Asset-based teaching provides students with opportunities for active learning, and also group learning. These strategies promote information retention, understanding, and analysis. Through group work, students are able to model their learning to each other, and demonstrate new and useful strategies for others to use. Also included in active and interactive learning are the concepts of gamification and inquiry based learning. Learn more about these strategies at the links below.
Positive relationships with peers, faculty, and staff are of benefit to students academically, socio-emotionally, and professionally. Traditionally marginalized students can benefit the most from supportive relationships with others providing campuses that center relationship-based learning with a mechanism for fostering more equitable student experiences. Below, you'll find resources about the benefits of relationship-rich education.
Relationship-Rich Education
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Educational theory shows a number of different alignments students may have between goals for mastery versus performance. Mastery is defined as task based or intrapersonal competence, whereas performance is defined as normative competence. Students who internalize an educational goal of mastery, rather than performance, often show continued interest in their major over time. Our focus as educators needs to be on learning about the goals of our students and adjusting pedagogy to increase engagement in mastery- versus performance- based goals in the classroom. Below, you can find sources about the benefets of mastery-based goals.
Multimodal assessment supports asset-based teaching because it recognizes and values students’ diverse strengths, experiences, and semiotic resources. Assessment is flexible and equitable, and may focus on evaluating student efffort, creativity, process, and engagement, rather than correctness. This assessment method is particularly useful for multilingual learners. It also encourages students to take ownership of their work and feel empowered as communicators, rather than penalized for deviating from standard norms. Below are resources related to multimodal assessment.
Another asset-based teaching technique to engage more learners is multilingual/translingual writing. This practice values linguistic diversity, and emphasized it as a resource. It also builds on students' lived experiences, allowing students to code-mesh within the classroom, with teachers affirming students’ out-of-school literacies, helping them connect personal, community, and academic discourses. Below are resources on multilingual/translingual writing.
Funds of Knowledge
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Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
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There are some best practices when it comes to online education, including strong faculty presence, encouraging communty building among students, and remaining vigilant about accessibility concerns. Anecdotally, from the perspective of both a student and an instructor, there is value in adapting assignments to be specifically formatted to an online learning environment. This provides with students to both give and receive feedback in a format that is tailored to their course, on assignments that have been tailored to their context and needs. It is also important to consider what factors will lead students to feel more confident in their given field as professionals, and incorporate those into coursework, regardless of the modality. Below, you will find an article diving into this final consideration.
Classroom experiments are a high-impact practice used most often in the social sciences to engage students in the classroom. They focus on practical activies where students apply theoretical knowledge that they have learned. Classroom experiements allow students to work collaboratively in groups in a hands-on way. The activities are usually low-stakes, removing barries to students' concerns of being right or wrong. Below are resources where you will find more information about classroom experiments.
In library instruction, a "one-shot" describes a mode of instruction where the instructor is expected to deliver content in a single instruction session. The instructor is not the "instructor of record" for the group of students, and is thus only guaranteed to see the group once. It is the most common experience for guest-lecturers, including librarians. In these sessions, the instructor relies on whatever preparation students have had from their regular professor for the session, including any authority sharing about the importance of this one-off class. These resources focus on student engagement in the library one-shot, specifically. All articles are available with a Fitchburg State University login.