This particular list was compiled from the responses of more than 700 first-year college students taking courses enrolling 150 or more students. They were asked to answer this prompt: “In your opinion, what is the biggest mistake college instructors make in the classroom?” There aren’t
Faculty can learn so much about teaching from each other. The challenge is finding ways to start and sustain conversations between faculty about teaching. This is the story of how journaling became the centerpiece of an unlikely but highly impactful teaching support group involving a
When making classroom decisions, too often our main focus is the standards, learning objectives, and/or discipline competencies that must be addressed by the end of the course. Instead, we should focus on the students who sit in our classrooms and how we can best help
There are purists among us who would say that we should never lecture, but I don’t think that’s terribly realistic, and I’m still not ready to totally rule out lectures. As faculty, we bring expertise to learners and having an expert around when you don’t
Peter Burkholder’s recently published piece in The History Teacher (highlighted in the October issue of The Teaching Professor) is another reminder of how much we need a different way of thinking about course content.
We all pretty much agree that we try to cover too
When designing an online course, it’s important to consider how to create learning experiences that will spark learners’ intrinsic motivation. While different learners may be motivated by different factors, there are several models that can provide useful guidance when you’re designing motivating learning experiences. Two
Imagine a colleague insisting that his students memorize the URLs of the top 20 websites in his field, as well as keep abreast of any changes in those URLs. Would that make sense? Of course not. Students can find any of those sites through a
Online instructors frequently cite email as the biggest distraction in managing their online course workload. Those obnoxious pop-ups or auditory dings announcing new email might as well be a siren call, pulling online instructors away from the work at hand and into a stormy sea
Students tend to engage with concrete ideas and examples better than they do with abstract concepts. This is why, if you teach a lot of theory, you need to find ways to make your instruction interesting, engaging, and relevant, said Tyler Griffin, assistant professor at
To learn more about how students learn, I conducted a test of a core subject that I teach. It’s titled “The American Experience,” and it’s a required course for juniors and seniors at LaGrange College. I’ve taught the course using in-class presentation of the material
Magna Publications © 2024 All rights reserved