During a keynote address at the 2022 Teaching Professor Conference, I spoke about challenges that exist in higher education, specifically students and instructors who do not have the freedom to bring their authentic selves to their learning or teaching environments. In such scenarios, students might
Instructors who teach online do not share a physical space with their students, and therefore they need to establish their presence in creative ways. One tool to effectively enhance instructors’ presence is a liquid syllabus. A liquid syllabus is published on a public website, allowing
I think most faculty have a love-hate relationship with mistakes. On the one hand, we understand that learning is messy and involves missteps and do-overs. We know that a growth mindset is important to development. We want to see mistakes as opportunities. But on the
In today’s Google Search world, many students are used to simply typing a question into their browser and looking at whatever pops up on the screen. As a result, they struggle with finding good resources through their library databases. Refining a search and discerning which
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
When I was in graduate school, I had to pass four written preliminary exams over various subject areas in psychology. Each exam was three hours long, closed book, and composed of essay and short answer questions. The questions could cover any topic in the subject
One of the bedrock principles of academia is not taking credit for another’s work. The way that faculty enforce that directive is by requiring citations in student research.
But formal citations, whether in APA or another format, are used almost exclusively in academic publications. Nearly
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
It happens almost every time: I’ll be running a workshop on assignment design, or on curricular reform, or on day-to-day instruction. Someone will raise their hand and say they teach chemistry or sociology or art history. They’ll look bashful, or angry, or curmudgeonly. “I can’t
Many institutions are experimenting with virtual reality (VR) to provide students with simulations that apply their theoretical learning to practice. We developed a VR experience, adapted from Joyner and Allen’s (2015) case study “Farming in Space? Developing a Sustainable Food Supply on Mars” and inspired
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