Students Ready to Learn: Chapter Preparation Assignments
by - Barbara Orr, Ph.D. How many of your students have read their textbooks and readings before entering your classroom? Are students ready to learn when they walk in the door? If you find yourself answering “no” to these questions, you are not alone! It was reported by the Lilly Conference presenter, Dr. Lynn Gillette,from Nicholls State University, “A key component for student success comes down to students showing up for class prepared to do the work…Students, in class and prepared to learn, is a fundamental challenge in essentially every educational program at every educational institution” (Gillette, L., March 15, 2018). A student‘s success begins with the knowledge of effective preparation prior to attending class and is NOT homework! One strategy to support students’ active reading skills and support transfer of knowledge from short term to long term memory, is the skill to read a chapter and make notes of the key concepts prior to class for a robust class discussion. Read More
Student Creative Videos as a Collaborative Learning Strategy
by - Kim Taylor After attending the Lilly Conference I became intrigued to learn more about Cognitive Load Theory and how to support our students through reduction of extraneous load through our presentation techniques and instilling more creative interactive collaborative learning activities. Read More
Building Construction in Parallel with Student Learning
by - Joyce Tolofari MSN, RN Structures such as bridges, roads and skyscrapers are ubiquitous. Construction workers, like anyone are required to be physically fit to enable them operate heavy duty equipment like cranes, tractors. They break structures down with heavy equipment, dig holes, engage hammers to create holes, ditches or stabilize a structure. Most of the time, large scale-projects are broken down into small scale structures. Building Construction is a hands-on career where workers use most of their hands, mental stamina, and wits to construct a building that will withstand winds, rains, sun, storms and many other weather conditions for days, months and years to come. The construction worker creates huge structures like skyscrapers, from a mere sand. Workers also need to have good communication skills in collaboration with colleagues to balance structures together to coordinate building safely. Read More
Asking Students for Insight
by - Kelly Stockstad Like many professors, I felt aggravated this semester because my students were coming to class completely unprepared. Not only had most of them not read, many of them didn’t bring anything to class – not their text, not materials to take notes, and, in one case, not even a cell phone. I am accustomed to having some students who don’t prepare for class, but my usual experience was that 10-20% of the students in the class would come unprepared. This semester, only 5-10% of the class members seemed to be prepared for each class meeting. Read More