Persuasive Speech Video Rubric Persuasive Speech Video Rubric: Fill & Download for Free

Thanks for the A2A. Sorry it took awhile to answer but once I got started it was hard to stop as there is a lot to cover.In the field of highly selective admission to colleges and universities in the US, there are some open secrets that people in the field know, but that not enough students and parents hear. Most of these have to do with numbers. By numbers I mean things like rank in class, standardized test scores, and the chances of being accepted.The US News and some other places that rank schools use various sets of numbers to determine how selective a school is in admission and these are used as a part of the formula to rank schools. One of the easiest ways to show the world that a school is selective is to boost the number of applications. The more applications that flow in the more this will show up as “very highly selective” in the rankings. Since most of the highly selective colleges and universities have not increased the size of their incoming classes by any dramatic number, the increase in applications means that the percentage of students getting accepted must drop. For the schools themselves, this is good news. For the students applying, however, this means that getting in to schools with under a 30% acceptance rate is a long shot at best. Most of the Ivies and other top schools have under a 10% acceptance rate. These schools (and virtually every college and university) however, still continues to spend significant sums to recruit students from all over the US and all over the globe). In addition, schools now use a much more sophisticated set of tools to reach out to students to encourage them to apply.While the schools at the top of the rankings get most of the press, the schools below them are doing as much or more (given budget constraints) to encourage students to apply. Moving up in the rankings increases prestige and creates a feedback loop in which students tend to apply to schools with high rankings. To give you some idea how this all works I will quote from a recent article on the dramatic move of Northeastern up in the rankings. The entire story is eye-opening; it focuses largely on how the school and its leadership gamed the ranking system in order to improve its standing:Because schools reap benefits from a high spot on U.S. News’s list, he says, it makes sense for them to continue to throw money at the metrics. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, for instance, to lure students with high GPAs and SAT scores, private four-year schools increased spending on merit-based aid from $1.6 billion to $4.6 billion. Studies show that for every 10 merit-based scholarships, there are four fewer need-based scholarships. That’s because schools often base merit on test scores, and students from lower-income families generally don’t test as well, largely because they spend less on tutors and SAT prep. Tuitions rise to help universities keep pace, further reducing middle-class access to a top-flight education.In an apparent effort to score rankings points by lowering the percentage of accepted students, NU’s admissions department received a mandate: Increase applications at home and abroad. Northeastern’s new science and engineering complex, colorful Adirondack chairs throughout campus, and star faculty members like Michael Dukakis are all intended to advance reputation and lure top students. “They poured a ton of money into admission recruiting,” says a former NU admissions officer. “We had amazing amounts of latitude to travel overseas. We worked really hard, and we traveled like crazy.”There were other tricks, as well. In 2009, NU stopped requiring SAT scores from students attending international high schools. By removing a barrier to foreign students, who typically score lower if they take the SATs at all, NU boosted its application numbers without jeopardizing its overall testing average. Those foreign students, ineligible for federal aid, also tend to pay full freight. Since 2006, the percentage of international undergraduates has jumped from just under 5 to nearly 17.Last year, Northeastern received its highest number of applications, almost 50,000 for 2,800 spots. That’s nearly five times more than in 1990. Enrolled students were more qualified than ever before, with average SAT scores up 22 points from the previous year.I don’t know of any other school that has this kind of what some would call “success” in the rankings game. While Northeastern is at the end of the bell curve for schools moving up in the rankings by gaming the system and diagnosing the analytics that are used by US News, they are anything but alone in trying to move up the ladder. Many schools have at least one and some have teams who are tasked with analyzing ways for the schools to move up in the rankings. Most in the admission world know this, but a lot on the outside don’t know how persuasive it is and how it leads to things that affect a student’s chance of getting in.A number of schools in the past several years have done more than just gaming. They have altered the numbers they submitted to US News, often by leaving out groups of students whose testing or some other rubric would negatively impact their rankings. The effort that schools make to rise in the rankings comes in part from pressure on schools (by the governing boards, by the President and others) to compete with their peer schools: “The rankings are one of the main ways that alumni and trustees keep track of their school's progress and they are an indicator of the status society attaches to their degrees.”It’s a bit like college sports. Schools want to beat their rivals. And like college sports there are some bad things going on at many schools. Many in education know that data schools submit has been massaged, at the very least, but some of the data get the equivalent of steroids to help enhance performance. No one really knows how many schools fudge numbers but surveys indicate the administration thinks many schools (themselves excepted).Some argue that the gaming efforts take away from the legitimate academic mission of the school. For example, if schools design classes to come in under the “under 20 group” that gets tallied for the US News, then they may do so by creating a significant number of smaller classes of this size and one or two huge classes that cover the same material. While the example I have just cited falls, to me at least, under the sketchy approach to education, the more important part of the rating game has to do with marketing.Many students, at earlier and earlier ages, receive contact from colleges and universities. This contact comes in many forms, from glossy brochures to emails to tweets and everything in between. All of this attention may be flattering and may convince a student or her family that the school wants the student to enroll. After