Brain-based Learning

From: http://www.funderstanding.com/brain_based_learning.cfm

Definition
This learning theory is based on the structure and function of the brain. As long as the brain is not prohibited from fulfilling its normal processes, learning will occur.

Discussion
People often say that everyone can learn. Yet the reality is that everyone does learn. Every person is born with a brain that functions as an immensely powerful processor. Traditional schooling, however, often inhibits learning by discouraging, ignoring, or punishing the brain's natural learning processes.

The core principles of brain-based learning state that:

1. The brain is a parallel processor, meaning it can perform several activities at once, like tasting and smelling.

2. Learning engages the whole physiology.

3. The search for meaning is innate.

4. The search for meaning comes through patterning.

5. Emotions are critical to patterning.

6. The brain processes wholes and parts simultaneously.

7. Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception.

8. Learning involves both conscious and unconscious processes.

9. We have two types of memory: spatial and rote.

10. We understand best when facts are embedded in natural, spatial memory.

11. Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.

12. Each brain is unique.

The three instructional techniques associated with brain-based learning are:

1. Orchestrated immersion--Creating learning environments that fully immerse students in an educational experience

2. Relaxed alertness--Trying to eliminate fear in learners, while maintaining a highly challenging environment

3. Active processing--Allowing the learner to consolidate and internalize information by actively processing it

How Brain-Based Learning Impacts Education
Curriculum--Teachers must design learning around student interests and make learning contextual.

Instruction--Educators let students learn in teams and use peripheral learning. Teachers structure learning around real problems, encouraging students to also learn in settings outside the classroom and the school building.

Assessment--Since all students are learning, their assessment should allow them to understand their own learning styles and preferences. This way, students monitor and enhance their own learning process.

What Brain-Based Learning Suggests
How the brain works has a significant impact on what kinds of learning activities are most effective. Educators need to help students have appropriate experiences and capitalize on those experiences. As Renate Caine illustrates on p. 113 of her book Making Connections, three interactive elements are essential to this process:

1. Teachers must immerse learners in complex, interactive experiences that are both rich and real. One excellent example is immersing students in a foreign culture to teach them a second language. Educators must take advantage of the brain's ability to parallel process.

2. Students must have a personally meaningful challenge. Such challenges stimulate a student's mind to the desired state of alertness.

3. In order for a student to gain insight about a problem, there must be intensive analysis of the different ways to approach it, and about learning in general. This is what's known as the "active processing of experience."

A few other tenets of brain-based learning include:

1. Feedback is best when it comes from reality, rather than from an authority figure.

2. People learn best when solving realistic problems.

3. The big picture can't be separated from the details.

4. Because every brain is different, educators should allow learners to customize their own environments.

5. The best problem solvers are those that laugh!

Designers of educational tools must be artistic in their creation of brain-friendly environments. Instructors need to realize that the best way to learn is not through lecture, but by participation in realistic environments that let learners try new things safely.

The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.

How Much Should I Try to Cover in One Class?

From: http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/faqs/preparingtoteach/oneclass.html

The better question to ask here is - How much do you want your students to learn, understand and be able to apply? You can talk nonstop and jam as much content into a class period as possible. But that's about all that strategy will accomplish. The better you know and understand your students, the more effectively you will be able to facilitate their learning in your course.

Some general guidelines are to generate two or three main topics or big ideas for each class session. Split the session into 10 or 15 minute "chunks" for each topic and expand on each with definitions, explanations, illustrations, and examples, leaving time for questions after each. Remember to restate the big ideas before and after each "chunk." If you do this, you may cover less and uncover more.

Managing -- and Motivating! -- Distance Learning Group Activities

From: http://www.tltgroup.org/gilbert/millis.htm

By Barbara Millis

To promote learning, you will want to structure online activities to encourage the kind of student interactions and active learning that foster deep learning. Deep approaches to learning -- learning for understanding -- are integrative processes where students synthesize and connect material to existing knowledge. Deep learning, which has an extensive international research base, is predicated on four key principles. As Rhem[1] summarizes:

(1) Assignments should motivate students to learn and

(2) they should build on a carefully structured, integrated knowledge base. Learning should include

(3) active student involvement and

(4) interaction among students.

Careful planning can support the first two principles. The latter two can be fulfilled in part by pairing students or placing them in small groups/teams. But, simply putting students into groups, as numerous studies have indicated, does not accomplish the desired results. Principles of cooperative learning, as outlined by Millis and Cottell,[2] must be applied to achieve maximum results. Effective, creative uses of technology should rest on all we know about human learning. Not surprisingly, the same principles—outlined below—that foster effective in-class learning can also promote learning at a distance.



Ask yourself key questions about the proposed group activity.

David Campbell has warned, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” This saying is certainly true for group activities. As a general rule, you will want to ask yourself the following questions:

· What will you do?

· Why are you doing it?

· How will this activity further your course objectives?

· How will you introduce this activity to students?

· How will you form groups?

· How will you monitor students' interactions and learning?

· How will you foster positive interdependence (goal, resource materials, evaluation methods, roles, etc.)?

· How will you maintain individual accountability?

· What problems/challenges do you expect?



Be certain that group activities further the course objectives.

Peter Vaill, William F. Massey and others are encouraging faculty to think in terms of systems. They postulate that factors such as the professor’s content knowledge, the teaching and learning processes employed, assessment of student learning, and subsequent feedback lead faculty to improvements. They emphasize, however, that accurate assessment is possible only with clearly delineated goals. Thus, learning activities must be framed by considerations of the impact they are intended to have on student learning and how well they achieve the desired results.



Explain to students the nature and value of the proposed activities.

Many students will come to online courses with learning styles that predispose them to work independently. Furthermore, they may have been “burned” in the past by ineptly managed group work. Thus, it is extremely important to explain why group interactions will further immediate course goals and also lead to other desirable outcomes such as acquiring the teamwork skills needed in the modern work place. More importantly, emerging studies suggest that students learn better when they have opportunities for collaboration.



Your course objectives should also motivate students to succeed. Students are motivated to learn, according to McMillan and Forsyth,[3] “if their needs are being met, if they see value in what they are learning, and if they believe they are able to succeed with reasonable effort” (p. 50).



Be certain to give clear instructions.

Group work can be frustrating for both students and faculty if instructions are not clear. Students may question your organizational skills, and they may waste precious time puzzling over directions. Instructions should clearly delineate the task and/or explain your expectations. They should indicate the degree of freedom given to students in structuring the task and assigning group roles. Clear instructions always include the time involved. Students cannot manage their time wisely if they cannot plan ahead. Numerous studies, including the well-known Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,[4] have identified “time on task” as a factor critical to student achievement. In fact, instructions should also include a “sponge” or extension activity that teams must turn to if they complete the initial assignment. This “sponge” typically involves more challenging problems to solve or more complex issues to discuss.



Clear instructions also eliminate barriers to learning. Tasks should be structured to make online collaboration both easy and desirable.



Provide students with a sense of closure.

As indicated above, students may be unwilling group members unless they see the value of cooperative learning. You must be careful that you don’t appear to be “toying” with them by withholding information while a group struggles with a difficult problem. As a rule, most instructors will offer help when all group members admit that they need it. A better tactic might be to allow students to ask a student “adviser” from a different learning team to offer advice. These objectives can be accomplished online through carefully structured rules, ones that involve student buy-in, perhaps by involving them in the formulation of the rules.





Keep the group size small.

Most teachers experienced with group work advocate groups composed of three to four students. Four, or a quad, is generally considered the ideal because the group is large enough to contain students who will bring diverse opinions, experiences, and learning styles to aid in problem solving. If a group member fails to log in, the group can continue to function smoothly. A group of four is not so large, however, that students can hide. All must carry their fair share of the workload. A quad has the additional advantage of offering easy pair formation within the group.



Unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise, aim for heterogeneous groups.

Felder and Brent[5] give a reasoned case for heterogeneity in ability:

The drawbacks of a group with only weak students are obvious, but having only strong students in a group is equally undesirable. First, the strong groups have an unfair advantage over other groups in the class. Second, the team members tend to divide up the homework and communicate only cursorily with one another, omitting the dynamic interactions that lead to most of the proven benefits of cooperative learning. In mixed ability groups, on the other hand, the weaker students gain from seeing how better students study and approach problems, and the strong students gain a deeper understanding of the subject by teaching it to others.



The research on heterogeneous grouping under cooperative conditions also reports important affective gains on the university level: Retention increases; students feel more positively toward the subject matter; students increase their communication and social skills, self-esteem rises, and peer relations become more positive.



To ensure heterogeneity, form teacher formed teams.

Group formation ideally furthers the pedagogical basis of the course. Group formation should promote: (1) course goals; (2) sound learning theory; and (3) philosophical convictions. You should therefore aim for heterogeneous grouping, deliberately mixing students based on achievement level, gender, ethnicity, academic interests, learning styles, or any other relevant factors. Such grouping will typically permit students to work constructively with varied individuals who will bring different strengths and approaches to academic tasks. Besides success with the immediate tasks, positive interactions with diverse individuals prepare students for the modern work place and for society as a whole. You should explain to students your rationale for grouping them as you do. If online courses only permit random grouping, then that is preferable to “tracking,” where students are assigned to groups based on ability.



Keep groups together long enough to establish positive working relationships.

Permanent learning teams should remain together long enough to pass through the “forming,” “storming,” “norming” and “performing” phases cited in the group dynamics literature. Students need time to become acquainted, to identify one another’s strengths, and to learn to support and coach one another. Thus, most practitioners recommend that groups remain together for the duration of an extended project or a series of ongoing activities. Usually, students will remain together about half a semester. Always clearly explain to students when and why they will be re-grouped to forestall the inevitable laments that come from closely bonded teams “rent asunder.”



