Do College Students Spend Too Much Time on Facebook, YouTube and Other Social Networking Sites?

If you want to start a lively debate with your colleagues, just say one word: Facebook. You’re likely to hear many different arguments and at some point someone will declare that if students would spend less time on Facebook and other social networking sites they’d get better grades. Maybe, maybe not.

Continue ReadingDo College Students Spend Too Much Time on Facebook, YouTube and Other Social Networking Sites?

What to Look for in Teaching Philosophy Statements

What should faculty reviewers look for in a teaching philosophy statement of a candidate? Correspondingly, what should those applying for academic positions put in a teaching philosophy statement? The author of this article suggests models of teaching and learning. Of learning, he writes, “Candidates should demonstrate knowledge of models of how students learn, how best to encourage learning, and how to assess whether learning has occurred.” (p. 336)

Continue ReadingWhat to Look for in Teaching Philosophy Statements

Seven Tips for Creating a Positive Online Learning Experience

Here are a few tips to ensure your students have a positive online learning experience. Personal introductions. By using the personal introductions of students, an instructor can get to know his/her students better, thus allowing interaction with individual students in a more personal manner. When students see that the instructor is reaching out to them on a personal basis, it helps establish a rapport and put the student at ease.

Continue ReadingSeven Tips for Creating a Positive Online Learning Experience

Report Outlines Practices That Have Strengthened STEM Offerings at Minority-Serving Institutions

A critical component to building an American workforce with 21st century skills through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate education is already being demonstrated successfully at several minority-serving institutions (MSIs)—Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). During the past three years, MSIs continue to take steps that help to further improve America’s global competitiveness and increase equity, especially among minority students, in STEM education.

Continue ReadingReport Outlines Practices That Have Strengthened STEM Offerings at Minority-Serving Institutions

Tips for Building a Personal Learning Network on Campus and Online

Colleagues can play such an important role in our development as teachers, yet most of the time we don’t make use of them in ways that really help us grow pedagogically. We spend time with faculty who inhabit offices near ours sharing pedagogical pleasantries, noting our successes and those of our students, or complaining about the lack of institutional support for teaching or the poor performance of this year’s entering class.

Continue ReadingTips for Building a Personal Learning Network on Campus and Online

How Wikis Streamline Student Collaboration Projects

Utter the words “group project” and you’re likely to hear at least a few groans from your students. The reasons for their dislike of group work are many, but logistical difficulties of getting everyone together and lazy group members who don’t pull their own weight are two of the biggest complaints.

Continue ReadingHow Wikis Streamline Student Collaboration Projects