Using Classroom Assignments to Further Wider Educational Goals and Research
Posted on October 28, 2009 by Ryan Kuhne
Filed Under Assignments, Events, Students, Teaching, Video
On September 25th, 2009 the EDC hosted a Teaching Roundtable discussion with Professor Jim Davies from Carleton’s Department of Cognitive Science. The topic was fitfully titled “Don’t Waste Student Work: Using Classroom Assignments to Further Wider Educational Goals and Research.”
Dr. Davies pointed out that many of the assignments that are given to students have no life beyond completion. How Professors can combat this is by providing students with assignments that have a greater purpose to fulfill, like involving an end customer, which can provide additional motivation to complete the assignment and to put their best work forward.
Professors could consider having students do assignments that contribute to the Professors’ own research. (i.e., obtaining a series of articles or journals on a topic that need to be summarized and have students do this as part of the assignment.) Students would see value in this because not only are they learning relevant material, but their name could potentially be mentioned in an acknowledgment or contributors note in an actual publication.
Dr. Davies provided several examples that could be integrated into any discipline, including using Article Summaries or Wikibooks as a way to provide longterm use for student assignments, Supermemo programs where students can design their own library of skill testing questions on topics related to their discipline, and many others.
If you have any questions regarding this discussion, or you would like to get more information, please contact Jim Davies at jim@jimdavies.org, or visit his website. You can also contact us with questions by commenting on this blog post, Phoning 613-520 4433, or Emailing edc@carleton.ca.
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