Professional Growth

Teacher Feedback: What Do We Want?

We regularly get course evaluation results, and they aren’t the kind of feedback most of us want. At least, that’s what the results of a recent survey showed. Questionnaire responses from almost 350 biology faculty members representing 185 different institutions found that 41 percent were

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Using Student Evaluations to Improve Teaching

Student evaluations can be used to improve teaching, and here’s an excellent resource to inform those efforts. Author Guy Boysen writes, “The purpose of this teacher-ready review is to provide a comprehensive, empirically-based guide for the use of student evaluations to improve teaching” (p. 273).

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tired teacher

Waking up to Tired Teaching

I have been wanting to do a blog post on tired teaching for some time now. Concerns about burnout are what’s motivating me. Teachers can reach a place where teaching does nothing for them or their students. They don’t just wake up one morning and

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students at blackboard

Attacking Problems as a Novice Learner

My wiper blades needed to be replaced. I hate these kinds of tasks; they make me feel completely inadequate. But I was doing a lot of reading about learning, and I was looking for concrete examples in my own life to help me better understand

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collage of faces

What’s Your Teaching Persona?

From a dictionary: per·so·na, pərˈsōnə/ noun
persona; plural noun: personae; plural noun: personas
the aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others.
“her public persona”: synonyms: image, face, public face, character, personality, identify, self
From the writings of university teachers:
“…in

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students working college classroom

Student Perspectives on Teaching Are Necessary

In higher education, we often think about how we can improve our teaching and learning. If you are like me, you wrestle with this question after a well-prepared lecture does not go as expected, or as you are trying to make sense of your student

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Professor at lectern

Teaching Hidden Knowledge

I recently taught my son how to drive a stick shift. I sat in the passenger seat explaining how to work the pedals and the shift, and he did what everyone does in that situation: jerk, stall, jerk, stall, and feel frustration. He was doing

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The Teaching Professor Conference 2024

June 7-9, 2024 • New Orleans

Connect with Fellow Educators at The Teaching Professor Conference!