In a recent Faculty Focus article called “Interactive Strategies for Engaging Small and Large Classes Alike“, Dr. Toni Weiss writes about her experience engaging student learners in a large economics course at Tulane University. She explains how she creates opportunities for interaction between herself and her students regardless of class size. Weiss argues that “one […]
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Joan E. Strassmann (Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology) writes about her experience with integrating writing for Wikipedia into her Behavioral Ecology course on the Wikipedia Education blog. Strassmann argues that when students write for Wikipedia, they develop a keen sense of the elements of strong writing, and they work hard to produce well written and […]
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Improving Teaching and Learning /
In the article Does Redesigning Classrooms Make a Difference to Students? from the Chronicle of Higher Education, Shannon Najmabadi examines the impact that classroom design can have on student engagement and student learning. The research discussed in this article indicates that classroom spaces impact student engagement for a variety of reasons, from lowering the barrier for […]
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Beginning in the fall of 2011, the Association of American Universities (AAU) launched the AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative, which is focused on improving undergraduate education in STEM fields. The initiative’s goal is to promote the use of evidence-based teaching practices in STEM education at research universities, and to provide faculty members the support they […]
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Megan Daschbach, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, discusses her commitment to improving student learning and helping diverse students persist in STEM in this issue of The Ampersand (Arts & Sciences). Daschbach describes her current work, with her co-instructors, integrating active learning and inclusive-teaching approaches in General Chemistry at Washington University. To learn more about inclusive teaching, and […]
Read MoreLooking for ways to enliven your teaching approaches? Who needs the beach? July is time for POGILing! With the view that “knowledge is personal,” POGIL takes a student-centered, team-based, active-learning approach in which key concepts and process skills (such as collaboration and critical thinking) are taught through interaction and discovery. POGIL has changed their course structure […]
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In his popular eNewsletter, Tomorrow’s Professor, Rick Reis provides information on a wide variety of teaching and learning topics. In a recent post, he provided an excerpt on how to form student groups from a new book, A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom: History, Research, and Practice (2016), by Paul Baepler, J.D. Walker, […]
Read More Thanks to a keen-eyed student who works in CIRCLE, Vitoria Gaboardi (2019), we have proof that POGIL is central to democratic STEM education! Reprinted from the fall edition of the POGIL newsletter: Where in the World is the POGIL Water Bottle? The POGIL water bottle made an appearance at the second presidential debate at Washington University in […]
Read More The fall Clicker Learning Community meeting was held on September 29, 2016, and 15 faculty from two schools and seven departments attended. Washington University has had a Clicker Learning Community for three years. The community was started through our AAU grant and meets approximately two-three times a year to discuss strategies for integrating active learning […]
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Tools to facilitate in-class polling In-class polling by any means (clickers, online polling programs, Google forms, or even colored pieces of paper) is a straight-forward way for instructors to gather real-time feedback, identify gaps in preparation or understanding, and then flexibly adjust instruction. Read more about why you might use polling in the classroom. Here […]
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