To be fair, instructors don't always do the readings either, as evidenced by nearly every faculty meeting I've attended. :)
This is my first time hearing of Perusall.com. It seems to have some useful features I wouldn't get in our campus etext platform. Thanks for sharing.
Like others in this thread, I create low-tech, low-stakes assessments that require students to dig into readings. I use auto-graded quizzes in larger classes, which help me identify concepts that might need additional explanation from me. The reading quizzes are intended to be formative rather than summative assessments, so they are untimed and allow multiple attempts. I use open-ended (online) discussion prompts for the same purpose in smaller classes/grad seminars, perhaps similar to what Aaron described. As an added bonus, these assignments give me another method for communicating which concepts will be most important.
This probably goes without saying, but I've also been impressed with how much students read when the readings are actually required to complete assignments and achieve learning goals. In recent semesters, I have relied more heavily on written material in my larger online class (~250 students). I thought students would complain about the change. On the contrary, they seem to value the readings more than in the past, and they are doing well even when the readings are often the only way to get important content. (I try not to dwell on what this says about the videos I created painstakingly in years past!)
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Heather Kirkorian, Ph.D.
Laura M. Secord Chair in Early Childhood Development
Associate Professor | Human Development & Family Studies
School of Human Ecology | University of Wisconsin-Madison
4105 Nancy Nicholas Hall | 1300 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
kirkorian@wisc.edu | 608-263-4020
https://sites.google.com/site/kirkorianlab/------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2020 20:37
From: Barbara Sarnecka
Subject: Get students to actually read
In my experience, undergraduates don't read. And actually, graduate students don't read much either. But I've started using a free website that has made a huge difference: Perusall.com. (I'm not being paid by them or anything.)
It works like this: You (the instructor) create a course on Perusall.com. Students can join the course by entering a code that you give them. (It's the same code for all the students.) You upload documents as .pdf files to Perusall, and create assignments by assigning all or part of a document to be read by a specific date and time. You can also put questions and comments on the document for students to see/respond to.
Students read the document and post comments and questions on it. They can also respond to each other's questions and comments, Facebook-style. Perusall keeps track of students' activity (how much time they spend on the document, did they read the whole thing, how many comments/questions did they post, etc.) and gives them a score. (You can change the scoring criteria to suit you.)
I've used this in big classes of about 200 undergrads, and in smaller graduate seminars. If you make the Perusall grade count toward the students' grade in the class (I made it worth 10% in the undergrad course), they do take it seriously, and they actually do the reading for a change.
Perusall makes money when people assign actual textbooks and students buy them through the site. A lot of publishers are making their books free right now during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it's a good chance to try it out. But you can do it all for free (free for you and for the students) if you just upload .pdfs for the readings.
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Barbara Sarnecka
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