A recent TED conversation (2023) with motivation researcher Ayelet Fischbach on overcoming procrastination got me thinking about the ebbs and flows of each semester and taking advantage of the key moments during the term to help with student success. This came to life for
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.
I spent many years managing a multimillion-dollar marketing budget for an online program and many years training faculty to be great teachers. One thing both experiences taught me is that institutions too often let marketing encroach on teaching. They do so when they create
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
There is a well-traveled, perhaps apocryphal, story about Super Bowl–winning former coach Bill Walsh. As he observed his assistants at practice one day, he was horrified by the amount of screaming directed at the players. According to the story, he gathered the coaches together and
One of the most frustrating things that can happen in higher education is that we assign students a reading that is really interesting and important for an upcoming class discussion. We then go on to design the day’s activities around the reading so that students
An increasing number of students seem to struggle with meeting deadlines. Some students have a challenging time following instructions or assignment directions, while other students pay little attention to when or where they will be taking their midterm or final exams.
What contributes to a
A lot of professors assign readings as follows: students read a piece of text, respond to it in some way, and come prepared to discuss it in class. Yet over half of students don’t do the assigned readings, and often it’s because professors assign too
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
Among teachers’ biggest worries about trying to incorporate humor into their classes are that no one understands their humor, that they might offend someone, and that they’re just not funny. As someone with a clear bias in favor of humor notwithstanding, I say balderdash. Incorporating
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