A method for improving student performance in laboratory courses is described. Students work in small, interdependent groups in which each person contributes a unique piece of a research project. The technique is designed to encourage student cooperation during the research enterprise. Results indicate that students evaluate the approach favorably and that their academic performance improves. Some applications and potential problems of the technique are discussed.

Scholars of teaching and learning have endorsed self-assessment assignments as a way to encourage greater reflection by students. However, no studies to date have compared writing in self-assessment with traditional academic assignments. We performed a quantitative text analysis of students' language in self-assessment versus traditional assignments from 3 courses. Self-assessment assignments included more references to cognitive words (i.e., words related to insight) than traditional academic assignments. In addition, self-assessments included more emotion words and pronouns and were linguistically simpler than traditional academic assignments. We conclude that self-assessment assignments encourage students to become more reflective, a goal of the American Psychological Association (2007) curricular guidelines.

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Clinicians found the PPS to be a quick, useful way of assessing and reviewing functional changes in palliative patients. However, it may not identify the subtle changes in individuals with advanced dementia. The survival figures confirm that caution is needed in generalising survival data across different settings and populations. Further work is needed to examine changing functional status in patients with non-malignant diseases or dementia/frailty.

In this article I explore the educational value of students writing questions on what they do not know about course content. Students bring questions to class on assigned chapters and we discuss the questions. Later, students write 1 question for each exam. Students in 10 classes agreed that the technique helped them see alternative ways of viewing the course material, understand the limitations of texts and lectures, and relate current information to previously learned material. This technique is applicable to both introductory and advanced classes.