In an era of hyper-focus on students’ academic performance, is it possible that schoolwork is actually too easy? I recognize that this might seem a strange question, given how much we hear of stressed-out students, slogging through hours of homework and blizzards of standardized tests.
I am thankful for Jennifer Trainor’s insightful “Assignment Details: What if You Provide Too Many?” She raises what should be a real concern for teaching professors: Am I doing too much for my students? In other words, are teachers compromising student learning when we compose
This installment of our continuing series on assignments is devoted to assignment clarity. We believe that many good assignments fall short of achieving what faculty expect because students struggle to understand what they are to do and why they are doing it. The assignment description
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.
We’re interested in assignments. To us, they seem like a vital aspect of instruction that goes largely unexamined. What sparked our interest was the way students so often respond to written assignments: “What do you want?” or “I don’t understand what you want in this
One of the luxuries of this online format that we didn’t have when The Teaching Professor was a print publication is the ability to pursue topics more thoroughly, to come at them from different directions, and to assemble collections of resources related to them. We
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
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