Teaching and Learning Archives - Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

July 16, 2018

Giving and Receiving Instructional Advice

How much instructional advice have you heard over the years? How often when you talk about an instructional issue are you given advice, whether you ask for it or not? Let’s say you’re a new teacher or you’re teaching a class you haven’t taught before or something unexpected happens in your class; if you’d like some advice, all you need to do is ask. Anybody who’s spent any time in the classroom seemingly has the right to offer advice. And if you’d rather read advice, there’s still plenty offered in the pedagogical literature, to say nothing of blogs and other social media sources.

April 1, 2015

What We Have and Haven’t Learned

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

I’ve been asked to give a talk that explores some of the top teaching-learning lessons learned in the past 15 years. It’s a good reflection exercise that also brings up those lessons we haven’t learned or aren’t yet finished learning.

I’m figuring the best place to start is with technology. During the past 15 years, technology has become a dominating force in every aspect of our lives and that includes education. As it descended upon higher education, we didn’t start out asking the right question. We got focused on the mechanics of “how does it work” (or, in the case of those us not all that adept at mastering technology, “why doesn’t it work?”) and “what can we do with it?” The better question is whether a new technology promotes learning. We are asking that question now, but still struggle with the balance between what’s possible and what promotes learning.

December 17, 2014

Our 14 Most Popular Articles of 2014

By: Mary Bart

As another year draws to a close, the editorial team at Faculty Focus looks back on some of the top articles of the past year. Throughout 2014, we published approximately 225 articles. The articles covered a wide range of topics – including group work, course redesign, flipped learning, and grading strategies. In a two-part series, which runs today and Friday, we reveal the top 14 articles for 2014. Each article’s ranking is based on a combination of factors, including e-newsletter open and click-thru rates, social shares, reader comments, web traffic, reprint requests, and other reader engagement metrics.

Today’s post lists articles 8-14, starting with number 14.

December 15, 2014

Our Weekly Conversation about Teaching and Learning

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

In this the final post for 2014, I wanted to say thanks to those of you who take time to add comments after the posts. I don’t respond because I’ve had my say. However, I do read every comment and often wish I could gather a group of you together for coffee (maybe something stronger, it is the holiday season) and continue the conversation.

We are still struggling with finding time and venues that expedite conversations about teaching and learning. The most pressing teaching issues of the moment tend to occupy our attention—test questions we need to write, reaction papers to record, the technology needed for a class activity tomorrow, or that routinely absent student who wants an extension. When we do encounter each other, we talk about these daily details but not about issues that merit deeper discussions.

December 20, 2013

Our Top 13 Teaching and Learning Articles of 2013

By: Mary Bart

As 2013 draws to a close, the editorial team at Faculty Focus looks back on some of the most popular articles of the past year. During the course of the year, we published more than 250 articles on a full range of topics of interest to today’s college educators.

August 14, 2013

How We Learn and How We Teach

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

Do you teach the way you learn? That’s the question Harold White asks in a short essay in which he recounts how he decided that he should. The catalyst was a faculty development workshop (more than 20 years ago) that…

June 26, 2013

Dead Ideas That Limit Teaching and Learning

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

Dead ideas that limit teaching and learning—that was the topic of Professor Diane Pike’s plenary session at the recent Teaching Professor Conference. There’s a tyranny associated with dead ideas. They limit and constrain our thinking, and can lead us in the wrong direction. An idea may pass on without us noticing, and discovering it is dead can be provocative. Consider, for example, these three ideas that Pike proposed.

April 19, 2013

Exploring the Impact of Institutional Policies on Teaching

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

Here are three questions of interest to those of us concerned with institutional support of teaching: 1) Is the strength of an institution’s “culture of teaching” or policy support for teaching and learning reflected in faculty members’ pedagogical practices? 2) Are “cultures of teaching” more prevalent at institutions with “learner centered” policies? 3) Do the relationships between institutional policies, faculty cultures, and teaching practices differ across institutional types?

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