Reflections on Teaching
Like birthdays, anniversaries are occasions for reflection, and as I approach the fifth anniversary of my teaching career, I find that my thoughts are drawn to the things that I did badly. Here’s a list ...
Graham Broad’s piece reminded me of a short critique John Kenneth Galbraith did of his teaching: “How I Could Have Done Much Better.” The honesty of both is courageous and refreshing. Most of us were ...
As I prepared to teach my first-year orientation class this fall, I realized that I am 44 years older than my youngest students. Our window of shared experiences is small. They’ve always had iPhones and ...
Having never viewed myself as an expert and periodically believed I’m an imposter just waiting to be found out, I went a long time without worrying about the so-called curse of knowledge. I couldn’t possibly ...
A year ago I received the worst student ratings of instruction (SRIs) in my 28 years of teaching. On the Likert scale I am normally between 4 and 5 for quality of instructor and quality ...
It is time to bid farewell to a career I have loved for so long that it now seems entirely too short. Reflecting on 42 years of teaching and some of my missteps, I share ...
Think of the last time you had a masterfully planned class session fall completely flat. If you have been teaching for more than a week, you’ve been there. How did you react? Did you blame ...
When our teaching focuses entirely on learning outcomes, we can become narrowly focused on seeing our students as skillsets. This can lead us to break learning into smaller and smaller parts so that we can ...
“All teachers can improve; most should.” Did someone tell me this or did I make it up? I’ll put it in quotes because I’m not sure, but it’s a one-liner I like. To improve means ...
Has teaching improved? It’s a question I’ve been putting to myself here on the backside of a long career. Without beginning benchmarks it’s hard to say for sure, maybe a bit, but not as much ...
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