Sometimes it isn’t all that easy to see that you’ve learned something or are in the process of doing so. I have sat with many students, handed them something written early in the course and asked them to look it in light of something they’ve
First snowflakes of the season today. Winter is settling in out here in the Pennsylvania countryside. It’s quiet, no birdsongs in the morning, few leaves left on the trees to rustle, and frost muting the crunch of those on the ground. In the woods where
There’s a new book out called Activating a Teaching-Learning Philosophy. The word “activating” caught my attention. To me that says “doing something about your teaching-learning philosophy.” Unfortunately, our current use of teaching philosophy statements doesn’t usually contain that expectation. Most often faculty prepare these statements
How good are your students at looking over their work and assessing the quality? Can they identify its strengths and say where it needs more work? Being able to make accurate judgments about one’s work is an important professional skill. I keep worrying that there
Intellectual messiness is one of those perfect descriptors. I’m not sure where it originated, but I do like it, probably because messiness abounds in my mind. I have been frustrated lately by how old I am and how little I’ve figured out, especially about teaching
Some courses are more difficult to teach than others, and I think we’d all agree that general education courses are among the hardest courses to teach. For one thing, most students don’t want to take them. They don’t think they need to know the content,
Teaching awards have many fans; I’m not among them. Nancy Chism’s analysis of 144 awards at 85 institutions (one of the few systematic reviews conducted) identifies one of the reasons teaching awards are overrated: “It is somewhat startling to observe that for a little more
“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
The body of evidence supporting the effectiveness of regular quizzes on assigned readings continues to grow. They’ve been shown to raise exam scores in courses from different disciplines, at two- and four-year institutions and with varying quiz logistics (online and in class, for example). It’s
I’ve put together a lot of bibliographies in my day. They’re more like resource collections than comprehensive listings of relevant published work, which are pretty much impossible when it comes to teaching and learning where the literature spreads across our disciplines and in disciplines devoted
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