all, the words on the emails and letters and other sources are positive and encourage the student to apply. Who would not feel wooed?But wooing and following through on a long term (or at least 4 year) commitment often don’t go together. In fact, for those schools at the top of the rankings, they rarely do. It’s true that some students get into great schools and turn them down, but the ones who suffer most often are students who have done well in virtually every measurable way, but still end up with the equivalent of a Dear John letter: “We regret to inform you that our admission committee has decided not to offer you a place in our incoming class.” There are tears and “whys” and “it isn’t fairs” echoing across the globe in the month of March. A number of people who have experience helping students or in the field of admission see that spending great sums of money, manpower, and effort to get more and more applications is anything but useful for the students and to a large degree for academic quality of the student body. Lynn O’Shaunessey tells it like she sees it on her blog:Encouraging Pointless ApplicationsA big culprit in this phenomenon is the schools themselves. The institutions work hard to encourage students to apply to produce their fear-inducing rejection figures.Many elite schools strive to attract as large an applicant pool as they can by encouraging students who have ZERO chance of getting admitted to their institutions to send in applications.I can’t emphasize enough that if your child gets literature from an elite school, it means N-O-T-H-I-N-G. It certainly doesn’t indicate that he or she has better odds of getting into the institution.You can’t sit down on a couch with a bag of potato chips without eating most of the bag. You hate yourself for it, but you can’t resist. And that’s how it is for elite schools that tease students for purposes of their own self-aggrandizement.Pleasing U.S. NewsThe intent of this craven practice is to burnish their images, impress families, please college presidents and boards of trustees and, of course, curry favor with U.S. News & World kingmakers. U.S. News gives brownie points to schools that reject more students. Higher rejection rates also help a school’s bond ratings.One of the legends in admission, Fred Hargadon, says what many say behind closed doors in the world of admission who have been around for a while. The increase in applications does little to improve the overall quality of the class: “Fred Hargadon, former dean of admissions at Prince­ton and Stanford, doubts that more and more applicants make for a stronger class. "I couldn't pick a better class out of 30,000 applicants than out of 15,000," he says. "I'd just end up rejecting multiples of the same kid."”A glance at the numbers and the offers extended at the ivies may make converts of many who thought that increasing numbers increased quality.Brown University — 30,291 applicants (2,619 accepted)Columbia University — 32,967 applicants (2,291 accepted)Cornell University — 43,041 applicants (6,025 accepted)Dartmouth College — 19,235 applicants (2,220 accepted)Harvard University — 34,295 applicants (2,023 accepted)University of Pennsylvania — 35,788 applicants (3,551 accepted)Princeton University — 26,607 applicants (1,939 accepted)Yale University — 30,922 applicants (1,935 accepted)The materials sent to many students underscore how great the education at the school will be for each student. There is precious little information sent out from the most selective schools about how incredibly hard it is to get in. It is not in the school’s best interest to discourage applicants and so they tend to send materials to many students whose chances of admission are slim at best. The number of applications filed to selective schools has soared. Part of this is due to the way schools now can use all sorts of data and all sorts of resources to find names and addresses and emails to reach out to students. Some schools have changed the name of the person who leads the admission process from Admission Director the Director of Enrollment Management. The name speaks loudly: the focus for these schools is on making sure the numbers work. This might mean getting enough students to fill beds, or enough students who can pay, or getting students who are at the top of the applicant pool from around the world. Enrollment managers are supposed to use data and marketing and effective recruitment strategies to meet the institutional priorities set forth by the leader of the schools. Boards have become much more proactive in telling universities how to run the school and they want to see results. Demonstrating to the boards that applications have soared, SAT scores have risen, and selectivity is up will earn both praise and a raise. Trying to demonstrate that students have unique voices, backgrounds and interests sounds good but aren’t quantifiable. This means that fighting for a student whose numbers might not be great can be more difficult than it was before the rankings existed.The rise in applications also has another significant effect on the evaluation process:“Given the number of applicants to colleges and businesses today, it is virtually impossible to make viable distinctions based on the limited data spectra generated by resumes, GPAs, cover letters, SAT/ACT scores, professional references and personal recommendations that all tend to look and read the same. While technologies such as the Common Ap and online job boards have widened the entry funnel, the lack of investment to strengthen the backend review processes has overwhelmed the system resulting in a tangible loss of quality evaluations.”While schools have invested a great many resources into marketing and increasing applications, not nearly enough has been spent in increasing the size and scope of those reading applications. I have mentioned this before: Despite the humanist narrative that is often told in information sessions at selective schools in which, once upon a time, great amounts of time and effort were put forth in the evaluation process of individual applications, the math doesn't add up. What does this mean? If an admission officer has to evaluate 25-50 applications a day (and this is fairly standard at selective schools) how much time can one devote to each applicant? Let's say that the officer needs to evaluate 30 applicants a day (and this is a fairly low number). How long would this take? If the admission officer is focused and devotes 15 minutes to each application then the answer is 7.5 hours.Of course, an admission officer is doing more each day than reading applications. There are emails, and meetings, and a whole host of other duties an individual admission officer might have. Any time devoted to other than reading or eating will extend the day well beyond 8 hours. And this is typical. Reading season is long and arduous, but admission people learn, early