‘Student Motivation’
Student motivation journal club: Supporting our students’ motivation in the era of COVID-19
Apr. 8, 2020—by Cynthia Brame, CFT associate director Our student motivation journal club is ending the academic year in the age of COVID-19 and all that implies: working from home, teaching and/or taking classes remotely, reading shifting but consistently bad news each day. We are learning how to negotiate challenges of spotty internet connection, kids and animals...
Grades as a necessary evil? How they affect student motivation and what we can do about it.
Dec. 19, 2019—By Heather Fedesco, CFT Assistant Director During the December meeting of the CFT’s student motivation journal club, we tackled the perplexing question of whether grades help or hinder student motivation. Chamberlin and colleagues’ paper titled, “The impact of grades on student motivation” gave us a great launching point to embark on this discussion. The authors...
Student motivation journal club: If it’s bigger than you, the boring is worth it: the power of self-transcending motivation on menial tasks
Oct. 28, 2019—By Faith Rovenolt, CFT undergraduate intern, and Heather Fedesco, CFT Assistant Director Unfortunately, it’s hard to avoid the boring in learning. Inevitably, even in the most exciting fields, students need to learn and do a boring, menial, or repetitive task. In STEM, this is especially true. You can’t learn to plot the path of a...
Crowdsourcing ideas for student engagement and for dealing with student challenges
Oct. 1, 2019—by Cynthia J. Brame, CFT Associate Director One of the most persistent questions that faculty face is how to engage our students productively, both in and out of the classroom. In some settings this is easier than others: when students are taking elective courses in their area of interest, the road is often smoother than...
Student motivation journal club: Starting the year with a framework to understand motivation
Sep. 12, 2019—by Cynthia J. Brame, CFT Associate Director Last week, my colleague Heather Fedesco and I convened the first meeting of a new, CFT-sponsored journal club on student motivation. We were excited to see the 15 or so faculty members who were there (and to get emails from others who had to miss it but plan...
Strategies that Stick: Memorable Moments that Enhance Student Motivation
Oct. 22, 2018—Meet the newest assistant director at the CFT, Dr. Heather Fedesco! Prior to Vanderbilt, Heather served as the Mellon Pedagogy Researcher at Colorado College where she spent two years conducting research on student motivation. Please join us as Heather shares some of her research exploring the teaching strategies that students find memorable and motivating...
Teaching in the context of hate speech
Aug. 21, 2018—By Joe Bandy, CFT Assistant Director Many institutions of higher education aspire to encourage the liberal arts ideals of free speech, critical thought, and diverse perspectives so as to empower students to lead meaningful and purposeful lives, and to engage in our society as responsible citizens. This – in addition to growing campus diversification, student...
What makes group work work?
Sep. 2, 2015—by Cynthia Brame, CFT Assistant Director We’ve all been there: victims of unproductive and frustrating group work. Perhaps an instructor poses a question, tells us to turn to our neighbor and discuss it, and we all sit silently…because the answer’s obvious and there’s nothing to discuss. Or perhaps we have an end-of-semester project to develop,...
From the Stacks…
Dec. 29, 2014—Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham Faculty will learn the importance of story, emotion, memory, context and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences in this book by Daniel Willingham. This books helps...
Students as Producers: An Introduction
Sep. 3, 2013—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director As I announced last month, this year many of the Center for Teaching’s workshops, conversations, and other resources for the Vanderbilt teaching community will be part of our “Students as Producers” theme. I first heard the term “student as producer” in a keynote by the University of Lincoln’s Mike Neary...