Fifty PVCC Faculty Ideas for Creating
More Learning Centered Courses:
(From the 8/13/01 Faculty meeting)

Provide a well-written syllabus that includes attendance and grading policies, a schedule of topics/assignments, and specific learning outcomes for those assignments.

Break down learning into smaller steps, with continuous feedback.

Be a role model and come to class a well-prepared and organized teacher.

Incorporate more technology-related activities in your courses–get the students on the WEB.

Incorporate Service Learning activities in your courses.

Provide small-group engineering projects in problem solving and critical thinking.

Use cooperative learning activities in science labs.

Solicit student input on development of the course.

Provide writing assignments in art and other "non-writing" courses to provide another modality for students to learn/demonstrate learning in your course and to reinforce the college goal of general literacy.

Have students keep track of their own grades (could be done with a computerized program or by hand).

Have students develop a portfolio of their work in the course.

Start each class by telling students exactly what they will learn that day.

Distribute or have student groups create an outline of what was covered at the end of each class.

Ask students for suggestions.

Encourage students to make mistakes.

Promote/encourage students to attend specific campus events, especially those that build connections between students and students and students and faculty–offer extra credit for attending and reporting.

Have students set personal goals within context of your course.

Be observant of student behaviors and ready to refer to counseling (Early Alert program).

Encourage students to e-mail you.

Set up an e-mail discussion group using a free web-based e-mail.

Make connections between learning outcomes and life experiences.

Put your course material on a web page.

Publish a course training manual with examples of specific assignments.

Use learning contracts.

Redo your syllabus to make learning outcomes more explicit in plain language.

Provide a checklist of steps for complex assignments.

State the specific learning outcomes for specific assignments.

Videotape student presentations and playback together.

Invite counselors to your classes early on.

Invite guest speakers.

Use a rubric for grading essay papers.

Listen to students in informal settings.

Assess student learning through conferences, feedback forms.

Assess effectiveness of your individual lessons by analysis of homework/quizzes and student feedback forms.

Stay current with issues/trends/methodologies in your discipline.

Encourage students to challenge everything the instructor asserts!

Not only provide your expectations for the course, but also ask students theirs.

Use collaborative learning groups–let groups choose their assignments from a menu of choices.

Assign real-life assignments: e.g., developmental writing students write real complaint or inquiry letters.

Confer individually with each student one or more times during course regarding his/her course goals.

Provide assignments that students can list on a job resume.

Provide assignments that require students to utilize different campus resources.

Have student groups prepare some of the course quizzes and exams.

Have students develop and present a seminar covering aspects of the course.

Are you friendly and approachable?

Set up a buddy system in the course.

Do icebreaker and get-acquainted activities the first day.

First day: have students make the class rules to which all will be held accountable.

Occasionally play content-relevant games, e.g., "survivor math."