Allow time for team building.

Team-building activities should not be frivolous, off-task exercises that send the wrong signal to students. Design early activities to get student working together on meaningful tasks. It is dangerous to assume that students will bring with them the skills needed to function effectively in cooperative groups, particularly when they may not be accustomed to the anonymity of online courses. You thus need to structure the online class so that activities build on one another and promote cooperation. A good opener might be to have students share personal—but not too intimate—information, perhaps through a discipline-relevant autobiography.



Encourage students to monitor, as you will, group processing.

Group processing activities help build team skills, allow students to reflect on their learning process and outcomes, and provide teachers with continuous feedback. Group processing involves such things as leadership, decision making, communication, and conflict resolution. Content is what is being discussed, while process is how the group is functioning. Both students and teachers need to monitor group and individual progress. After an assignment or activity, for instance, students could respond to questions such as: "Did all members of the group contribute?" "What could be done next time to make the group function better?" "What were the most important things I learned?” or “What contributions did I make?”



Use Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) to determine student progress.

Angelo and Cross’ book[6] offers fifty techniques for assessing student learning. Many of these, such as the One-Minute Paper or the Muddiest Point, can be conducted, analyzed, and “debriefed” rapidly online. Classroom assessment practices not only help you understand the extent of student learning, but they also get students involved in monitoring their own academic progress in your course.



Encourage students to practice and reinforce positive social skills.

Social skills are important although students may not initially see their connection with academic learning. They may react as Ira does in a cartoon by Mel Lazarus. When a swimming coach urges his charges to follow the "buddy system" before leaping into a lake, Ira demands: "Are we here to learn swimming or interpersonal relationships?" Interpersonal skills go well beyond mere politeness. Students must recognize the importance of cooperative interaction and mutual respect. Faculty in online courses should model appropriate social skills, including ways of providing constructive feedback or eliciting more in-depth responses through probing questions. They should also reinforce these social skills by publicly commenting on ways students use them effectively.





Structure activities to promote positive interdependence

Johnson, Johnson, and Smith (1991)[7] describe positive interdependence in these words:

Cooperation results in participants' striving for mutual benefit so that all members of the group benefit from each other's efforts (your success benefits me and my success benefits you), their recognizing that all group members share a common fate (we sink or swim together) and that one's performance depends mutually on oneself and one's colleagues (we cannot do it without you), and their feeling proud and jointly celebrating when a group member is recognized for achievement (you got an A! that's terrific!). (p. 3)

In a cooperative, group-oriented setting, all online class members, particularly those grouped in instructor-selected teams, contribute to each other's learning. Through careful planning, positive interdependence can be established by having students, achieve: (a) mutual goals, such as reaching a consensus on specific solutions to problems or arriving at team-generated solutions; (b) mutual rewards, such as individually assigned points counting toward a criterion-referenced final grade, points which only help, but never handicap; (c) structured tasks, such as a report or complex problem with sections mutually developed by all team members; and (d) interdependent roles, such as group members serving alternately as discussion leaders, organizers, recorders, and spokespersons.



Promote individual accountability.

No matter how much mutual support, coaching, and encouragement they receive, students must be individually responsible for their own academic achievements. Individual accountability indicates to students who might be "hitchhikers" (students who do not—for whatever reasons—typically do a fair share of assigned group work) or "over achievers" or "workhorses" (students who assume a disproportionate amount of the workload), that these roles are unacceptable in a cooperative setting. Because students have been acclimated to academic settings where they compete against fellow classmates, this aspect of cooperative group work is somehow reassuring: their final course grades will be based on their own efforts, uncompromised and uncomplicated by the achievements of others. You can grade online quizzes, projects, and final exams just as you would in a class where group work is not the norm.



Set up a clear, non-competitive, criterion-referenced grading scheme.

A common misconception suggests that group work automatically entails group grades. Nothing could be further from the truth. Individual accountability precludes this too-often-used practice. Undifferentiated group grades for a single project, particularly when the work is completed out-of-class, invite inequity problems. Too often one student ends up doing the majority of the work. That student often relishes the power associated with this role but resents the lack of input from students who will benefit from the same grade. The students who contribute little receive signals that their efforts are unappreciated or unwanted, and they learn the negative lesson that they can receive a grade they did not earn.



Some professors, especially those in preprofessional disciplines, may argue that "real world" preparation should put students in situations where they must negotiate each team member's input and be prepared to accept less-than optimum results, including situations where one team member's performance—or lack of performance—drags down the team grade for all members. In fact, however, no corporate leader would allow a team to dissolve in bickering or exclusive behavior when a job needs to be done. Nor do responsible leaders write the same performance appraisals for all their personnel. Ethical, legal, and moral issues are involved when you assign a common grade to all group members for a single project. All cooperative learning experts advise against undifferentiated group grades.



Thus, you will want to establish clear criteria for success. These standards should be high, but they should theoretically be within the grasp of all students who work—often cooperatively—toward your benchmark.



Anticipate problems and don’t be afraid to seek constructive help.

No matter how carefully you plan, some things will invariably go wrong. Don’t despair: numerous educators have emphasized the value of risk-taking to professional growth. The point is not to give up (“Oh, I tried online group work and it didn’t work at all”). Seek help from knowledgeable colleagues and from faculty development centers where you will find books, articles, and professionals who can offer indirect advice or who can observe your online classes.



Remember that the research on deep learning is unequivocal. To reach your intended educational outcomes, you must provide students with opportunities for interactions and for active learning. These should occur in carefully structured, sequenced activities that are frequently assessed. The technology is merely a tool to help implement these techniques.



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[1] Rhem, J. (1995). Deep/surface approaches to learning: An introduction. The National Teaching and Learning Forum, 5(1), 1-3.



[2] Millis, B. J. & Cottell, P. G. (1998). Cooperative Learning for Higher Education Faculty. Phoenix: American Council of Education/Oryx Press.



[3] McMillan, J. H. & Forsyth, D. R. (1991). What theories of motivation say about why students learn. In R. J. Menges and M. D. Svinicki, College Teaching from Theory to Practice. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. No. 45 (pp. 39-51). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.



[4] Chickering, A. W. & Gamson, A. F. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. Racine, WI: The Johnson Foundation, Inc/Wingspread.



[5] Felder, R. M. & Brent, R. (1994). Cooperative learning in technical courses: Procedures, pitfalls, and payoffs. Eric Document Reproduction Service Report ED 377038.

WWW location: http:/www2.ncsu.edu/uni...c/Papers/coopreport.html



[6] Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers, 2nd Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.



[7] Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Washington, D. C.: The George Washington University School of Education and Human Development.

20 Ways to Make Lectures More Participatory

From: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/TFTlectures.html


Lectures play a vital role in teaching. There will always be a place for lectures in the curriculum -- to give technical material or factual information, to provide structure to material or an argument, to display a method or example of how one thinks in a given field, or even to inspire and motivate students to explore further. At the same time, it often enhances both your presentation of the material and students’ learning when students are able to participate in some way. When students engage actively with material, they generally understand it better and remember it longer.

Asking for student participation highlights the distinction between faculty covering material and students learning it. Student participation often results in covering less material during a semester. Yet it also can mean that students learn more material than in a traditional lecture course, because they truly grasp the fundamentals and have more chances to clear up confusion. Large numbers of students in class does not preclude interaction. The following list of ways to open up lectures to student participation have been used in classes of up to 1200 students, as well as in smaller groups.

Note: If you decide to invite student participation in lectures, consider beginning with the very first lecture, when norms and expectations for class are being established. It is more difficult to engage students in a large lecture class later if they are accustomed to being silent. If you decide to ask students to participate in lectures later in the term, give a short introduction or explanation about your change in strategy.

Beginning the lecture (or course)

1. Begin the course or the lecture with a question or questions which help you to understand what students are thinking. "What are some of the differences between clinical medicine and public health?" "How do we interpret medical research findings? For example, the response rate for one regimen is 23% and another treatment showed a 40% response rate. How can we interpret these numbers? What other information would we want to know?" "What would be a feminist perspective on contraceptive research?" "What are some examples of marginalized populations?" "What image do you have of people who have HIV or AIDS?"

2. Begin the course or the lecture by posing a problem and eliciting several answers or solutions from the students. The lecture can then go on to explore and build on the suggestions that emerge from the discussion. For example: "When you think about the definition of epidemiology, what possible applications of this methodology come to mind?" "What are some underlying biological factors for poor health status?" "What are some reasons people may not have health insurance?"

3. An interesting way to introduce topics you will cover in a course and to find out students' assumptions is to ask students to jot down answers to some questions on their own and then combine answers in a small group. Examples from a pre-course survey: "--List up to 10 major environmental disasters. --Name up to 10 health disorders in which environmental agents are causative; list the 10 etiologic agents. --Identify up to 10 national (U.S. or other) environmental laws and the problems they address. --Identify the kinds of data needed to characterize an environmental health hazard. --List the steps in quantitative risk assessment. Which steps require both epidemiology and biostatistics."


Inviting participation

4. Create an atmosphere that encourages student participation by using a conversational tone and not criticizing student questions or comments in front of the class. Students take a risk when they talk; you need to deal tactfully with their contributions. Your body language -- whether you hold yourself in a stiff or relaxed manner -- also influences student participation. Consider moving closer to the students rather than speaking from behind the podium. Explain your reasons for varying the traditional lecture style. Students more willingly participate in class if they understand the rationale behind an approach that may be unfamiliar.

5. If you want students to talk, look at them. Some teachers call on students. (Some teachers never call on students -- this is a matter of strong personal preference.) Asking students to speak in class is easier to do if they use name cards or if you have learned their names. This will encourage them to use each others' names as well; people are more likely to talk when they know each other. Some students will be too shy to speak in a large group, at least at first. If speaking in class is the norm and everyone is expected to do it, you can call on everyone in good faith (perhaps calling on better prepared --and bolder--students first, and asking easier questions later of the quieter students).

