Effective course design begins with understanding the process of thinking and learning. These processes are commonly termed "metacognition." Metacognition includes a critical awareness of one’s ...

Group assignments are common in university courses, especially in projects that carry significant weight toward your final grade. These larger assignments are designed to assess not only subject ...

Travis Grandy is a PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Find him on Twitter @travisgrandy or at his website. I work with a lot of instructors who use ...

Professors sometimes bemoan their students' writing skills. But how good are professors at creating quality writing assignments? There's no recent, national study of how and what professors are asking ...

Journals have become a popular format in recent years for courses that require some writing. In-class journal entries can spark discussions and reveal gaps in students' understanding of the material.

The students’ assignment: Write an op-ed about lead poisoning in Lewiston-Auburn. Or write a caption for a photo, or text about a campus tree. Write about how strange quantum theory is, or write a ...

Sometimes it is difficult to know how to best approach writing about television, film or web media. Much of this process begins with understanding your assignment: this will have an impact on your ...