Faculty Focus: What’s Happening at USA?

The use of Clickers at USA has really taken off over the past year or two, and while there have a few headaches and hiccups along the way, most of the comments that have come my way have been decidedly positive.

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Teaching and Learning in the Literature

In a recent blog post on The Teaching Professor website, Maryellen Weimer, offers a new twist on providing feedback on student’s written work.

Anyone who has graded more than one or two stacks of papers has been confronted with the nagging sense that time spent writing constructive comments in the margins is, more often than not, time wasted.

Weimer argues that such feedback is indeed a waste of time if students don’t understand what your comments mean, and a recent study by Melanie Weaver (full-text @ USA) finds that most students don’t actually understand most of the comments on their papers.

Weimer suggests an excellent in-class activity that can help ensure that our students do understand those comments.

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PETAL Events for January 2009