Cross-posted from the Digital Union blog.

A few weeks ago I facilitated a workshop on teaching with portfolios for Learning Technology. As much as we talk about the technology supporting e-portfolios, it’s good to step back and take stock of the pedagogical approaches behind them. (more…)

How can I help students take better advantage of peer assessment?

Many instructors are familiar with peer assessment–and the frustration with students who don’t offer substantive feedback during the process or even grasp requisite writing standards. To maximize the benefits from peer assessment, take a few minutes to teach students how to offer constructive feedback to each other. It can be a great way for students to reflect on and develop their writing, discuss course content and form a classroom learning community. It can produce multiple points of critique and lighten your assessment workload–all this for a relatively small investment of time. (more…)

How can we encourage our students to engage with their peers when their attention has shifted toward their individual projects and final assignments at the end of the quarter?

Once students begin to work on final projects and look toward Spring Break activities, their attention often shifts from active engagement with their peers toward a focus on the instructor, or more specifically, course expectations and final grades. Students may also view you, the instructor, as the sole audience for their final writing projects, thus neglecting to take their colleagues into consideration. The following writing exercises encourage students to re-engage with their peers inside and outside of the classroom at the end of the quarter and help you maintain a strong learning community through finals week and beyond. (more…)

How can I find out more about what exactly my students are learning throughout the quarter?

Evaluating student responses to formal assignments alone only tells us so much about what students are learning, and usually tells us very little about how they are learning. Informal, reflective writing can give you a window into student learning: how they go about tackling a problem or question, what challenges they face in an assignment, and what about their work sparks their personal interests and passions. (more…)

How can we use end-of-the-quarter grading to help our students continue the learning process even after they’ve left our classrooms?

We often talk about grading solely as a form of evaluation and judgment without considering the various ways it can help students learn. As we near the end of the quarter, consider using grading as a tool to increase students’ critical awareness of their own learning process. (more…)