News Roundup: Experiential Learning, Stories in the Classroom

This week, find out why students benefit from experiential learning and when their instructors tell stories in the classroom.

Your Students Learn by Doing, Not by Listening
“The best learning occurs when students teach themselves,” David Gooblar writes. He suggests designing courses that enable students to change their behavior, which often involves learning by doing instead of listening—essentially employing plenty of active learning strategies. (Pedagogy Unbound)

Are You Telling Stories in the Classroom?
Using stories as a teaching tool can make the material relatable, pique interest, offer students new perspectives, and help them recall information later. Melanie Green encourages instructors to weave stories into their lectures to foster learning and help students draw connections. (Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning)

What Adult Learners Really Need (Hint: It’s Not Just Job Skills)
David Scobey argues that adult learners want the same opportunities most traditional college students do: small seminars, capstone projects, internships, and a broad liberal arts curriculum. He is helping convene the “Great Colleges for the New Majority,” a network of innovative colleges that help adult students succeed. (nprEd)

The 5 Tips for Student Success That a Longtime Instructor Swears By
Tony Holland has an approach for student success he calls I-CAN (improvement, constant, and never ending). I-CAN strategies include passing out course evaluations early in the semester, emphasizing that the instructor cares about students; setting learning objectives for each unit, so students know what to study; creating 10-minute videos for objectives to prompt discussions; giving frequent quizzes, so students know where they stand; and providing early interventions, like meeting with struggling students. (The Chronicle of Higher Education Teaching Newsletter)

How Do We Prepare Students for the Future? Focus on Experiential Competencies
Companies are looking to hire innovative thinkers to tackle complex problems, Monique Fuchs writes, and higher education must prepare students to meet these demands. She suggests that educators from different disciplines work together to foster experiential competencies, such as innovative thinking and entrepreneurial confidence, in their students. (Education Dive)

The Edges of Pedagogy: Defining (and Promoting) Actual Safe Spaces for Student Engagement
In the National Survey of Student Engagement, students report that their classes emphasize sharing their own ideas and professors help students link course topics to their experiences. This type of problem-based learning makes courses more student centric, Randall Stauffer writes, because students contribute to their own learning and instructors serve more as resources than authority figures. (The Evolllution)

Partner News

Sam Houston State University: ACUE Awards Ceremony ([email protected])

Texas Woman’s University, University of Southern Mississippi, and Sam Houston State University: Visit our Facebook page to see photos from some of our partner institutions’ recent teaching celebrations and pinning ceremonies. Are you a course-taker who was recently awarded an ACUE credential? We want to hear from you! Post your photos and tag us on Facebook and Twitter.