The Pedagogy of the 21st Century

Hand out candy after test begins

Sarah Stopyra in our online class on Gender in the Classroom reported on a teacher who handed out candy in the classroom just after a test began.

Wonderful stress-lowering calming message to send to your students.

Best Teaching Tip of the Week

Do a pre-course quiz to show students how much they learn in your course

I did read one study noting that pre-testing significantly (in the statistical sense) increases students' long-term retention of the Bmaterial, writes Christopher Born. He says:

"One class I teach is an introduction to religious studies. At the outset of the class, I give my students the Pew Forum Religious Literacy Quiz. I make the argument (as does Stephen Prothero in his book) that one needs to be "religiously literate" as much as "culturally literate" or "civically literate" to participate effectively in public discourse.

I "grade" the quiz and let them know their score - it does not count toward their actual grade. At the end of the course, I give them the quiz again to show how they have improved and how they expanded their knowledge in the area. I don't teach to the quiz...I just cover my material in the course. They seem very happy to see how much they have improved in the course. It gives them a specific measure in addition to their grade.

 

Best Teaching Tip of the Week

Share a photo each Unit

"At the end of each 10 minute online audio presentation, I share a photo of a place related to the unit that I am covering. For example, I teach green buildings and sustainable development. The photo I usually pick is nature related and a breath taking view that also triggers discussion. So educational and relaxing too," says Bahar Armaghani.

Well we have to post a beautiful picture after that tip. Waterfall in the mild 2012 winter.

Best Teaching Tip of the Week

Submit your "muddiest point"

One way to ferret out questions and areas where students need help is to have everyone submit their "muddiest point." This is one thing that they are unsure about. It can be any form of communication (email, paper,etc), says LuAnn Hammersland.

Photo: Geese tracks in the snow.

Frequent Testing Helps Learning

Frequent testing actually increases learning. So Self Quizzes for every Unit, whether graded or not, are a great way to increase the learning of your students.

The research was reported by Henry L. Roediger III, a professor psychology at Washington University in St. Louis in the February 17, 2012 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Psychology and the Real World: Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society” (Worth Publishers); a related study, by Dr. Roediger and Jeffrey D. Karpicke, was recently published in the journal Science.

Do the findings suggest that standardized testing improves student performance?  In an interview in The New York Times, Dr. Roediger says he doesn’t take a position on policy debates. But then he adds: “The bottom line is yes.”

Best Teaching Tip of the Week

Stagger posting deadlines

"I generally assign an open ended disccussion topic and require the students to post an original thread and respond to one student posting by Thursday of each week. This allows them time to complete the article readings and any other assignment. Then I require them to respond to a second student posting on Saturday and respond to a third student posting on or before midnight the following Monday. I monitor original thread postings first. Then I begin supportive feedback or asking questions, when they have not fully explained their response or if its a little off the mark. I monitor all postings and try to provide feed back on each subsequent posting where necessitated to establish my online presence," reports Aubrey, an online instructor.