A new academic year is about to begin, and, well, there’s this course—maybe more than one—that you’re not exactly bristling with excitement to teach. What should you do?
Around an image of Yoda’s face, block letters urge, “Read the syllabus you must.” This meme represents a common complaint among college instructors, particularly those who teach online classes: that students do not follow syllabus instructions. In many on-campus classes, instructors devote at least several
Students look to teachers for leadership. The teacher is the person in charge—the course’s designated person in charge. That’s hardly revelatory, but how does leadership inform our practice? Do we think reflectively and critically about our roles as leaders? With a new academic year about
For years I have used a game I call the Blame Game in my Intellectual Heritage I classes. Intellectual Heritage I is an interdisciplinary course in critical reading that focuses on works of literature, philosophy, and religion. Several of the texts I use in this
Webinars can be valuable additions to online courses because they lend a synchronous element to the class. They can also be valuable additions to face-to-face courses because some students are more comfortable interacting in a digital environment than they are having the attention of an
Many faculty (probably most who read this column) willingly do a great many things to help students learn. For example, we know that our courses are jammed with content and that it’s hard for a lot of students to figure out what they need to
A host of studies have shown that feedback is one of the most important elements of learning (e.g., Hattie, 2009; Wiggins, 2012). These studies also show that students are generally starved for good feedback. Their instructors focus on grades instead, having learned to mentally subtract
Do the things we know about how students learn apply to faculty when they’re learning about teaching? That question follows me around. I think about for a while, forget it, and then bump into it again. My latest encounter happened yesterday, when I decided to
Humor has a place in education. College teachers can use it to create a welcoming classroom environment, increase learning, improve attendance, and reduce test anxiety (Banas, Dunbar, Rodriguez, & Liu, 2010). Such results should encourage all who teach to explore how to integrate humor into
When a new movie comes out, people often watch the trailer to decide whether they want to see it. Similarly, our eyes are immediately drawn to a video on the website of a product we are considering purchasing.
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