I know, it’s not the time of year when most of us wildly love teaching, but I’m thinking across the long trajectory of my career. I remember that first day in class when I spent a lot of time on my outfit and the content
While there has been considerable interest in cognitive science in education, limited numbers of educators are using this information to inform teaching and learning. That’s according to Weinstein et al. (2018), who identify six effective cognitive learning strategies: spaced or distributed practice, interleaving, retrieval practice,
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
As college instructors, we always encourage students to ask questions in class or during office hours. But many students with questions do not ask them in class for fear appearing stupid in front of others. They also may not have the time to come to
How much has our thinking about participation changed? Start with your students: Do they equate participation with anything other than raising their hands to answer a question or being called on for a comment? Recent years have seen calls to broaden definitions of participation, but
Imagine this: You have just given instructions for the day’s class activity, designed to test a theory chronicled in the previous week’s readings. But the proposed assignment doesn’t land the way you anticipated. One courageous student challenges the purpose and relevance of the assignment in
The textbook in the online educator preparation course I was redesigning would not have been my first choice. It was dry, theory heavy, and difficult to read. I wanted to supplement it with an engaging discussion activity—a student-directed one—that would motivate students to read it
You know, the one we all love to teach, the one whose learning showcases our pedagogical acumen. Does our vision of the ideal student at some point merge with our dreams of a perfect student?
Over the past few years, there has been a lot of discussion about student persistence in online education and how to improve it (Lakhal et al., 2021). While exit interviews show that the most common reasons that students leave are ones they cannot directly control,
Students need to learn time management skills, but I suspect that’s true for more than just students. Busyness rules. How many of us are living lives packed with too much to do? We know the issues for our students. Most of them are working, a
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