I know there are only a few weeks left, and many eyes are on the exit, but this short article about improving class discussions caught my eye. There were several techniques new to me – warm calling, half-formed thoughts, and doubting-and-believing squares – and can fit in your last few classes to add some variety.
Teaching Tip – TTT
Articles and resources to empower your teaching experience.
Teaching – Helping Students Overcome Presentation Anxiety
As we near the end of the semester, many of us have projects that students present. These can be high stressors for students and a huge time sink for your course schedule. In this short two-page article, Dr. Traci Levy of Adelphi University describes a presentation format she calls the Presentation Cafe. On Presentation Cafe days, she divides the class into presentation slots, scheduling three or four groups to present simultaneously depending on class size.
Teaching – Do late penalties do more harm than good?
Like many of us, I relaxed my due dates as we struggled with the pandemic. Now that we have just passed the second anniversary of the national lockdown, I’m beginning to reflect on my choices. On the one hand, I can point to certain students who benefited from this more empathetic approach (not a word that is often used to describe me), but doesn’t the “real world” operate on deadlines?
Teaching – Reclaiming the joy of teaching
I don’t know about you, but this semester has been particularly bumpy for me with inclement weather and illnesses. Sometimes we need to take a step back and realize why we chose this career path. The Faculty Focus article, “Reclaiming the Joy of Teaching,” is a great article to peruse over the spring break.
Teaching – Course evals on the first day of class? by Yen Loh, English
Like newspapers, which may be read one day over morning coffee and may be used, as my grandmother did, to wrap vegetables the next day, student evaluations have second, subsequent, and multiple lives. In the classroom, student evaluations are usually resurrected at the mid and endpoints of the semester, but discussing prior course evaluations with your current students at the beginning of the semester can also help in telling the course’s story and the argument it’s trying to make through the act of re-seeing course readings and assignments.
Teaching – a Syllabus Deep Dive
You spent tons of time on it, now how to get your students to read your syllabus? In this video I share five easy-to-enact tips that I use for my syllabi. The five step are based on this short Chronicle piece. These tips are based on the more detailed article, How to create a syllabus.
Teaching – Giving Students a Why
Showing compassion for our students but maintaining expectations is a tricky balancing act. This short Chronicle article, The Power of Telling Students Why, argues that we should explain to students why we have specific policies, rules, or deadlines. If we can’t, then maybe those things should be reconsidered. As noted in the article by one respondent:
“I think it’s a form of respect for our students,” she continued, “to be able to have a why, and where we don’t have a good one, really then thinking about whether that’s a policy we can do without.”
Teaching – Want to Bolster Creative Confidence, Improve Team Performance, or Try Something New?
The Red Frame Lab is here to amplify your learning outcomes with tools from design thinking and professional development modules used by RED Corps, Red Frame Consulting, and several of your fellow faculty. Last semester we teamed with Global Commerce, Psychology, Anthropology/Sociology, Data Analytics, and Environmental Studies classes as well as 18 Advising Circles. Ask your colleagues about their experiences.
Teaching – Six Steps for a Successful Group Project
While there is a wealth of evidence to support collaborative learning, I often shy away from assigning group projects. As a student, when given a group project, I often felt like I was carrying more than my weight. If goals and expectations are not well laid out, students can find group work frustrating.
To make your group projects more successful, consider the six tips in this short Focus article.
Teaching – A Tongue in Cheek look at RateMyProfessor.com
When the review site RateMyProfessor began in the early aughts, a colleague at a larger state school obsessed over their score. Teaching large lecture courses of 150 students, my friend used the rating system to determine what their students really thought. Clearly, not the most healthy approach to course feedback.
In her Humurous advice for students’ negative reviews of professors (opinion), Susan Muaddi Darraj notes that nobody in academe will admit to checking RateMyProfessors, but we all do, secretly, at night, on our smartphones.