You form an impression of a student within five seconds of seeing them. This impression is likely to stick even after you interact with them for a while (Ambady et al., 2020). While that thin slice of behavior may or may not provide an accurate
In the fourth season of Gilmore Girls, there’s a memorable episode where Rory, navigating her first semester at Yale, visits her ethics professor during office hours. Under the guise of clarifying notes, she secretly hopes for praise on her recent essay. Confident in her performance,
College students prefer to use suboptimal learning strategies when they study (e.g., Rinella & Putnam, 2022), which can undermine their academic performance. That is especially true for first-year students, who have no experience studying for college-level classes. For these students, a poor academic performance may
A vital part of preparing to teach is considering what will most benefit the students we encounter. To be successful across a variety of domains, students need instruction on how to engage in critical thinking, synthesize and evaluate information, and self-evaluate their own learning and
A few years ago, while reviewing a student’s feedback on one of my course evaluations, I came across a profound observation. The student described the class, like many science courses, as “stoic,” yearning for more humanity in the learning experience. It struck a chord with
Educators all want teaching to progress, but right now there are two contrary definitions of progress. I call one form of progress transactional teaching and the other transformative teaching, and they are pulling teaching in opposing directions. Let me explain what I mean.
There are dozens of teaching methods that a teacher might use, but instead of emphasizing their differences, I want to focus on what they have in common. These are practices that all teaching methods value. Used correctly, they are universal components of effective teaching. I
I once worked with an institution that decreed that its online courses must be set up so that students have a choice of the order in which they take the modules in the course. All modules were required, but they had to be constructed so
The increasing prevalence of stress and overload among students in higher education continues to be a point of concern for educators, administrators, and mental health professionals alike. In this essay, I will first discuss the core elements
Time management is one of the most important skills for success in higher education, especially in online classes that do not give students a set schedule for organizing their studies. For this reason, I have developed a time management program for online students that
