The Club Theory of Teaching and Learning

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minuteOr – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blue Rule I have a colleague (thanks Patrick) who has a “Club Theory” for how we teach a discipline. It involves a metaphorical CLUB with distinct bumps in it. … Continue reading

What?! No Deadlines on Assignments?!

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutesA common kind of complaint among many HE faculty: My student comes with a long story about why they need an extension on an assignment. I have already gone to some lengths to make sure my students have plenty of … Continue reading

Is Contemporaneous Grading More Consistent than Grading over a Long Period?

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minuteI have an education question for anyone with expertise in assessment: Are there any studies examining the notion that marking all of one assignment/paper contemporaneously leads to more consistency?   It strikes me as intuitively true, but I’d love to … Continue reading

Worth Sharing: The Misguided Drive to Measure ‘Learning Outcomes’ NYT

Approximate Reading Time: 7 minutesColleges should stop trivializing the transmission of knowledge. Source: Opinion | The Misguided Drive to Measure ‘Learning Outcomes’ I love having objective, clear-cut descriptions of what my students are supposed to learn, and nice, objective, clear-cut assessments that I can … Continue reading

Worth Sharing: Why I Stopped Writing on My Students’ Papers

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minuteA professor decides it’s time to reconceive how he comments on essay assignments. This is GREAT! I have taken to requiring my students to do reflections (3 Up; 3 Down – Thanks for the great idea, Ben Sawyer!) on their work … Continue reading

Thousands of teachers caught cheating in exams

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minuteI have long thought that the way to change the problem of cheating in exams (and assignments) is to reduce the risk associated with any single task. Stay tuned for future posts on how to do that. It turns out … Continue reading

Worth Sharing: Education Is Performance Art

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe first job of a teacher is to make the student fall in love with the subject. That doesn’t have to be done by waving your arms and prancing around the classroom; there’s all sorts of ways to go at … Continue reading

Another example of the Randomness of Grades

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutesI Can’t Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems | The Huffington Post Source: I Can’t Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems | The Huffington Post This is an example of the actual author … Continue reading