Paul Feigenbaum’s article (2021) on failure changed how I think about it. I’ve written a lot about failure—advocating for it and what it contributes to learning—and Feigenbaum agrees: failure plays a powerful role in learning. He calls it “generative failure” and describes it as an
Online courses present unique challenges for both students and faculty. We’ve been teaching and learning in person for millennia, and we know a lot about how to do it well. The same is not true for online education. This modality has existed in its current
Like many faculty members, I started teaching as a subject matter expert without a formal background in education. My examination questions were either based on questions I recall from my personal experience as an undergraduate or questions provided to me by more senior faculty. Since
Student engagement—Could it be the most common phrase in the teaching-learning domains of higher education? It’s has to be in the running—essential for learning with unquestioned importance and dutifully intoned by everyone. I was intrigued by a recent account (Spiker, 2020) of a teacher’s exploration
The LMS discussion forum was once the only real option for hosting discussion in an online course. But today there are a variety of options, from videoconferencing to social media to online post-it boards. The choices can leave faculty perplexed as to which to use.
Summer is a great time to sit outside. I remember when we were building a new patio. The contractors delivered a huge pile of rocks to our front yard. Big stones. Midsize stones. Some multihued and no larger than hefty pebbles. The patio was going
Online faculty tend to assume that all student communication needs to go through the learning management system (LMS). But the LMS is not designed for the more spontaneous synchronous chat that you might get in a campus hallway or coffee shop, where someone might say,
I know two faculty members who are top-of-the-line teachers. I’ve seen them teach and interviewed students in their courses. They are two of the best. Even so, both struggled mightily with online teaching during the pandemic. “For me,” one of them reported, “online teaching demands
How do you study for exams? Are you using evidence-based strategies? Did you know there are ways to study that improve exam scores? Educational psychologists and others have researched study strategies extensively, and their findings show that some approaches consistently produce higher test exam scores.
Expectations shape our responses. I come to supper thinking we’re having salmon, and instead it’s chicken thighs. I’m not smiling. A student studies for the exam, feels prepared, breezes through the questions, and anticipates a good grade. If the grade ends up a C, the
Magna Publications © 2024 All rights reserved