Most teachers think they should. Almost all make an effort and feel guilty when they fail. In the literature, learning students’ names is widely advocated as a good teaching practice with claims made that it builds relationships with students and creates a positive atmosphere in
Getting students to take advantage of office hours remains a challenge. Most of the time only a small percentage of students show up and often not those most in need of help. When students don’t take advantage of office hours, they lose the chance to
When hot moments ignite in the classroom, it is important to engage thoughtfully and purposively in strategies that maintain a supportive communication climate. Managing hot moments is a complex endeavor, and it is our responsibility to maintain a climate that is conducive to learning by
How well a class functions is the result of both what the teacher does and what the students do. The way we solicit course evaluation feedback reinforces students’ tendency to see the teacher as the one who’s responsible for whether it was a good class.
“The New Cheating Economy,” an article published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (2016), tells the story of two Western Carolina University professors who set up a fake online class to see what forms of cheating they could detect. Their story shows that cheating is
Positive classroom climate can encourage students to participate, think deeply about content, and engage peers in intellectual debate. Creating a classroom climate conducive to that type of expression can be difficult. Classrooms are filled with a diverse cross-section of our society representing multiple learning preferences
When students ask us, as they occasionally do, “I wasn’t in class yesterday. Did I miss anything important?” most of us feel at least a bit of disrespect and some aggravation. If we take the question at face value, it implies that the student thinks
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.” This quote, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, is often used in gifted education to justify the attention, resources, and opportunities provided to those who are more academically talented than others. It’s intended to connote
Last summer, I reached the point of eligibility for early retirement. I thought about taking the leap but did not. I decided to keep teaching, asking myself, how hard could it be to teach for another few years? Harder than I imagined, as it turned
“Prevalent among university faculty is the perception that a large number of today’s students possess an outsized sense of entitlement” (Luckett, Trocchia, Noel, & Marlin, 2017, p. 96). But what exactly does entitlement mean in the academic realm? High grades without much in the way
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