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Keeping up with the conversation: Speed dating
The third strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest… Read more
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Keeping up with the conversation: Affinity mapping
The second strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest… Read more
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Keeping up with the conversation: The jigsaw
The first strategy of a five-part post about discussion strategies. These five strategies will help students to improve small-group communication while also allowing them to synthesize important course content in large-group discussions. It is appropriate and fair to see setting up discussions as one of the most difficult instructional strategies in our lessons. The easiest… Read more
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How to elevate connections between students and their terms
Utilizing the Frayer Model provides unique chances to engage students with important vocabulary while formatively assessing their comprehension of reading and course concepts. One of the most common assumptions many of us make in our teaching is that students are on the same page as us when it comes to the terms we are using.… Read more
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Using formative assessment to think in stairs, spirals, and scaffolds
Setting a foundation for thinking is essential for helping students build toward success. One of my favorite frameworks I learned in teaching school as an undergrad was the Zone of Proximal Development. It comes from educational theorist Lev Vygotsky’s (one of my most beloved thinkers) work in learning development, particularly his theory of sociocultural cognitive… Read more
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How to shift point-focused reading assessments to engagement
Utilizing trivia and incentives provides a mix of enjoyment and encouragement for student learning. To begin, I am firmly against the way in which we frame grading and scoring currently. I think it is entirely unfair and unprofessional to tell students that nearly 60% of all of the potential graded outcome is labeled as “fail.”… Read more