Category: Student Engagement & Communication

Promote interactions with and between students to make learning more meaningful and memorable.

Managing Group Work

Reading Time: 2 minutesGroup work can be valuable for learning, and challenging to manage and support. These suggestions aim to provide clear ideas of how to best manage group work. Value Group Work Use Group Work as a Deliberate Learning Tool Construct Groups Carefully Create a Group Contract Students benefit from co-creating a team contract: how they will handle absences, late or non-completion...

Preventing Classroom Management Challenges

Reading Time: 7 minutesHow do expert teachers handle classroom management? The research into expertise in teaching shows that expert teachers do not behave like experts in high-risk professions (e.g., paramedics, fire fighters, policing, etc.) in regards to speed. In high-risk fields, experts analyze the situation quickly, come up with a plan of action, and implement the plan more quickly than novices, in part because novices...

Accommodation-Related Classroom Management

Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat are some avoidable occurrences when providing instruction to students when some students may have accommodations? How can I best manage student behaviours while always keeping accommodations in mind? Conestoga Context This will be the first of four tips about classroom management. This past week has brought up many questions about responding to and managing student behaviors in the class...

Hidden Communication Challenges

Reading Time: 4 minutesWhy is it challenging for international students to adapt to new learning environments? How can faculty promptly determine whether international students comprehend class content? Is it ever appropriate to use informal, idiomatic language when teaching international students? Conestoga Context According to International at Conestoga… Scholarship of Teaching and Learning As the number of international students increases at many postsecondary institutions...