The recent decades have seen growing faculty interest in learning. Increasingly, teaching is being understood in terms of how well it promotes and facilitates learning. Faculty are more familiar than ever with the evidence that favors active learning over lecture. And although many still lecture,
“We are very good at teaching students how to solve problems for which we already know the answers. The challenge is to teach them strategies for tackling problems we’ve yet to solve.”
Any teacher will tell you that they could use more time. One way to save time is with the Google Drive suite of tools. These free apps are not only powerful in themselves, but a host of add-ons have been developed around them that increase
Educators continue to provide excellent learning opportunities that develop the knowledge and skills required by disciplines. But generally the focus is on what students need to know and be able to do within that discipline only. If there is an attempt to provide an interdisciplinary
Required courses are among the most challenging to teach, and the lack of student motivation is one of the big reasons. Students don’t want to take these courses. Most do not understand the justification for requiring them, especially those in fields that appear to be
New Approaches, Instruments and Emphases
Eddy, S. L., Converse, M., and Wenderoth, M. P., (2015). PORTAAL: A classroom observation tool assessing evidence-base teaching practice for active learning in large science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes. Cell Biology Education, 14 (Summer), 1-16.
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Here’s a collection of five different participation policies. I encourage you to use them to stimulate thinking and conversations about how a participation policy’s content and tone can influence learning and classroom climate. Which policies work best—given the course, its content, the instructor, and the
Most faculty aspire to engage and involve students in interesting and insightful discussions. But these in-class and online exchanges frequently disappoint faculty. Students come to them unprepared. They engage reluctantly. Their individual and unrelated comments take the discussion in different directions. There can be awkward
Many years ago, a higher-education publication ran a commentary from a faculty member who complained that students were bored by her lectures because she was not entertaining them enough, but that she should not have to entertain them; however, she was wrong.
Positive classroom climate can encourage students to participate, think deeply about content, and engage peers in intellectual debate. Creating a classroom climate conducive to that type of expression can be difficult. Classrooms are filled with a diverse cross-section of our society representing multiple learning preferences
