Upcoming Themes and Deadlines

upcoming themes and deadlines

April 2025: Critical thinking (deadline March 7)

Potential topics

Defining critical thinking—What do we mean when we talk about it?
Activities and assignments that promote critical thinking
How to evaluate critical thinking
Critical thinking and generative AI (e.g., its potential as both a supplement to and a substitute for thinking)
The purposes of critical thinking—To what ends are we cultivating it, and to what ends should we be doing so?

May 2025: Ending your course (deadline March 28)

Potential topics

Last-day-of-class activities
Planning/designing the home stretch of a course
Managing end-of-term stress, fatigue, etc. (your own and students’)
Strategies for keeping students engaged and interested as summer (or graduation) approaches
Bringing closure to an unsuccessful course

June 2024: Professional growth (deadline April 18)

Potential topics

Teaching failures and how to grow from them
The challenge of unlearning ineffective teaching practices
Overcoming the expert blind spot
How to approach student evaluations of teaching
Your own learning experiences (in school or otherwise) and how these inform your understanding of your students’ learning

July 2025: Grading and feedback (deadline May 23)

Potential topics

Getting students to focus on feedback, not the letter or percentage grade
What recent scholarship has to say about grades (e.g., the effectiveness of “ungrading”)
Strategies for managing large volumes of grading
Providing thoughtful, individualized feedback in large courses
What to do when you just don’t know what to say about student work

August 2025: Preparing to teach (deadline June 16)

Potential topics

Crafting an effective syllabus
Redesigning assignments, assessments, and other components of a course you’ve previously taught
Building relationships/rapport early in the term
First-day-of-class activities that set the tone for learning
Preparing to teach a course that’s new, that’s not your favorite, or that’s outside your comfort zone

Please carefully review our submission guidelines if you’re considering writing on an upcoming theme. Note that you needn’t write only about upcoming themes; we always welcome submissions on a wide range of topics. Likewise, if you miss the deadline for a given theme, we will still consider your submission for publication in a subsequent month. Should you have questions about themes or suitable topics, contact The Teaching Professor’s managing editor, Jon Crylen (jon.crylen@magnapubs.com).