Recently I’ve undertaken a new learning project: identifying the trees in the woods around my home. I’ve lived among trees for most of my life and feel a special affinity toward them, but I can’t name most of them. I’ve bought a tree book and
In more than a decade of teaching Romeo and Juliet at my small liberal arts college, I’d never had a student walk through class wearing only a towel. Then again, I’d never taught Shakespeare during a pandemic before.
“Storms come and go fast. When the downpour reaches the ground, the water runs away quickly—little gets into the ground. Drizzle offers a different image—fine, slow, silent, and yet penetrating. Drizzle soaks into the ground. The Chinese have a saying: ‘Real education is like the
Like birthdays, anniversaries are occasions for reflection, and as I approach the fifth anniversary of my teaching career, I find that my thoughts are drawn to the things that I did badly. Here’s a list of five teaching mistakes I have made. I share them
Graham Broad’s piece reminded me of a short critique John Kenneth Galbraith did of his teaching: “How I Could Have Done Much Better.” The honesty of both is courageous and refreshing. Most of us were trained as content experts. We learned to teach by doing
Having never viewed myself as an expert and periodically believed I’m an imposter just waiting to be found out, I went a long time without worrying about the so-called curse of knowledge. I couldn’t possibly know too much math and chemistry, the content I teach.
It is time to bid farewell to a career I have loved for so long that it now seems entirely too short. Reflecting on 42 years of teaching and some of my missteps, I share here a few of the major lessons I’ve learned.
Think of the last time you had a masterfully planned class session fall completely flat. If you have been teaching for more than a week, you’ve been there. How did you react? Did you blame the students, the time of day the class meets, or
In a commentary about to be published in College Teaching, author and teacher Ellen Ballock writes about a set of student papers she found disappointing. I’m guessing that will resonant with most of us. Teachers regularly get work from students that just doesn’t measure up.
When our teaching focuses entirely on learning outcomes, we can become narrowly focused on seeing our students as skillsets. This can lead us to break learning into smaller and smaller parts so that we can successfully measure student “success.” But if, as Palmer emphasizes, we
