Strategies

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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Active Learning Test

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Teaching Strategies: Using Group Work and Team Work

Cooperative learning involves having students work together to maximize their own and one another’s learning (Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1991). This page provides resources about cooperative learning, designing effective small group activities, and guidance for creating and sustaining effective student learning groups in engineering and lab courses.

CRLT Resources on Cooperative Learning, Group Work, and Teamwork
A comprehensive list of resources on the effectiveness of cooperative learning, group work, teamwork, and best practices.

The collaborative research model: Student Learning Team in Undergraduate Research (University of Oregon)
Describes a flexible model for collaborative student research in coursework across the curriculum. The foundation of the model lies in its cooperative stance, which supports students in working together toward informed decision making on a common research problem. Read more »

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Overview of Testing and Grading Issues

Testing and grading are important aspects of course design and implementation. Testing and grading are linked to the learning objectives of a course and provide ways of gauging student learning. The websites in this section address frequently asked questions about this topic, offer suggestions for constructing exams and test items, and describe measurement methods.

Basics of Testing and Measurement

CRLT Occasional Paper #24: Best Practices for Designing and Grading Exams (Piontek, 2008)
This CRLT Occasional Paper provides an overview of the science of developing valid and reliable exams, especially multiple-choice and essay items. Additionally, the paper describes key issues related to grading: holistic and trait-analytic rubrics, and normative and criterion grading systems.

Assess Students: Rubrics (University of Texas)
Grade student writing assignments more efficiently by using a rubric; includes examples of rubrics for a variety of assignments, including oral presentation, critical thinking exercise, writing essays, and case studies. Read more »

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Formative and Summative Evaluation

The resources in this section compare the two, complementary functions of evaluation. Formative evaluation is typically conducted during the development or improvement of a program or course. Summative evaluation involves making judgments about the efficacy of a program or course at its conclusion.

Formative vs. Summative Evaluation (Northern Arizona University)
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/edtech/etc667/proposal/evaluation/summative_vs._f...

Questions Frequently Asked About Student Rating Forms: Summary of Research Findings
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/studentratingfaq.html

Related topics under teaching strategies:

Evaluation of Student Learning, (Testing, Grading, and Feedback)
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/teachings#evaluationoflearning

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/teachings#scholarship

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