A FREE PUBLICATION FROM THE CREATORS OF THE TEACHING PROFESSOR

student engagement

A New Look at Student Attention Spans

Have you heard that advice about chunking content in 10- to 15-minute blocks because that’s about as long as students can attend to material in class? It’s a widely touted statistic and given the behaviors indicative of inattentiveness observed in class, most faculty haven’t questioned it. But Karen Wilson and James H. Korn did. They got to wondering how researchers made that determination. “What was the dependent measure, and how did researchers measure attention during a lecture without influencing the lecture itself as well as students’ attention?”

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 4, 2009

Keep Your Classes on Track During the Holidays

This time of year is always one of the most difficult times for students to focus on their studies. In the online classroom it can be an especially challenging to keep students engaged, serious, and committed to assignments and deadlines. For while students in the face-to-face classroom know they must be in X classroom on Y days at Z time each week—no matter the month—the casual setup of the online classroom can bust wide open if not addressed during these holiday months.

Errol Craig Sull December 1, 2009

Stop Me If You've Heard This One: The Benefits of Humor in the Classroom

The contribution that humor makes to student learning is well established in research. It is not that humor causes learning; rather, it helps to create

Maryellen Weimer, PhD September 24, 2009

Applying Learning Agreements in the Classroom

As a former editor in the business profession and now educator, I see connections between business and classroom best practices, especially applying professional development plans and performance reflection exercises as academic learning agreements in order to promote student leadership and engagement.

Loren Kleinman July 13, 2009