As teachers and instructional designers, one of the biggest challenges we face is trying to come up with multiple creative and appropriately challenging activities for our courses. We have to consider the diverse needs of our learners and the goals of the course and then
Sometimes we are asked to step in during an emergency situation when a colleague cannot finish teaching a course. Sometimes enrollment or structural changes mean we are unexpectedly assigned to take on a new course just days before the semester starts. And sometimes, beyond our
Students often put in a great deal of time and energy into learning course material, yet their efforts are often less than fruitful. Week after week, we witness students arriving to lecture—seemingly prepared—armed with planners, Post-its, highlighters, and tablets. With such obvious effort poured into
Let’s never read student writing again. In fact, let’s not even talk about it.
Not because student writing is dull or unworthy of serious readers. No, let’s stop talking about student writing because it doesn’t exist—or at any rate, shouldn’t exist.
Fresh from winter break, my students want to test my boundaries—and they should. But even as they challenge me, many of my students will also limit themselves by defining their intelligence and talents as fixed traits. Each semester I hear the familiar refrains: “I’m not
Access can mean many different things in a classroom. For students with disabilities, access means having material, spaces, and coursework accessible for a variety of learning needs. Access can also mean recognizing the limits of time, money, and basic necessities when students come from a
TED Talks have come to represent the pinnacle of effective presentations. They are concise, engaging, and memorable. They are also, increasingly, the yardstick by which speakers—including university faculty—are measured.
I believe my capacity for empathy is an essential part of my teaching persona. For that reason, I was more than intrigued by the title of Paul Bloom’s book Against Empathy (Jan. 2016). After reading it, I recognized that a number
What does Tampa, that palm-fronded gem on Florida’s Gulf Coast, have to do with critical thinking? Nothing.
But in all caps, TAMPA is the acronym for a method of teaching critical thinking that I devised and have used for several years now with some success.
Educators concerned with the quality of learning and instruction have called for a greater focus on students’ thinking to inform instruction and have offered a variety of pathways for achieving that aim (Brookfield, 2017; Robertson, Scherr, & Hammer, 2015; Simkins & Maier, 2010; Weimer, 2013).
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