This is the blog for the Learning Made Easier podcast entries.
Relating is when you take several things you’ve learned about different topics and tie them together. Join Adam and Dinur as we talk about how to do this! Show Notes No show notes this episode
Analyzing is when you take several things you’ve learned about a single topic and tie them together. Join Adam and Dinur as we talk about different ways to analyze what you’re learning! Show Notes No show notes this episode
Questioning is the art of finding the weak or missing points of any topic and knowing why they’re weak or missing. We do this by asking questions and finding out which ones don’t have answers. Join Dinur and Adam as we talk about which questions work best! Show Notes No show notes this episode
Discussion boards can seem boring if the questions aren’t formulated well. Ideally, you want questions that tap into learning at different levels – from memorization to evaluation. So we suggest using Bloom’s taxonomy to create your discussion board questions. Join Adam and Dinur as we go over this process! This is also our final (for […]
“Summarize” means to say the same thing in fewer words. Many students don’t know how to do this. In this first episode of our Critical Thinking series, Adam and Dinur go over how summarizing works. Show Notes Paragraph from our shared chapter: In the spring of 2020, the academic world was shaken to its foundations […]
Rapport in an online class doesn’t look anything like it would in an in-person class. So you need to find other ways to connect, instead of trying to recreate something that can’t be recreated. Join Dinur and Adam as we talk about how to do this. Show Notes No show notes this episode
With all that’s currently happening in the United States, teachers – and students – have to be prepared to have difficult conversations with one another. How can we have productive conversations about learning and action, instead of shouting matches in class? Join Dinur and Adam as we discuss this issue. Show Notes Roslyn R. Cecelia […]
In our fourth COVID-19 episode, we offered suggestions for how to keep your students engaged now that classes are taught online. Catlin Tucker offers eight additional methods to keep students engaged in online classes, and in this episode, Adam and Dinur go over her additional methods and how we’ve used or will use them. Show […]
An emergency comes up. You need to miss class for some time, and one of your professors won’t reply to the email you sent out. What do you do? Join Adam and Dinur as we talk about how to handle this situation. Show Notes No show notes this episode
Worried about having to move to online teaching in the fall? In this episode, Adam and Dinur run down a list of some best practices that have shown up, both in research and anecdotally, for making online classes work when you have never (or rarely) taught a class online! Show Notes Inside Higher Ed: What […]
Many of us don’t realize a lot of our failures and mistakes can be anticipated and planned for, and made less bad as a result. Join Dinur and Adam as we talk about how to use the concept of talking with Future You to failure plan your projects, papers, and other tasks! Show Notes Brooke […]
Novice online instructors make a lot of mistakes when they first start out, but with COVID-19 forcing most of us online this coming term, there’s no way to avoid it: your classes will probably be online. Join Dinur and Adam as we talk about ways to minimize and avoid these kinds of mistakes, so your […]
Many students – and many teachers! – feel like they never have enough time to get things done. Part of the problem is we don’t have practice taking time with what we need to do, but part of it is also that we may give ourselves too much time to get something done. This can […]
During COVID, we’re all mostly moving online, and modules are crucial for online courses. They give students a road map that tells them what to do, when to do it, and what to expect next. Join Dinur and Adam as we talk about how to go modular! Show Notes No show notes this episode
Too many of us think motivation comes first, and then action happens. It’s actually the reverse. The results of taking action motivate us to do more of that action. Join Adam and Dinur as we talk about some ways to create motivation through action in your life! Show Notes Rubin Khoddam, Ph.D. on motivation and […]
Since COVID-19 closed our campuses down, the idea that every student has a computer, a word processing program, stable internet, and the textbook no longer stands up to reality. Join Adam and Dinur as we discuss the issues of inequity revealed by COVID-19. Show Notes No show notes this episode
Today, Dinur and Adam discuss an article on KQED.org that describes the QFT, or Question Formulation Technique – a method to help students ask better questions. Join us as we talk about the details of this method! Show Notes KQED.org: How Helping Students to Ask Better Questions Can Transform Classrooms
Mental health is an issue even when we don’t have an international pandemic going on. But obviously, the problems we already have get worse, and new ones show up, when we add in COVID-19 to the various pressures of daily life. One of the big problems with the public-health responses to the virus has been […]
Too many students think that worrying, stressing out, or doing busywork is the same thing as working effectively. But the professor has no way of assessing your worry, stress, or anxiety. The only way a professor can see how effort you put into an assignment is by looking at what you turned in. Join Adam […]
Many institutions, faculty, and students want the fall to be as close to normal as possible. Join Adam and Dinur as we discuss what that means, if it’s possible, and how to adjust our priorities in the face of COVID-19. Show Notes Laurence Steinberg’s article at the New York Times William Tierney’s article at Inside […]