Topics

motivating students

Motivating Students to Do Their Best Work

Do you have students who don’t deliver good work? Sometimes it’s a case of not having the necessary skills, but not always. Students with skills have been known to deliver papers that show promise but aren’t well organized, fail to explore interesting ideas deeply, haven’t

Read More »
teaching to your strengths

Energize Your Teaching by Playing to Your Strengths

Think of the last time you had a masterfully planned class session fall completely flat. If you have been teaching for more than a week, you’ve been there. How did you react? Did you blame the students, the time of day the class meets, or

Read More »
cold calling technique

Unpacking a Cold-Calling Technique

“The Case for Cold-Calling. . .” I hadn’t finished reading the title before I started thinking, “I need to respond with the case against.” But I read on and changed my mind. The article proposed an approach to cold-calling that mitigated many of the objections

Read More »
Yellowdig engaging online students

Using Yellowdig to Boost Online Discussion, Simplify Grading

The limitations of traditional online discussion boards are well-known. Yellowdig is an alternative that I have used to simplify grading, encourage student-driven conversations, and engage students so that they consistently participate throughout the semester. With familiar, social media-like features, Yellowdig is an LMS-integrated discussion tool

Read More »
disappointing student work

When Students’ Work is Disappointing

In a commentary about to be published in College Teaching, author and teacher Ellen Ballock writes about a set of student papers she found disappointing. I’m guessing that will resonant with most of us. Teachers regularly get work from students that just doesn’t measure up.

Read More »
assignment details - too many

Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Many?

In an era of hyper-focus on students’ academic performance, is it possible that schoolwork is actually too easy? I recognize that this might seem a strange question, given how much we hear of stressed-out students, slogging through hours of homework and blizzards of standardized tests.

Read More »
assignment details - too few

Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Few?

I am thankful for Jennifer Trainor’s insightful “Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Many?” She raises what should be a real concern for teaching professors: Am I doing too much for my students? In other words, are teachers compromising student learning when we compose

Read More »
students confused over assignment

What Happens When an Assignment Is Unclear?

This installment of our continuing series on assignments is devoted to assignment clarity. We believe that many good assignments fall short of achieving what faculty expect because students struggle to understand what they are to do and why they are doing it. The assignment description

Read More »
Archives
The 2025 Teaching Professor Conference

Get the Latest Updates

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter