First Day of Class

making connections in teaching

Making Connections in Teaching

As teaching professors, we know first-hand how complex an endeavor teaching is. The sheer number of instructional interactions, decisions, and processes can be overwhelming to enact, much less to master. To streamline such complexity, I have adopted what I consider a beneficial perspective. In its

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Four puzzle pieces

Four Things to Do on the First Day of Class

First impressions are important and you can make favorable ones on the first day of class by doing things just a bit out of the ordinary. Here are some ideas.

  1. If it’s a course where students don’t think they know anything about the content, start by
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participation policies for college classroom

Participation Policy Examples

Here’s a collection of five different participation policies. I encourage you to use them to stimulate thinking and conversations about how a participation policy’s content and tone can influence learning and classroom climate. Which policies work best—given the course, its content, the instructor, and the

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first day of class

We Begin Again . . .

I’ve been retired, as in not teaching undergraduates, for almost a decade now. I miss the students. I miss some of my colleagues. But what I miss most is the beginning of the school year. It’s a new start—new students, sometimes new content, a few

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Emotions Associated with First-Time Teaching Experiences

Emotions Associated with First-Time Teaching Experiences

Teaching requires more than just a keen mind; it also demands emotional energy, and that is particularly true for new teachers. But what emotions do they experience? Are those feelings more positive than negative? Are certain emotions associated with particular teaching approaches? These are all

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Lesson in Critical Thinking

Evaluating the Absurd: A Lesson in Critical Thinking

The College Success course taught at Polk State College introduces library resources and support services available to students. In a critical thinking and information literacy assignment, students are supposed to learn how to differentiate between a valid Web page and one that is questionable. They

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June 7-9, 2024 • New Orleans

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