In Rasselas, Samuel Johnson’s philosopher Imlac offers the following bleak assessment of life: “Human life is every where [sic] a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed” ([1759] 1999, 31). Having been a teacher for more than 30 years,
I’ve been wanting to write about my journey to embrace Rumi’s wisdom in my pedagogy. My teaching career began at a community college, where I served from 2007 to 2021, initially as an adjunct and later as a full-time faculty member in the Department of
Faculty are forever looking for ways to improve performance, and a recent article by Xiao and Hew (2023) explores the possibility of using rewards to do so.
With the end of the semester looming, how often have you begun class wondering where the students have gone? Does it seem like the first day of class had every seat filled, but now there are a lot more seats open? That used
The learning management system (LMS) discussion forum comes off as archaic and overly controlling to today’s students, who are used to working in a much richer social media environment. Whereas the LMS forum is designed for lengthy text comments, young people are used to
I’m a professor of psychology, and I’ve taught courses in behavioral statistics and research methods my entire career. No one decides to major in psychology for the chance to take statistics and research methods. Students usually choose the major because they want to help
A few years ago, educator Chris Emdin came to our community college campus to give an opening-of-school lecture to faculty. As the author and champion of what he calls “reality pedagogy,” Emdin delivered a passionate, energetic call to faculty to reimagine their teaching as an
A learning contract is a negotiated agreement in which a student develops an individualized learning plan with their instructor’s support. Learning contracts provide students with choice about how to complete class assignments within the framework of the course learning objectives (Knowles, 1986). There are five
It always takes me longer than I plan when I do anything with my books. I look for one book and see another I haven’t looked at for a while. I look for something in a book and find something else of interest. Case in
One of the challenges online learners face is sustaining motivation over the duration of the course. In face-to-face classrooms, teachers can personalize motivational strategies to meet the needs of individual students, and the social presence of teachers and fellow learners provides its own motivational incentives.
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