Principles
- Students come into a class from a wide variety of backgrounds, and they bring with them an assortment of
understandings, preconceptions and misconceptions. Their learning will be shaped not only by class readings,
lectures, and discussions, but also by their backgrounds and their prior beliefs. The more you know about your
students’ backgrounds and understandings, the more effectively you can help them learn what you want them to learn.
- A set of clearly articulated learning goals improves the teacher-student interaction. By providing students with a
clear statement of the skills and knowledge you expect them to develop in the course, you enable them to focus on the
performance you desire.
- These learning goals should shape your design of class activities, including the different ways in which
students engage the material both in and out of the classroom, the assignments they complete to
be formally evaluated by you, and the criteria by which you evaluate these assignments.
- Assessment of student work is not an addendum to the process of student learning; instead, it is a
crucial element of the teaching and learning process. Effective assessment, provided early and often during
the semester, both supports student learning and also measures and reports the extent of student learning.
- Students learn best when they actively engage the material. Such engagement requires going beyond the memorization
of content to working with the content in ways appropriate for the disciplinary context and the student level of
development. Making explicit connections between course material and students’ lives outside the classroom
enables them to engage more deeply with the disciplinary content and to be able to apply it in novel situations.
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