on, to make quick reads. For those applicants who do not have the numeric rubrics and are not in a special recruiting group, 15 minutes is often a luxury. In other words, all the hours of classes, tests, test prep, essay writing, activities and much else is evaluated in the time it takes to watch the latest Daft Punk video on YouTube. If this sounds cruel it is not meant to be, just informative. People make more important decisions in even quicker blinks of the eye than this. Resumes do not take nearly as long to evaluate. There are a number of other factors that go into making the numbers game even more complicated for the typical student who has done exceptionally well in and out of the classroom that I have addressed previously: geography, economic class, and special category students.I hope that by this point I have convinced you that the landscape of selective admission contains many large obstacles that most in the world do not know that much about. I may also have convinced you that colleges and universities are losing their ethical and education mission in pursuit of rankings and higher numbers. Now it is time to try to show why this narrative as set forth is only one part of a much more complicated story.********************************************************************This is your third school you have visited in 2 days. The car ride has been filled with conversations about APs, testing, essays and lots more. In between, there are tense silences too with everyone plugged in to a device listening to their own music. You arrive at the information session and an admission officer welcomes you and then at some point talks about admission:X is one of the most selective schools in the world. We pride ourselves on having some of the strongest students in the world enter our campus each year. Are you good enough to be one of these students? Here is what you will need. You should have a boatload of AP classes starting from grade 9 or 10, you should heave virtually all A's, you should have testing that is above at least 700 on each of the sections of the SAT (above 750 would be better). You should have a record of significant accomplishments in and out of school. You should have recognition from State, National or International competitions. You should have essays that demonstrate your voice is unique. You should have recommendations that say you are among the best students ever from your school and you have the potential to be a Nobel winner or the founder of a billion dollar start up, or a Wall Street Tycoon. You should have done significant service that has changed lives. You should be able to speak comfortably to all kinds of people alone or in an interview or in front of a group like this with well over 100 people intently listening to your wisdom.How would you feel after listening to this? If you are one of the chosen few who has fulfilled most of the rubrics set forth you should be feeling pretty good, but in a room of a hundred this might come to about 3 people. The vast majority of those in the room will leave thinking "I don’t have a chance and should look elsewhere". If admission officers at highly selective schools put forth the numbers and stats and expectations in this way many fewer applicants would try to apply. My question is whether this is beneficial to the students and parents? Will this tough love approach save needless heartache in March and April?Imagine instead you have arrived at the school and the admission officer says something like this:X is one of the most selective schools in the world. It is hard to get in, no doubt about it. But you should know that we are in the business of trying to create a class of students who have different backgrounds, talents, and lived experiences. We expect you to have done well, in and out of class and we expect that most of you will present strong testing and a record of activity that predicts you will be a success academically, socially, and in your activism. We don’t have cut off scores, we don’t have quotas, and we look at the individual applicant. We pride ourselves on our holistic approach to admission and if you like what you see and hear today we encourage you to apply.How would you feel after hearing this? Would you be encouraged to apply? I think many would. Is it wrong if the admission officer avoids the harsh stats in order to encourage students to apply? Some, if not many, might vote that this approach merely encourages applications from students whose chances of admission are slim to none. And I would agree with those who would say this.But, and this is an important but, I would still encourage schools to give speech number 2 over number 1. Why? It isn’t that I want schools to continue to get more applications. I agree with Hargadon and others that there are more than enough great students to choose from with 15,000 applications instead of 30,000. The reason I would argue for number two is that there is a likelihood that in any group of people there is an outlier. By outlier I mean a student who does not fit the typical description of a student who gets into a very highly selective school. It might be a first generation student who has had to work multiple jobs to help the support the family and as a result the course load he or she takes might be a bit light. Low-income students typically have lower testing too, but that does not mean they aren’t smart and could not do very well at a selective school. Or there could be a star athlete in the audience whose numbers are low but whose prowess on the playing field will help win the homecoming game. Or it could be a student whose essay demonstrates a way of viewing the world will change those around her. Or it could be a student from an under-represented group whose scores might not be astronomically high but who nevertheless has all the numbers that predict success. His or her background and experience will add to the conversations in and out of class. I could go on for quite some time about the possible exceptions to the stats that apply to the vast majority of applications.In essence, what I am arguing for in for schools to ignore the utilitarian approach. If highly selective schools wanted to provide the most useful information for the greatest number of applicants they would emphasize just how hard it is to get in. But in doing so they would miss the reaching out to the few who will get in who many schools want to have as a part of their class. Steven Pinker, a genius scientist at Harvard, has written recently that Harvard and others should give a test and forget everything else when it comes to admission. I think and have written that he is wrong about this.I do think schools should try to reach to students who aren’t a part of the typical admit group. The most selective schools often have the best financial aid packages so they can enroll these students and support their education so students graduate