Volume XL, No. 15| April 26, 2018 Nurturing Classroom Engagement A student’s involvement in classroom discussions is largely based on his or her experiences during the first class of the semester. It is during this crucial period that a classroom’s culture begins to develop. Students analyze verbal and nonverbal cues from their [...]
Volume XL, No. 14| April 19, 2018 The Retention Divide: Building New Cultural Bridges Do you find it challenging to connect with students? If so, you are not alone. As an instructor, I have grappled with the same challenge. The sea of faces in our courses can quickly become a melting pot [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 15 | April 27, 2017 Raise Your Hand if You Have Questions In traditional face-to-face classes, it’s easy to know when students have questions. Typically, we don’t even need to wait for students to raise their hands because we see a sea of blank stares and bewildered faces. In online [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 12 | April 6, 2017 Let Your Voice Be Heard: Using Social Media to Encourage Social Action Today’s students demand that their learning be dynamic, personal, and relevant. In an effort to help my first-year students understand that their course reading, writing, and overall content have impacts beyond the classroom, [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 11 | March 30, 2017 Meeting Students’ Needs Through Learning Styles Think back to a class that you enjoyed or during which you learned the most. Was it interactive or lecture-based? Was the teacher the focus of the class, or did the teacher engage students in the lesson? Did the teacher [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 10 | March 23, 2017 Let’s Play Get to Know Your Syllabus “I never read the syllabus.” “How long does the essay have to be? Should it be double-spaced?” “Do you accept late papers?” “Will absences affect my grade?” Sound familiar? Hearing these comments from our students can be downright discouraging, [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 9 | March 16, 2017 Beyond the Hashtag: Incorporating Civic Discourse About Civic Engagement #BlackLivesMatter #BlueLivesMatter #ImWithHer #MakeAmericaGreatAgain The list of “trending” hashtags can go on for days. It's no secret that the world has become more social—and definitely more vocal. Nevertheless, when thinking about our modernized way of expression, to [...]
Volume XXXVIII, No. 18 | September 8, 2016 Outside the Classroom and Beyond the Campus: Community-Based Experiential Education Expanding the Experiential Concept After years of incorporating a combination of field trips, active learning, and flipped classrooms, I decided to design a radically flipped course in which I would leverage technology to craft class [...]
Volume XXXVIII, No. 28 | November 17, 2016 Teach Students HOW to Learn: Metacognition is the Key! “Miriam, a freshman calculus student at Louisiana State University (LSU), made 37.5 percent on her first exam, but 83 percent and 93 percent on the next two exams. Robert, a first-year general chemistry student at LSU, [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 7 | March 2, 2017 Action Learning in the Classroom What is Action Learning? Action learning is an approach to solving problems that involves taking action and reflecting on the outcomes. According to the World Institute for Action Learning: Action learning is a process that involves a small group working on [...]
