Concerns about Active Learning
If you read this blog, you probably don’t need to be convinced of the need to regularly engage and involve students actively in learning. But I’m also pretty certain you have colleagues who still...
View ArticleAgainst Critical Thinking
I enjoyed as an especially well-written commentary by Miriam Marty Clark in the current issue of Pedagogy. She confesses to a “growing skepticism” she has come to feel about critical thinking “and the...
View ArticleA Review of Participation Research
I’m preparing some materials related to participation. It’s given me cause to reread some of the research on participation in the college classroom. Although not particularly uplifting, I thought you...
View ArticleBuying the Passive Role
Last blog about participation, at least for a while, I promise. Here’s a view that, according to researchers, was repeatedly expressed during interviews. “Students, as consumers, have purchased the...
View ArticleOverparticipators and Peers
I am discovering that overparticipators have been studied quite extensively in the speech communication field. Researchers there refer to these students who contribute more often than they should as...
View ArticleHow to Respond to a Student’s Answer
In a chapter on discussion written by a teacher recognized as a master of the discussion technique, C. Roland Christensen walks us through the options a teacher has when figuring out how to respond to...
View ArticleStudent Questions: Quantity and Quality Issues
In their review of literature section, the researchers listed below summarize findings from a number of studies regarding student questions. “It is well documented that student questions in the...
View ArticleDiscussion: Light-Weight and Loose-Jointed
Here’s Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s great description of feelings associated with discussion. “Discussion … can feel light-weight, loose jointed, like holding hands in zero gravity. The sense of...
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