Friday Fragments, April 16th
Sitting with someone in need, the debate over remote proctoring, and a study on impacts of providing PPT slides in advance of a class session.
What I’m reading…
BrainPickings is a wonderful regular newsletter that collects beautiful writing, and this week the author shared a lovely book, The Shadow Elephant, about “sitting with” someone in their time of need.
Univ. of Michigan Dearborn is investing in faculty development rather than relying on remote proctoring.
If you are on the fence about providing students with slides (“instructor-provided notes”) ahead of a class session, this study might be of interest: Effects of PowerPoint slides on attendance and learning: If you share it, they will (still) come. While attendance and learning were not affected by the provision of notes, interestingly student beliefs about their grades were impacted.
Results revealed that neither attendance nor learning was significantly affected by access to IP notes. Interestingly, however, when participants were asked retrospectively whether access (or lack of access) to IP notes affected their attendance and grades, participants with access to IP notes erroneously believed that IP notes affected their grades. These results suggest that instructors can provide notes to students without negatively affecting attendance. Moreover, despite oft-stated student preferences for IP notes, these results suggest that instructors can limit access to IP notes with no deleterious effects on learning.