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Classroom Climate

When Students Are Afraid of Learning

It’s night; a boy bikes alone on a dark, empty forest road, the only sounds those of his bike wheels whirring, the cicadas singing, and the gentle breeze. He passes a large metal fence with a warning sign that reads, “RESTRICTED AREA. NO TRESPASSING. U.S.

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College students laughing during a lecture

Bringing Authentic Humor into the Classroom

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 all who teach to explore how to integrate humor into

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rethinking policies that stifle creativity

Rethinking Policies That Stifle Student Learning

“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” That line from an e e cummings poem has been following me around all week.

So much of our educational system is wrapped in how-not-to’s. How not

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making connections in teaching

Making Connections in Teaching

As teaching professors, we know first-hand how complex an endeavor teaching is. The sheer number of instructional interactions, decisions, and processes can be overwhelming to enact, much less to master. To streamline such complexity, I have adopted what I consider a beneficial perspective. In its

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Appreciative close: creating classroom community

The Appreciative Close: A Strategy for Creating a Classroom Community

“What you appreciate appreciates” (Twist, n.d.). One of the practices I have employed in most of my classes during the past several years is “the appreciative close,” which is an offshoot of “the appreciative pause” recommended by Stephen Brookfield (Brookfield, 2015, pp.95-96). Brookfield suggests using

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classroom management

Teachable Moments about Privilege

Many faculty wonder how to help students in the dominant group understand societal privilege without making them defensive. One day, a situation arose in my course that changed my approach to this topic. I was teaching about using APA citations, and, in the course of

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