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Appreciative close: creating classroom community

The Appreciative Close: A Strategy for Creating a Classroom Community

“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

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building transparency into assignments

Building Transparency into Our Assignments

In education, transparency is typically described as making teaching and learning visible. “Transparent teaching involves making the implicit explicit for students so they understand why they are engaged in certain tasks and what role the course plays in their learning journey,” according to a recent

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using examples to improve learning

Let Me Give You an Example

A conversation with Stephen Chew (who keynoted the 2018 Teaching Professor Conference) got me thinking about examples, mostly how I haven’t read or thought much about them. I wonder if that’s true of a lot of faculty. I’m coming up with a number of questions

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Memo to Students Re Studying

A Memo to Students about Studying

No, this isn’t the usual plea urging you to study more. This is about getting you to think about what you do when you study. Based on lots of evidence, researchers can tell you which approaches are the most likely to improve exam scores. Do

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study strategies that support student learning

A Quiz on Study Strategies that Support Student Learning

How much do your students know about effective study strategies? Most students think they know what works, but their knowledge is anecdotal and experience based. Much research has been conducted on study strategies, with some strategies proven more effective than others. Wouldn’t students benefit from

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students who participate too much

When Students Participate Too Much

At a workshop not so long ago, we were talking about the over-participator problem—you know, those two or three students who would happily answer every question or express their opinion whenever one is needed. We talked about why it’s a problem. How the rest of

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why do we ask questions in class

Why Do We Ask Questions?

It makes me cringe when I ask a question and a student responds with, “I’m not sure if this is the answer you want, but…” Somehow students have the impression that our sole purpose for asking a question is to find someone to give us

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OER textbooks - faculty adoption

Getting Faculty to Adopt Open Educational Resources

It is no secret that the cost of textbooks has skyrocketed over the past years, with students spending on average around a thousand dollars a year on textbooks (Meyer, 2016). It should thus come as no surprise that the majority of students have opted out

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learning technologies

Technologies for Serving Different Learning Needs

Just as all students are different, so are all instructors. We need to ensure we are implementing instructional technology tools that fit our teaching style, availability, and technology skill level. If any instructor wishes to incorporate a new technology tool, it is vital we first

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