In more than a decade of teaching Romeo and Juliet at my small liberal arts college, I’d never had a student walk through class wearing only a towel. Then again, I’d never taught Shakespeare during a pandemic before.
In my previous column I addressed what makes it difficult for students to speak up in peer groups, especially to express opinions different from those that others in the group offer. As I’ve noted before, some columns continue to follow me around, and this one
With the pandemic came a flurry of faculty quickly moving their courses online. The question I heard most during this time was, How can I move my students’ presentations online? Most faculty chose to have students do live video presentations with a system such as
I remember my first year as a tenure-track professor as a nightmare. For reasons I won’t belabor, my teaching stunk. During class, my face was red and hot with humiliation as I fumbled through the content. During lectures, I prayed that no one would ask
The use of open educational resources (OER) is growing in education as they save money for the students and facilitate instructor manipulation of the resource. Nevertheless, some teachers are reluctant to use OER because they have difficulty locating and evaluating sources or like their fundamental
Performing among peers is never easy. I’ve seen great teachers tremble before a group of colleagues as they speak about an instructional practice they’ve developed. The fear grows out of not finding respect among equals. Academic professionals end up having lots of experience in peer
Last September, we issued a call for information on handouts—how do you use them, how well do they work, what learning goals are they especially well-suited to accomplish? As with previous calls, you responded with an array of examples, advice, insights, and opinions. What’s clear
When you use group work—say, for a project or assignment—do you appoint group leaders? André (2011) was under the impression that most of us use leaderless groups, and that hunch was confirmed by a review of 104 Journal of Management Education articles in which teachers
Free riders—those who don’t do their fair share of work in a group—frustrate students, especially when they get the same grade as everyone else in the group. A lot of students don’t realize there are ways groups can deal with free riders—ways that make it
To help direct students in their learning during the pandemic, we as faculty have been tasked with harnessing a range of digital technologies. Acquiring these additional skills has been easier for some, more challenging for others. Faculty at Northern Arizona University, where I teach, moved
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