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Thriving in Academe
Best Practices

Students Will Do the Readings!

After attending one of my workshops, Clemson University English instructor Skye Suttie instituted daily quizzes in her classes. Each day she had her students write an answer to a general, open-ended question on the readings. She found, “They worked like a charm!. . . I noticed a huge change in their grades as the semester progressed. They were actually sometimes disappointed on days when I opted not to give them quizzes!”

Mick Lalopa, associate professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University, witnessed a similar transformation in his students. For years most of them hadn’t been doing the readings and, as a result, were gleaning little from his PowerPoint-studded lectures. Then, after perusing the literature on increasing reading compliance, he started requiring his students to write “detailed study notes” on the assigned readings, which they turned in for a grade.“The technique has worked wonders,” Lalopa claims. He opens the discussion with the broad question, “What did you learn about ______ in chapter __?” With this and a few follow-up questions, most of the class participates in articulating the key points. “Best of all,” he continues, “the students indicated that they were HAPPY that they were being required to prepare study notes because it forced them to read the chapter …”

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