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Abstract

Over a five-year period, we made a persistent observation: Course structures and routines, such as assignment parameters, student group process rules, and grading schemes were being consistently ignored. As a result, we got distracted by correcting these structural issues and were spending less time on student assignment performance. In this article, we detail possible causes of our students’ inattention to course structures and the resultant negative impact on their performance. We found evidence that excellent student performance, and thus desired learning outcomes, may be fostered by offering certain kinds of structure to our students, in certain ways. In our discussion, we apply four distinct analytic frames—cognition and information processing, student engagement, age cohort, and technology use—to examine the relationship between structure and performance. Armed with these insights, we explore four levels of structures that could enhance student performance: precourse foundations, course/classroom, assignment, and instructor. We provide an integrative performance-enhancement model and evidence of structures that we have found facilitate excellent student work.

Keywords

course structures course routines directions student performance student engagement classroom management syllabus development

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