6. Invite challenges to your ideas. This can lead to lively debates and shows that students are thinking and engaging with the material. Also, invite questions. You may have to help students new to a field know how to challenge or question. One way to do this is to present different points of view on any given topic, and then state why you believe a certain view best accounts for the evidence. (Decide whether you are comfortable with interruptions or whether you want to have a question time at the end.)

7. When a student asks a question, instead of answering yourself, ask for an answer from other members of the class. In a large group, always repeat a question or paraphrase a response before going on, so that all students can hear and understand (this is especially important when students in the class do not speak English as a native language).

Punctuating the lecture with questions

8. Ask questions throughout the lecture, so that the lecture becomes more of a conversation. Asking students to raise their hands (for example, "What is the direction of the data: increasing? decreasing?") is easier than asking them to speak. Questions with surprising answers can engage students' interest (for example, "What is the probability that two people in this room have the same birthday?") Generally, questions are more evocative if you are not looking for one right answer. The most fruitful questions are thought-provoking and, often, counterintuitive. For example, when comparing health indicators of different countries, ask students to guess where the U.S. or their country of origin ranks. Discuss the link between socioeconomic status and health; ask students to predict changes over time. For example, "Do you think it has gotten better or worse in your country over the last twenty years?"

9. Pause in the lecture after making a major point. Show students a multiple-choice question based on the material you have been talking about. (Example: "If the incidence rate of tuberculosis (TB) increased due to an increase in immunocompromised AIDS patients, but the duration of tuberculosis infections remained the same, the prevalence of TB would a) increase, b) decrease, or c) not change.") Ask students to vote on the right answer, and then turn to their neighbors to persuade them of the answer within the space of two minutes (talking to a few people is easier than speaking up in a large group). When time is up, ask them to vote a second time. Usually far more students arrive at the correct answer when voting the second time.

10. If readings have been assigned for a class, refer to them so their purpose is clear. You may ask questions about the readings from time to time; individuals or groups might be asked ahead of time to prepare short presentations of their interpretations of the readings.

11. When using slides, maps, or handouts, ask students what they see before you tell them what you see. Use these devices to help students think about a problem as you introduce it. For example, show a map of where cases occurred during an epidemic. Ask the students, "As an investigator of the outbreak, what questions might you want to ask?" Show a table of data about a country (birth rate, death rate, population, per cent of population with heart disease, number of nurses per capita, money spent on health per capita, G.N.P., etc.) Ask, "What do these data tell us? Where would you begin to explore? What kinds of questions could we answer and how?"

Varying the format

12. To vary the traditional lecture format, ask students, by section, to make presentations, do role plays, illustrate a position dramatically, debate a point. Or, ask TAs to give short presentations on areas of their expertise. Then invite the whole class to discuss the points illustrated.

13. For debates in a large group, divide the room into two or four groups, assigning one role or position to each group. Have the groups caucus separately to develop their positions before the debate begins. For example, in discussing the positive and negative aspects of a policy approach or community health intervention, divide the room in half for split brainstorming sessions; one group focusing on the positive and the other focusing on the negative. If there is time, have the groups switch positions. Or use the format of public hearings, with one group representing those who have called the hearings, and other groups representing the different protagonists.

14. Use cases to exemplify the issues you want to convey, and conduct the class as a case discussion rather than as a lecture. Cases are particularly useful for practical, how-to teaching situations; for problem-solving or showing how experts solve problems; for situations in which there are a number of right answers; for integrating and applying complex information. In public health, cases can demonstrate policy and management problems, stimulate discussion of various ethical issues in health care, or provide realistic examples of the application of theory and particular methodologies of health care practice.

15. Stop the lecture and ask students to write for one or two minutes in response to a particular question. Then ask them to discuss the question. The writing will give everyone a chance to think about and articulate a response, and may enable broader participation.

16. Let students go to the board to write the results of work in a small group. For example, in the first part of class ask for the strengths and weaknesses of an intervention study. Then divide the room into groups, each with the task of designing a better study with the same exposure and outcome. Groups can go to the board (preferable to asking one student at a time to be at the front of the room) and a spokesperson can present the group's ideas.

Closing the lecture

17. Allow time for questions at the end of lecture. Ask if there are any questions or if students would like to have a point clarified. If your schedule permits, come early to lecture or stay late to answer questions and engage in discussion with students. If you are available five or ten minutes before and after class, some students will talk with you more readily, and you will get to know them and their thoughts. If beginning early and ending late creates a conflict for other colleagues assigned to lecture in the same room, talk with students in the halls before and after class.

18. Use lectures to set up problems or propose study questions for discussion that students are expected to prepare for lab or section. End the lecture with a provocative question. Ask the TAs to begin lab with a discussion of that problem or issue.

19. At the end of your lecture, or at any other appropriate stopping point, give students a one-question "quiz," based on the material just covered in the class. Ask them to answer the question collectively. Leave the room so that they can discuss the question for ten or fifteen minutes. Then return and have them report their answer; discuss with them the reasons for their choice.

20. Do a one-minute paper at the end of class. In this exercise, students write down what they consider (a) the main point of the class and (b) the main question they still have as they leave. You can use some of these questions to begin the next lecture, or students can be asked to bring them to section or lab. One advantage of this technique is that students may listen more carefully and review their notes thoughtfully.



Adapted from Participatory Lectures, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, 1992.
Revised for distribution at the Harvard School of Public Health, 1994. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Ellen Sarkisian

Thanks to the following faculty and teaching assistants for their suggestions about questions related to public health: Iain Aitken, Paul Catalano, Marlene Goldman, Lynn Marshall, Marcello Pagano, Sherri Stuver, Ann Scheck


Copyright © 2002-2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Permission is granted to non-profit educational institutions to print and distribute this document for internal use provided that the Bok Center's authorship and copyright are acknowledged.

Enhancing Your Teaching Effectiveness

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/enhance.htm

Accurately assessing your students' developmental state can direct your planning and impel your teaching. For instance, recognizing a 16-year-old's concern about his appearance and his standing among his peers may promote your rapport with him and eliminate learning barriers.

Keep in mind that chronologic age and developmental stage are not always related. Throughout life, people move sequentially through developmental stages, but most people also fluctuate somewhat among stages, often in response to outside stressors. These stressors can cause a person to regress temporarily to an earlier stage. Sometimes a person may not achieve the task expected of his chronologic age. So you will need to address your students at their current developmental stages, not at the stages at which you would expect them to be because of their chronological ages.

In some situations, hopefully most, you will have time to sit down and develop a formal teaching plan. In others, you will be confronted with a "teachable moment" when the student is ready to learn and is asking pointed questions. Invariably, these moments seem to come at the most inopportune times. At times like these, you face the dilemma: to teach or not to teach. Having a knowledge of basic learning principles will help you take best advantage of these moments. Here are some principles proven to enhance teaching and learning.


Seize the moment
Teaching is most effective when it occurs in quick response to a need the learner feels. So even though you are elbow deep in something else, you should make every effort to teach the student when he or she asks. The student is ready to learn. Satisfy that immediate need for information now, and augment your teaching with more information later.

Involve the student in planning
Just presenting information to the student does not ensure learning. For learning to occur, you will need to get the student involved in identifying his learning needs and outcomes. Help him to develop attainable objectives. As the teaching process continues, you can further engage him or her by selecting teaching strategies and materials that require the student's direct involvement, such as role playing and return demonstration. Regardless of the teaching strategy you choose, giving the student the chance to test his or her ideas, to take risks, and to be creative will promote learning.

Begin with what the student knows
You will find that learning moves faster when it builds on what the student already knows. Teaching that begins by comparing the old, known information or process and the new, unknown one allows the student to grasp new information more quickly.

Move from simple to complex
The student will find learning more rewarding if he has the opportunity to master simple concepts first and then apply these concepts to more complex ones. Remember, however, that what one student finds simple, another may find complex. A careful assessment takes these differences into account and helps you plan the teaching starting point.

Accommodate the student's preferred learning style
How quickly and well a student learns depends not only on his or her intelligence and prior education, but also on the student's learning style preference. Visual learners gain knowledge best by seeing or reading what you are trying to teach; auditory learners, by listening;and tactile or psychomotor learners, by doing.

You can improve your chances for teaching success if you assess your patient's preferred learning style, then plan teaching activities and use teaching tools appropriate to that style. To assess a student's learning style, observe the student, administer a learning style inventory, or simply ask the student how he or she learns best.

You can also experiment with different teaching tools, such as printed material, illustrations, videotapes, and actual equipment, to assess learning style. Never assume, though, that your student can read well -- or even read at all.

Sort goals by learning domain
You can combine your knowledge of the student's preferred learning style with your knowledge of learning domains. Categorizing what the students need to learn into proper domains helps identify and evaluate the behaviors you expect them to show.
Learning behaviors fall in three domains: cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. The cognitive domain deals with intellectual abilities. The psychomotor domain includes physical or motor skills. The affective domain involves expression of feeling about attitudes, interests, and values. Most learning involves all three domains.

Make material meaningful
Another way to facilitate learning is to relate material to the student's lifestyle -- and to recognize incompatibilities. The more meaningful material is to a student, the quicker and easier it will be learned.

Allow immediate application of knowledge
Giving the student the opportunity to apply his or her new knowledge and skills reinforces learning and builds confidence. This immediate application translates learning to the "real world" and provides an opportunity for problem solving, feedback, and emotional support.

