Five Techniques for Better Class Discussions
In a recent New York Times opinion essay, University of Virginia senior Emma Camp asserts that she “came to college eager for debate . . . but found self-censorship instead.”…
Why the “Why” Matters to Adult Learners
The word pedagogy continues to be bandied about in higher education despite increasing numbers of adults returning to the classroom. Additionally, online asynchronous courses continue to expand, making it harder…
Using Personality Assessments to Build Better Groups
This article first appeared in the Teaching Professor on November 25, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. When students learn there will be group work in a course, they often let…
Using Reflective Writing to Get Students Connected with the Material
When I was a sophomore in college, I took my first course in cognitive psychology and fell in love. I was so excited that we could apply the scientific process…
Distancing Solutions: Three Options for Socially Distant Peer Review Sessions
For many of us, when COVID-19 entered our classrooms certain cherished classroom activities became problematic and potentially hazardous. For those teaching face-to-face, classrooms were suddenly full of masked and unmasked…
Want to Be a Better Instructor? Teach Something You Don’t Know
This article first appeared in the Teaching Professor on September 3, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. A few months after I received my university’s undergraduate teaching award in 2009, my…
Activate a Relationship-rich Culture with Three Simple Practices
If you haven’t yet read Peter Felten and Leo Lambert’s book, Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College, by all means get your hands on a copy. As…
Making Mental Health More Visible in Your Course
How are you, as professors, addressing the ongoing mental health crisis that’s been driven in part by the pandemic? First off, the crisis in college campuses is real, as documented…
Creating Meaningful Connections: E-journaling and Self-assessment for Online Courses
There are challenges in finding meaningful ways to engage with students in asynchronous online courses. Some students find learning new concepts difficult when taking a course with an asynchronous format.…
Drawing in College: Using Sketchnoting to Support Student Engagement
Drawing in college? It’s not quite that simple. Student engagement with course content is paramount to their understanding of course topics (Boekaerts, 2016). However, inspiring students to complete assigned readings…