I teach students soon to be elementary and special education teachers, and they are often surprised to discover that their students are not “one size fits all”. The phrase has been around for decades and originally implied that a particular piece of clothing would fit
Four problems account for the lion’s share of serious teaching problems:
An overstatement? Perhaps, but over the many years we’ve worked with faculty in a wide range of disciplines, we’ve seen these
A lot of teachers don’t think of themselves as being particularly creative. Creativity in education doesn’t mean coming up with a revolutionary new idea or complete reinvention of something. Creativity means doing something original or unique. A lot of educational creativity involves repackaging or “putting
Clyde Herreid, a biology professor at SUNY Buffalo, has been a leader in the use of case studies in science teaching. His interest in “stories with an educational message” began in the 80s and has resulted in the creation of a large collection of cases
For some time now, students in my first-year biology course have been protesting that I’m assigning too much pre-class reading. I use the flipped classroom structure in most of my courses and that means students prepare for class by reading assigned pages in the textbook.
The “find and replace” feature in Word quickly makes an old syllabus ready for a new course. Use it too many times and thinking about the course settles into a comfortable rut. Yes, we may change more than just the dates, but when was the
Do you have a system or standard process for prepping a course you’ve taught before? Where do you start? Early in my career, “one chapter per week” described my course outline. It wasn’t an effective system. Poor planning left my students and me burnt out
Group work is one of those areas that some business and engineering faculty think is essential because that’s what those students will be doing in the workplace. I don’t want to undermine that view, but I do want to say that there is more to
Early in my teaching career, I attended a professional development event. The only session I remember was one given by Alan Lakein. It featured his book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life. He proposed an elaborate scheme for making and prioritizing
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) isn’t just for students with disabilities, it can help all students be better learners.
The increased (and increasing) diversity of students at colleges and universities means learning needs to be flexible enough to accommodate that diversity. A one-size-fits-all approach to
