February 2005

The Teaching Professor February 2005 full issue PDF
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Cheating: Friends and Web-Based Exams
“Cheating is not really considered a bad thing by students. Since everyone does it once in a while, it is kind of like going over the speed limit. Everyone knows that it is against the rules, but everyone still does it.” A male student made this comment in an exploratory discussion group used to better understand students’ beliefs and attitudes about cheating. The quote is a grim reminder why academic integrity continues to be such a prevalent and pernicious problem at our institution.

High-Maintenance Students
Does the title resonate with you? Do you think you might have one or two? Would you describe them as those students who complain and whine beyond reasonable limits? Do they sap your energy? Are they the students you most happily see go at the course’s end?

Visualizing Thinking: A Strategy that Improves Thinking
By Elisha Nixon-Cobb, Kean University, NJ
As every instructor will attest, teaching students to think critically about any subject matter can be an uphill battle. Could it be that the process of solving complex problems needs to be translated into a paradigm that students can grasp -- visually? After years of persistent effort in teaching students the art of discovering relationships, inferences, biases, synthesis, etc. in an introductory health course, I have found one of the most effective ways to teach critical thinking is to allow students to envision what their thinking looks like before and after instruction.

It Costs to Cut Class
Many studies confirm the relationship between attendance and grades and the one referenced below is no exception. The course where the data reported in this study were collected was multiple discussion sections of a larger course. In these discussion sections attendance and participation counted for 10 percent of the total grade, 5 percent for each. Another 10 percent of the grade was determined by regular quizzes also given during the discussion sections. Findings were consistent across all sections: as absences increased, grades decreased.

Student Expectations for College Courses: An Update
Some issues back, we reported survey research that identified students’ motivations and goals with respect to things like course requirements and evaluation methods. That study surveyed introductory psychology students. The findings were pretty bleak: students wanted effort weighted almost as much as their mastery of the material; they wanted good grades more than learning new material; they preferred multiple-choice tests and felt grades should be determined on a modified curve rather than by absolute standards.

Teaching as an Uncertain Endeavor
“Teaching is a messy, indeterminate, inscrutable, often intimidating and highly uncertain task.” And, teachers deal with realities like these by constructing defenses, defenses that prevent them from confronting teaching. So, observes Richard F. Elmore in the foreword to one of the all time best edited anthologies, Education for Judgment: The Artistry of Discussion Leadership. When faculty ask for a resource on discussion, this is still the book I recommend most often.

Effective Teams in the Workplace: Do Students Know the Characteristics?
Without question, more and more faculty are using projects and other kinds of assignments that require students to work together on teams. And for good reason, not only does research consistently show that students can and do learn from and with each other, increasingly in the world of work, employees are being required to work together on teams. One study cited in the article referenced below found that 58 different employers rated team-building skills the highest of 23 characteristics desired of entry-level employees.

How Rubrics Work
What are rubrics, and what can teachers use them to accomplish? Those questions are ably answered in a short, pithy piece (reference below) that describes “the good, the bad and the ugly” aspects of how rubrics function.