Current global events, including a rise in nationalistic rhetoric, have put pressure on faculty from all disciplines to be able to facilitate discussions without disenfranchising or excluding any students. I’ve been teaching discussion-based courses for 25 years, and my own methods have evolved and grown,
“If we weigh our educational systems in terms of communication instruction, we find that almost all of the formal attention is given to teaching reading and writing, some is given to speaking and almost none is paid to listening.”—Ralph Nichols and Leonard Stephens, Are You
As I gave one of my international students feedback at my desk, I noticed he stood too close for my comfort. I inched away from him, and in response, he moved closer. We did this until I could move no further and had to
Like many of our peers, we are fortunate to work at an institution serving individuals from different ethnicities, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds. In this regard, many of us work on campuses with large international populations coming from all parts of the world. Such students
I teach psychology to students who are largely from rural and low-income areas. In my courses we discuss a wide range of topics that have the potential for controversy, such as sexuality and gender, best parenting practices, racism and implicit bias, and the neuroscientific
This article first appeared in The Best of the 2022 Teaching Professor Online Conference (Magna Publications, 2023).
Belonging describes the human emotional need to experience acceptance from a group. As a psychosocial concept, belonging or feeling “part of” allows individuals to develop self-concept or self-identity
In the life of a professor, what’s more satisfying than a successful class discussion? A classroom abuzz with ideas, students who are energized and alert, sinking their teeth into the assigned material, riffing in surprising, productive ways. Isn’t this why we got into the
The academic year may be underway, but it is not too late to make our classrooms and our campuses truly inclusive and safe places for transgender and gender nonconforming students. Making meaningful change (not just talking about it) sounds like a daunting task, but at
Being a good teacher is important to me. How do I know whether I am one? What can I do to become (a better) one? To help answer this question I drew on my expertise as a health psychologist. Being healthy is important to me.
During a keynote address at the 2022 Teaching Professor Conference, I spoke about challenges that exist in higher education, specifically students and instructors who do not have the freedom to bring their authentic selves to their learning or teaching environments. In such scenarios, students might
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