First days of class are really fun. Or at least they can be. There is the energy of starting a new year and seeing a whole new cohort of students. There is the chance to unleash a new and improved pedagogy that reflects all the
Google “calling the teacher ‘mom,’” and you will find a deluge of pained or embarrassed faces across various memes. This shared humor is a prime example of transference. Transference is a fundamental principle of psychotherapy, which occurs when a person unconsciously projects attitudes and
The arrival of ChatGPT sent shockwaves across academia as articles with titles like “Yes, We Are in a (ChatGPT) Crisis” splashed across higher education media. Reports of students using it to write their papers led to the immediate goal of
I like to read vintage books on college teaching, ones written before the current profusion of pedagogical research that has occurred since 2000. The classic work (at least for me) is McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, first published in 1953 and now in its 14th edition (McKeachie
A recent TED conversation (2023) with motivation researcher Ayelet Fischbach on overcoming procrastination got me thinking about the ebbs and flows of each semester and taking advantage of the key moments during the term to help with student success. This came to life for
The flipped class is one of the hottest topics in the teaching field today. In a traditional course, students get the learning content through an in-class lecture and then work with that content outside of class as homework. The problem is that if students
It took all the willpower I could muster to leave my cozy dorm room and make the snow-crunching slog across campus for my 8:00 a.m. Latin seminar. Minnesota winters are no joke. To entice us into attempting the trek, my professor began each class
I’m willing to bet that you believe you don’t ever use your hands to think. After all, you think with your brain, and your brain is in your head. Care to wager?
Evidence shows what many faculty already know: that many students are not doing the assigned readings for their classes. The numbers are striking. Today’s college student spends an average of six to seven hours per week on assigned readings, down from 24 hours in
As a student, I would often find myself buried in textbooks, meticulously reviewing notes, highlighting my textbook, and relistening to lectures I had recorded only to score an average grade or lower on my exams. At times, it felt like the harder I studied,
