Every fall term since the start of the pandemic, I’ve expected that students will come to class with more energy than the semester before. Yes, Zoom classes and the fear of contagion changed our experiences of higher education, but as the distance from the initial
When discussing educational technology with instructors, it is useful to begin by asking how they define ed tech. In most cases, they reference the hardware and software they use or plan to use in the classroom. But what about the physical space itself? Classrooms shape
“Why does my edition of Hamlet read ‘O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,’” my student Jake asked me, “but yours has ‘O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt’?”
“Who’s ready to read some poetry?”
My voice echoed off the beige walls, an octave too enthusiastic. None of my students so much as stirred in response: not a blink, not a fidget, not so much as an at-least-she’s-trying smile.
In 1936, psychologist Muzafer Sherif reported a landmark study on the creation of social norms. Sherif made use of an optical illusion called the autokinetic effect. When people view a stationary pinpoint of light in a dark environment, they will perceive the light to move
While teaching and working from home during the pandemic, I developed a new respect for staying active and getting outside; new studies prove how much physical movement and nature matter to human wellbeing.
This is a takeaway worth applying to campus environments: academic spaces tangibly
Many of us know by now that didactic lecture is incongruent with student learning: receiving information passively tends to disengage students, which is likely to result in undesirable learning outcomes. Even though lecture remains the predominant form of teaching, collaborative learning has been a popular
My model for setting classroom expectations is a green giant. No, not the jolly green one of vegetable fame, but the playful, disruptive, yet effective Green Knight of the 14th-century romance Gawain and the Green Knight. The scenario unfolds like this: Until his arrival, King
Imagine this: You have just given instructions for the day’s class activity, designed to test a theory chronicled in the previous week’s readings. But the proposed assignment doesn’t land the way you anticipated. One courageous student challenges the purpose and relevance of the assignment in
“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” That line from an e e cummings poem has been following me around all week.
So much of our educational system is wrapped in how-not-to’s. How not
Magna Publications © 2025 All rights reserved