There are numerous ways to get student engaged in the learning process.
Teaching and learning techniques on the college level involve getting students engaged beyond the high school experience. For the most part, instructors will encounter fewer disruptions and discipline problems because students are working to earn a college degree and they want to be there. Instructors can apply a variety of techniques to just about any course or curriculum.
Group Projects
Students must learn to work in groups at the college level because teamwork is also used in the business world. Students will often divide the work among themselves according to their skill sets, but instructors should encourage each student to tackle something that is unfamiliar, thus forcing the learning process. Group work becomes challenging when one student (or two) carry the work for the entire group. The instructor needs to set ground rules in advance to avoid this and to encourage students to report back if one group member isn't pulling her weight. Upon completion of the project, make an assessment sheet a part of the grading process so each student's participation is mandatory.
Discussion
Regardless of the class, students should actively engage in class discussion, especially in classes of their major course of study. Class discussions -- whether about the reading material or a current topic affecting the course material -- develop critical thinking skills and persuade students to voice their opinions while the instructor does not have to do all of the work by lecturing. This also expands their public speaking skills and better prepares them for class presentations. Instructors can be successful at good class discussion by asking open-ended questions that demand a longer answer from students. Some students do monopolize on discussion and others do not participate at all; it is the responsibility of the instructor to get as many student involved as possible without putting any student on the spot.
Online Chatroom
Developing an online chatroom for a "study night" gets students out of the classroom and into an environment they are familiar with the most -- the Internet. Asking questions in the chatroom gets students to answer questions in the comfort of a coffee shop, library or dorm. Instructors don't have to use this idea in place of a class (or classroom discussion). Instead, they can conduct a chat the night before a midterm or final exam or a major group project.
Learning Journals
Learning journals are meant as a reflective tool to get inside the mind of a student to find out what he is learning in the course. Students should write in a learning journal several times a week about what frustrates them about the course, what insights they learn and perhaps what additional information they will seek outside of class. Most importantly, this forces students to get into the practice and the habit of writing -- something that is good across the curriculum. The learning journal also is an excellent assessment tool for instructors to help them make adjustments and to better teach courses in the future.
