Michelle E. Zuñiga, Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy To engage students, instructors have adopted a multitude of innovative learning activities. These activities include group work, flipped classroom, think, pair, share, and many more. Rarely, however,...
The Flip’d Blog
Promoting Student Agency and Learning Through Specifications Grading
Chris Woods, Department of Chemistry The current grading paradigm has been seldom challenged for a long time, and for many, leaves much to be desired. The assignment of grades can be a cause of trepidation for many educators. Many students feel that they do not earn a...
Preparing the Environmental Professionals of the Future: Backwards Design in Environmental Studies
Paroma Wagle, Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy Learning about sustainability, climate change, and environmental justice, the ‘wicked problems’ of the environment, is absolutely crucial for students, as they will not only go on maybe select careers in...
Taking Modern Pedogogy into the Large Classroom
Marc Sprague-Piercy, Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry The current thinking in pedagogy is moving away from the traditional classroom model. In the traditional classroom for large classes of undergraduates there is a clear plan. The students are given...
Adding the EPIC to Education
Emily M. Slonecker, M.A, Department of Psychological Science What is your first thought when you hear the word “icebreaker”? If your first thought is the sound of 200 students groaning in unison, you just might be an educator. There is growing body of evidence to...
How to Evaluate Individual Work Within a Group Project; Group-Individual Projects May Help!
Negin Sattari, Department of Cognitive Sciences Group Versus Individual Project Often students’ faces announce dissatisfaction when a group project is proposed during the first session of the class as a part of the final examination. The complaints are mainly coming...
Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education
Juan R. Sandoval, Department of Social Ecology The Current State of “Diversity” and “Inclusion” According to a report by the U.S. Department of Education (2019), whites make up approximately eighty percent of the full-time professoriate in the United States....
Making Group Work Work: Designing Positive Group Work Experiences for Students
Deanna Myers, Department of Chemistry Group work. Just hearing the phrase brings up feelings of dread in many students. I remember feeling this way when I entered an upper-division chemistry course at my undergraduate institution. When the professors told us we would...
Rethinking the Physics Classroom: 4 Tools to Consider
Francisco J. Mercado, Department of Physics & Astronomy When we think about a physics classroom, more often than not, the picture that comes to mind is an ‘all-knowing’ professor standing at the front of a classroom writing on a blackboard while some of the...
Effective Response to Student Writing
Undarmaa Maamuujav, School of Education Responding to students’ papers that have serious rhetorical weaknesses and multitude of linguistic errors is a challenging task for instructors, but what is more trying is finding a systematic and effective method of response to...