reflections on teaching
They Hate
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 ...
Intellectual messiness is one of those perfect descriptors. I’m not sure where it originated, but I do like it, probably because messiness abounds in my mind. I have been frustrated lately by how old I ...
“All teachers can improve; most should.” Did someone tell me this or did I make it up? I’ll put it in quotes because I’m not sure, but it’s a one-liner I like. To improve means ...
Has teaching improved? It’s a question I’ve been putting to myself here on the backside of a long career. Without beginning benchmarks it’s hard to say for sure, maybe a bit, but not as much ...
When a discussion didn’t go anywhere. When a group couldn’t seem to work together. When the answer was wrong. When the grade was unexpected. When not all that many students are paying attention.
It’s hard to say—we have no definitive measures of learner-centeredness or even mutually agreed upon definitions. And yet, when we talk about it, there’s an assumption that we all understand the reference. My friend Linda recently ...
I continue to be a huge fan of personal narratives, those accounts of teaching experiences from which the author and the reader learn much. They’re scholarly, thoughtful, and intellectual. They may start with “here’s what ...
Last post on entitlement (I promise, at least for a while), but Dave Porter’s comment to the recent post on responding to entitlement identified something I’ve been thinking about but hadn’t clearly recognized—teacher entitlement. He ...
Where do your new ideas about teaching and learning come from? Perhaps some come from Faculty Focus and this blog? We certainly hope so! But most college teachers don’t get instructional ideas from the literature. ...
How did you learn how to teach? By trying to teach like those who taught you? Through trial and error? By looking for feedback on course evaluations? As an experienced educator, what methods do you ...
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