighting their relevance to the course, the discipline, the students’ future professional life, current events, or issues that the students care about. You might even ask the students to draw these connections themselves in short assignments or discussions. If you anticipate the readings will prompt emotional reactions, explain their value to student learning and acknowledge possible reactions.
From The Teaching Professor:
Assigning tasks
Suppose you’re teaching about gender inequality. You want students to read a handout on this topic, but you’re concerned they won’t read it or that they’ll only do so superficially. Instead of telling students, “Read this handout and write a one-page response,” you might assign the following task:
Research the pay gap between men and women in three different technical industries or jobs. Explain why you think they pay unfair wages.
From University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Assign reading close to the “use date” — the class session during which the information contained in the reading will be used. When short, but frequent, reading lists are assigned close to the “use date,” students are more likely to read the assignments.
Help students “into the text” by previewing the reading. Students are more likely to read an assignment when they’ve been told something interesting about it or about how it connects to previous or future course topics.
Include class activities that encourage students to read. Reading guides, study questions and short writing assignments are examples of activities that will engage students in the reading material. (See Teaching Tip for one idea.)
Allow in-class time (approximately 15 minutes) for students to read or review material that is central to the class lecture or activities.
From University of Northern Illinois
Encourage students to annotate the text
Show students how to underline key ideas and concepts and write them in the margins or on paper. Then, have students connect this information with lecture material by writing a few questions on key ideas and concepts
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