Are Student-Professor Relationships More Important in Hard Courses?

A bevy of research establishes that student-faculty relationships are important on a number of fronts. For example, they predict persistence and completion in college. They impact the amount of effort students make in courses. They affect the development of students’ academic self-concepts. The authors of this analysis write: “There is evidence in the literature to suggest that the way students feel about their relationship to the professor may play an even larger role than many faculty know, or—perhaps—care to admit.” (p. 41)

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What Makes Faculty Members Participate in Distance Learning?

Encouraging faculty to participate in distance learning has been a concern since the very first days of online delivery methods, and probably before. A look through the Distance Education Report archives will show the evolving concerns about pedagogical quality, academic rigor, reputation, and other factors that faculty members have expressed concerns about.

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Six Steps for Turning Your Teaching into Scholarship

In 1997 Ernest Boyer identified the concept of the Scholarship of Teaching. This was the first time that TEACHING had been identified as legitimate scholarship. Over time this idea has evolved into the movement called “SoTL” or the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Many of us are scholarly teachers; we read the literature, plan, assess, reflect, and revise. But what makes our teaching scholarship is very different. Lee Shulman (1999) clearly delineated the difference. To be scholarship, teaching must become public, be an object of critical review and evaluation by members of one’s community, and it must be built upon and developed.

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McGraw-Hill Education Releases Major Update to Connect Digital Learning Platform for Higher Education

McGraw-Hill Education today announced a major upgrade to McGraw-Hill Connect®, the online learning platform of choice for hundreds of colleges and universities around the country. Drawing on the feedback of more than 125 instructors at 70 institutions, McGraw-Hill Education has streamlined and improved the platform’s usability, making it easier than ever for instructors to create and manage their courses in less time. Connect now offers new features like a proactive at-risk student notification tool and automation enhancements of routine classroom tasks, allowing instructors to spend less time on course administration and more time teaching. The update to Connect is one of five major digital product releases that McGraw-Hill Education has introduced in the past month.

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Pearson Partners with Knewton on Adaptive Science and Business Products

Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, today announced a substantial rollout of additional MyLab & Mastering products enhanced with technology from leading adaptive learning partner Knewton. This fall semester alone, Pearson’s widely used MyLab & Mastering offerings will deliver continuously adaptive recommendations to more than 400,000 students across subject areas including biology, anatomy & physiology, chemistry, physics, finance and accounting. These are in addition to math, economics, reading and writing, which launched in the fall of 2012.

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The Benefits of Flipping Your Classroom

A small but growing number of faculty at major universities are experimenting with the inverted or flipped classroom. It’s an instructional model popularized by, among other influences, a Ted Talk by Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, which has received more than 2.5 million views. Institutions as varied as Duke University’s School of Medicine, Boston University’s College of Engineering, and the University of Washington School of Business have joined Clemson, Michigan State, the University of Texas, and many others in experimenting with changing from in-class lectures to video lectures and using class time to explore the challenging and more difficult aspects of course content.

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WizIQ Offers Free Membership Worth $690 to College and University Teachers

WizIQ today announced academic free membership worth $690 for all teachers working in educational institutions, K-12, Colleges or Universities. Eligible teachers can use their school/university email address to register on WizIQ and get features equivalent to WizIQ’s Solo Unlimited Premium account, completely free.

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