In Effective Classroom Management
January 25, 2017 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Three articles in the February issue of the Teaching Professor newsletter deal with peer learning—a large category that includes activities through which students learn from and with each other.…
In Effective Classroom Management
January 11, 2017 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
The line between collaboration and cheating is fuzzy. It’s still clear at the edges, but messy in the middle. When students are working in groups, searching for a solution…
In Effective Classroom Management
January 9, 2017 Beverley Myatt, MA, and Lynne N. Kennette, PhD
You gaze around the classroom, recognizing that a number of students are on their cell phones. Others are on their laptops, maybe taking notes but most likely using social…
In Effective Classroom Management
December 7, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
To: My Students From: Your Professor Re: Studying for Finals The end of the semester is rarely pretty. You’re tired; I’m tired. You’ve got a zillion things to get…
In Effective Classroom Management
November 16, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
I recently overheard a faculty member talking about students, and it wasn’t good. She sounded very much like a conference presenter whom Melanie Cooper describes in a Journal of…
In Effective Classroom Management, Teaching and Learning
October 17, 2016 Nichole Igwe
Editor’s Note: The following article was excerpted with permission from To My Professor: Student Voices for Great College Teaching, a new book that brings together student experiences and opinions…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 12, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
We know students are afraid of making mistakes, often dreadfully so. And so we talk a good line about the learning potential inherent in mistakes. But are we afraid…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 21, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
I’m a strong believer in the benefits of students studying together, even though students don’t always understand or even experience the benefits. Oftentimes the potential gains of group study…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 14, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
By the third or fourth week of most courses, students have had a reality check. They have taken the first exam, received feedback on their first paper, or otherwise…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 2, 2016 Diane Rubino
When I first I started teaching, I knew what plagiarism meant and how it related to schoolwork. But student “cheaters” challenged my beliefs. I also assumed graduate students would…
In Effective Classroom Management
July 25, 2016 Sherry Zane, PhD
As the higher education community continues to work to create a more inclusive learning environment, the needs of our gender-variant students are too often overlooked. This article outlines a…
In Effective Classroom Management
June 29, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Last week’s post encouraged us to reconsider what student engagement means and entails. Today I’d like to explore just some of the things teachers can do to better promote…
In Effective Classroom Management
April 29, 2016 John Orlando, PhD
I once received a call from a student who told me that he could not make the next day’s exam because he was in jail. He was wondering if…
In Effective Classroom Management
April 27, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
There hasn’t been a lot written recently about test anxiety, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer an issue for a significant number of students. Those of us who…
In Effective Classroom Management
March 2, 2016 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
I continue to be impressed by the need for teachers to clarify common aspects of instruction instead of assuming that students’ understanding of what they entail are the same…
In Effective Classroom Management
December 9, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
When students are talking with each other about content, most of us worry, at least a little bit. We’ve all heard less-than-impressive exchanges. For example, four students are in…
In Effective Classroom Management
November 11, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Good teachers care about their students. We all know that, but sometimes over the course of a long semester, it’s easy to forget just how important it is to…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 14, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
As faculty, it seems we are very concerned about cell phones in the classroom. Articles about the problem are popping up everywhere in the pedagogical literature, and they often…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 7, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
The list of concerns was compiled from a qualitative analysis of 10 years of graduate teaching assistants’ online discussion posts. The 120 students wrote the posts in a three-credit…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 30, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
I once heard class discussions described as “transient instructional events." They pass through the class, the course, and the educational experiences of students with few lingering effects. Ideas are…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 28, 2015 Lolita Paff, PhD
Policies are necessary. They serve as a warning to students: this is what will happen if you are absent, miss an exam, turn work in late, text or surf…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 23, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Here’s a strategy you can tuck in your folder of good ideas: a survey tool for assessing student expectations for the course. The survey’s designers believe that knowing what…
In Effective Classroom Management
September 2, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Here’s a set of questions about large classes that I’m thinking we ought to be discussing more than we are. 1. How many students make it a large class?…
In Effective Classroom Management, Teaching and Learning
July 29, 2015 Mary Bart
At its most basic level, the syllabus is used to communicate information about the course, the instructor, learning objectives, assignments, grading policies, due dates, the university’s academic integrity statement,…
In Effective Classroom Management
June 10, 2015 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
I need to start out by saying that the article I’m writing about here isn’t for everyone. It’s not like any pedagogical piece I have ever read, and I’ve…
In Effective Classroom Management
April 17, 2015 Kathy DeOrnellas PhD
An increasing number of individuals are being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), particularly the higher functioning form of autism previously known as Asperger’s disorder. Many of these individuals…
In Effective Classroom Management
January 26, 2015 Shannon B. Seidel PhD and Kimberly D. Tanner PhD
“What if the students revolt?” “What if I ask them to talk to a neighbor, and they simply refuse?” “What if they do not see active learning as teaching?”…
In Effective Classroom Management
May 9, 2014 Rob Kelly
How much time do you waste scrolling through your inbox looking for that certain email that contains essential information you need right away? If you follow Keith Krieger’s advice,…
As new teachers very quickly learn, students will come up with all kinds of excuses for missing assignments and other work. Students will never say, “I missed the exam…
In Effective Classroom Management
January 6, 2014 Diane G. Symbaluk PhD
There is nothing more disheartening and stressful than having to formally accuse a student of cheating on an exam. Was the student looking at his neighbor’s exam or just…
In Effective Classroom Management
April 15, 2013 Sydney Fulbright PhD
Are we old fuddy-duddies when we ask (demand) students to put away their cell phones in the classroom or clinical areas? Students tell me this is just the way…
In Effective Classroom Management
March 28, 2013 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
“Grandpa’s heart exploded, but he’s fine now,” one student reported the morning after missing a scheduled exam. “I caught dyslexia from another student last semester,” responded another when his…
In Effective Classroom Management
March 8, 2013 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
For quite some time now I've been interested in a widely held set of assumptions faculty make about the need to assert control at the beginning of a course.…
In Effective Classroom Management, Teaching and Learning
October 12, 2012 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Should instructors care whether or not students find their exchanges satisfying? They should, because as this research (and previous studies) document, those levels of satisfaction correlate positively and significantly…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 8, 2012 Rick Sheridan
Losing control of the classroom can be one of the most frustrating and intimidating experiences for both new and experienced teachers. Losing control can happen in several different ways.…
In Effective Classroom Management
June 4, 2012 Mary Bart
Problem students come in all forms, and may be "difficult" for wide variety of behaviors. While it’s impossible to create neat little categories that adequately describe the full range…
In Effective Classroom Management
March 29, 2012 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
We know from the literature, and more directly from conversations with colleagues, that most college teachers are concerned, annoyed, frustrated, and occasionally angered by the way students behave in…
In Effective Classroom Management
January 9, 2012 Mary Bart
Complaints about incivility in the classroom are not new, but most faculty believe incivility is on the rise. Couple that with our litigious society, and it’s no wonder that…
In Effective Classroom Management
October 5, 2011 Roben Torosyan PhD
Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. … Being selective—doing less—is the path of the…
In Effective Classroom Management
August 22, 2011 Mary Bart
Donald McCabe’ s 2005 article “Cheating Among College And University Students: A North American Perspective” is often cited for its sobering statistics regarding the prevalence of cheating in higher…
