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 stories —is completely justified when it furthers learning and fosters
“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
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 it, I recognized that a number
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 have adopted what I consider a beneficial perspective. In its
“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” recommended by Stephen Brookfield (Brookfield, 2015, pp.95-96). Brookfield suggests using
For the last seven years, I have had the absolute honor of working with college students who have committed academic misconduct. Every student at my university who is found in violation of academic misconduct is automatically sanctioned to the office of Integrity and Ethical Development,
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 teaching about using APA citations, and, in the course of
As teaching professors, we try to change students, whether it’s a change that increases their factual knowledge, one that gives them a new way of thinking, or one that develops an important new skill. Frustration, stress, and tension frequently accompany change, especially change that involves
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 the academy means something rich. It includes discussions in hallways
The most common approach to cheating involves trying to prevent it—multiple versions of a test, roving observation during tests, software that detects plagiarism, policies that prohibit it. However, if we look at cheating across the board, what we’re doing to stop it hasn’t been all
