I am thankful for Jennifer Trainor’s insightful “Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Many?” She raises what should be a real concern for teaching professors: Am I doing too much for my students? In other words, are teachers compromising student learning when we compose
This installment of our continuing series on assignments is devoted to assignment clarity. We believe that many good assignments fall short of achieving what faculty expect because students struggle to understand what they are to do and why they are doing it. The assignment description
We’re interested in assignments. To us, they seem like a vital aspect of instruction that goes largely unexamined. What sparked our interest was the way students so often respond to written assignments: “What do you want?” or “I don’t understand what you want in this
One of the luxuries of this online format that we didn’t have when The Teaching Professor was a print publication is the ability to pursue topics more thoroughly, to come at them from different directions, and to assemble collections of resources related to them. We
When I meet with faculty, I often talk about the importance of moving our conversations about teaching beyond the “tips and tricks” to the kind of thought-provoking discussions that help promote, motivate, and sustain our growth as teachers.
Why this article is worth discussing: Student
What does Tampa, that palm-fronded gem on Florida’s Gulf Coast, have to do with critical thinking? Nothing.
But in all caps, TAMPA is the acronym for a method of teaching critical thinking that I devised and have used for several years now with some success.
In education, transparency is typically described as making teaching and learning visible. “Transparent teaching involves making the implicit explicit for students so they understand why they are engaged in certain tasks and what role the course plays in their learning journey,” according to a recent
In every class session a different student is assigned to take notes. These notes are posted before the next class session.
An interesting variety of different types of quiz questions and formats are used in two philosophy courses with the goal of encouraging students to come to class on time, prepared, and ready for discussion.
Every course has assignments, but do they get the attention they deserve or do the same versions end up in the syllabus year after year? How much variety is there in the assignments students complete, in degree programs or even across their years at the
