Research + News | Topic: Teachers
English Prof: ‘My Students Can’t Write To Save Their Lives’
From the article…
“English professors have turned to a feelings-oriented approach to their craft. Instead of being the sage on the stage, they have become the guide on the side. They place greater emphasis on the thoughts and feelings or political ideas students put into their works than whether or not students are following – or even knowing – the grammatical rules of writing.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Party Schools
David Horowitz zeros in on the indoctrination of students by ideologues. Read the article here.
Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges
College personnel everywhere are struggling with students’ increased neediness. Read the article here.
The Case Against Laptops in the Classroom
Some teachers and professors are rethinking allowing laptops and other electronics in the classroom. Read the article here.
The 4 Properties of Powerful Teachers
The Chronicle of Higher Education takes a look at developing the qualities of powerful teachers. From the article:
American higher education seems to be experiencing a kind of teaching renaissance. Articles on the subject proliferate on this site and others, suggesting a renewed interest and commitment to the subject across academe.
Read the full article here.
Do Students Learn More from Great Lectures or Bad Ones?
According to a paper published in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, “Appearances can be deceiving: instructor fluency increases perceptions of learning without increasing actual learning.”
Read a report from Inside Higher Ed here.
Read the paper abstract here.
Gap Between High School Preparation, College Expectations
Findings from the latest ACT National Curriculum Survey point to a continued gap between what high schools are teaching and what colleges expect their incoming students to know. The survey results suggest “this gap may indicate a lack of alignment between high school and college curricula that could be contributing to the nation’s college and career readiness problem…. and shows more than three times as many high school teachers as college instructors believe their students are prepared to succeed in college courses.”
Read the full report here.
Download the survey results (.pdf) here.
How Teens Do Research in the Digital World
A survey from the Pew Research Center reveals that 77% of advanced placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers say that the internet and digital search tools have had a “mostly positive” impact on their students’ research work. But 87% say these technologies are creating an “easily distracted generation with short attention spans” and 64% say today’s digital technologies “do more to distract students than to help them academically.”
Read an overview of the research here.
Download the full report (.pdf) here.
Children, Teens and Entertainment Media: The View From The Classroom
Common Sense Media conducted a national survey of teachers about the role of entertainment media in students’ academic and social development.
Key Finding 1: “Many teachers think their students’ use of entertainment media has hurt their academic performance.”
Key Finding 2: “Among teachers who say their students’ academic skills have been hurt by entertainment media use, the media most often cited as problematic are texting, social networking, video games, and television, depending on the students’ age.”
Key Finding 3: “The biggest problem area teachers see in terms of their students’ skills is in writing.”
Read more “key findings” here.
Download full report (.pdf) here.