Motivating Students to Learn

As we return from spring break to the normal demands of the semester, it's a great time to think about student motivation. How effectively are your courses engaging your students and motivating them to learn? 

While it can sometimes feel that students simply choose to be engaged or apathetic for their own reasons, the research on motivation clearly indicates that instructor choices significantly affect students' investment in learning. And motivation plays a key role in how effectively students master course material. As Susan Ambrose and her co-authors argue in How Learning Works (Jossey-Bass, 2010), research shows that people are motivated to learn when they:

  1. See the value, either intrinsic or extrinsic, of learning the particular material or skills, and
  2. Believe they can succeed.

What teaching strategies do these motivational factors suggest? To help students appreciate the value of the learning goals in your course, you can: Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 03/15/2013 - 9:03am
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Congratulations to Golden Apple Award Winner

CRLT congratulates Shelly Schreier on winning the 2013 Golden Apple Award! Shreier, of LSA's Department of Psychology, was nominated by students for this annual prize honoring "teachers who consistently teach each lecture as if it were their last." Co-sponsored by over 30 U-M departments and programs, the Golden Apple is the campus's only teaching prize awarded by students. See this University Record story for more information about Shreier, the award, and her upcoming public lecture as the newest Golden Apple recipient.

Submitted by tbraun on Thu, 03/14/2013 - 11:37am
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Engineering Education Research Day, March 20

At U-M and around the country, research in Engineering Education is developing in exciting directions. In this evolving field, scholars apply the methods of educational research to address a range of issues pertaining to teaching and learning in engineering. The findings can help instructors in any field think about effective teaching strategies, both in and beyond the classroom.

Interested in learning more? You're invited to attend CRLT-Engin's Engineering Education Research Day on March 20. This day-long program on North Campus will provide opportunities for U-M faculty, staff, and students to learn about the scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering as well as explore possible collaborations.

Three major sessions are scheduled:

  • Introduction to Engineering Education Research and information about the Rackham Certificate in Engineering Education Research (9-10:30)
  • Poster Fair:  Research and Scholarship in Engineering Education (11:30-1:00)
  • Research talk:  Maura Borrego (Virginia Tech and NSF) presents, "What Influences Undergraduate Decisions to Attend Engineering Graduate School?" (1:30-3:00)

The full agenda and registration information can be found on this page.  

Submitted by tbraun on Tue, 03/12/2013 - 10:07am
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Improving Student Writing: U-M Faculty Using Online Collaboration Tools

There's no question that students' writing improves most when they have frequent opportunities for practice and feedback. But instructors sometimes struggle to find ways to provide those opportunities, especially in large courses. One method that many U-M instructors use to good effect is structured peer review. These three faculty members--featured in CRLT's recent Occasional Paper about Online Collaboration Tools (OCTs)--have made creative use of OCTs to facilitate collaborative writing as well as timely, frequent, low-stakes peer feedback: Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 03/01/2013 - 8:45am
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Congratulations to the New Thurnau Professors!

CRLT congratulates the six U-M faculty members recently honored by the Regents with Arthur F. Thurnau professorships. The awards recognize the following outstanding teachers for their remarkable contributions to undergraduate education here at Michigan:

  • Samuel D. Epstein, Linguistics
  • Martha S. Jones, History and Afroamerican and African Studies
  • Fritz Kaenzig, Music
  • Janie Paul, Art
  • Volker Sick, Mechanical Engineering
  • L. Monique Ward, Psychology

portraits of the six 2013 Thurnau professors

More information about each new Thurnau Professor can be found in this University Record article. We look forward to spotlighting their innovative teaching here on our blog in the coming months. More information about the Thurnau Professorships can be found at this link. 

Submitted by tbraun on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 12:25pm
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