Quick: what is your favorite class to teach? Chances are this is not a particularly tough question for most faculty to answer. If you are
I woke up when I heard the opening chords of Chopin’s Ballade in F Major. I’d been dozing off, phone in my hand, trying to
This article first appeared in The Teaching Professor on October 5, 2017. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. I teach online at an open enrollment institution, which
Professors often believe students should arrive on campus knowing how to write research papers. Unfortunately, many do not. Download this free report for proven assignment strategies that are easy to implement.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s 1980 book Metaphors We Live By famously catalogued the way metaphors influence the way we think, speak, and act. Some
I teach research-based Composition II courses every semester. My students learn information literacy, look up academic, peer-reviewed journals, create and correctly structure works cited pages,
Many years after graduating with our undergraduate degrees, we can still remember the stress of being a student. One lesson that stands out from those
Most professors would admit that they’ve found themselves frustrated when grading papers. Yes, sometimes those frustrations might stem from students ignoring your clear, strategic, and
“Your students are failing because you are failing them.” These words can cut to the core of any professional educator who strives for excellence in teaching and learning. However, hidden within that criticism is a more useful message: “To help them succeed, you must inspire their imaginations and capture their attention through meaningful and creative engagement within the classroom.”
As English composition instructors, we are tasked with teaching students how to effectively express themselves through writing as well as understand why that’s such an important skill. Oftentimes this is executed by teaching out of a required textbook that addresses the various functions of writing. However, to make the writing assignments more interesting, teachers should consider allowing students to choose topics or, at the very least, assigning ones that hold current relevance.
Many students struggle with college-level reading and writing assignments. Part of it is simply not knowing how to get the essentials from a text. I have been experimenting with a simple method I call GSSW: Gather, Sort, Shrink, and Wrap.
The goal of using this method is that students learn to write an essay, based on the readings, that is exemplary of organized, clear, accurate, and critical thinking.
