What Students and Faculty Can Learn from Exams Exams are some of the most common tools for gathering evidence of how much students have learned, but they can also be opportunities to learn, both for students and for us. For students, exams can be opportunities to learn when we assign exam wrappers or other reflections […]

Teaching Students How to Learn Few undergraduates arrive at the university with a sophisticated portfolio of study strategies. Students may think learning mostly means memorizing, so they will spend hours going over notes and re-reading (or highlighting every line of) their books. Before they arrive in our classrooms, many of our students have had only […]

Making the Most of Class Time One of the most common topics our colleagues inquire about is how to spend class time effectively. There are many ways to get students engaged in learning during class, and deciding how to make the most of their time and attention involves reflecting on what they most need to […]

Connecting Old Knowledge and New The book How Learning Works (a frequent CAT reading group selection) begins with this fundamental principle: Learning must be built on prior knowledge. When we learn, we are “interpreting incoming information and…perceptions through the lens of…existing knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions.” To learn effectively, students must connect what they learn to […]