without debt. The schools provide a social good but it comes at the cost, so to speak, of giving the cold hard truth to many others.The last point I want to address are the clichés that many use to talk about getting into highly selective schools. It’s random, it’s a crapshoot, it’s unfair, and it’s a black box. No it isn’t. The other cliché that gets thrown around from the admission side is that it is an art rather than a science and that too needs some revision. Schools are numbers oriented in lots of ways. There are de facto limits with respect to how many students from a given place, school or country a college or university will take. There are some unstated academic thresholds that exist for most of the students who apply. But not all. The process, by becoming increasingly based on numbers, may make it true that it is heading toward the science end of the spectrum of big data. But its not there yet and won’t get there unless Pinker and others have their way. There is room at schools for the atypical student, just not a lot of room. But that does not mean students still should not try if they do have something that will stand out in ways that go beyond the numbers.The most important things that often get left out of discussions about admission: who are admission offices and officers representing? Admission officers can be passionate advocates for students of all kinds, but at the end of the day, they work for a university. The university has its own institutional priorities. It may be they want to increase the number of STEM students. This will alter the chances of admission for many students. Or it may be they want to increase the percentage of low income students (in some cases up or for cash strapped schools, down), or it may be they want to make sure they have a nationally ranked athletic team. They might want all of these things. The institutional priorities determine the way applicants will be evaluated. While schools will not be as forthcoming as they should about these priorities, some of them I have listed here are often a part of the mission of most selective schools. Their approach is calculated, vetted and highly scrutinized. For some the take way from this is that admission is not fair. Of course it isn't. Life isn’t either. But it is not completely unfair by any stretch. Admission officers clock innumerable hours trying to pick the best students as the school they work for has defined it. Should there be a great deal more transparency on the part of schools to release data that would help most families? Absolutely, but they should not put this in every brochure or email they sent out to students who may be one who fits in to their mission.Like most things in life, admission is anything but perfect and could be improved. Families and students should also do more research to get beyond the raw numbers listed on profiles and in rankings. My last piece of advice for finding out the inside story is to suggest that everyone watch a YouTube video by Brian Wright. His TEDx talk on why no student deserves a place at a highly selective school should make some people look at the admission process with a new set of eyes and expectations.

Encourage contact between students and facultyDevelop reciprocity and cooperation among studentsEncourage active learningGive prompt feedbackEmphasize time on taskCommunicate high expectationsRespect diverse talents and ways of learningWhat are the Seven Principles?How can undergraduate education be improved? In 1987, Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson answered this question when they wrote "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education." They defined what good education means at the undergraduate level. The seven principles are based upon research on good teaching and learning in the college setting.These principles have been intended as a guideline for faculty members, students, and administrators to follow to improve teaching and learning. Research for over 50 years on practical experience of students and teachers supports these principles. When all principles are practiced, there are six other forces in education that surface: activity, expectations, cooperation, interaction, diversity, and responsibility. Good practices work for professional programs as well as the liberal arts. They also work for a variety of students: Hispanic, Asian, young, old, rich, poor.Teachers and students have the most responsibility for improving undergraduate education. However, improvements will need to be made by college and university leaders, and state and federal officials. It is a joint venture among all that is possible. When this does occur, faculty and administrators think of themselves as educators that have a a shared goal. Resources become available for students, faculty, and administrators to work together.The goal of the seven principles is to prepare the student to deal with the real world.Principle 1: Encourage contact between students and faculty.Building rapport with students is very important. The contact between students and teachers are vital to the students' success. One of the main reasons students leave school is the feeling of isolation that they experience. The concern shown will help students get through difficult times and keep working. Faculty have many avenues to follow to open up the lines of communication.For the regular classroom:Invite students to visit outside of class.Know your students by name.Help students with problems in their extracurricular activities.Personalize feedback on student assignments.Attend student events.Advise students regarding academic courses and career opportunities.Seek out students you feel are having a problem with the course or are frequently absent.Encourage students to present their views and participate in class discussions.Have regular office hours.Help students to work with other faculty. Let them know of options, research, etc. of other faculty.Share personal experiences and values.Use the one-minute paper at the end of class to get feedback on what the student is learning and how well they are learning it.Talk to students on a personal level and learn about their educational and career goals.For distance and online courses:Try computer conferencing.Use list serves.Clearly communicate your email response policy.Encourage e-mail correspondence and discussion forum use, especially beneficial for those that are shy or are from different cultures because it allows them a different avenue of communication that might be more comfortable."Chat time" online with faculty (at various times, scheduled weekly).Use pictures of faculty/students.Visit the distance sites, if possible.Have an on-site support person.Maintain eye contact with camera and local students.Arrange for group work at a distance site.Principle in action:A York College (PA) professor has incorporated an invitation in the syllabus to