A lot of teachers don’t think of themselves as being particularly creative. Creativity in education doesn’t mean coming up with a revolutionary new idea or complete reinvention of something. Creativity means doing something original or unique. A lot of educational creativity involves repackaging or “putting
Clyde Herreid, a biology professor at SUNY Buffalo, has been a leader in the use of case studies in science teaching. His interest in “stories with an educational message” began in the 80s and has resulted in the creation of a large collection of cases
For some time now, students in my first-year biology course have been protesting that I’m assigning too much pre-class reading. I use the flipped classroom structure in most of my courses and that means students prepare for class by reading assigned pages in the textbook.
The “find and replace” feature in Word quickly makes an old syllabus ready for a new course. Use it too many times and thinking about the course settles into a comfortable rut. Yes, we may change more than just the dates, but when was the
Do you have a system or standard process for prepping a course you’ve taught before? Where do you start? Early in my career, “one chapter per week” described my course outline. It wasn’t an effective system. Poor planning left my students and me burnt out
Group work is one of those areas that some business and engineering faculty think is essential because that’s what those students will be doing in the workplace. I don’t want to undermine that view, but I do want to say that there is more to
Early in my teaching career, I attended a professional development event. The only session I remember was one given by Alan Lakein. It featured his book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life. He proposed an elaborate scheme for making and prioritizing
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) isn’t just for students with disabilities, it can help all students be better learners.
The increased (and increasing) diversity of students at colleges and universities means learning needs to be flexible enough to accommodate that diversity. A one-size-fits-all approach to
Faculty have access to more information about college teaching than ever before. Researchers have studied a host of instructional approaches and published results in myriad journals. Educators have shared summaries of and links to such studies informally on websites and through Twitter feeds. This is
By the time the end of the course rolls around, it’s hard to think creatively about what to do on the last day. Depending on the course, the last day may be accompanied with feelings of joy, sadness, relief, or all three.
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