Retention: Instructors

Instructors, are you pleased with your students’ assessment grades?  Do you feel as if your students are learning the content you are presenting in class?  Do you sometimes feel as if your lectures/instructions fly right over the class’s heads as their pens sit idly in their hands?  If any of these questions brought forth any type of frustration, then here are some helpful hints to help you help your students retain the important information you present in class.

First, plan activities promote higher level thinking.  Design tests and assignments towards the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy so that students are working towards the higher levels of Bloom’s: application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  Steer clear of assessments that are towards the lower ends of Bloom’s taxonomy: knowledge and comprehension.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/page/2172.html

For ideas for lesson plans and assessment measures, check out the following websites:

Learning Style Activities

http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/mi/dickinson_mi.html

http://www.epd86.org/tech/aurora/bierdeman/activities.html

 Contributed by Holly Ringo, LTCY 524