We’re interested in assignments. To us, they seem like a vital aspect of instruction that goes largely unexamined. What sparked our interest was the way students so often respond to written assignments: “What do you want?” or “I don’t understand what you want in this
One of the luxuries of this online format that we didn’t have when The Teaching Professor was a print publication is the ability to pursue topics more thoroughly, to come at them from different directions, and to assemble collections of resources related to them. We
Fresh from winter break, my students want to test my boundaries—and they should. But even as they challenge me, many of my students will also limit themselves by defining their intelligence and talents as fixed traits. Each semester I hear the familiar refrains: “I’m not
Access can mean many different things in a classroom. For students with disabilities, access means having material, spaces, and coursework accessible for a variety of learning needs. Access can also mean recognizing the limits of time, money, and basic necessities when students come from a
TED Talks have come to represent the pinnacle of effective presentations. They are concise, engaging, and memorable. They are also, increasingly, the yardstick by which speakers—including university faculty—are measured.
I believe my capacity for empathy is an essential part of my teaching persona. For that reason, I was more than intrigued by the title of Paul Bloom’s book Against Empathy (Jan. 2016). After reading it, I recognized that a number
What does Tampa, that palm-fronded gem on Florida’s Gulf Coast, have to do with critical thinking? Nothing.
But in all caps, TAMPA is the acronym for a method of teaching critical thinking that I devised and have used for several years now with some success.
Educators concerned with the quality of learning and instruction have called for a greater focus on students’ thinking to inform instruction and have offered a variety of pathways for achieving that aim (Brookfield, 2017; Robertson, Scherr, & Hammer, 2015; Simkins & Maier, 2010; Weimer, 2013).
As teaching professors, we know first-hand how complex an endeavor teaching is. The sheer number of instructional interactions, decisions, and processes can be overwhelming to enact, much less to master. To streamline such complexity, I have adopted what I consider a beneficial perspective. In its
In education, transparency is typically described as making teaching and learning visible. “Transparent teaching involves making the implicit explicit for students so they understand why they are engaged in certain tasks and what role the course plays in their learning journey,” according to a recent
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