While the emergence of ChatGPT has created considerable consternation among faculty who fear students will use it to write their assignments, the positive side is that it provides a powerful tool for faculty to use in developing course content. ChatGPT
There is a conundrum in teaching. We hold a stereotype that an excellent teacher is kindly, approachable, and openly supportive of students, yet some of the best teachers I’ve had have been aloof, unapproachable, and cantankerous. Let’s take some fictional examples. In the 1970s,
My upper-level course on writing in the natural sciences was filled with technical writing or communication majors developing and honing their skills in writing, presentation, visual communication, and user experience strategies. Most had limited, if any, college-level natural sciences coursework. Students are taught to
Simulations are an opportunity for experiential learning, but faculty who use them usually adopt simulations that they created or found. An alternative is to have students create the simulation themselves as a learning activity.
What advantages do student-created simulations offer?
The best final exam question I’ve ever given is this: “I want you to write about one thing that you figured out in this class that matters.”
This sounds simple, I know. Perhaps even a little flaky. After all, we’re the instructors. We’re the
I had been teaching for nearly 30 years when I discovered that I had failed to instruct my students in the basics of critical thinking.
My moment of awakening occurred in a conversation with one of the best students in that year’s graduating class.
ChatGPT set the education world ablaze with discussion of its implications. The initial worry about students using it to write their assignments was alleviated with detection software such as GPT-2 Output Detector, and the discussion quickly turned to how instructors
A junior colleague asked me whether teaching for many years made me thicker skinned. They wondered whether reading student evaluations gets easier with time.
I was reminded of an essay by Stephen Marche (2023) on writers and the reviews they receive. Marche recounts the
“This is going to be very casual,” I tell each student at the beginning of their neurophysiology oral exam. “I’m going to ask you some questions; feel free to take your time and reference your notes.” My experience with oral exams began in high
When I first began teaching philosophy, I had a standard comment on assignments for students whose writing was unclear:
While you understand the content, you are having trouble getting down on paper what you know. Note the areas that I marked as
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