I was recently invited to write an essay about a pedagogy of joy, an approach to teaching that treats joy as part of learning. I had a visceral reaction and wanted to say, “No, thank you.” But I didn’t, even though I felt my body
Moving beyond standard instructional practices is a necessity in today’s diverse classrooms. Faculty are tasked with creating educational spaces that not only meet the varied learning needs of their students but also leverage their backgrounds. The good news? Effective models already exist.
AI has opened a world of new opportunities for student learning. I have discussed how instructors can easily add interactions to their learning material, tutors to their classroom, and digital laboratory simulations that allow students to test how a process changes with different inputs. But
Cramming is an alluring but risky study strategy. Let me explain. By the time students get to college, they probably have a lot of experience cramming for exams and likely have a good record of success using it as a study strategy. By cramming, I
During a recent interview for a longitudinal study on undergraduate writing and learning that I am conducting at my school, one student described a course he was currently taking with a professor he admired deeply. He spoke warmly about the instructor’s passion, clarity, and care
Large language models can explain concepts, summarize readings, and even generate practice problems. But developing professional expertise—the kind of strategic thinking, judgment, and problem-solving that distinguishes novices from experts—requires more than content delivery. It requires coaching. When we wanted to give students more access to
I sidestepped the question for years.
Two of my past articles for The Teaching Professor describe different types of educational “moments”: teaching moments and critical moments. Although I have been in the classroom for nearly 35 years, I continue to seek out strategies, like these moments, to fine-tune my teaching. In
Faculty and institutions are using AI to create educational material and tutors that help students learn the material. These are text-based interactions. But AI can also build digital simulations that allow students to experiment with different variables to learn how they affect processes. This ability
“May I have your slides, please?” If you’re not an instructor who posts their class slides online, you’ve undoubtably heard this question. Should you make your slides available? One answer is, “It depends.” As with most pedagogical questions, there are many nuances indeed. But after
