The first summer job I ever had was mowing lawns. Back then (this was the ’70s), I would start the power mower, and the blade kept spinning until I turned the mower off. I learned quickly to pull the mower up a slope and not
Does your class end with a bang or a whimper?
Many of us spend a lot of time crafting the perfect first day of class to ensure we set the right tone and build community. We then pay close attention to how we structure and script
Faculty have recently been bombarded with a dizzying array of apps, platforms, and other widgets that may or may not be the Next Big Thing in college education. Though such novel technologies deserve attention, our aim here is to delve into a much
How do you approach the final weeks of your course? Most of us include some sort of summation activity: a final review, a course evaluation, sometimes a reflective paper.
Recently, I have begun to incorporate these kinds of activities much earlier in my courses, with good
A teacher’s work is rarely done. You may think you have nailed it one day only to flounder the next. One semester may go swimmingly, but another may feel like drudgery. Most college and university teachers have challenging first years as they navigate the rigors
This article appears in The Best of the 2023 Teaching Professor Conference (Magna Publications, 2023).
When I began researching the impact of mental health challenges on student learning, one of my first steps was to interview a couple of friends from the counseling center on
On stage at The Comedy of Errors that night, long-lost twin brothers embraced to the swelling strains of “Amazing Grace”; offstage, in the seat next to mine, my Very Reluctant Student turned to me—misty-eyed, breathless—and whispered,
“Whoa.”
This is your sign to take students to a
Many years ago, I taught college composition at a small art and illustration college in Chicago. The students in my classes were a diverse and irrepressibly creative bunch with an intimidating range of writing confidence and experience—a true challenge for a relatively inexperienced writing
While the emergence of ChatGPT has created considerable consternation among faculty who fear students will use it to write their assignments, the positive side is that it provides a powerful tool for faculty to use in developing course content. ChatGPT
When news broke of the Margory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Valentine’s Day 2008, students and faculty at the small liberal arts college where I taught at the time were catapulted out of the pastoral slumber and relative safety of our tiny rural
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