Teaching & Learning Links of the Week: March 24, 2017

Teaching & Learning Links to See This Week

A roundup of four intriguing or informative posts and articles from the around the internet:

"Why Won't They Ask Us for Help"

The results of a survey of students indicate some of the biggest reasons (including student, environmental, and instructor factors) as to why students do not seek out the help they need from instructors. 

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-classroom-management/wont-ask-us-help/ 

"5 Ways College Teachers Can Improve Their Instruction"

Author Norman Eng offers pedagogical tips from a K-12 and marketing perspective.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/teaching-college/ 

"How to Teach Students How to Read on Screens, And Why You Might Want To"

Digital literacy skills are becoming increasingly essential for all students to be successful in college. This article shares some helpful strategies for both instructors and students.

http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-to-teach-students-how-to-read-on-screens-and-why-you-might-want-to/63789 

"When Students Self-Segregate"

One professor shares his thoughts and observations as he wrestles with the question of how to handle (if at all) situations in which students students self-segregate in the classroom.

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/03/24/professor-explores-why-his-students-self-segregate-essay 

Do you know of an interesting article that you would like to share with the ATLE community? Let us know! Email atle@usf.edu

Teaching & Learning Links of the Week: March 17, 2017

A roundup of four intriguing posts and articles from around the Internet

The Distracted Classroom

Every teacher is eventually confronted with the distractions posed by digital devices in the classroom. This article offers an interesting take on this ubiquitous problem and how teachers can approach it, all based on a new book detailing the cognitive neuroscience of distraction.

http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Distracted-Classroom/239446?cid=FEATUREDNAV

Doing "Participation Points" Right

Awarding points for participating in class discussions is a common tactic for extrinsically motivating students to take an active role in their learning. This article offers helpful advice for implementing a participation points system and provides an "engagement rubric" that can be used to score student participation and, perhaps more importantly, to communication to students what they should do to be an active learner.

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/participation-points-making-student-engagement-visible/

Measuring Active Learning in the Classroom?

Many teachers strive to promote active learning in their classrooms, but how can they know how active their classroom really is? This article describes an app named Decibel Analysis for Research in Teaching (DART), which analyzes classroom speech patterns to provide a rough measure of how "active" a classroom is. This article highlights the broader question: How can active learning be measured?

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/07/study-details-tool-help-professors-measure-amount-active-learning-happening-their

From Virtual Reality Consumption to Creation

Virtual reality is beginning to find its place in certain educational settings, but as of now creating virtual reality content seems out of reach for the typical teacher or student. This article describes efforts to make possible virtual reality content creation for education.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-03-14-the-minecraft-effect-educators-hope-to-move-students-from-vr-consumption-to-creation