Guided notes are an instructional strategy used to help students retain facts, concepts, and skills. Evidence for the effectiveness of guided notes with school-aged children diagnosed with high incidence disabilities is well documented, but research with postsecondary participants has had mixed results, and there has been little to no research on…

Mobile technology has changed the landscape of post-secondary education. This descriptive study examined student and instructor perceptions of student learning and engagement while using mobile technology. Overall, student perceptions of learning and engagement were neutral; however, instructors reported higher positive perceptions on both…

Collaborative note-taking is a pedagogical technique that asks students to rotate note-taking responsibilities during class meetings in a shared document. Implementing this technique helped me, as an instructor, better leverage my students' strengths and weaknesses in an introductory American government class--though the benefits should extend to…

E-textbooks have become more popular with college students, but there are concerns that reading is not as effective from screens as paper. In addition, students may not take advantage of tools afforded by e-textbooks. The purpose of this study was to determine if encouraging students to read from paper or modeling e-textbook tools would be better…

The use of video is prevalent in both face-to-face and online classrooms. Online learning leverages the use of video to support and provide instruction through the visuals video affords. The following study documents how undergraduate students interacted with video both in online and face-to-face environments and includes their video-watching…

The benefits of in-class discussion, a form of active learning, are well-documented; in particular, discussions allow students the opportunity to learn from their peers. Yet students often treat discussions as 'down' or 'free' time. If students are not taking notes during discussion and reviewing those notes later on, they may not be learning much…

One concern about teaching online or in large, lecturestyle classes is the inability to see students' reactions to course material. These visual cues give instructors feedback on student comprehension, material clarity, and effective delivery modes. Instructors have to see the results of student assignments and exams or end-of-semester evaluations…

When students miss classes for university activities such as athletic and academic events, they inevitably miss important class material. Students can get notes from their peers or visit professors to find out what they missed, but when students miss new and challenging material these steps are sometimes not enough. Screen capture and recording…

An exercise derived from observation of students' common notetaking practices is designed to make plagiarism less likely by involving the student in the writing from the beginning and by making the notetaking process more efficient. (MSE)

Twenty years of research shows that using interactive techniques more often can make a class more effective. For example, a study of six thousand physics students compared classes using passive lecture to classes using interactive techniques that allowed for discussion among students and between the professor and students. The study showed that…

Slide shows presented with software such as PowerPoint or WordPerfect Presentations can trap instructors into bad teaching practices. Research on memory suggests that slide-show instruction can actually be less effective than traditional lecturing when the teacher uses a blackboard or overhead projector. The author proposes a model of classroom…

In a classroom research project, one college teacher experimented with a variation on conventional lecture method to improve student understanding of content. At logical points in the lecture, approximately 15-20 minutes apart, the lecturer pauses and directs students to review the material and paraphrase it in writing. Analysis of student notes…

A discussion of strategies for helping the growing number of students with learning disabilities succeed in college work looks at classroom and organizational techniques the teacher can use, the value of notetaking and test-taking skills, and the advantages of coordination between faculty and related school services. (MSE)

Federal legislation has increased the participation of students with disabilities in higher education, but they are less likely to attain a postsecondary degree than students without disabilities. In this paper, I discuss reasons for academic failure and illustrate ten strategies that instructors can implement to increase the academic success of…

The use of instructor-prepared notes covering 90 percent of the lecture information in one large-group human sexuality course was enthusiastically received by the students, and anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in correct test responses. (MSE)