Plan for periodic rests
While you may want the students to push ahead until they have learned everything on the teaching plan, remember that periodic plateaus occur normally in learning. When your instructions are especially complex or lengthy, your students may feel overwhelmed and appear unreceptive to your teaching. Be sure to recognize these signs of mental fatigue and let the students relax. (You too can use these periods - to review your teaching plan and make any necessary adjustments.)

Tell your students how they are progressing
Learning is made easier when the students are aware of their progress. Positive feedback can motivate them to greater effort because it makes their goal seem attainable. Also, ask your students how they feel they are doing. They probably want to take part in assessing their own progress toward learning goals, and their input can guide your feedback. You will find their reactions are usually based on what "feels right."

Reward desired learning with praise
Praising desired learning outcomes or behavior improves the chances that the students will retain the material or repeat the behavior. Praising your students' successes associates the desired learning goal with a sense of growing and accepted competence. Reassuring them that they have learned the desired material or technique can help them retain and refine it.

6 Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communication

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/commun-1.htm

By Vicki Ritts, St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley
and James R. Stein, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.

It is not only what you say in the classroom that is important, but it's how you say it that can make the difference to students. Nonverbal messages are an essential component of communication in the teaching process.

Teachers should be aware of nonverbal behavior in the classroom for three major reasons:

1. An awareness of nonverbal behavior will allow you to become better receivers of students' messages.

2. You will become a better sender of signals that reinforce learning.

3. This mode of communication increases the degree of the perceived psychological closeness between teacher and student.

Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors to explore are:

Eye contact
Facial expressions
Gestures
Posture and body orientation
Proximity
Paralinguistics
Humor

Eye contact:

Eye contact, an important channel of interpersonal communication, helps regulate the flow of communication. And it signals interest in others. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speaker's credibility. Teachers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth and credibility.

Facial expressions:

Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits:

Happiness
Friendliness
Warmth
Liking
Affiliation

Thus, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and students will react favorably and learn more.

Gestures:

If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated. A lively and animated teaching style captures students' attention, makes the material more interesting, facilitates learning and provides a bit of entertainment. Head nods, a form of gestures, communicate positive reinforcement to students and indicate that you are listening.

Posture and body orientation:

You communicate numerous messages by the way you walk, talk, stand and sit. Standing erect, but not rigid, and leaning slightly forward communicates to students that you are approachable, receptive and friendly. Furthermore, interpersonal closeness results when you and your students face each other. Speaking with your back turned or looking at the floor or ceiling should be avoided; it communicates disinterest to your class.

Proximity:

Cultural norms dictate a comfortable distance for interaction with students. You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading students' space. Some of these are:

Rocking
Leg swinging
Tapping
Gaze aversion

Typically, in large college classes space invasion is not a problem. In fact, there is usually too much distance. To counteract this, move around the classroom to increase interaction with your students. Increasing proximity enables you to make better eye contact and increases the opportunities for students to speak.

Paralinguistics:

This facet of nonverbal communication includes such vocal elements as:

Tone
Pitch
Rhythm
Timbre
Loudness
Inflection

For maximum teaching effectiveness, learn to vary these six elements of your voice. One of the major criticisms is of instructors who speak in a monotone. Listeners perceive these instructors as boring and dull. Students report that they learn less and lose interest more quickly when listening to teachers who have not learned to modulate their voices.

Humor:

Humor is often overlooked as a teaching tool, and it is too often not encouraged in college classrooms. Laughter releases stress and tension for both instructor and student. You should develop the ability to laugh at yourself and encourage students to do the same. It fosters a friendly classroom environment that facilitates learning. (Lou Holtz wrote that when his players felt successful he always observed the presence of good humor in the locker room.)

Obviously, adequate knowledge of the subject matter is crucial to your success; however, it's not the only crucial element. Creating a climate that facilitates learning and retention demands good nonverbal and verbal skills. To improve your nonverbal skills, record your speaking on video tape. Then ask a colleague in communications to suggest refinements.

R.E.F.O.C.U.S. to Beat Stress

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/energize.htm

Is your energy level dropping? Do you feel burdened with too much work and too little time to do it? Do you sense that your students are becoming lethargic? Then you and your students may be experiencing midcourse droop--an insidious yet common syndrome. Why? When enthusiasm wanes, the ability to cope with stress decreases and the joy of teaching is sometimes lost. Thoreau reminds us that "None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," says Emerson.

At registration time, energy levels were high as you and your students envisioned the mountaintop of growth and possibilities inherent in the learning experience to come. Now at or near midterm the storm clouds of academic and personal problems may have obscured the summits of success.

Midcourse letdown strikes students when they have underestimated the time required to learn the content of your course. Or when poor time managements skills cause them to delay the completion of major assignments until the deadline approaches and panic sets in. Disappointments occur when students fail to achieve the level of success they envisioned. Lower than expected test scores, poorly received contributions to class discussions, rejection by teammates assigned to a group project and the frustration experienced from working with lazy lab partners have taken their toll. What was first perceived as an enjoyable learning adventure may have by midterm become a code-3 struggle for survival.

On the other hand, you may be feeling discouraged because text scores reveal that the class exam averages are much below what you expected. Assignments may have been turned in late or poorly done. You feel that some students seem unable to write clearly and concisely and are exhibiting punctuation and spelling skills. Participation in discussion groups seems to be lackluster, and dozing has become more and more common during your lectures. Furthermore, this group of students seems to be taking twice as long to complete the required lab projects than usual, and in general you feel a bit panicky about how you will ever cover all the required material before finals. If this description fits you, you may have slipped into the quicksand of a mid-semester slump.

Survival experts tell people caught in a bottomless quagmire in the woods to stop struggling -- uncoordinated effort only causes the victim to skin ever deeper. Only by calm, purposeful and coordinated actions can the victims save themselves by swimming through the muck or sand to the safety of a solid shore.

How can you extricate yourself from the ooze of a midcourse sinkhole? Try a REFOCUS strategy. REFOCUS means:

Recognize
Empower
Focus
Objectivize
Commit
Unburden
Surprise

First, consider that a likely cause of midcourse letdown is a slow change of the thought focus from achievement to deficiency. Each time reality doesn't measure up to an envisioned ideal, emotional energy is drained, self-esteem is lowered and feelings of being in control are diminished. The result is instructor burnout. Here is a prescription that can help you rebuild your enthusiasm:

Recognize

Recognize your achievements thus far. Remind yourself of the lectures that were well organized, delivered and received; the visuals that enhanced understanding of a complex issue; the assignments that sparked critical thinking and the innovative ways in which you activated and involved your students in the learning process. Give yourself a pat on the back for learning all your students' names, staying after class to answer questions, meeting with your students even though you don't have an office and taking the time to develop the individualized feedback designed to help each student improve his or her performance.

Recall the work that your students have completed despite the demands of other classes, a job and perhaps a family. Acknowledge the progress your students have made.


Empower

Create a list of your strengths as a teacher. Are you an excellent communicator, manager, instructional designer or leader? When are you at your best -- leading a discussion, planning a collaborative learning activity, delivering a lecture, or going one-on-one with a student who needs help? Maybe you're an outstanding motivator. List your five greatest personal achievements in the past year. Can you remember how you felt during these moments? Reliving these peak experiences can really empower you to teach with greater enthusiasm and sense of purpose.

At the beginning of the second half of your course, perhaps after springbreak, ask your students to begin a class by sharing in a small group setting a personally significant learning experience. Encouraging them to remember and publicly affirm their academic achievements helps motivate and energize learners. Also, many students don't appreciate what they have learned while engaged in the process of reaching an academic goal. Therefore, help your students identify the skills, attitudes and knowledge they have acquired in only a few short weeks or study. For example, many aviation maintenance technology students were gratifyingly surprised when asked to list all the pieces of equipment and tools they could now use as well as the repair and troubleshooting procedures with which they were now familiar. It was then recommended that they update and keep these lists in a folder as data to help them prepare a resume upon graduation. Don't assume that students realize all they have learned or will learn in your course of the value of this education to bettering their lives.


Focus

Concentrate your attention on the material to be learned in the second half of your course and the selection of the most effective teaching style possible. Take a few moments to visualize the students' increased skills and changed behaviors or improved performances that you hope to see at course's end. Take a quick look at your syllabus. Are you on track? Will there be enough time? No? Then you have a management problem. Use a triage system to gain control of the situation. Triage is a strategy used in medicine under emergency conditions to son patients into treatment categories. The number one priority is to treat those who will benefit the most and who require the easiest treatment. Then move to those who require more difficult treatment but will benefit greatly. Last, attend to those who require difficult treatments and probably won't benefit from it. In other words, in difficult situations work to achieve the highest benefit with the least amount of time and effort.

When course time is short and learning is proceeding slowly, work on the material that will bring the greatest reward with the least effort. Plan to accomplish first the learning tasks that will bring the highest reward for your students. When you assign the easy, important tasks first, you often motivate them to continue working until even more difficult responsibilities are completed. Triage thinking can help you more effectively manage the second half of your course.


Objectivize

In the intervening weeks since you formulated your learning targets or objectives, the stresses and strains of teaching and daily living may have caused you to veer from your original instructional plan. If you have refocused your teaching priorities, it's important to create learning targets to guide your post-midterm efforts. Learning targets are a series of statements that describe levels of performance increases that are required for your students to advance. Some faculty think that only teachers in occupational, technical or professional curricula need to develop performance targets. With today's accent on critical thinking, learning to learn, collaborative processes, total quality management, etc., faculty in humanities, business, fine arts and developmental education could significantly improve learning by teaching for doing rather than just knowing. For example, compare two statistics course sections:

Section A is built with knowledge objectives. The objectives are that "at the end of this course students will know the concepts of central tendency, variability, normal distributions, hypothesis testing and analysis of variance." How does the instructor know that these objectives have been achieved? By grading homework problems, unit tests and a comprehensive final test. Students achieving above 60% pass; those scoring below fail.

