As a new semester dawns, professors often grapple with a crucial question: How should we best use that precious first day of class? The options seem endless, and the pressure is immense. Should we dive straight into the material, set the tone for class etiquette,
“Who’s ready to read some poetry?”
My voice echoed off the beige walls, an octave too enthusiastic. None of my students so much as stirred in response: not a blink, not a fidget, not so much as an at-least-she’s-trying smile.
A vital part of preparing to teach is considering what will most benefit the students we encounter. To be successful across a variety of domains, students need instruction on how to engage in critical thinking, synthesize and evaluate information, and self-evaluate their own learning and
Would you engage in a thought experiment with me for a moment?
Like many people, I have days when the simple act of getting out of bed feels daunting, let alone going to campus, lecturing, meeting with students, attending faculty meetings, grading papers, and so on. These challenging days are often amplified by an internal dialogue
The first day of class is a big deal. Just as there is only one chance at love at first sight, teachers like us only have one chance to demonstrate of each class. As Sarah Rose Cavanagh (2016) writes, “On the first few days
Whenever a restaurant asks him for a credit card to schedule a reservation, New York Times food critic Pete Wells writes, “I hear several messages, none of them warm and fuzzy. [The practice] says that I’m not trustworthy. . . . It says that a reservation isn’t
Psychologists and educators have studied learning for well over 100 years, and we still don’t know the specific conditions that result in learning. If we did, then teaching would be easy. A teacher would simply recreate the specific conditions, and students would always learn. We
I probably shouldn’t admit this, but when I was just beginning my teaching career, I had one clear goal on the first day of class: scare the living crap out of my students.
I’m exaggerating, but only a little. And while I’m tempted to say,
Online community is an important part of an effective online classroom, but it can often be difficult to establish. This is true regardless of the modality. One of the most commonly used frameworks for building an effective online community is the Community of Inquiry framework
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