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Preparing to Teach

How Course Structure Promotes Learning

It is time to get beyond asking whether active learning works. We know it does, most of us have seen it firsthand, and those who haven’t would be hard-pressed to argue against the still accumulating mountain of evidence. What we need now are answers to

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New Ideas about an Old Teaching Tool

A lot has been written about the syllabus, but as the authors of the article referenced below point out, almost all of it focuses on “the nuts and bolts of crafting a course syllabus.” It’s literature that helps “the instructor anticipate student information needed to

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Helping Students Discover How to Omit Needless Words

When students have completed what they think is the final draft of an essay, I find it useful to do the following editing activity. I don’t tell students what we are about to do. I want them to discover the process of omitting needless words.

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Could We Be Doing Better with Our Assignments?

Assignments are a terribly important part of the teaching and learning equation. They aren’t just random activities that faculty ask students to complete for points and grades; they are the vehicles through which students learn course content. By studying for exams and engaging with content

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My Class Was Framed

In Slaughterhouse-Five, the narrator explains why Ilium is a good place to be an optometrist. The General Forge and Foundry is in Ilium, and every employee is required to own a pair of safety glasses. With 68,000 employees, that “calls for a lot of lenses

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Universal Design: What, How, and Why?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is guided by three key principles: providing multiple means of representation, the “what” of learning; providing multiple means of action and expression, the “how” of learning; and providing multiple means of engagement, the “why” of learning. We would like to

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Emotions Associated with First-Time Teaching Experiences

Emotions Associated with First-Time Teaching Experiences

Teaching requires more than just a keen mind; it also demands emotional energy, and that is particularly true for new teachers. But what emotions do they experience? Are those feelings more positive than negative? Are certain emotions associated with particular teaching approaches? These are all

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What Makes a Good Case Study?

Herreid and colleagues have asked themselves the question raised in the title. To answer, they surveyed the more than 1,300 teachers on the Center’s listserv (mostly biologists and faculty who teach health-related subjects), asking them to identify their favorite case and say what made it

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The Boring Syllabus

The writing style of the standard syllabus is frequently flat, emotionless, and formulaic. It’s made so in part by the list of things that faculty are required to put in the syllabus: contact information, learning objectives, course description, ADA and other policy information, etc. These

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