I started teaching economics in higher education almost a decade ago, and yet the memory of the first time I asked a student to meet with me to talk about plagiarism is still painful. Rather than resolve anything, in the…
By: Vicki Ingalls
A wise and dear colleague of mine, now retired, once said to me as we walked to class, “I teach for free; they pay me to grade.” I have found in my 22 years of teaching that I concur with…
By: Lynne N. Kennette, PhD, Phoebe S. Lin, PhD, and Lisa R. Van Havermaet, PhD
Many college courses employ multiple choice (MC) tests as a primary means of assessment. Although these are sometimes critiqued (Kaufman, 2001), modifications can be made to this assessment, based in cognitive science, to increase the value of this testing format.…
By: Faculty Focus
To kickstart The Focus is You, a short Q&A that features a different Faculty Focus member every Thursday, we’re featuring Maryellen Weimer, editor of The Teaching Professor and a professor emerita at Penn State Berks. Albeit she told me, “Remember,…
By: Ed Cunliff, PhD
The approach to course reading described here is not the result of some altruistic action to save students money on textbooks. Nor was it a brilliant “Aha!” moment regarding the neuroscience of learning. It was the result of an attempt…
By: Brenda Thomas
Some of the recurring topics on Faculty Focus in the past ten years pertain to handling excuses, extension requests, and late work, because teachers regularly deal with those issues. Suggested remedies range from giving one-time grace to assuming deception as…
By: Candice Dowd Barnes EdD and Patricia Kohler-Evans EdD
Most would agree the classroom is a place for discourse, reflection, and learning. But, whose class is it? Who’s doing the learning—the teacher or the students? We submit it’s both—teacher and students learning from each other. Too often, faculty see…
I have taught mathematics for 38 years and am puzzled by why the analogies I was taught throughout my youth have been lost. I believe that students often miss the point of a concept if it is taught without an…
By: Tierney King
Trying new things and staying connected to students is of utmost importance for Deidre Price, PhD, director of Instructional Technology and Online Education at Northwest Florida State College, which Price reiterated at this year’s Annual Teaching Professor Conference during her…
By: Bryan J. Coleman
In-class activities can be a great way to foster student engagement in the classroom. Depending on the activity, the results can vary greatly. Sometimes they can fall flat, but every so often an activity manages to hold the students’ undivided…