Study after study shows that when students are given the opportunity (or in some cases forced) to revise their work, they will learn the material better.

This works in part because students continuously have to review their writing and course material. In turn, students end up pounding the information into their brain.

For example, in a recent Organizational Behavior course students were ask to write a comprehensive essay about one topic covered during the unit. The paper was to be reviewed once by a peer and then later by the instructor. The unit covered a variety of topics about organizational decision making. One student decided to write about groupthink and the repercussions it has in the work place. Her paper was of decent quality, but not stupendous. When it came to the test, however, she nailed every question that was even tangentially related to groupthink. The other material covered on the test she answered at about 75% accuracy.

As you can tell, the topic she chose to write on was the topic she remembered most when test time came. This works because students are going back and making sure their writing is succinct, coherent and generally of good quality and in turn the material sinks in.

This concept is pretty simple, but sometimes it’s easy to forget and abandon revisions or even writing all together in the classroom.

That being said allowing time for revisions and actually reviewing the revisions is one of the most time consuming processes in education. So the big question for us is how do we make sure we can use writing and revisions in the classroom without losing time for everything else?

How to Make Time for Revisions

The key to utilizing revisions is providing feedback. Certainly, each student is capable of reviewing their own work to help them revise, but many times it is helpful to get outside opinions. Here are a few ways to review student work:

• Teacher Review: This requires you to personally go through each student submission and give personal remarks. This type of review provides high quality feedback to students, but also requires a large time investment.
• Rubrics: Rubrics are a set of defined features that are present in a specific assignment. When using rubrics you are able to quickly analyze each student submission and give some quick generic feedback. This type of review provides lesser quality feedback to students; however, it does not require the same large time investment.
• Sampling: If you offer multiple writing assignments throughout the semester you might consider doing teacher reviews for only half the class while the other half utilizes peer reviews. Then when the next assignment rolls around switch who you provide reviews for. This saves some time by allowing you to only review half the assignments; however, students might find it unfair that other peers are receiving more personal attention for certain assignments.
• Peer Review: Peer reviews occur when you allow your students to assess each others writing. With peer reviews there is virtually no time commitment on your part, however, the feedback for students will be of varying quality and may not be accurate.
• Lastly, we would be at fault not to mention or own product, SAGrader. SAGrader will give students immediate feedback on their writing assignments allowing them to make instant revisions. Most of the time commitment for a professor is up front when building the assignments. SAGrader also provides standardized feedback that does not happen with peer reviews.

Obviously, each type of review here has its pros and cons. The best way to make use of review is typically through some combination of these five techniques. This can be accomplished by partnering a high time commitment review process with a lower time commitment review process. This way you can get the best of both worlds. High quality writing reviews with a lesser time commitment than if you were forced to hand review each student submission.

This type of process is very similar to what we accomplish by using SAGrader.

The most important thing to remember is to allow students to utilize these reviews and revise their work. When students are allowed to revise, learning happens.

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Sound familiar?

This problem is rampant across education at all levels including higher education. Students have a lot on their minds and zeroing in on a lecture is going to be tough. Breaking through the mind blocks students have requires effective communication.

To communicate effectively with students follow these three steps:

1. Teach content
2. Make your students care
3. Give them a way to remember it

Nailing step one is fairly straight forward. After all, teachers teach content – that’s your job. Steps two and three, however, are usually a little more tricky so let’s explore those a little more closely.

Make your students care

Teachers are used to giving lecture about material but a lot of times it’s tough to make student’s care. Student’s that care are going to be more interested in hearing what you have to say. But if a student doesn’t care you might as well not even be communicating with them.

So how do you make them care? This one is pretty tricky, but many times if you can make the material relevant or practical its easier for students to see the point. Here are a few more ideas to help students care:

• Have an answer to the question ever teacher has heard – “Why do I need to know this?” If you’ve taught it’s guaranteed that you’ve heard this question a million times. Instead of saying because so, come up with a real legitimate reason that you can spout off quickly whenever a student asks.
• Bring in a guest speaker – Guest speakers can usually bring in outside examples of how the class material is being used in real life. Knowing the material can have a real life impact will make your student’s care just a little more.
• Have a lab – If your class is well suited for it, try having a lab. Labs are fun interactive ways that are useful for demonstrating real life applications of course material.
• Know your students – Remember you know your students best. Figure out what will relate to them and make them care.

Give students a way to remember

So now your students care about what your saying but that still doesn’t make it easy to remember what your saying. Forgetfulness is pretty easy especially considering how busy students are now-a-days. Here are a few tricks to help students remember.

