Recent conversations about online learning have centered on ways to create dynamic online courses where students and instructors are engaged (Page et al., 2020). Online discussion forums are spaces where engagement happens. Here, instructors use feedback to motivate students, stimulate conversation, and encourage deep
Every January, millions of people around the world resolve to do things differently. Some want to eat better. Some want to keep in better touch with friends. Others want to travel more. Many want to get more physically active. A lot of these resolutions
“How did you become interested in teaching and training?” the eager applicant for a training position asked. I paused, thinking about my mentor, the articles I read, as well as the lectures and workshops I attended. After searching for an answer filled with gravitas and
I’m a historian, and I do a fair amount of pedagogical research. But one thing I’m not is a historian of college-level teaching, which makes Jonathan Zimmerman’s recent work, The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America, such a delight. What follows
As James Boswell, noted biographer of 18-century English man of letters and dictionary author Samuel Johnson, writes in Life of Johnson, “The art of communicating instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be valued” (p. 70). That art, I would add, benefits when teachers wrestle
The animals went in two by two to be saved from the flood. To some students, doing poorly on the first exam is also a calamity of biblical proportions. A bad first grade is often nearly impossible to recover from if no changes to studying
We’ve all written them: the narratives or statements that frame our teaching for those reviewing our portfolios. Maybe the review is for a job; maybe it is for contract renewal, tenure, or promotion. But how many of us have had a clue about what this
No faculty member sets out to be a bad teacher—at least I hope not—but there are bad (or ineffective) teachers. I’m sure some of these faculty see teaching as an obligatory chore or are indifferent to whether students learn. Then there are those who want
Psychology programs at large, research-focused universities often ask me to provide an external evaluation for a faculty member on a teaching-track faculty who are being considered for tenure or promotion. I try to accept these invitations because I think it is vital that faculty who
The intent of professional development is to help professors become better teachers, but it is sometimes unclear what efforts bring the most improvement. Research has consistently identified several best practices in teacher professional development. We’ll address three of those practices here: focus, duration, and collaboration
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