Section B is constructed using performance targets. The target statement says that "at the end of this course students will have chosen a random population, created an hypothesis, developed a questionnaire, completed an analysis of variance and presented a final report using a PC and recommended statistical software packages." In this course the instructor not only teaches statistical knowledge but ensures that each student can put this knowledge to practical use in a holistic manner. With this design, learning evaluation can be performance based rather than strictly knowledge based.

Which course would you rather take or teach? Which would be of more value to your students? To energize your teaching, apply performance targets.


Commit

After you visualize your goal and create specific, measurable learning targets for your students, commit to achieving them. To reach your goal you'll need a strong commitment; one that will not waver as you encounter difficulties. In teaching nothing goes completely as planned or as expected. The number of variables in the learning process are too great to permit total control. A staunch resolve enables you to persevere through tough times, and it builds self-esteem. Ask your students to recommit to success in learning. Their initial commitment may have weakened and they need to reenergize for the second half of the course. Remind them of the benefits of making short-term sacrifices to obtain long=term rewards.

To illustrate the point, remind them of the value of priming the pump. An old story illustrates the principle. As the tale goes; old Desert Dan traveled the deserts of the southwest digging wells an installing pumps to aid those traversing the parched sands of this region. Buried beneath each pump he left a full jar of water with instructions on how to use it to prime the pump and thereby obtain all the water a thirsty traveler could want. Each dehydrated passerby who reached one of these watering holes was faced with a difficult decision. Drink the water in the jar and hope that it was enough to sustain life until the next water source was reached or commit this precious resource to punp-priming and the promise of greater reward.


Unburden

You don't have to be perfect; you just have to be yourself. You may hold the expectation that as a college teacher you should know all the answers. Once you accept the fact that successful teachers emphasize the roles of learner, presenter, guide, coach, facilitator, designer, evaluator, manager and leader and minimize the role of expert, you unburden yourself from unrealistic expectations. Then teaching becomes much easier and more enjoyable. Your students will appreciate knowing that you and they are on the same learning path. You have just proceeded farther than your students.

Unburden your students by applying good management techniques to your course. Look for barriers to learning that hold your students back or cause them to devote time to unnecessary work. Question your assignments and tests and align them to your learning targets.


Surprise

During the second half of your course variety is often desperately needed to keep your students motivated. Two surprise teaching techniques are discussed:

1. Tell a story. It is said, "A good story can touch something familiar in each of us and yet show us something new about our lives, our world, and ourselves. Stories can also be powerful tools for growth and learning."
However, there are several things you should consider before choosing to tell stories as a teaching strategy. Before telling a tale experienced storytellers consider these aspects -- purpose, practice and priority.

Purpose. Stories should be used to fulfill a definite instructional purpose. They help students visualize and internalize complex issues or concepts. Anecdotes draw students into the learning process by activating their imaginations.

Practice. Storytelling takes practice to master. Effective communicators practice by developing narratives in three parts: context, challenge and climax. Begin the account by setting the stage; describe when and where it happens and introduce the characters. Next, add the dilemma and explain how each of the characters are affected. Resolve the problem in words that convey the kernel of learning contained in the story.

Priority. There are times when excessive storytelling in classes get in the way of learning. To prevent this situation, prioritize your strategies according to their effectiveness and time-benefit. Brief stories can serve as introductions to units of learning or as mental rest spots during a long lecture. Stories spaced about every 20 minutes work well for many faculty who lecture extensively. Narratives can help you summarize material in a memorable way and enable your students to understand how your course material relates to the "real world."


2. Simulate a crisis. Crisis situations occur in most occupations and students should be prepared to think under pressure. "The Crisis Game" provides an excellent way to explore crisis thinking and introduce the element of surprise into your class.
To play, announce to your class that the red phone has just rung and the president or other authority appropriate to your subject area has requested that a student advisory panel be immediately created to deal with a sudden crisis. (You have previously prepared a handout describing a crisis situation applicable to your course's study material.) Then divide your class into groups of five to eight students.

Explain to them that they will have a limited time (say 30 minutes) to discuss the emergency and prepare a contingency plan to meet it. You may wish to assign roles to group members to facilitate this learning activity.

After ten minutes interrupt the groups and verbally add some additional information that simulates the dynamic environment of crisis situations. About ten minutes before the end of the game declare that because of mounting pressures from the press, the group must complete their plans and participate in a press conference in five minutes. This new time frame increases the pressure on the groups to work quickly.

When the time limit is reached the recorder of each group presents the details of their plan to the entire class. After all plans are shared. It is recommended that students be debriefed about how they reacted to the crisis situation and the added pressures of changing information and compressed time schedules.

Through this game, you can accomplish two goals: (1) help students learn how to better function in emergency situations and (2) review in an intriguing manner critical course materials.


This seven step REFOCUS strategy will help you to renergize and renew, and it will help you to continue to teach for success!

Handling the Paper Load

From: http://mwp01.mwp.hawaii.edu/resources/qt-paperload.htm

The kind of patient work that goes into devising appropriate assignments and responding to them intelligently does take more time than other kinds of teaching. But it need not pose impossible burdens. And some work that faculty undertake with the best intentions is actually counter-productive to the goals of improving student writing and thinking.

Some faculty may think . . .
That conscientious teaching requires marking all grammar and language errors.

But research shows . . .
Students can catch more than 60% of their own errors if they are taught to proofread and held to appropriate standards of correctness. By marking every error, we are actually training our students to rely on us as copy-editors. Teachers may instead

1. mark errors on the first page only

2. mark representative errors

3. place checks in the margins where errors occur

4. look over a set of papers quickly and return error-laden essays for proofreading and correction

5. use style editors or other software packages to scan student writing for error. (This last strategy requires some awareness of the limitations of these programs)

6. create peer editing groups in their classes

Some faculty may think . . .
That teachers need to read everything that students write.

But research shows . . .
Students can be asked to write for brief periods at the beginning or end of a class to help them focus or achieve closure. When discussion lags or reaches an impasse, students can be asked to write out a response to share. Students can bring to class written definitions of key terms to debate or questions to stimulate discussion. This kind of informal writing need not even be collected. Its purpose is to stimulate discussion and encourage active engagement with the material.

Some faculty may think . . .
That teachers need to evaluate every piece of writing they collect.

But research shows . . .
Students tend not to read lengthy instructor comments, especially if they will not be allowed to use those comments in composing an additional draft. Non-evaluated assignments can work well and even be the most frequent type of writing used in a writing-intensive class. For example, journals and informal writings, if collected, can be evaluated using a "minimal marking" scheme (i.e., points for completing the assignment plus extra points or a "+" for an insightful response). Or students can be awarded credit for the number of entries submitted, and they can single out a limited number of these for closer scrutiny, grading, and response. For more ideas, see the Writing Activities to Get Students Thinking and Learning.

Some faculty may think . . .
That more is better in terms of how much teachers respond and how thoroughly they address the conceptual problems of the essay.

But research shows . . .
That students are often overwhelmed and paralyzed when they receive essays on which the instructor's comments trail into every margin and leave a depressing map of error and negative response. Even when response is positive, saying too much is often confusing. It is better to choose two or three elements of the essay to focus on, giving highly specific constructive advice or commentary, than to attempt to cover all possible areas of concern.

Some faculty may think . . .
That requiring two drafts of an essay doubles the work.

But research shows . . .
That students usually attend to comments only when they are given a chance to revise. Otherwise, they are likely to give a one-minute glance to the remarks you spent twenty minutes writing--or worse still, look at the grade and toss the essay. It makes more sense, then to invest time and energy responding to the first draft and to make these comments truly facilitative. Respond to the final draft only briefly, and let these comments be more evaluative.

Some faculty may think . . .
That "writing-intensive" means that students should do 3-5 separate, unrelated assignments, each one entailing extensive time commitments in devising assignments and responding to them.
But research shows . . .
That students often benefit most when the work of the semester can be conceived as one project, phased in stages or logical sequences. Moving through a logical sequence of assignments is one way to increase the level of conceptual difficulty gradually, and to ensure that students build on material they have studied in earlier portions of the syllabus. It is more cost-effective for instructors as well, since in some cases they will have seen and responded to smaller components of a project before the cumulative work comes in.

Allaying Students' Anxieties about Tests

From: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/allay.html

Anxiety can interfere with students' performance on tests. You can reduce students' anxiety and enhance their performance by taking care in how you prepare students for an exam, how you administer and return the test, and how you handle makeup tests. All students, but especially freshmen and sophomores, can benefit from knowing what they will be asked to do on an exam and under what conditions. Students will also feel more relaxed and less intimidated if you provide reassurance and encouragement rather than dire warnings about a test's difficulty. The suggestions below are designed to help you prepare your students to do their best on tests.


General Strategies

Make the first exam relatively easy. Research on motivation indicates that early success in a course increases students' motivation and confidence (Lucas, 1990). In particular, students who do well on the first test generally improve their grades on subsequent tests (Guskey, 1988).

Give more than one examination. The length of the school term, the difficulty level of the course, and the amount of course material all determine the number of exams an instructor gives. Periodic testing during the term has been shown to improve students' performance on the final exam (Lowman, 1984). Giving two or more midterm exams also spreads out the pressure, allows students to concentrate on one chunk of material at a time, and allows students and instructors to monitor progress.

Avoid "pop" quizzes. Unannounced or surprise quizzes may penalize students who are unable to prepare for every single class meeting. (Source: Jacobs and Chase, 1992)

Give students advice on how to study. Help students develop appropriate study strategies to organize and understand information from the assigned readings and class notes. Consult with your student learning center for information. Also see "Helping Students Learn." (Source: Mealey and Host, 1992)

Encourage students to study in groups. According to researchers, students who study in groups recall more information than students working alone and are able to overcome their feelings of academic inadequacy and isolation (Mealey and Host, 1992).

