Think back to your first year as a college student. In September and October, you were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, walking in with a fresh stack of notebooks, organized notes, color-coded highlighters, and every intention of being the student who stayed ahead. For the first few
Traditional instructor-led videos, such as introductory videos and module overviews with assignment details, can offer students valuable guidance. But these are often prerecorded for repurposing and may not align with the students’ immediate needs or any portion of the course when they need the most
Although a range of pedagogical methods use storytelling, evidence of their connection to academic outcomes in specific disciplines is lacking. We present a form of biographical storytelling with the potential to improve academic outcomes. It has five components: narrative structure, characters, emotional resonance, imagery and
Teaching and learning scholars have widely recognized undergraduate research experiences (UREs) as high-impact practices that substantially influence student retention, learning, and professional outcomes (Lopatto, 2004; Williams & Xu, 2020). Though much research about UREs has focused on experiences in the sciences, UREs provide a foundation
We often hear faculty complain that students are not reading the course material. Studies consistently report low rates of reading compliance across disciplines, with students citing time pressures, unclear purpose, perceived irrelevance, and weak accountability structures as reasons for skipping assigned materials (Hoeft, 2012; Brost
As the Covid-19 pandemic ran its course, you most likely found yourself adapting classroom policies and activities to meet the challenges of remote and hybrid learning. Perhaps you flipped your classroom for the first time, saving precious class time to have students work through activities
Have you noticed what students do when they’re curious about something? A few years ago, a common response to having a question about a text (or the world, for that matter) was to “ask Google.” Nowadays the common refrain seems to be “ask ChatGPT.” When
John lost both his parents by the time he was 12. He moved around between different families, got himself into a lot of trouble, and eventually was expelled from high school. Fast-forward many years, and John, after earning degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, went
Every fall term since the start of the pandemic, I’ve expected that students will come to class with more energy than the semester before. Yes, Zoom classes and the fear of contagion changed our experiences of higher education, but as the distance from the initial
In recent years, many of my students have told me they feel bored, anxious, and lonely. Some explain that they often reach for their phones and scroll just to fill the silence. Listening to them, I’ve learned that this habit is not really about killing
