We often think of learning in individualistic terms. The student cognizes in their brain and performs some solitary task to demonstrate learning. For this work, they receive an individual assessment. These assumptions and practices are common regardless of how student-centered the teacher is (Barr &
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, there is a scene that is sometimes deleted from productions, and the change in the audience’s behavior according to whether it is there or not can be noteworthy. At the beginning of Act 2, Scene 3, comes what is known as “The
There are now AI resources to help instructors through all steps of lesson development, from crafting lesson outlines with ChatGPT to creating assessments with QuestionWell. Now Diffit has come along to provide a start-to-finish resource for creating lessons. While instructors are likely to edit the
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?
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
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
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