Schedule extra office hours before a test. Some instructors schedule extra office hours for the week or so before an exam to give students a chance to ask questions and go over difficult aspects of the material. They especially encourage study groups to visit during office hours.

Schedule review sessions before major exams. See "The Last Days of Class" for advice on how to structure a review session.

Ask students how you can help them feel less anxious. Students often make requests that faculty can easily accommodate, such as providing information about the test format, offering a review session, or refraining from walking around during the exam. (Source: Mealey and Host, 1992)


Preparing Students for an Exam

Give a diagnostic test early in the term. An early diagnostic test alerts students to the prerequisite skills and knowledge they need to succeed in your class. Some faculty give diagnostic tests throughout the term to identify which students are keeping up and which need help and to enable all students to identify the areas they need to work on. These diagnostic tests provide students with quick and frequent feedback and typically do not count heavily in the final grade. (Sources: Ericksen, 1969; Svinicki, 1976)

Attach a pool of final exam questions to the course syllabus and distribute both on the first day of class. A faculty member who uses this technique attaches to the syllabus fifty essay questions, all of which the class discusses during the term. The final exam is composed of five essay questions from the list. Under this system, students need not spend the semester worrying about what will be on the final. If the exam is too long to be attached to the syllabus, bind it to the course reader so that every student has a copy at a small additional cost. (Source: "Exams: Alternative Ideas and Approaches," 1989)

Put old exams on file in the department office or library. Reviewing past exams gives students clues about what to study. Students can analyze old exams for format (length of test, number of points for each type of question), types of questions, and level of difficulty. If your campus is networked, you can enter exams onto a file server and students can retrieve them whenever they want.

Distribute practice exams. Practice tests with answers help students gauge what is expected of them. You can use practice exams as the basis for review sessions or student study groups. If you will be administering a multiple-choice test, you could distribute the stems of multiple-choice questions but not the response choices; for example, "Which of the following statements best characterizes Melanie Kleins view of the first year of life?" (Source: Erickson and Strommer, 1991)

Before an exam, explain the format to students. Let students know the number of questions, whether the test will be multiple-choice or essay and open or closed book, and whether they can bring in notes.

Give students advice on how to prepare for an exam. For example, remind them to allocate their study time in proportion to the relative importance of various topics. See "Multiple-Choice and Matching Tests" and "Short-Answer and Essay Tests" for suggestions to give students for those types of exams. To lessen students' tension before a test, give the following recommendations:

Avoid cramming by spreading studying over several weeks.

Eat sensibly the night before a test and get a good night's sleep.

Arrive early for the test.

Take deep relaxing breaths as the test starts.

Administering Tests

Duplicate extra copies of the exam. Have extra copies on hand to replace copies that have blank pages or are collated incorrectly. (Source: McKeachie, 1986)

Administer the test yourself. You will want to be present to announce any corrections (of typographical errors, for example) or changes in the exam. Your presence can also motivate and reassure students and signal to them the importance of the test. Arrive early on the day of the test to answer questions and stay late to talk with students. (Sources: Jacobs and Chase, 1992; Lowman, 1984)

Read the instructions aloud at the beginning of class. Even if you write the clearest of instructions, it is helpful to read them aloud to the class. Ask students whether they have any questions about what they are supposed to do. Be brief, however, since students want to use their time to show you what they know.

Plan for "what ifs." Decide how you will respond to questions such as "What if we don't finish?" or "What if we think two answers are correct?"

Minimize temptations for cheating. Actively proctor exams, unless your institution is on the honor system. See "Preventing Academic Dishonesty" for advice on ways to reduce cheating during exams.

Don't hover over the class. Bring a book or work that will occupy you so that you will not be looking over students' shoulders. But be watchful to discourage cheating. (Source: Mealey and Host, 1992)

If there is no clock in the room, keep students apprised of the time. At the start of the exam write on the board the beginning time, the finishing time, and the time remaining. Once or twice update the time remaining and announce the last segment ("You have five minutes left."). Some faculty give students prompts during the test ("If you are not yet on question 5, you need to work a little more quickly"). Keep to the finishing time -it is unfair to allow some students to go on working when others must leave to go to another class.

Devote part of the session to reviewing the answers with students. One faculty member gives a thirty-minute midterm in a fifty-minute class. Students turn in their answer sheets after thirty minutes, but they keep the question sheet. The remaining class time is devoted to going over the correct answers and answering questions (Friedman, 1987). A variation on this technique is to divide the class into small groups and have them review answers and then reconvene as a class to discuss areas of disagreement or confusion. Another option is to ask for student volunteers who will meet with you immediately after the test to identify any specific problems with the exam. Or you could set up a student exam review committee. See "Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course."

Make one copy of the answer sheet available at the end of the test period. One faculty member described by Jacobs and Chase (1992) places a corrected test copy (multiple-choice items) on his desk so that students can review it after they have turned in their own exam. This is only possible, of course, in small classes.


Letting Students Show What They Know

Give students the opportunity to comment on the test. Researchers report that giving students space on the test itself to explain their responses to multiple-choice items helped relieve students' anxiety and reduced posttest complaints from students. Students were directed to write a short justification for any answer they felt needed more explanation or for questions they perceived to be tricky. The researchers noted that students averaged less than one explanation per test over four tests. The instructors added a point for a "good explanation of a wrong answer" and subtracted a point for "a bad explanation of a right answer" (Dodd and Leal, 1988; Nield and Wintre, 1986). Or you can ignore the comments on those items for which a student selected the correct multiple-choice option. Some faculty offer students extra credit for rewriting multiple-choice items (limit two items per test).

Include a blank question on the exam. Ask students to write a question or pose a problem that they were well prepared to answer. Grade students on the quality of the question (level of difficulty, appropriateness) and their answer. (Source: "Exams: Alternative Ideas and Approaches," 1989)

Include one or more extra-credit questions on the exam. Give students the opportunity to answer additional questions for extra credit at the end of the test. Add these points to their scores and to offset items they answered incorrectly.

Let students "buy" information from you during the exam. Tell students that midway through the exam (say, between twenty and thirty minutes of a sixty-minute test) they can ask you questions for a price. The price is losing points from their total score. For example, a student might ask whether an answer is right or wrong at a cost of one penalty point; an equation or formula may cost two penalty points; a diagram setup, four penalty points; and so on. A faculty member in mathematics who uses this technique reports that half of a typical class takes advantage of this approach to help them "unfreeze" on difficult problems. A chemistry professor uses a similar strategy but makes the option available to all students. He distributes a "test insurance page," in a lottery scratch-off format, to students along with their exams. The page contains clues to answers; each time students scratch off a clue, points are deducted from their total score. (Sources: Ellis, 1992; Gordon, 1988)

Let students bring in "crib sheets." As reported in "Exams: Alternative Ideas and Approaches" (1989) and Janick (1990), some faculty have had success by asking students to prepare one 5" x 8" index card that they can consult during the exam. According to the faculty, this technique helps students make decisions about what material is most important, and it can alleviate pretest anxiety. Vessey and Woodbury (1992) report negative effects of using crib sheets. Students, they believe, become "crib sheet focused"; they fall to answer the exam questions appropriately and instead look for key words on the test question that they can match to key terms on their crib sheet. When a match is found, students simply end up transcribing their crib sheet to their test.

Encourage students to evaluate the exam. If you want a sense of how students felt about the exam, ask them to complete an unsigned evaluation form that poses questions such as the following (adapted from "Let Students Grade the Exam," 1987):

Did the content you expected to see appear on this exam?

Identify the questions you never expected to see.

Were the questions clear enough that, even though you may not have known the answer, you knew what was being asked?

What questions confused you?

Or ask students to give a letter grade to the content, format, and fairness of the test.

Give students "a second chance to learn." After students turn in their in-class, closed-book exam, they receive a second copy to take home and complete as an open-book exam. Both exams are scored, and students can earn back up to one-half of the points lost on the in-class exam. A variation is not to give students a take-home test but instead to schedule, some days later, a repeat test containing equivalent items. Grading is handled by weighting the two exams differently: the lower score counts 25 percent and the higher score 75 percent. (Sources: Davidson, House, and Boyd, 1984; Murray, 1990)


Returning Examinations

Return test papers promptly. Most students are anxious to know how they have done, and a quick turnaround also encourages relearning or corrective learning. Most experts recommend that tests be returned within five days. Laws governing the privacy and confidentiality of student records forbid the posting of grades by name, initials, or student numbers; confidentiality and concerns about security also dictate that exams not be left in a pile in the department office for students to pick up. If you cannot return papers to your students during class or office hours (using photo IDs if necessary), arrange for a staff member in the department to return the tests. For example, let students know that they can pick up their own test from the department secretary between 3 and 5 p.m. in the department office. (Sources: Lowman, 1984; Unruh, 1990)

Use some class time to discuss the overall results. After making some general comments on how the class performed as a whole, you can show the general distribution of scores, note items missed by many people, and correct widespread misunderstandings. For essay tests, describe what you expected in a good answer and the most common problems. Some faculty read or distribute unsigned excerpts from outstanding papers. Smith (1992) returns graded multiple-choice exams to students and then divides them into groups to discuss the answers among themselves. "Questionable" questions are referred to the instructor for discussion by the entire class. She reports that having students review exams in groups often takes less time than her own reviews and students report enjoying it more. (Source: McKeachie, 1986; Smith, 1992)

Schedule extra office hours after returning a test. Students who come to see you may be angry or may try to have their grades changed.

Request that students wait twenty-four hours before coming to see you. This gives them a chance to reread the exam, cool down, and prepare specific questions.

Let students know that if they request a review of the grading of their test, you reserve the right to change the grade either positively or negatively.

