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Teaching Book(s) of the WeekThe Power of Problem-Based Learning Classroom Assessment Techniques They don't want to hear you lecture. They don't want to read an instruction guide. So how can you tell them what they need to know? You want bright smiles, not bored sighs. You want them to have fun, but you want them to learn as well. GAMES are your answer! Games aren't just for kids. Games can help people learn business ideas:
games can teach. Steve Sugar's adaptable designs put an end to tired, scripted
business games. Sometimes you have a lot of games, but none of them ever
seem to suit the occasion. Sometimes games suit the occasion, but are so
rigid that the participants are bored before they've even begun. With Sugar's
help, your games will always be both fitting and new. These designs are
enjoyable, but they are also "games that teach"-every game has
a practical, instructional purpose. Shifting standards and roles for women-combined with many economic and social factors-have increased the number of women who participate in adult learning activities. Yet most literature on adult learning barely touches on the subject of women's learning. This limited understanding of how women learn is too often reflected in the practice of adult education. Here, at last, is a volume that explores and analyzes learning as a distinctive experience for women. The authors are all established adult education professionals and recognized authorities on women as adult learners. Together, they examine and compare the importance of such factors as sense of identity, self-esteem, social world, and power in what and how women learn. Drawing form a comprehensive review of research and scholarship,
as well as from personal stories, Women as Learners reveals the numerous
ways in which women experience the learning process. It explains, for
example, how women often become personally connected to the object and
process of learning. The authors explore these different experiences to
show education and training professionals how they can better design and
conduct programs for women. They also offer specific recommendations to
improve all types of formal and informal adult educational programs, including
literacy education, counseling and support groups, workplace training,
and professional development activities. Concise yet comprehensive, this
long-awaited book provides the most current principles for practice. This practical guide is designed to help college teachers plan their undergraduate courses and deliver high-quality instruction. The book's theme is that teaching is a creative, decision-making, idea-testing enterprise whose purpose is to facilitate student learning in all of its facets. Its goal is to help instructors understand the multiple kinds of learning taking place in their courses so that they can select, devise, evaluate, and modify teaching techniques to improve their effectiveness. Based on research on human learning, memory, thinking and problem solving, as well as studies of teaching and less-formal reports of teaching practices, the book offers concrete advice about all aspects of college teaching. Part One is devoted to course planning. It outlines the many decisions instructors face in defining a course as their own, and discusses the larger issues that shape a course and constrain some specific choices. Selecting course content, choosing learning goals, deciding how to pace a course, and scheduling tests are some of these issues. A workable timetable for preparing a course is included. Part Two is a mini-course on human learning, memory, and thinking. It provides the conceptual foundation for making teaching decisions, for selecting instructional strategies, and especially for inventing new techniques that might particularly fit a specific course. Part Three deals with the "nitty gritty" of college teaching, including how to choose a textbook; lecturing and constructing classroom discussions; types and purposes of writing assignments, and how to structure and evaluate them; dealing with plagiarism; strengths and weaknesses of different types of tests, the relation of tests to learning goals, and guidelines for constructing good tests; and grading systems. Part Four addresses professional and ethical issues of importance and consequence to instructors. New college instructors, more
experiences faculty who would like to reflect on their teaching practices
and consider making some changes, and teaching assistants will all find
this book relevant and useful. How well are college students learning? How effectively are faculty teaching? Teachers themselves are the closest observers of learning as it take place in their classrooms-and thus have the opportunity to become the most effective assessors and improvers of their own teaching. But in order for teaching to improve, teachers must first be able to discover when they are off course, how far off they are, and how to get back on the right track. In Classroom Assessment Techniques, Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross provide a practical handbook to help college faculty-and teachers in other settings-develop a better understanding of the learning process in their own classrooms and assess the impact of their teaching upon it. This revised and greatly expanded edition of their 1988 handbook now includes a self-contained self-assessment device-the Teaching Goals Inventory-for identifying and clarifying instructional goals. And the book offers teachers at all levels of experience detailed, how-to advice on Classroom Assessment-from what it is and how it works to how to plan, implement, and analyze assessment projects. The authors illustrate their approach through numerous case studies and examples that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects. The book features fifty valuable Classroom Assessment
Techniques, each presented in a format that provides an estimate of the
ease of use, a concise description, step-by-step procedures for adapting
and administering the technique, practical advice on how to analyze the
data, pros, cones, caveats, and other useful information. These fifty
Classroom Assessment Techniques are cross-indexed so that teachers can
easily locate the appropriate techniques for assessing their particular
teaching goals in their academic disciplines. Techniques are also indexed
for their usefulness in assessing content knowledge, higher-order thinking
skills, course-related attitudes and values, and the students' reactions
to the course. Problem-based learning is a powerful classroom process, which uses real world problems to motivate students to identify and apply research concepts and information, work collaboratively and communicate effectively. It is a strategy that promotes life-long habits of learning. The University of Delaware is recognized internationally as a center of excellence in the use and development of PBL. This book presents the cumulative knowledge and practical experience acquired over nearly a decade of integrating PBL in courses in a wide range of disciplines. This is the first "how to" book specifically written for college and university faculty. It focuses on the practical questions which anyone wishing to embark on PBL will want to know: "Where do I start?"-"How do you find problems?"-"What do I need to know about managing groups?"-"How do you grade in a PBL course?" The book opens by outlining how the PBL program was developed at the University of Delaware-covering such issues as faculty mentoring and institutional support-to offer a model for implementation for other institutions. The authors then address the
practical questions involved in course transformation and planning for
effective problem-based instruction, including writing problems, using
the Internet, strategies for using groups, the use of peer tutors and
assessment. They conclude with case studies from a variety of disciplines,
including biochemistry, pre-law, physics, nursing, chemistry, political
science, and teacher education. Why do some students make the most of college, while others struggle and look back on years of missed deadlines and missed opportunities? What choices can students make, and what can teachers and university leaders do, to improve more students' experiences and help them achieve the most from their time and money? Most important, how is the increasing diversity on campus-cultural, racial, and religious-affecting education? What can students and faculty do to benefit from differences, and even learn from the inevitable moments of misunderstanding and awkwardness? From his ten years of interviews with Harvard seniors, Richard Light distills encouraging-and surprisingly practical-answers to fundamental questions. How can you choose classes wisely? What's the best way to study? Why do some professors inspire and others leave you cold? How can you connect what you discover in class to all you're learning in the rest of life? Light suggests, for instance, that
Filled with practical
advice, illuminated with stories or real students' self-doubts, failures,
discoveries, and hopes, Making the Most of College is a handbook for academic
and personal success. |
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