In Effective Teaching Strategies
December 13, 2019 Susan McDowall, PhD
I have been teaching various levels of reading skills and composition to native and non-native speakers, to immigrants and U.S. citizens, to people with talent and interest, and I…
Michelle Pautz, PhD, is an assistant provost for the Common Academic Program and professor of Political Science at the University of Dayton. She shares that being patient with yourself…
In Blended and Flipped Learning, Online Education
December 11, 2019 Kevin Yee
Online instructors have known for some time that the primary work of creating an online course consists of “curation,” which is usually understood to be a matter of selecting…
Lecturing is one of the most traditional methods of teaching in higher education. On any given day, there are hundreds of lectures being delivered in classrooms across college campuses. …
We live in a time of never-before held access to information, which means educators must compete with a wide-ranging array of media for the finite attention of their students’…
In Course Design, Educational Assessment
December 2, 2019 Howard Kimmel, PhD
I found the article, “Testing and Assessment: Looking in the Wrong Places” by Dr. Caristi (Faculty Focus, 11 Sept. 2019) interesting. But, if I am interpreting his arguments correctly,…
November 29, 2019 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Most of us teaching at the college level like to read. We read professional materials, and we read for pleasure. We know firsthand that much about teaching can be…
In Blended and Flipped Learning
November 27, 2019 Nisha Malhotra, PhD
There is a vast pedagogical literature spelling out the benefits of student engagement and active participation (1). A recent meta-analysis study of 225 active learning classes further concludes that…
November 25, 2019 Robert S. Fleming, PhD
Regardless of one’s academic discipline or the courses that we teach, college faculty members share a responsibility to prepare our students for success in our courses and academic programs,…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
November 22, 2019 Alison Rogers
Isaac Newton first conceptualized the idea of gravity when an apple fell on his head. This moment was simple, but inspirational—with a huge impact on scientific progress to come.…
In Blended and Flipped Learning
November 20, 2019 Christian Aguiar
With written communication becoming increasingly multimodal—from newspaper websites to your social media feed to your learning management system’s announcements page—researchers and practitioners alike have made the case for the…
November 19, 2019 Dimple J. Martin, PhD
When I began designing my course activities, I needed a model that would include all modalities of the learning processes. As my blueprint, I chose to incorporate Dale’s Cone…
November 18, 2019 Kristin Ritchey
Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide. As experts in…
November 15, 2019 Bob Eierman
At a symposium about teaching projects on our campus, one group of faculty presented a set of projects they had done that involved giving students control over course design…
In Effective Classroom Management
November 13, 2019 Siva priya Santhanam, PhD
“Jason is a bright, ambitious, and warm 22-year-old. He wants to be a Geologist. However, Jason has a hard time staying focused in a large classroom. Group activities, competing…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
November 11, 2019 David St. Germain, EdD
The important role professors play in helping our students appreciate cultural diversity cannot be overvalued. There has been much written about what a Culturally Responsive educator can do to…
In Blended and Flipped Learning
November 8, 2019 Suzanne C. Shaffer
What began as a routine summer workshop on incorporating games and game-like elements into instruction, turned into a surprise for summer; two weeks of fun and intense online game-play…
Although Kathleen Koenig was terrified of public speaking as a student, she now teaches lecture classes with 135+ students. As an associate professor in the Physics Department at the…
Students from different walks of life converge in a classroom for learning. They have different capabilities and personalities, adding to the diversity that comes with learning institutions. As such,…
In Effective Classroom Management
November 4, 2019 Sara Schley, EdD
The teaching process not only involves content knowledge, but also an understanding of teaching and learning principles with insights about different learning needs (note: not the same thing as…
Don’t I Know You from Somewhere? This whole thing started when I played two video games, one after the other, that I imagine almost no one plays in sequence.…
October 30, 2019 Tierney King
It’s that time of year when spooky stories emerge and haunted traditions appear! From ghost stories to pumpkin-carving competitions, we found a few colleges and professors who have made…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
October 28, 2019 Jennifer Sullivan
I credit my husband as the inspiration for this article. He is a writing professor who is exceptionally good at waiting. He has a unique ability (and probably disturbing…
Instructional designers can help with many different course-based problems and challenges, including helping you figure out where and how to start with your course design. When a course is…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 23, 2019 Dimple J. Martin, PhD
As a professor who just completed their first academic school year, I was naïve to believe that students regularly attended class. As college students, I thought they would demonstrate…
Years ago, when I began my full-time teaching career in the university classroom, I was a mere 27 years old and fresh out of a PhD program. I did…
October 18, 2019 Melissa Brevetti, PhD, and James Yang, PhD
On August 6, 1991, the World Wide Web became public to the world and forever changed the way that ideas move. Although in-person dialogues and interactions are historically significant ways…
October 16, 2019 Matthew Vickless, PhD
Today’s enrollment trends present an opportunity for faculty to engage an incredibly diverse student body. But to support all of our students, we may need to adjust our thinking…
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To show the squirrel it could be done. Most of us attempt to teach our subjects by telling students things,…
October 11, 2019 Steve Dwinnells, PhD
As an adjunct professor and one who works daily with faculty in helping them understand online education, I have noticed and heard of increasing numbers of professors going missing…
This month’s The Focus is You features Bonnie Slavych, PhD, assistant professor of Communication Disorders at the University of Central Missouri. After Slavych’s first semester of teaching, she quickly…
October 9, 2019 Immaculata Igbo, PhD, Margie Landson, MSN, CNE, RN, and Kathleen Straker, MEd
Faculty development and burnout pose challenges within departments and colleges of academic institutions. Constrained resources—asked to do more with less time, money, and personnel—contribute to faculty feeling overwhelmed (Gabriel,…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 7, 2019 Patty Kohler-Evans, EdD
Recently, a student came into my office to vent because she was frustrated and dismayed at the behavior of another student in one of her classes. She indicated that…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 4, 2019 Deborah Bracke, PhD
There is nothing quite like a Friday afternoon. The hurry-up pressures of the week come to a halt, and I can catch my breath against the wide open space…
Online learning is becoming more prevalent in colleges and universities. When I arrived in higher education, I could not imagine how online classes would work since the connection to…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 30, 2019 Heather Van Mullem, PhD
Creating a successful learning experience is at the heart of instructional design and delivery. “In addition to academic instruction, one of a classroom’s teachers most important roles is to…
September 27, 2019 Miriam Bowers-Abbott
One of the most popular guides for academic writing standards across the curriculum is scheduled for some changes. It’s been a decade since The American Psychological Association (APA) last…
September 25, 2019 Lisa Borrero, PhD, and Amanda Jayne Miller, PhD
Engaging students through a computer screen requires a unique approach to pedagogy and innovative course design. The feeling of “getting it right” typically involves a good deal of testing…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 23, 2019 Laura Schisler, PhD
As a new faculty member, late work was the cause of many headaches. I wanted a policy that would recognize there may be valid reasons why a student might…
September 20, 2019 Jennie M. Carr, PhD
I am not going to lie…. I’m completely obsessed with email. For several years, email has been deemed the most preferred channel of professional communication (Tanase, 2018). Like many…
