Resources
There have always been social dimensions to the learning process, but only in recent decades have specially designed collaborative learning experiences been regarded as an innovative alternative to the lecture-centered and teacher-as-single-authority approaches typical to most college classrooms. With increasing frequency, students are working with each other, and alongside their teachers, to grasp subject matter or deepen their understanding of it. In the process, they are developing their social skills as well as their intellectual ones. Students and their teachers are involved in a common enterprise, that of mutual seeking of understanding. Because many minds are grappling with the material at once while working toward a common goal, collaborative learning unleashes a unique intellectual and social synergy.
The following list is offered in the spirit of starting things off right. It is a catalog of suggestions for college teachers who are looking for fresh ways of creating the best possible environment for learning. The first three weeks of a course are especially important, studies say, in retaining capable students.
In the cooperative controversy technique, two opposing sides are clearly drawn over a single issue, and learners on both sides cooperate to understand both sides and arrive at a personal position. Students respond enthusiastically to the exercise, are helped in exploring emotional responses to issues, and learn how, not what, to think. (MSE)
This paper is an attempt to develop a constructive and substantive conversation about the nature of teaching. I have, in fact, written it in conversation with my colleagues at Alverno College and with others from other colleges and universities. It represents my reflection on the practice of scholarship when shaped by student learning as its ultimate purpose. That reflection is based on my experience at Alverno, where teaching is recognized and rewarded as our primary professional responsibility. In this sense, the ideas in the paper are descriptive. But they also serve as a challenge to faculty to take seriously the unique requirements of scholarly activity that has students learning as its goal.
A review of studies of mentoring for new college faculty suggests practical guidelines for maximizing the mentoring experience. Recommendations include "cataloging" (of past, current, and planned activities); group mentoring; and application of a theory stressing involvement, regimen, solving the right problem, and social networking. (DB)
Discusses the relationship between student assessment and instructional improvement. Describes the development and administration of a Teaching Goals Inventory, which helps teachers clarify what they want their students to learn and helps institutions discover teaching priorities among departments and within the college as a whole. (DMM)
(Text not available on web.) Reviews purposes of teacher questions, types of questions, strategies for questioning, tactics for fielding student responses,and tactics for fielding student questions.
What is a discussion? No one seems to define it. Lowman (1995, p. 159) suggested: “(A) useful classroom discussion...consists of student comments separated by frequent probes and clarifications by the teacher that facilitate involvement and development of thinking by the whole group.” In this paper, discussion is defined as twoway, spoken communication between the teacher and the students, and more importantly, among the students themselves. This paper primarily addresses discussion in small classes that meet one or more times a week, or in smaller classes that meet one or more times during the week as part of a course consisting of one or more large lectures each week. Discussions can take the form of recitation, dialogue, and guided or open exchanges. However, many of the suggestions in this paper should also be useful for shorter discussion sessions as part of a lecture class, since discussions are an effective way to get students to actively process what they learn in lectures (Lowman, 1995, p. 161).