encourage contact during office hours: "You are encouraged to stop in during office hours to talk about any problems or suggestions you may have concerning the course; about careers (especially graduate school or the benefits of majoring or minoring in (Insert your course here); or just about things in general. If you want to talk to me and find the schedule hours to be inconvenient, feel free to schedule an appointment."Faculty at St. Norbert College, Wisconsin, use electronic mail discussion groups. Many instructors find that the students are more willing to participate in a written discussion than to speak up in class. The instructor monitors the discussions and participates along with the students, adding personal perspectives and ideas to those of the students.The Residential College of Winona State University has implemented a "living-and-learn" environment to encourage student and faculty interaction. It is located 12 blocks from the main campus and houses 400 students in large, mostly single rooms. Academic activities at the Residential College include freshman seminars, sophomore common reading seminars, and an in-resident program with notable scholars or artists participating with students in a variety of experiences. Residential College faculty are located there and hold office hours. The interaction between students and faculty are enhanced because of the increased interaction.Technology, like e-mail, computer conferencing, and the World Wide Web/Internet, now gives more opportunities for students and faculty to converse. It is efficient, convenient, and protected. It allows more privacy so that students are able to discuss more openly without fear that other students are going to hear. E-mail also gives student more time to think about what they want to say. With these new alternatives to face-to-face communication, interaction from more students should increase within the classroom.Resources:Building awareness and diversity into student life: Pomona College. (1991). Liberal Education, 77 (1), 38-40.First year experience creates a community of learners: Augsburg College. (1989). Liberal Education, 75 (5), 28-29.Furlong, D. (1994). Using electronic mail to improve instruction. The Teaching Professor, 8 (6), 7.O'Neill, K.L. and Todd-Mancillas, W.R. (1992). An investigation into the types of turning points affecting relational change in student-faculty interactions. Innovative Higher Education, 16, (4), 227-290.Wilson, R.C., Gaff, J.G., Dienst, L.W., and Bavry, J.L. (1975). College Professors and Their Impact on Students. New York, NY: John Wiley.Principle 2: Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students.When students are encouraged to work as a team, more learning takes place. Characteristics of good learning are collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working together improves thinking and understanding.For the regular classroom:Use cooperative learning groupsHave students participate in activities that encourage them to get to know one another.Encourage students to join at least one organization on campus.Assign group projects and presentationsUtilize peer tutoring.Encourage students to participate in groups when preparing for exams and working on assignments.Distribute performance criteria to students is that each person's grade is independent of those achieved by others.Encourage students from different races and cultures to share their viewpoints on topics shared in class.For distance and online courses:Use chat sites and discussion forums for student-to-student communication.Set up teams to interact through e-mail or phone bridges with enough people at each site.Encourage students to respond to each other's work by posting it on the internet.Have a question and answer time online.Use teleconferencing for idea sharing.Encourage online discussion groups that require interaction.Work on group projects through phone and e-mail.Team-teach courses.Include an "ice-breaker" activity to allow students to share their interest and to learn about others.Principle in action:Students in communication courses at Miami University develop a group "code of conduct" to help facilitate cooperative learning. A sample code is given out as a model. The sample code includes: respect each other, criticize ideas instead of people, listen actively, seek to understand before being understood, contribute to group discussion, keep an open mind, share responsibility, and attend all meetings. Students are encouraged to customize the code to address other shared concerns the group may have. Students refer to the code after each class or group session to assess their performance and identify areas for improvement.At Naugatuck Valley Community-Technical College, students are tested both individually and collaboratively. Students are given a test date but are not told in which fashion they will be tested. Group tests are highly structured and a unanimous decision must be reached for the answer. The collaborative testing method helps students experience a sensitivity for diversity and others' point of view; develop and refine skills in persuasion, listening, and reading; and share responsibility and accountability. This method also reduces test anxiety among students.In a first-year composition class at University of Minnesota students videotape themselves discussing apprehensions before taking the course, their feelings when they received their papers back, and what they learned from the class. Next quarter, the video is shown to new students in the course to show that the feelings they are experiencing are shared by others and helps motivate them to succeed.Cooperative learning has several benefits. Students care more about their learning because of the interdependent nature of the process. Retention is higher because there is a social and intellectual aspect on the content material. Students also find the method more enjoyable because there is no competition placed upon them. Cooperation, not competition, is more effective in promoting student learning.Resources:Cassini, C. (1994). Collaborative testing, grading. The Teaching Professor, 8 (4), 5.Grading student projects: A project in itself. (1994). Adapted from For Your Consideration, 3 (3), by The Teaching Professor, 8 (2), 3-4.Johnson, D.W. and Johnson, R.T. (1985). Cooperative Learning: Warm Ups, Grouping Strategies and Group Activities. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co.McKinney, K. and Graham-Buxton, M. (1993). The use of collaborative learning groups in the large class: Is it possible? Teaching Sociology, 21, 403-408.Prescott, S. (1992). Cooperation and motivation. Cooperative Learning and College Teaching, 3 (1).