For Instructors
- Assignment transparency: always explain the “why” to each assignment and assessment – and do think of this explanation in terms of post-graduation careers.
- Make connections during class presentations and discussions to ways that working professionals are expected to provide citations and work with integrity. Where appropriate to images, data, paraphrases of material (including syllabus passages you’ve “borrowed” from colleagues). These might be formal citations for a research article, or informal citations when drawing colleagues' ideas into a syllabus.
- Create intrinsic motivation; cultivate the love of learning they do bring; acknowledge outside pressures, including those imposed by parents and peers; share the ways in which integrity is a basis for lifelong learning and success in their chosen careers. Accomplish this with reflection and metacognition assignments, and make these connections verbally in lectures and interactions. .
- Learning to learn, whether in a new field of study, or at new and higher levels of education requires both modeling and practice. How do people in your field carry out the work of learning, relearning, and unlearning as part of understanding. How can students new to a field or level of learning begin to practice and incorporate those practices to advance as learners? Barbara Millis addresses this in “Using Metacognition to Promote Learning” (2016) with examples of before, during, and after lessons activities, and suggestions for ways quizzes and tests can be analyzed for maximizing future performance.
- For a deeper dive on evidence-based strategies related to metacognition and other learning strategies that support learning, check CEI’s “Leveraging the Learning Sciences” teaching resource, with sections on information retrieval, spaced learning, and active engagement with course materials. These practices can help move newly learned content from working- to long-term memory.
For Students
- It does. If you don’t understand how the content or assignment relates to future assignments, the work of the field, or your personal experiences, reach out to your instructor to understand the purpose of assignments. As an added bonus, you never know how your questions may impact the future of education.
- Context does, too. Course content aside, professional networking begins as a student. Choices you make as a student can impact your professional future. Make the choice now to do your work with integrity and set yourself up for a better future.