Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy v3.0

Why Students Cram for Exams

Today's faculty focus is discussing about why students cram for exams. According to the research, approximately 45 percent of student admitted to cramming. The resesarch pointed out that many currently used assessment strategies promote cramming. However, there is no proof of the certain testing format promoting cramming more than another, although researchers concerned that multiple-choice is the one. Indeed, any test methods that required strong memory would unconsciously encourage students cramming for tests. Project-based learning would be a better alternative, when the formmative assessment is strongly recommended.

Another factor, Powerpoint slide lecture does not engage student to convert the knowledge into their own learning, which leave the space for the cramming a tthe end of the term. Does this make sense?

Why Students Cram for Exams

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Gantt Charts

Along with a traditional calendar, a Gramtt Chart can create a graphically represent of the project start/stop dates and the project progression to help you see the total picture, which improve your time management skills.

To draw up a Gantt diagram (Gant diagram), follow these steps:

• Step 1. List all activities in the plan
• Step 2. Head up graph paper with the days or weeks through to task completion
• Step 3. Plot the tasks onto the graph paper
• Step 4. Presenting the analysis

Gantt charts are useful tools for planning and scheduling projects. They allow you to assess how long a project should take, determine the resources needed, and lay out the order in which tasks need to be carried out. They are useful in managing the dependencies between tasks.

When a project is under way, Gantt charts are useful for monitoring its progress. You can immediately see what should have been achieved at a point in time, and can therefore take remedial action to bring the project back on course. This can be essential for the successful and profitable implementation of the project.

See full article here

Related article: A Teacher's Paradox - Flexible Time Management

fish vs fishing

I read a short ariticle in Tech&Learning online magazine this morning, titled as Students as Meaningful Contributors by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. Here is one paragraph that I want to highlight for its truthness.

The "why do we have to learn this" comment has bothered me for years. Several
years ago I realized it is a very good question and if I can't answer it with a better response than "you may use this some day" then I better get out of the teaching business. It came to me that we really do NOT remember most of what we are taught. So what is the purpose. I had to change my philosophy. I realized my focus should not be the content, but instead training the brain to think in different ways using the content of my classes. I have come to find the recent brain research agrees with me in that the brain develops different ways of thinking when we encourage it to do so. We as teachers need to let go of the "content focus" and focus on training the brain to think differently. If we arm our students with a brain that can think many different ways we have done our jobs.

Can't agree more than that...