*Special note: The National Center on Post secondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment has developed a source book on collaborative learning. Contact: NCTLA, Penn State University, 403 S. Allen St. Suite 104, University Park, PA 16801.Principle 3: Encourage active learning.Learning is an active process. Students are not able to learn much by only sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and churning out answers. They must be able to talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. Students need to make learning a part of themselves.For the regular classroom:Ask students to relate what they are learning to something in real life.Use journaling.Give students concrete, real-life situations to analyze.Encourage students to suggest new reading, projects, or course activities.Ask students to present their work to the class.Use of simulation software to run "what-if" scenarios allows students to manipulate variables and circumstances.Practice role modeling and use web-based case studies to practice new thinking skills.Encourage students to challenge your ideas, the ideas of other students, or those ideas presented in readings or other course materials in a respectful matter.Set up problem solving activities in small groups and have each group discuss their solutions with the class.For distance and online courses:Allow flexibility in choosing material so that it is more meaningful to the learner (e.g. students choose their own topic, project format, etc.).Have an interactive web page.Debate on-line.Present students work for other students to review.Talk about what students are learning by creating a learning group through e-mail, telephone, chat room, or conferencing.Use e-mail for group problem solving.Principle in action:At Iowa State University, history students interview prominent historical individuals during a press conference. After the press conferences, students work in groups identifying the main ideas and creating headlines and news articles that highlight those ideas.Structured journal writing is a major part of several classes at Lesley College. Each journal entry has two parts: the first paragraph emphasizes points for recall and retention; the second part emphasizes application of the content to the student's life experience and observation.An education professor at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse has created a hypothetical school system, complete with administration, teachers, pupils, and families. The goal is to help the students learn the legal aspects of special education. During the semester, the students take on all roles as they participate in legal cases involving students with disabilities. Students gain an understanding of the law as it applies to special education and students with disabilities, and they develop a human understanding of the human side of the cases.Promoting active learning in higher education is a struggle because of the learning background that many students come to classes with. This is due to the fact that the norm in our nation's secondary schools has been to promote passive learning. A large amount of information needs to be covered with not enough time, so teachers resort to lecture in order to economize their time to cover as much material as possible. Students progress from topic to topic with no real understanding of the content and how it relates to their life. Effective learning is active learning. The concept of active learning has been applied to curriculum design, internship programs, community service, laboratory science instruction, musical and speech performance, seminar classes, undergraduate research, peer teaching, and computer-assisted learning. The common thread between all these events is to stimulate students to think about how they as well as what they are learning and to take more responsibility for their own education.Resources:Gabennesch, H. (1992). Creating quality class discussion. The Teaching Professor, 6 (9), 5.Hands on experience in course's focus: Temple University. (1989). Liberal Education, 75 (4), 33-34.Harrison-Pepper, S. (1991). Dramas of persuasion: Utilizing performance in the classroom. Journal of Excellence in College Teaching, 2.Interdisciplinary approach to technology. (1998). Liberal Education, 74, (2), 23-24.Nalcolmson, P. and Myers, R. (1993). Debates: Techniques for improving student thinking. The Teaching Professor, 7 (3) 6.Principle 4: Give prompt feedback.By knowing what you know and do not know gives a focus to learning. In order for students to benefit from courses, they need appropriate feedback on their performance. When starting out, students need help in evaluating their current knowledge and capabilities. Within the classroom, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement. Throughout their time in college and especially at the end of their college career, students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves.For the regular classroom:Follow-up presentations with a five minute period for students to write down what they have learned in class.Provide informative comments that show the students' errors and give suggestions on how they can improve.Discuss the results of class assignments and exams with the class and individual students.Vary assessment techniques (tests, papers, journaling, quizzes).Offer on-line testing, software simulations, and web-based programs that provide instantaneous feedback.Have question and answer sessions.Use audio and/or video recordings to assess performances.Return grades for assignments, projects, and tests within one week.For distance and online courses:E-mail gives instant feedback instead of waiting for the next lesson.Use on-line testing, software simulations, and web-based programs that provide instantaneous feedback.Monitor bulletin boards regularly and give specific information feedback to students.Use pre-class and post-class assessments.Schedule a chat group where you, the instructor are present. Use it as a question and answer session when appropriate.Send acknowledgment e-mails when you receive a students work.Post answer keys after receiving assignment from all students.Use of hyperlinks within text to provide feedback to questions raised within the text.Principle in action:At the University of Scranton, a management professor, used computer scored multiple choice tests and quizzes which allowed the professor to have the tests graded during the break that followed the test or quiz. The students immediately received their results and were able to discuss the exam in detail. Students were able to understand the material better through the class discussion that occurred after the test.Hollins College students taking the Critical Thinking course submit two copies of their papers. The second paper is critiqued by another student.Faculty at Winona State University in the Communication Studies Department have to evaluate as many as 30 speeches a day. They developed a system of codes for the most common comments on speeches. These codes were programmed into a computer program and instructors were able to listen to the speech and type