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| Paper: |
Innovative Strategies for Empowering Your Students to Become Active, Responsible Learners |
| Volume: |
443, Earth and Space Science: Making Connections in Education and Public Outreach |
| Page: |
405 |
| Authors: |
Hufnagel, B. |
| Abstract: |
The economy continues to sputter along, and the repercussions are now hitting hard at publicly-funded colleges and universities, with enrollment increasing and funding decreasing. Funding agencies are starting to look at retention and completion rates as a way to allocate scarce dollars. Improving these rates is also one way to increase the future stream of tuition; students who can't pass introductory classes like ASTRO101 won't enroll and pay tuition for the next level, and they won't complete their degree. So what can you, a mere professor of astronomy, do?
Tired of the “What do you want me to know?” questions? Provide your students with learner-centered structures to help them learn more deeply. Do your students resist active-engagement techniques and hate group work? Share empowerment strategies for helping students become active, responsible learners who can thrive in a learner-centered environment. Do you think that it's wrong for the freshman classes to be over-crowded, yet your sophomore classes don't get enough students or don't even exist? After using the proven curriculum of On Course, college and universities across the country have improved their retention across a wide range of disciplines (http://www.OnCourseWorkshop.com/Data.htm).
Experience a sample of the fun and engaging activities developed over two
decades to help students (1) accept personal responsibility, (2) discover
self motivation, (3) master self-management, (4) use interdependence,
(5) gain self-awareness, (6) adopt lifelong learning, (7) develop emotional
intelligence, and (8) believe in themselves.
Since this is only a one-hour workshop, we will focus on choices one and four:
to be successful, students need to see themselves as the primary cause of
their outcomes and experiences and to build mutually supportive relationships
in our classroom and labs.
Outcomes: (1) one ASTRO101 Course-ready activity to help students accept
personal responsibility; (2) one ASTRO101 Course-ready activity to help
students use interdependence; (3) personal experience with one of the
activities. Optional: Discussion of the results of your personal
Self-Assessment, taken prior to or during the conference (http://www.cengage.com/success/Downing/OnCourseSS). |
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