Yup, it’s midterm time: Some Just-In-Time Course Change-Up Resources

14 Mar

In reviewing the titles of the following three resources, it’s quite clear where that it’s midterm time here on the UMinnesota campus. It’s also Spring Break on campus, which finds many instructors setting out making use of this liminal time period in two ways – some time set aside for review of one half of a semester with an eye on reinvigoration of the remaining term time, and some time set aside for the beauties of walking away from computers and desks in time for spring play.

To those working on the first part, we’ve updated three popular posts that focus on midterm jump starts for learning and teaching, which we’ve listed below with brief summaries and links to the updated posts:

Reading for Learning: A Midterm Review. Ideas here focus on ways to help learners actually learn about reading – as acts of independent and discipline-related thinking.
“I’ve Done All the Reading for this Class…” Low Stakes Writing Prompts as Midterm Change-Up. Suggestions here for leveraging online discussion forums as students and teachers prepare for face-to-face discussions based on readings.
Reinvigorating Our Students’ Learning (and Our Teaching) at Midterm. Post-midterm break students and teachers alike acknowledge that the stakes are higher: levels of learning move up a notch or three, the assignments become more complex, and thinking required to make new connections becomes more difficult. This post offers suggestions for navigating this range of teaching/learning moments.

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