How do you approach the final weeks of your course? Most of us include some sort of summation activity: a final review, a course evaluation, sometimes a reflective paper.
Recently, I have begun to incorporate these kinds of activities much earlier in my courses, with
This article first appeared in the December 2011 issue of The Teaching Professor.
I can’t remember when it happened; I just know that it did. I changed vocations in 2003, becoming a full-time academic after being president of a heat treating company in Ohio.
Grading student papers may be the college instructor’s least pleasant duty. Most of us carefully mark each page, noting problems, questioning assumptions, and offering additional information, many times on the final version of the essay when it is too late to make improvements. I have
I recently viewed a professional development video on the STARLINK website (established by the State of Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which offers programming to participating colleges across the country) that begins with a poignant quote: “Teaching is the choicest of professions because everybody who
In his excellent book on team teaching (Interdisciplinary Courses and Team Teaching), James Davis posits two extremes on the continuum of team teaching. One pole consists of “courses planned by a group of faculty and then carried out in serial segments by the individual members
My model for setting classroom expectations is a green giant. No, not the jolly green one of vegetable fame, but the playful, disruptive, yet effective Green Knight of the 14th-century romance Gawain and the Green Knight. The scenario unfolds like this: Until his arrival, King
Books and journals on college teaching are chock full of best practices, compelling activities, and successful ideas for the classroom. These resources do help, but also helpful are experiences at the unsuccessful end of the teaching spectrum. I am referring to clinkers – those best
Do you teach a 50-minute class? Or perhaps you teach a longer block of time: 75 minutes, three hours, or even six hours, like I am currently doing? Lecture breaks can be used every 20 to 30 minutes to enhance student learning by providing:
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While it is, admittedly, a bit of an unorthodox concept, we would like to propose that our understanding of colleges and universities would be enhanced if we thought of them as cooking schools. The faculty are master chefs with expertise in particular styles of cuisine,
When as a college sophomore I first encountered Benedict de Spinoza, I was fascinated by both his philosophy, which emphasizes intellectual freedom and pursuit of virtue, and the fact that by trade or profession he was a grinder of lenses.
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