It makes more sense to focus on those teaching behaviors that help students learn, and that’s where the emphasis has been for many years. The characteristics, features, aspects, dimensions, and behaviors of excellent teachers have been identified and explored since research on teaching in higher
Pete Burkholder, a history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, is writing a series of columns for a website on teaching US history. He doesn’t teach US history, having only taken a course on it in high school. So it’s not surprising that his first column
Students have strong opinions about fair and unfair practices in college courses. Previous research shows that, according to students, fair practices include clarity about grading procedures and course policies, flexibility in scheduling make-up exams and meetings, generosity with feedback, and a reasonable approach to workload
Working well collaboratively is an important skill to teach, but simply putting students together in groups and asking them to work together online doesn’t necessarily result in learning. A good way to ensure learning is to provide a rubric to help students understand what is
Once you start making videos for education, you are going to want to use video-editing software to polish the results. Even a simple webcam shot will have unneeded lead-in and exit footage to trim out. You might also want to add a title or even
When you picture an online discussion, your mind most likely envisions a text-heavy, threaded exchange of ideas among students who are primarily responding to an instructor’s prompt and then persuaded by the promise of points to respond to each other. Depending on a number of
We use technology to facilitate group activities. If we want to engage our students in a brainstorming activity in our face-to-face classroom, for instance, we may choose to use a technology like Padlet that allows multiple students to collaborate and contribute ideas simultaneously. Teachers also
When online faculty or course developers are approached about adding videos to their content, they tend to think of either webcam shots of themselves at their computer or screencasts of themselves reading bullet points to students. But there are a variety of highly effective and
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) isn’t just for students with disabilities, it can help all students be better learners.
The increased (and increasing) diversity of students at colleges and universities means learning needs to be flexible enough to accommodate that diversity. A one-size-fits-all approach to
Teachers and students can give each other priceless gifts. “Professor Jones changed my life!” The comment is usually followed by the story of a teacher in love with content, students, and learning. How many times have I told the story of my advisor who was
