The start of a new semester is an emotional experience. As a former kindergarten teacher, I vividly remember spending much of the first day of school making students feel welcome and comforting them while they cried. Whether you are teaching five-year-olds or 25-year-olds, the need
One of the courses I am teaching this semester is a senior-level course titled Autonomic Nervous System Regulation. In this class, we examine the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is the part of our nervous system that governs involuntary physiological processes, such as our heart
“When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You),” first published in 1928 by Shay, Fischer, and Goodwin, has been recorded by many artists. My favorite is the 1929 version by Louis Armstrong. “Oh, when you smilin’, when you smilin’, the whole world smiles with
Whether you love it or hate it, online higher education is here to stay. In the 2022–2023 academic year, more than half of all college students in the US enrolled in at least one online class (Coffey 2024). Of course, this is much lower than
You know the feeling. We all deal with it.
Walking into a classroom the first day of a new semester, you’re thinking about it all: What are going to be the first words out of my mouth? What are these students thinking about right now?
I have been spouting off for over two decades in my general education (GE) courses that learning STEM helps students increase their earning potential, well-roundedness, and satisfaction from knowing things beyond their common sense. Unfortunately, these arguments have been falling on deaf ears since the
I’m hopelessly unathletic, which means I’ve usually observed the rituals at the so-called sports school where I teach from a distance—until recently, that is, when a student invited me to something called “tailgating.” My takeaway? The sense of belonging and excitement that I witnessed during
Like so many other professors, I’ve noticed that student engagement is lower now than it was even five years ago. Students are skipping class, skipping assignments, and getting AI to do their reading and writing for them in ever-increasing numbers. When I sign in to
Virtually all general psychology textbooks recount the story of Phineas Gage, one of the most famous case studies in neuroscience. Gage was a railroad construction foreman. On September 13, 1848, he and his crew were clearing boulders along a route, a process that involved
There is a conundrum in teaching. We hold a stereotype that an excellent teacher is kindly, approachable, and openly supportive of students, yet some of the best teachers I’ve had have been aloof, unapproachable, and cantankerous. Let’s take some fictional examples. In the 1970s,
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