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List of Flashlight CATs
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Handbook Table of Contents
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Engaged time is the best single predictor of
learning: the more time a student spends in the real work of
studying, the more and better that student is likely to
learn. But in a busy world, students (and faculty) want to
minimize the time they spend, especially the time they might
waste, in a course. One solution is to help students
understand how much time they really spend in a course and
how productively that time is being invested. That's the
purpose of self-studies of engaged learning time (Cross and
Angelo, 1986: CAT #19).
Instructors can use student estimates about how much time
they spend on each element of the course to help make
decisions about the design of future assignments, whether
and how to teach study skills, overall course pacing, and
workload. For students, this exercise in tracking time use
should help them become more conscious of how they really
study and help them improve those work patterns. This kind
of investigation is particularly useful in courses that are
perceived to have heavy loads of assignments of similar
types; in other words, what faculty and students learn about
how one assignment is done can help with the design and
execution of the next such assignment.
The structure is simple. About each activity, the survey
asks:
1. did you do this activity?
2. how much time did you spend, in all, on this [name of
activity]?
3. how much of that time was "engaged" learning - really
productive for you?
4. are there ways in the future to reduce the time spent in
less-than-useful ways (either by changing the way you do
this kind of activity, or by changing the design of such
assignments)?
Building your own survey: We have created
an "empty" Flashlight Online survey for creating
Self-Studies of Engaged Learning Time. You'll need to create
the topics but we've already written one set of the four
questions above. It's template 31024. Here's some text you
could adapt to create an introduction for your feedback
form:
I'm interesting in making assignments for this course as
interesting and engaging as possible -- the more time you
study, the more you learn. And students usually spend more
time on assignments that are obviously valuable, relevant
and interesting. So I need your feedback to help me figure
out whether to maintain or change the types of assignments
I'm giving in this course, and in courses I teach in the
future. Please take a few minutes and tell me, as accurately
as you can, about the time you spent on the following
assignments. After I get your feedback, I'll report back to
you about whether, and how, I'm changing future assignments.
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