When my institution closed because of the pandemic, I was asked to teach an entirely virtual organic chemistry course (class and lab) in the 2020 summer semester. This was the first entirely virtual organic course ...
Ever since reading the article about how Professor Ashok Goel used bots to enhance the student experience for his computer science class, we have been wondering how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in education. ...
Good teaching requires a special blend of the personal and the professional. Although there’s a fine line between revealing a piece of oneself to build rapport and sharing too much information, sharing past experiences—telling personal ...
I believe my capacity for empathy is an essential part of my teaching persona. For that reason, I was more than intrigued by the title of Paul Bloom’s book Against Empathy (Jan. 2016). After reading ...
As teaching professors, we know first-hand how complex an endeavor teaching is. The sheer number of instructional interactions, decisions, and processes can be overwhelming to enact, much less to master. To streamline such complexity, I ...
“What you appreciate appreciates” (Twist, n.d.). One of the practices I have employed in most of my classes during the past several years is “the appreciative close,” which is an offshoot of “the appreciative pause” ...
Many faculty wonder how to help students in the dominant group understand societal privilege without making them defensive. One day, a situation arose in my course that changed my approach to this topic. I was ...
Every year, we enthusiastically welcome incoming students to the academy. I teach at a large research university with a strong and proud commitment to teaching undergraduates. For those of us in professional roles, belonging to ...
A month into last fall’s first-year writing course, one of my students emailed me and politely explained that he found one of the reading assignments offensive. We met in person to discuss his concerns. On ...
Frequently college students seek emotional support and personal advice from faculty members with whom they have had supportive interactions. Faculty need to balance the idea of helping students with their more formal role as instructors, ...