• Acronyms: There’s a reason your elementary teachers used these. I still remember from second grade that “My Very Education Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.” (Though I suppose the Nine Pizzas has been changed to Nuggets or something to account for Pluto no longer being a planet).
• Repetition, repetition, repetition: I am not talking about mindlessly beating information into a students brain here, but instead the slow learning that takes place when a concept is allowed to soak in over time. If a student hears a lecture, reads about it in a book, does a lab over it and then takes a test, odds are the concepts will stick.
• Appeal to all parts of the brain: Students learn through by hearing, by seeing and by touching. If you can combine all three in your teaching material it will help students remember those big concepts.

There’s three steps to will get you started. If anyone has more tips for getting students to care or helping them remember please share in the comments. Our readers would love to hear them.

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Inertia is powerful.

It’s nearly impossible to drive the speed limit on the interstate when all the cars around you are going five miles over.

Inertia is the resistance to change from the status quo. Inertia is why it is hard drive the speed limit. Inertia is why it is hard to buck the trend.

I recently stumbled upon a Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. This keyboard was patented in the 1930′s and was designed to address the problems of inefficiency and fatigue which characterized the QWERTY keyboard layout. How many people do you see taking the time to relearn how to type in order to use the more efficient Dvorak Keyboard? Not many, including me.

While succumbing to inertia is fine for trivial issues such as driving a few mph over the speed limit or choosing what keyboard to use, it is costly for classroom instruction.

How to Buck the Trend

I have been in far too many classes where the lecture tends to go something like this:

1. Turn on the computer
2. Start up PowerPoint
3. Read the slide
4. Add a few thoughts
5. Click to next slide
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until the slide show ends
7. Repeat for next lecture

This kind of lecture happens far too often. From a students perspective these tend to be the most uninformative kinds of lectures. I for one would love to see some professors try and buck this trend.

Perhaps trying

• Lecturing without notes at all
• Role Play
• Use Props
• Bring in stuff that students can touch
• Have guests lecturers
• Teach somewhere besides the classroom

It took me roughly 2 minutes to come up with these ideas. So next time you have to give a lecture, think twice before booting up PowerPoint. Try something new. Try bucking the trend.

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The Ten Worst Teaching Mistakes

Like most children of the ’80s, many of my earliest memories of using a computer involve “The Oregon Trail“. Developed by a student teacher to supplement his history class, The Oregon Trail allowed students to get a glimpse of life in 19th Century America while also teaching them budgeting, decision-making skills, and how to hunt for buffalo (or waste your time shooting squirrels).

Today, instructors are using more complex video games to teach students about the scientific method, physics, math and literacy. It’s a strategic move by educators who hope to capitalize on the popularity of video games (97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games) and keep students engaged in the learning process.

Educational Games

In the same vein as Oregon Trail or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? some gamemakers are designing video games with a specific educational purpose. MIT-based The Education Arcade’s newest game, Caduceus , is a puzzle game for tweens focused on logic, reason and creativity skills.

It’s also designed to promote compassion:

Caduceus is a key content element of a new pediatric medical research awareness…designed to help parents teach their children to care about others and believe they can make a difference.

Another gamemaker, Education Simulations, created “Real Lives 2007” to let students experience how people live in other countries. Based on real statistical data, the game randomly assigns the user an identity – such as a factory worker in Brazil or a policeman in Nigeria – and teaches them life skills while letting them explore the global community.

Of course, “educational” games are a double-edged sword; the same elements that make them explicitly educational discourage students from playing them. Few of these games will be played outside of the classroom.

In response, some instructors are reappropriating mainstream games for educational purposes.

Mainstream games

In a commentary for Wired, Clive Thompson tells us about the “eureka!” moment for Constance Steinkuehler – an assistant professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison – who discovered that many of the teenage boys playing online games such as Lineage or World of Warcraft were employing the scientific method to figure out how to beat game bosses.

A group of [the teenagers] were building Excel spreadsheets into which they’d dump all the information they’d gathered about how each boss behaved…Then they’d develop a mathematical model to explain how the boss worked — and to predict how to beat it…Some would offer up new data they’d collected, and suggest tweaks to the model.

That’s when it hit her: The kids were practicing science….They were using the scientific method. They’d think of a hypothesis — This boss is really susceptible to fire spells — and then collect evidence to see if the hypothesis was correct. If it wasn’t, they’d improve it until it accounted for the observed data.

Thompson goes on to point out that these same kids are “the same ones who are, more and more, tuning out of science in the classroom. ” The instructor’s job is to harness the high-level thinking skills young people use to beat a video game and apply it to real-world mysteries.

Other popular games like SimCity, Civilization IV: Warlords or Caesar III can allow students to experiment in simulated environments, while learning about history, economics and leadership.

Of course, with the bad press video games have gotten for being violent and socially isolating, schools are understandably skeptical about allowing games in the classroom. Certainly, some games shouldn’t ever be condoned by educators.

But many games are safe and provide educators with a tremendous opportunity to engage their students.