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personal reflections

What My Mother’s Beanie Babies Taught Me about Teaching

My mother was not your typical 1990s Beanie Babies collector. She didn’t care whether the little pellet-filled critters that she scavenged for at flea markets and rummage sales and on eBay were in mint condition or whether their heart-shaped name tags were still intact.

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Failing Forward in Online Education: A Reflective Journey

For me, the move from in-person teaching to asynchronous online teaching took place over decades, but it still presented a challenge that threatened fundamental aspects of my identity as an educator: the dynamic exchange of energy between me and my students and the importance of

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Why I’ve Stopped Teaching

This article first appeared in the December 2011 issue of The Teaching Professor.

I can’t remember when it happened; I just know that it did. I changed vocations in 2003, becoming a full-time academic after being president of a heat treating company in Ohio.

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What I Love about Learning

I have two loves: teaching and learning. Although I love them for different reasons, I’ve been passionate about both for all my career. I teach less now, but what I love about learning should keep me learning.

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Awakening to All Aspects of Teaching

Originally, I added a few lines from a prose poem at the end of the compilation of reader responses to our queries about the questions teachers ask students. I wasn’t sure; the content fit, but it was poetry. My excellent editor called it a “swerve,”

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Self-Discovery in College (and on the Trail)

Many of our students think about college as job preparation. The focus tends to be on the job and not whether it suits their skills and abilities. A lot of students are pretty convinced about what they can’t do but much less certain about their

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Why I Blog

I recently read an article in Studies in Higher Education titled “Why Do Academics Blog?” It got me thinking about this blog and why I do it.

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