Last week I shared some integration ideas. This week I am continuing in the same vein. The possibilities are endless. Take an idea, modify it the serve your purpose, and make it your own.
Weekly Reviews - If you are interested in assigning group projects or discussions, research projects, or longer questions, the Weekly Reviews sometime include projects in addition to the standard questions. Some require Internet searches, while others are appropriate for break-out sessions during the class session. You could assign these several times each semester as they seem interesting to you.
Some instructors assign particular articles to the class rather than having students select any article. This is an easy way to integrate current events and to have all the students prepared for the discussion. You can use a very recent article, or alternatively you can assign articles you have found in past years that are 'classics.' I have an article about mistakes in Internet pricing from several years ago that is so complete that I still use as a comprehensive question on contracts. Every now and then I will find an article that is so good that it can work well indefinitely. Real-life can be far more interesting than some of the questions I write!
Weekly Quizzes - Another tool that the good people in the education area of the Wall Street Journal provide to us is the Weekly Quiz. Similar the Weekly Reviews, the quizzes are prepared weekly and posted to professorjournal.com. They are available in various formats (such as Word and Power Point, among others) so that you can cut-and-paste the questions you wish to use. Each week, 25 multiple-choice questions cover articles on the front pages of each section of the paper that week. You can select questions pertaining to your discipline, or use all the questions to test general reading of the Journal.
Finally, some colleagues ask the students to select and write a short paper on several articles related to course topics. The assignment requires the student to demonstrate some understanding and application of course material to the information in the articles.
As you notice, each of these exercises requires and assesses mixtures of different skills. Find one or more that serve your pedagogical purposes. The Journal articles are class resources just waiting to be utilized!
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