Imagine this: You have just given instructions for the day’s class activity, designed to test a theory chronicled in the previous week’s readings. But the proposed assignment doesn’t land the way you anticipated. One courageous ...
Case-based learning (CBL) is a teaching method that uses real-life scenarios to teach skill-based tasks. At the same time, it enhances learners’ awareness of the various contextual factors that affect problem-solving in complicated cases.
About seven years ago I wrote a blog post about a family meltdown. My manually dexterous and spatially oriented engineer spouse was trying to tell me and my not mentally gifted brother how to tie ...
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?
Most faculty don’t respond enthusiastically to the idea of students doing exam or quiz work together in groups. Nonetheless, the approach is widely used, and the research continues to show significant benefits. Innovative design features ...
Implementation fidelity—it’s another of those academically impressive descriptions that isn’t nearly as profound as it sounds. It relates to whether a strategy or approach is being implemented as it was originally designed and used. Most ...
Almost 70 percent of students in 10 sections of an introductory biology course reported that the instructor provided a justification for using active learning in the course. That’s encouraging. Students need to know the rationale ...
Some students are habitual offenders while others never miss a deadline. So, what’s the best way to deal with late assignments, missed exams, and other deadline delinquencies? A tough hardnosed policy with consequences or something ...
For many faculty, adding a new teaching strategy to our repertoire goes something like this. We hear about an approach or technique that sounds like a good idea. It addresses a specific instructional challenge or ...
Imagine this: You have just given instructions for the day’s class activity, designed to test a theory chronicled in the previous week’s readings. But the proposed assignment doesn’t land the way you anticipated. One courageous student challenges the purpose and relevance of the assignment in front of the entire class. An uncomfortable silence fills the classroom. You take a breath. Now what?
“We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything” (Spolin, 1999, p. 3). Viola Spolin, educator, performer, and the godmother of improvisation, created a game-based system of actor training that gave rise to The Second City in Chicago. I studied this improvisational method. That was years before embarking on my professional journey as a special education teacher, college professor, college of education dean, and now director of faculty development. Decades since my early training as an improvisational performer, Spolin’s wisdom still guides my perspective on teaching and learning. Here are five basic principles gleaned from those early years as a drama geek.
Immordino-Yang, M. H., Darling-Hammond, L., & Krone, C. R. (2019). Nurturing nature: How brain development is inherently social and emotional, and what this means for education. Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1633924
Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00004.x
Kafka, A. C. (2021). Building students’ resilience: Strategies to support their mental health. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Spolin, V. (1999). Improvisation for the theatre: A handbook of teaching and directing techniques (3rd ed.). Northwestern University Press.
Sandra Beyda-Lorie, PhD, is the executive director for learning innovations at Northeastern Illinois University’s Center of Teaching and Learning. Her teaching background includes special education, secondary education (English and speech and theatre). She believes in the power of welcoming, inclusive, and culturally responsive learning environments that leverage students’ strengths, perspectives, and abilities.