Ask students to come with specific questions (not "Why is my grade so low?"). Some faculty request that students prepare a brief paragraph expressing their complaint and justifying the correctness of their answer.

When a student comes to see you, listen carefully. Do not interrupt the student to rebut each point.

Try to shift the focus of the discussion from grades to problemsolving. Ask, "What can we do to help you do better next time?" Help the student shift his or her attitude from blaming you or the test toward gaining motivation to work more effectively.

Don't change a grade out of sympathy or compassion but only because you have made a clerical error or mistakenly evaluated a response.

(Sources: Jacobs and Chase, 1992; Jedrey, 1984, McKeachie, 1986)


Arranging Makeup Tests

Avoid the need to arrange for makeup tests by giving frequent exams. Makeup tests are problematic. If you devise a new test, it might not be comparable to the original test. But if you use the same test, some students may have talked to others who took the original test. Scheduling a makeup test also poses logistical problems. One way to avoid using makeup tests is to give four exams, for example, and count the grades of only three. Students who take all four tests can drop their lowest score. Students who miss an exam will be graded on the three they have taken. Some faculty who give two midterms give double weight to one if a student misses the other. (Source: McKeachie, 1986)

Give students options on the number of tests they take. Buchanan and Rogers (1990) offer students the following options: (1) four multiple-choice tests, (2) four multiple-choice tests and a final, or (3) three multiple-choice tests and a final. In options one and three, each test is worth 25 percent of the course grade; in option two, each test is worth 20 percent. Students who miss one of the multiple-choice tests must elect option three. Students who miss two tests are handled on a case-by-case basis. The researchers report that about 5 percent of the students elect to miss any given test.

Give an additional exam for the entire class at the end of the semester. The grade on this extra test can replace a missed exam or replace a lower grade. This procedure frees you from policing excuses and illness on exam days. This option also helps out the student who has an off day on a test. (Source: Shea, 1990)

Hand out essay questions in advance. If you distribute in advance a list of essay questions from which the midterm questions will be taken, you will not have to write a makeup test. (Source: Lewis, 1982)

Give a two-hour rather than a three-hour final exam and use the last hour for makeup tests. By administering makeup tests during the time block reserved for the final exam, you can avoid the complexities of special scheduling.

Give an oral exam as a substitute. Oral exams are a practical alternative only in small classes and are more effective in advanced courses, where higher levels of learning can be assessed. Oral exams typically cover less material, but in more depth, than written exams.

Completely Rework Your Lecture Notes

From: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/compendium/suggestions/file30.html


IF YOU WANT TO:

1. Be well-prepared

2. Maintain your enthusiasm for the subject matter

3. Have your course reflect your own professional growth

YOU MAY WISH TO CONSIDER:

Completely reworking your lecture notes each time you teach the course.

"It's important to completely redo my notes each time I teach the course," says an economics professor. It helps me rethink the material so that the ideas seem fresh and new to me as well as to the students. This increases my enthusiasm for the subject matter and I think this is communicated to the students."

"My lectures change somewhat every time I teach the course," says a professor of psychology. "In this way, over a period of six to eight years, they change quite radically. This is partly because the field is changing, but it is also because my own ideas continue to develop."

Although the myth of the professor who teaches with yellowed and musty notes is almost unheard of in a major university, the importance of re-creating lecture notes each time a course is taught -- even if back-to-back within the same year -- was stressed by nearly all excellent teachers as a way of keeping themselves fresh and interested as well as interesting to the students.

Limitations on Use of Suggestion

Discipline: None
Course Level: None
Course Size: None
Mode: Lecture, primarily

Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California

Preparing or Revising a Course

From: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/prepcors.htm

By Barbara Gross Davis

In designing or revising a course, faculty are faced with at least three crucial decisions: what to teach, how to teach it, and how to ensure that students are learning what is being taught. Often, the most difficult step in preparing or revising a course is deciding which topics must be excluded if the whole is to be manageable. Many teachers, hoping to impart to students everything they know about a subject, attempt to include too much material by half. The following suggestions below are designed to help you limit the content of your course, structure and sequence the activities and assignments, set policies, and handle administrative tasks.

General Strategies

If the course is new to you but has been offered before, talk with faculty who have taught it previously. Ask your colleagues for their syllabus, list of assignments and papers, and old exams. Find out about the typical problems students have with the material and the difficulties the instructor encountered. If appropriate, look at past student evaluations of the course to help you identify its strengths and weaknesses.

If the course is new to you and has never been offered before, review textbooks on the topic of the course. Reviewing textbooks will give you a sense of the main themes and issues that your course might address, which is especially useful if you are preparing a course outside your areas of specialization. (Source: Brown, 1978)

If you have previously taught the course, begin by assembling everything associated with the course. Gather a copy of the syllabus, textbooks and readings, handouts, exams, your notes for each class session, and the past evaluations by students. Read the evaluations to get a sense of the course's strengths and weaknesses. Then take a look at the various course materials in light of students' comments, changes in the field, and your own changing interests. (Source: "Course Materials Review," 1987)

Identify the constraints in teaching the course. As you begin to design the course, ask yourself, How many hours are available for instruction? How many students will be enrolled? Are the students primarily majors or nonmajors? At what level? What material can I safely assume that students will know? What courses have they already completed? What courses might they be taking while enrolled in mine? Will readers or graduate student instructors be available? What sorts of technological resources will be in the classroom? (Sources: Brown, 1978; Ory, 1990)

Think about how your course relates to other courses in your department's curriculum. Does your course serve as the introduction for more advanced classes? Is it a general education course that may provide the only exposure nonmajors will have to the content area? Is it an advanced course for majors?


Deciding What You Want to Accomplish

Establish goals. What do you expect your students to do or to produce as a result of taking the course? Writing down goals is important for at least four reasons (Erickson, n.d.): (1) the process forces you to clarify what you want your students to accomplish; (2) your list of goals will help you select appropriate teaching methods, materials, and assignments; (3) you can use your list of goals to communicate your expectations to students, to let them know what they are expected to accomplish; (4) your list of goals will be useful to colleagues who teach courses that rely on yours as a prerequisite. McKeachie (1986), however, warns faculty against becoming obsessed with writing detailed behavioral objectives. The chief purpose of writing goals is to help you plan your course and specify what you want to do.

Identify both content and noncontent goals. Fuhrmann and Grasha (1983) recommend identifying both content goals (for example, "understand the key forces affecting the rise of Japan as an economic power") and noncontent goals (for example, "become a good team member and work collaboratively with other students" or "learn to tolerate opposing points of view"). They advise faculty to start with a general list and then refine the goals to make them more specific. What do you expect from students? How will students demonstrate that they have mastered the goal? What will constitute acceptable performance? For example, if the general content goal is for students to understand the rise of Japan as an economic factor, a specific content goal might be that students will analyze in depth how technology has affected Japan's economic dominance. A specific noncontent goal might be that students will work in groups of three on an out-of-class project and prepare a joint report.

To get started in writing course goals, think about "the big picture." For example, imagine yourself overhearing a group of graduating seniors who have taken your course and are discussing why it was among the most valuable courses they have ever taken. What would they be saying about the course? Or imagine that several of your students will become local or national power brokers, or that half of them will have to drop out of school and work full-time. Would you change the way you are teaching your course? Why? Is there anything different you would like these students to learn? (Source: Bergquist and Phillips, 1977)

Scale down your goals to a realistic list. Adjust your ideal goals by taking into consideration the different abilities, interests, and expectations of your students and the amount of time available for class instruction. How many goals can your students accomplish in the time available? (Source: Lowman, 1984)


Defining and Limiting Course Content

After you have "packed" all your topics into a preliminary list, toss out the excess baggage. Designing a course is somewhat like planning a transcontinental trip. First, list everything that you feel might be important for students to know, just as you might stuff several large suitcases with everything that you think you might need on a trip. Then severely pare down the topics you have listed, just as you might limit yourself to one or two pieces of luggage. Research shows that too much detail and too many topics work against students' learning the material (Beard and Hartley, 1984).

Distinguish between essential and optional material. Divide the concepts or topics you want to cover into three groups: basic material should be mastered by every student, recommended material should be mastered by every student seeking a good knowledge of the subject, and optional material should be mastered by those students with special interests and aptitudes. Lectures and exams should focus on the basic elements of the course. Recommended and optional topics, labeled as such for students, can be included in lectures, supplementary materials, and readings.

Emphasize the core concepts. For example, in engineering, as one professor points out, there are thousands of formulas, but all of these are variations on a very limited number of basic ideas or theories. In a single course, students might encounter a thousand equations. Rote memorization is futile because no one can remember that many equations. Instead, the instructor repeatedly emphasizes the fundamentals by showing students how the thousand equations are embedded in a dozen basic ones.

Stress the classic issues, or the most enduring values or truths. Often the most interesting issues and themes for undergraduates turn out to be those that originally attracted you to the discipline.

Cut to the chase. Go for the most critical skills or ideas and drop the rest. For example, in solving mathematical problems, the most important task is setting up the problem -- the rest is the mechanics. Not every problem needs to be worked through to completion. (Source: Svinicki, 1990-1991)

Give students a conceptual framework on which to hang major ideas and factual information. To the uninitiated, your field may look like an unruly mass of facts devoid of logic or unifying principles. To understand the relationship among concepts rather than simply memorize dozens of discrete points, students need a framework -- a basic theory, a theme, a typology, or a controversial issue. Make this framework apparent to the students through repeated references to it.

Prepare a detailed syllabus. Share the conceptual framework, logic, and organization of your course with students by distributing a syllabus. See "The Course Syllabus."


