Instructor’s Name

Cynthia Nichols

Course No., Name, and Call#

English 110, College Composition I

#18457

Semester Taught

Fall, 2002

No. of Students

22

Type of Active Learning (AL): Cases/CL/ PBL/etc.

Cooperative and Problem-Based Learning

Frequency of AL: Used in how many percentage of your class.

About 90-95%

Brief Description of AL methods? How did you use them? Your reflection on how effective the methods were in enhancing student learning?

Peer critiques, small group discussion, individual and team weblogging, collaborative multi-media "stretch" projects, and peers-teaching-peers.

The complete results will not all be in for my classes until late in the day on Dec. 20, but I think it’s safe to say at this point that most of what I attempted was moderately to very successful, with an occasional low here and there. The most interesting and possibly most successful was the small group teaching sessions, in which groups of 4-5 students researched and planned distinct presentations in which they "taught" the rest of the class the assigned material. Each group did this twice in the semester, and the projects involved students evaluating each other.

I have used active and cooperative learning strategies in the past, but I did so this time with greater understanding and more structure, and I introduced some (for me) brand new AL/PBL projects into my syllabus. (The workbook we received at the May workshop was very helpful.)

Please rate

Considering the types of active learning methods (cooperative learning, problem-based learning, etc.) and how often they were used in your class, please rate the overall usage of AL method(s) in your current class as (please bold one): 1) Never, 2) Occasionally, 3) Often, and 4) Very often

If applicable, rate the overall usage of AL method(s) in your class taught in the previous semesters as (please bold one): 1) Never, 2) Occasionally, 3) Often, and 4) Very often

Class Score on the Survey of Student Engagement

Course URL (if any):

http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/cinichol/English110/index.htm

Other Comments

I found this whole experience to be interesting and helpful (if a bit time consuming!).

(I did have a problem or two with the Survey of Student Engagement, which I will explain to my group leader.)

Elizabeth Birmingham
Assistant Professor, Department of English
320J Minard Hall
North Dakota State University
Fargo, North Dakota 58105

Office: (701) 231-6587
e-mail: Elizabeth.Birmingham@ndsu.nodak.edu

Prospective students may schedule a visit by calling: 1-800-488-NDSU.