Your Brain on Teaching and Learning: Series One What is Brain Plasticity? Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize and restructure itself throughout a person’s lifetime. It is a result of the brain’s ability to form new neural connections and strengthen existing ones based on the activities we engage in and the information we…
“Is disengaged.” “Is easily distracted.” “Shows no interest.” “Never shows up.” No professor wants to use these phrases to describe their students, but disengagement is a persistent problem — making descriptions such as these all too common today. Experiential Learning can help. Experiential learning is a powerful educational approach that helps students remain focused as…
Previous Educatus blog posts have discussed outcomes-based assessment and grading outcomes versus grading assignments. This post will discuss a continuum of outcomes-based practices including referencing outcomes, assessing outcomes, and reporting student achievement on outcomes. Referencing Outcomes Referencing outcomes is a beginning outcomes-based practice. Outcomes are referenced within each assignment, often with the instruction section. Here, the…
by Racquel Biem Defining Competencies and Outcomes Although there, is no widely accepted distinction between a competency and an outcome, there is sufficient commonality for the following working definition to be used to improve the structure and clarity of courses and programs. A competency is an overarching capability the learner can do. Examples include critical…
By Racquel Biem, Educational Development Specialist, Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning When we think of increasing voice and choice in the classroom we may immediately think of choice in assignments or assessment tasks. Whereas these do increase student choice, these alone do not get to the heart of increasing student voice and seeing…
by Racquel Biem In this blog post, we will examine why assessing outcomes can target learning improvements better than grading assignments. Previous Educatus blog posts have talked about outcomes-based assessment, clarifying that outcomes-based assessment starts with articulating what students will be able to do (the learning outcomes), followed by designing learning activities and assessments linked…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba The exchange of questions and responses is vital to teaching and learning. The types of questions we pose as instructors should grab our students’ attention and curiosity, reinforce key points, encourage reflection, and foster active learning. Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 1 explored creating open-ended questions by using…
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools we have as instructors. Just like asking good questions in class, promoting discussion with questions that capture students’ attention and stimulate intellectual engagement can be facilitated online, using Canvas Discussions. Crafting questions for a discussion forum depends on the purpose of the discussion,…
We all know that students are more successful when they have a deep interest in course materials or strong thinking skills. Similarly, we know we can help students do better when assessment is transparent. However, we are less aware of the impact that our course design has on likely student persistence and success. In online…
Once students start completing quizzes and assignments in your course, you may start wondering how students access this feedback. You may also be wondering if you need to do anything to release the feedback. You may also wondering, to be frank, about a lot of things. Grade Posting Policy for an Individual Assignment By default,…