Structuring the Course

Devise a logical arrangement for the course content. Material can be arranged chronologically, by topic or category, from concrete to abstract or vice versa, from theory to application or vice versa, by increasing level of skill or complexity, or by other schemes. Some courses -- in history or literature -- almost demand a chronological sequence. Here are some other strategies for organizing material (Bergquist and Phillips, 1977, pp. 146-149):

Micro/macro: Begin by describing a large complex phenomenon (macro perspective) or offer a detailed analysis of one aspect of the phenomenon (micro perspective). Establish a broad general base of knowledge and information (macro) or focus on a specific event or concern (micro).

Distal/proximal: Begin by presenting an immediate and pressing problem related to the field of study (proximal perspective) or by describing the origins, heritage or context (distal perspective). Begin with the relevance of the subject matter (proximal) or with historical or theoretical perspectives (distal).

Phenomenon/structure: Emphasize description and analysis of unique and significant events, people, or ideas (phenomenon) or emphasize description and analysis of theories, themes, and universal applications (structure). Focus on specific works, events, or people in their unique setting or focus on general patterns and concepts that are commonly shared by or expressed through different works, events, and people.

Stark and others (1990) offer additional sequencing patterns, suggesting that topics may be ordered according to the following:

How relationships occur in the real world

How students will use the information in social, personal, or career settings

How major concepts and relationships are organized in the discipline

How students learn

How knowledge has been created in the field

List all class meetings. On your preliminary schedule mark university holidays, major religious holidays, breaks, and, if appropriate, college events that may preempt classes. Fill in this schedule with tentative topics and dates for exams. Keep in mind the rhythm of the term, including "down" times. Leave open at least part of the class before each exam to allow for catch-up or review. Leave extra time for complex or difficult topics. Schedule time during the middle of the semester for getting feedback from students on how well the course is going (see "Fast Feedback"). Also give special consideration to the first day of class (see "The First Day of Class"), the meetings right before exams, and the last two or three classes, which can be used to integrate and pull together the themes of the course (see "The Last Days of Class").

Select appropriate instructional methods for each class meeting. Instead of asking, What am I going to do in each class session? focus on What are students going to do? (Bligh, 1971). Identify which topics lend themselves to which types of classroom activities, and select one or more activities for each class session: lectures; small group discussions; independent work; simulations, debates, case studies, and role playing; demonstrations; experiential learning activities; instructional technologies; collaborative learning work, and so on. (See other tools for descriptions of these methods.) For each topic, decide how you will prepare the class for instruction (through reviews or previews), present the new concepts (through lectures, demonstrations, discussion), have students apply what they have learned (through discussion, in-class writing activities, collaborative work), and assess whether students can put into practice what they have learned (through testing, discussion, problem solving, and so on).

Design in-class and homework assignments. See "Designing Effective Writing Assignments," "Homework: Problem Sets," "Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams," and "Supplements and Alternatives to Lecturing: Encouraging Student Participation."


Selecting Textbooks and Readings

Choose textbooks and reading assignments that reflect your goals. The textbook exerts a greater influence on what students learn than the teaching method (McKeachie, 1986). Explain to your students how the readings relate to the course goals and classroom activities. Some faculty assign texts that repeat material covered in class-or vice versa -in order to reinforce the content. Some readings may be assigned to elaborate on the lectures by providing applications and examples. Some readings may be intended to convey additional material or to give contrasting points of view. (Source: "Selecting a Textbook," 1987)

Consider a range of criteria in selecting readings. If several textbooks, reports, or articles are appropriate to your course goals, select among them by judging the following (adapted from Lowman, 1984; "Selecting a Textbook," 1987; Wright, 1987):

Accuracy and currency of content

Coherence and clarity of content

Level of difficulty and interest for students (challenging but not inappropriately difficult)
Cost

Choose the less expensive work if it is of comparable quality.

Choose paperbacks rather than hardbacks

Limit the total cost of books for your course by placing some works on reserve in the library

Size (heavy large texts are hard to carry)

Format and layout (ease of reading)

McKeachie (1986) recommends selecting textbooks that match your own point of view because students may be annoyed or confused if you express disagreement with the text. To complement the principal textbook, however, and expose students to a range of perspectives, you could select articles and shorter texts that espouse points of view different from your own.

Assign a mix of texts and articles, including some current pieces. Advanced courses typically include journal articles, essays, research reports, or photocopied course readers. But even in lower-division courses, students should have an opportunity to read at least a few recent publications or journal articles. One faculty member in economics assigns the Tuesday editorial page of the Wall Street Journal each week. She uses these editorials as a basis for discussions and for exam questions that ask students to compare the editorials with textbook presentations on related topics.

Foster a habit of reading throughout college. Encourage students to explore beyond the reading material you assign. Eble (1988) recommends setting up in your office a shelf of books and articles selected for brevity, relevance, and interest. Invite students to browse through the materials and borrow items.

Follow the copyright laws. If you are compiling a photocopied reader, be sure to observe the copyright laws, available from your library or from photocopying vendors. Services have sprung up to handle faculty requests for permission to reproduce copyrighted material. For example, the Anthology Permissions Service in Salem, Massachusetts, authorizes copying of copyrighted material through blanket agreements with publishers. PUBNET Permissions, a project of the trade association Association of American Publishers, processes permissions requests by electronic mail to help faculty members reproduce copyrighted materials quickly and easily. (Source: Blum, 1991)

Take advantage of the new technologies in publishing. At least one national publisher lets professors order customized versions of its publications. The publisher will produce bound copies of chapters in its textbooks and supplementary articles, in any order the instructor requests. In some cases, if a professor orders only selected chapters of a textbook, the price is less than the cost of the entire text. Some publishers have gone a step farther and developed data bases of individual chapters from different texts, journal articles, case studies, and other material from which a faculty member can create a custom textbook. The materials are compiled, indexed, paginated, and bound within forty-eight hours. Other publishers offer low-cost versions of textbooks stripped of such frills as study questions and multicolor art and graphics. It may also be possible to make the content of scholarly print journals available electronically so that students need only have access to a computer and the campus network to complete the assigned reading. (Sources: Miller, 1990; "Stalled Economy Leads to 'No-Frills' Textbooks," 1992; Watkins, 1991)

Be conscious of workload. At most colleges, students are expected to spend two to three hours on outside work for each hour in class. For simple texts, you might estimate that students can read about twenty pages an hour -- though, obviously, the rate will depend on your students' abilities and the nature of the reading material.


Setting Course Policies

"Extra credit" assignments. If you are offering extra credit assignments, announce them in class so that all students will be aware of the option. Some faculty allow only students who are doing satisfactory (C or higher) work on the regular assignments to undertake extra credit tasks. Here are some examples of extra credit options ("Extra Credit -- Taking Sides and Offering Advice," 1991, pp. 5-6):

One or two weeks before an exam, give students worksheets on the topics being studied in that unit. To receive extra credit, a student must complete the worksheet and bring it to the instructor's office for discussion and scoring.

Offer a fixed number of extra credit points for a specified activity: attendance at a professional conference, submission of a book review in the topic area, and so on.

Offer extra credit for completing problems in the textbook that were not assigned as homework.

Offer students extra credit for keeping a journal account of all the relevant newspaper or magazine articles, books, or monographs they read in addition to the assigned readings. journal entries should include the title, author, date, and source as well as some personal commentary. journals are checked weekly on the spot and turned in at the end of the term.

Attendance. Let students know in the syllabus and on the first day of class that you expect them to come to class regularly. Do your best to make class time worthwhile -- a time when real work takes place. Students are also more likely to attend if they know that exams will include items that have been discussed in class only. In most cases, however, attendance should not be mandatory or a factor in your grading Policy. Grades should be based on students' mastery of the course content and not on such nonacademic factors as attendance. See "Grading Practices." If you must require attendance, let students know how you will determine whether they come to class. Give bonus points for perfect or near perfect attendance rather than subtracting points for absences (Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, 1989). The numerical result is the same but students will feel better having their attendance rewarded rather than their absences penalized. In addition to students' attendance, you should pay attention to your own patterns. Some observers recommend that instructors come early to class (to let students know you are interested and available), start on time (to reward the prompt), end on time (to enable students to leave for their next class), and stay late (to answer questions from students) (Heine and others, 1981).

Makeup exams. For advice on offering makeup tests -- and ways to avoid having to do so -- see "Quizzes, Tests, and Exams."

Late work. Be clear on whether you will accept late work and the penalties for missing deadlines. Some faculty members deduct an increasing number of points for each day an assignment is late. Others give a sufficient number of assignments so that a student is allowed to drop one or two without penalty (due to low grades or missing work). Still other faculty members give students two days of grace that they can apply to missed deadlines: a single assignment can be two days late or two assignments can each be a day late (Marincovich and Rusk, 1987).


Handling Administrative Tasks

Order books early and anticipate foul-ups. Double-check on the progress of your order with the bookstore a month or so before the term begins. Once the books have arrived, check back with the bookstore to see how many copies there are. No matter what precautions you take, there is always a chance that the books won't arrive before classes begin. You can make it easier on yourself and your class by not relying on books being available during the first two weeks of class. Instead, assign readings that you distribute, that are readily available on reserve in the library, or that students purchase from a photocopy vendor.

Place materials on reserve before the term begins or package reserve materials for students to purchase. Consult with campus librarians about the procedures for putting materials on reserve. Let your students know in which library the readings are located, the length of time they are available for use, and the number of copies on reserve. Because as many as 85 percent of the students check out reserve material to make their own photocopies rather than read it in the library ("Two Groups Tackle Reserve Book Problems," 1992), consider offering students the chance to purchase the reserve readings. (Sources: Janes and Hauer, 1988; "Two Groups Tackle Reserve Book Problems, 1992)

Make logistical arrangements in advance. Before the term begins, order audiovisual equipment, videos, or films, contact guest speakers, and arrange for field trips.