in the codes for the appropriate comments. This gave extra time to make specific comments on the individual speech and also gave students complete and prompt feedback on the entire speech.The importance of feedback is so obvious that it is often taken for granted during the teaching and learning process. It is a simple yet powerful tool to aid in the learning process. Feedback is any means to inform a learner of their accomplishments and areas needing improvement. There are several different forms that feedback can take. They are oral, written, computer displayed, and from any of the interactions that occur in group learning. What is important is that the learner is informed and can associate the feedback with a specific response.Resources:Brinko, K.T. (1993). The practice of giving feedback to improve teaching. Journal of Higher Education, 64 (5), 574-593.Dohrer, G. (1991). Do teachers comments on students' papers help? College Teaching, 39 (2), 48-54.Enhancing instructor-class communication. (1994). The Teaching Professor, 8 (3), 3-4.More on student self-assessment. (1992). The Teaching Professor, 6 (10), 7.Svinicki, M.D. Four R's of effective evaluation. (1993). Reprinted from The Center for Teaching Effectiveness Newsletter at the University of Texas as Austin, in The Teaching Professor, 7 (9), 3-4.Principle 5: Emphasize time on task.Learning needs time and energy. Efficient time-management skills are critical for students. By allowing realistic amounts of time, effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty are able to occur. The way the institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other staff, can create the basis for high performance from everyone.For the regular classroom:Expect students to complete their assignments promptly.Clearly communicate to your students the minimum amount of time they should spend preparing for class and working on assignments.Help students set challenging goals for their own learning.Have realistic expectations (don't expect 10 papers in 10 weeks).Encourage students to prepare in advance for oral presentations.Explain to your students the consequences of non-attendance.Meet with students who fall behind to discuss their study habits, schedules, and other commitments.Be careful that time on task is real learning, not busy work.Do not use technology for technology's sake. It must be relevant and useful to the topic.Have progressive deadlines for projects and assignments.Teach time management.Discussion topics from class posted in a discussion group on the web .For distance and online courses:Understand that there will be problems with the distance and technology along the way.Identify key concepts and how those will be taught. Given the amount of time, decide what realistically can be covered.Each distance class should involve some kind of achievement expectation that is laid out at the beginning of the course. Assign some content for out of class time.Give up the illusion of doing it all as you might in a regular classroom.Vary the types of interaction. In creating an interactive environment, it can be overwhelming to the students and teacher if the types of interaction required are too time consuming.Consider both in and out of class time.Make sure you know what your goals are and that the learners understand them as well.Have regular discussions that require participation.Principle in action:At Fort Lewis College in Colorado they have an "Innovative Month". Students are offered a series of five week summer domestic and foreign travel experiences that help them relate what they learned in the classroom to real life. The groups are limited to eight to fifteen students pre faculty member. Examples of Innovative programs include, "Management in Action", "Native American Schools", and "Music and Theater in England".At Lower Columbia College, the Integrative Studies Program is a block of 15 to 18 credit hours, organized around a theme. Students enroll in "traditional" courses, ut must enroll in the full block. This lets the faculty reorganize the day from the traditional fifty minute classes to include whatever schedule of lectures, seminars, conferences, and discussion groups needed to achieve learning objectives for that week.Wake Forest University teaches time management and study skills in their Learning Assistance Program and in the Learning to Learn class. Through a counseling/teaching model in the Learning Assistance Program, students are individually encouraged to learn and develop strategies to improve their academic performance. In the Learning to Learn Course, first and second year students study learning theory with emphasis on demonstrating how good time management and appropriate study skills positively affect outcome.An easy assumption to make would be that students would be more successful if they spent more time studying. It makes sense but it over simplifies the principle of time on task. Student achievement is not simply a matter of the amount of time spent working on a task. Even though learning and development require time, it is an error to disregard how much time is available and how well the time is spent. Time on task is more complicated than one might assume.Resources:Britton, B.K., and Tesser, A. (1991). Effects of time management practices on college grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83 (3), 405-410.Earth-sea-sky course combines art, science: Mississippi State University. (1988). Liberal Education, 74 (2), 29-30.Geiger, K. (1994). Rethinking school time: New, Better, and different...as well as more. The Washington Post, June 12, 1994. p. C3.Ludewig, L.M. (1992). The ten commandments for effective study skills. The Teaching Professor, 5 (10), 3.Terenzini, P.T., and Pascarella, E.T. (1994). Living with myths: Undergraduate education in America. Change, pp. 28-32.Principle 6: Communicate high expectations.Expect more and you will get it. The poorly prepared, those unwilling to exert themselves, and the bright and motivated all need high expectations. Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers and institutions hold high standards and make extra efforts.For the regular classroom:Give a detailed syllabus with assignments, due dates, and a grading rubric.Encourage students to excel at the work they do.Give students positive reinforcement for doing outstanding work.Encourage students to work hard in class.Tell students that everyone works at different levels and they should strive to put forth their best effort, regardless of what level it is.Help students set challenging goals for their own learning.Publicly acknowledge excellent student performance.Revise courses when needed so students remain challenged.Work individually with students who are struggling to encourage them to stay motivated.Encourage students to do their best instead of focusing on grades.For distance and online courses:Give a detailed syllabus with assignments, due dates, and a grading rubric.Call attention to excellent work in bulletin board postings or class list serves.Show examples of your expectations with previous students' work.Publish student work.Provide corrective feedback. State what you did and did not like.Be a role model to students. Model the behavior and expectations that you expect from students.Expect students to participate.Try to make assignments interesting and relevant to create interest.Ask students to comment on what they are doing.Suggest extra resources that support key points.Principle in action:At Bellevue University (Nebraska), students in the Introductory Psychology course are given a guide for answering essay questions on their syllabus. The suggestions are designed to provide direction to answering a broadly stated essay question. Three exams are given throughout the course. The list of suggestions as well as the essay question are included on the first two exams. On the final exam, only the essay question is given. Students are allowed to practice their writing skills until the assistance is no longer needed.In order to understand how students at SUNY-Plattsburgh learn and develop and how the school can help them to do so, students are required to take the College Outcomes Measures Project examination of the American College Testing Program (ACT COMP) as freshmen and again at the end of their sophomore year.Clayton State College requires students to exhibit seven different writing styles. Several levels of proficiency are present for each of the seven criteria. All students must pass writing assessments on four different occasions.Although it is often only discussed at the instructional level, high expectations also includes the students' performance and behavior inside and outside the classroom. College and universities expect students to meet their high expectations for performance in the classroom, but also expect a personal and professional commitment to values and ethics. They include the discipline to set goals and stick with them, an awareness and appreciation of the diversity of society, and a philosophy of service to others.Resources:An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education. An open letter to those concerned about the American future. Report on the Wingspread group in Higher education. (1993).Defining what students need to know: Clayton State. (1988). Liberal Education, 74 (3), 29-30.Gabelnick, F., MacGregor, J., Matthews, R.S., and Smith, B.L. (1990). Learning communities: Creative connections among students, faculty, and disciplines. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, (4), San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Nuhfer, E.B. (1993). Bottom line disclosure and assessment. The Teaching Professor, 7 (7), 8.Williams, J.H. (1993). Clarifying grade expectations. The Teaching Professor, 7 (7), 1.Principle 7: Respect diverse talents and ways of learning.There are many different ways to learn and no two people learn the same way. Students bring different talents and learning styles to the classroom. Students that excel in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio and vice versa. Students need the opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then, they can be guided into new ways of learning that are not as easy for them.For the regular classroom:Use Web technologies to allow students to pick and choose learning experiences that fits the way they learn.Encourage students to speak up when they do not understand.Use diverse teaching activities and techniques to address a broad range of students.Select readings and design activities related to the background of students.Provide extra material or activities for students who lack essential background knowledge or skills.Integrate new knowledge about women, minorities, and other under-represented populations into your courses.Use learning contracts and other activities to provide students with learning alternatives for your courses.Encourage students from different races and cultures to share their viewpoints on topic discussed in class.Use collaborative teaching and learning techniques and pair students so they compliment each other's abilities.Give students a problem to solve that has multiple solutions. Guide them with clues and examples.Consider field trips.Be familiar with Howard Gardner's research on multiple intelligences.For distance and online courses:Encourage students to express diverse points of view in discussions.Create learning activities filled with real-life examples and diverse perspectives.Provide Saturday lab experiences by contracting with local high schools or community colleges.Some CD-Roms are available that offer a simulated lab.Balance classroom activities for all styles (some books, some hands on, some visual).Explain theory from a practical approach first then add the structural approach.Principle in Action:Realizing that students can interpret exam questions in different ways, students at Georgia State University in the nursing program are given the chance to modify multiple choice exam questions that they find confusing. This student input lessens test anxiety and gives the student an opportunity to demonstrate what they know.Western Washington University's Fairhaven College has a cluster college with an interdisciplinary curriculum and an emphasis is place on student-centerd approaches to teaching and learning.At Kalamazoo College, the K Plan gives students an on and off campus study that allows them to spend a significant amount of their time in college on career-development internships, foreign study, and individualized projects.The meaning of diversity is very clear from effective institutions. They embrace diversity and systematically foster it. This respect for diversity should play a central part in university decisions, be apparent in the services and resources available to students and resources available to students, be a feature of every academic program, and practiced in every classroom.Resources:Hill, P.J. (1991). Multiculturalism: The crucial philosophical and organizational issues. Change, 38-47.Jacobs, L.C., and Chase, C.I. (1992). Developing and Using Tests Effectively: A Guide for Faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Kolb, D. (1981). Learning styles and disciplinary differences. In The Modern American College, edited by A.W. Chickering and Associates. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Lynch, J.M., and Bishop-Clark, C. (1993). Traditional and nontraditional student attitudes toward the mixed age classroom. Innovative Higher Education. Winter, 109-121.National Institute of Education. (1984). Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of American Higher Education. Final report of the study group on the conditions of excellence in American higher education. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education News.