Richard Bold

Over time I have struggled with motivating timeliness in students submitting work. Many approaches involve some kind of reduction in the score earned: no credit at all, 25% off, 10% off per week late, etc. Students view these approaches as punitive, and I have had many students react negatively to such approaches. A few years ago, I started scoring multiple facets on assignments, such as giving scores for content and quality, format and mechanics, and timeliness. This way a student is always earning a score (a positive effect), not being punished for being late (a negative effect). Since instituting this… >>>

Teachers have preferred methods of teaching, and students have preferred methods of learning. Modern educational "folk wisdom" is that we should match the two for maximal effect. We all have our own agendas and tend to perform best when we are in our comfort zones, but teachers are urged to step out of their comfort zones to improve instructional quality. I teach computer programming. A number of years ago I read a paper (written by a woman) on why there were so few women in the programming field. One of her conclusions was that women are culturally programmed to ask… >>>