Saturday, July 22, 2006

Not Stale

The single best presentation that I attended at the Noel-Levitz conference was by Constance Staley, a faculty member from CU-Colorado Springs. She is a passionate educator and a proud grandma.... both good things. A few snippets:

  • All teachers can improve their teaching skills
  • The level of student learning can always be increased
  • Faculty must always be authentic (at least with their students!)
  • Meet students where they are and THEN move them
  • Freshman seminar is not just another course.... it is THE most important course
  • Know your students, individually and collectively
  • Learn all you can about learning
  • Make the case for active learning....bring content to life
  • Teach by design, not by default
  • Get engaged yourself
  • Income stratification in the U.S.: 8.6% of the poorest 25% of population get a college degree while 74.9% of the richest 25% of population get a college degree
  • Student boredom is a huge concern and they get bored in straight lecture courses
  • She cited a source where they did a study that showed that 4 months after the course ended, the students from the course had 8% more knowledge about the subject than a control group who had not taken the class (and yes, it was a straight lecture course)
I'll post more about this after I return from vacation in about ten days. She has some great classroom techniques that need to be shared.

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