Pete Burkholder recently published an interesting article in this newsletter questioning the widespread push in higher education for “engaging” student activities. He first adopts Jose Eos Trinidad et al.’s (2020) definition of engagement as “enjoyment” ...
Educators have come to realize that videos are highly effective and engaging ways to create online course content. One of the most engaging forms uses a green-screen backdrop to project images or videos behind or ...
There’s no shortage of materials pertaining to student engagement in higher ed. I’ve attended teaching conferences where anywhere between one-third and one-half of the sessions could be slotted under the engagement rubric. I’ve further found, ...
I dread the moments when I look out into a classroom and see a collection of blank stares or thumbs clicking on tiny keypads: a pool of disengaged students, despite what I thought was a ...
Have you ever struggled to get students to do required readings? Do your students treat them as optional? Perhaps they do the readings, but when you ask them to engage in critical discussion or think ...
Lecture as a pedagogical approach has come under considerable fire in recent years. Indeed, critics have called lectures boring, obsolete, old-fashioned, overused, and even unfair, among other, less-flattering terms. The criticisms, however, have most often ...
Every fall now I cull my large teaching and learning article database. Yes, it’s a filing cabinet full of paper copies. Copies were the only option when I started collecting articles. But the cabinet is ...
A new academic year is about to begin, and, well, there’s this course—maybe more than one—that you’re not exactly bristling with excitement to teach. What should you do?
Humor has a place in education. College teachers can use it to create a welcoming classroom environment, increase learning, improve attendance, and reduce test anxiety (Banas, Dunbar, Rodriguez, & Liu, 2010). Such results should encourage ...
When I look at the various articles and comments in the Teaching Professor collection, group work continues to be a regular topic. It’s proved itself an instructional method of equal parts possibilities and problems. From ...