In Effective Teaching Strategies
January 24, 2020 Pamela den Ouden and Tanya Helton
Years ago, as a high school graduate applying for a college scholarship, I tried an innovative research strategy. I was investigating the case of a Canadian man who was…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
January 15, 2020 Richard A. Giaquinto, PhD
It’s been a privilege to teach over some two decades, and during that time, I’ve found a series of techniques that were successful in the classroom. Here, I will…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
December 20, 2019 Donna Graham, PhD, and John Bryan, DBA
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of why annotated bibliographies are needed in higher education, especially in doctoral education programs. The necessity for emerging scholars…
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…
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. …
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 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 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…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
September 13, 2019 Jörg Waltje, PhD, and Aubree Evans, MA
Regardless of whether you’ve been teaching for 15 years or 15 minutes, how to act and what to do on the first day of class seems to be something…
In Effective Teaching Strategies, Philosophy of Teaching
September 9, 2019 Donald Saucier, PhD
One of the most intriguing, and perhaps intimidating, aspects of walking into a class for the first time and introducing yourself is deciding who you will be. The teaching…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 29, 2019 Faculty Focus
This week on The Focus is You, we’re getting to know Angela Britcher who works in instructional design, faculty training, and content writing. We’ve catered some of the questions…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 14, 2019 Amel Ben Abdesslem, PhD
I started teaching economics in higher education almost a decade ago, and yet the memory of the first time I asked a student to meet with me to talk…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
July 26, 2019 Bryan J. Coleman
In-class activities can be a great way to foster student engagement in the classroom. Depending on the activity, the results can vary greatly. Sometimes they can fall flat, but…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
July 8, 2019 Stefanie R. Sorbet, EdD
All too often I have heard colleagues pondering over situations in which students are found on their smart phones rather than engaged in class. As a former elementary school…
As college faculty, we put tremendous pressure on ourselves to talk. We want to cover the course content and thoroughly explain our assignments. We want to sound smart, share…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
June 7, 2019 Tierney King
Igniting an emotional connection to content inside the classroom can be a powerful tool for student retention, but intertwining technology and emotion in the classroom can be even more…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
May 22, 2019 Adam Smith, PhD
In the world of diets, movements are the thing that sells…Vegan, Paleo, Whole 30, Keto, and, now, Carnivore (…seriously, it’s a thing). Yet, upon closer inspection, many of these…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
May 20, 2019 Adriana J. LaGier, PhD
Because I teach mixed demographic courses, I often look out at a sea of distracted and unmotivated faces. Motivation is a large part of learning (Pintrich and deGroot, 2003).…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
May 15, 2019 Tiffany F. Culver PhD
It was soon after my son enrolled in a local junior college that I realized something was wrong. Success, which seemed to come so easy to him in high…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
May 13, 2019 Stacy Greathouse, PhD
Thank-you notes make people happy. For as much joy as they give me, I don’t send them enough. In fact, I think writing thank-you notes is a dying art.…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
May 1, 2019 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Looking to incorporate some learner-centered teaching principles into your courses but aren’t sure where to begin? Here are 10 activities for building student engagement and getting students more actively…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
April 24, 2019 Maj. Wolfgang S. Weber, JD
As an educator, I have an embarrassing confession: When I was younger, I was an incredibly difficult student. Read something? … On a good day, maybe I’d do some…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
April 8, 2019 Patty Kohler-Evans, EdD, and Chayla Rutledge
When a family gathers around the table to share a meal, the one who prepared and served the fare most likely spent time pondering the recipes, considering the meal’s…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
March 18, 2019 Ken Alford, PhD, and Tyler Griffin, PhD
College teachers often enter their classrooms with thousands of hours of experience in their chosen field, and they typically face students who have little to no experience with that…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
March 15, 2019 Li-Shih Huang, PhD
There’s no arguing with Ryan’s (2009) observation that “coming to class prepared and with some background knowledge transforms students from passive to active learners” (para. 3). But how to…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
February 22, 2019 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Every course has assignments, but do they get the attention they deserve or do the same versions end up in the syllabus year after year? How much variety is…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
February 11, 2019 Stefanie R. Sorbet, EdD
In today’s college practicum experiences, it is sometimes quite difficult for students to find quality field or clinical placements to log hours of pre-professional experiences. Hospitals, clinics, and school…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
February 6, 2019 Jay Howard, PhD
Thirty years of research in the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education have demonstrated that when students are engaged in the classroom, they learn more (Pascarella and…
I flunked out of college seven times. Yes, seven times. While there are many great tales associated with each failure—friends causing endless distractions, having to work late, one lame…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
December 7, 2018 Kristina Wright, PhD
How often do you hear college students say, “that was fun!” on their way out of your classroom? Probably not often enough. Of course, who has time for fun…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
October 4, 2018 Linda B. Nilson, PhD
We all endorse it and we all want our students to do it. We also claim to teach it. “It” is critical thinking, and very few of us actually…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
September 27, 2018 Sydney Fulbright PhD
Those who teach in the health disciplines expect their students to retain and apply every iota of learned material. However, many students come to us having achieved academic success…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
September 20, 2018 Li-Shih Huang, PhD
The idea for sharing this post came from a session I recently conducted at the annual teaching conference organized by my university. A pedagogical conundrum was raised by a…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
September 6, 2018 Matt Anderson and Micah Fierstein
Most of us are aware of the important benefits that cooperative learning offers for student achievement (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 2007). We frequently use, or seek out these strategies…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 21, 2018 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
There’s only one first day of class. Here are some ideas for taking advantage of opportunities that are not available in the same way on any other day of…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 20, 2018 Flower Darby
“Increased domestic and global access to higher education,” writes Amy Lee in her 2017 book Teaching Interculturally: A Framework for Integrating Disciplinary Knowledge and Intercultural Development, has resulted in…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 14, 2018 Delaney J. Kirk Ph.D.
Each new semester as I walk down the hallway to my classroom, I am a little nervous, even after 27 years of teaching experience…and I’m okay with this. I…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 13, 2018 Jennifer Garrett and Mary Clement EdD
The interest inventory is a simple tool to help you acquaint yourself with your students. Unlike many icebreakers, the interest inventory is a paper-based activity and students do not…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
August 2, 2018 Betty Anne Buirs PhD
The old expression that you never have a second chance to make a first impression is certainly true in the classroom. Early in my career, I tried several first-day-of-class…
In Effective Teaching Strategies
July 9, 2018 Mary Clement EdD.
1. Study the knowledge base of teaching and learning. You have chosen to teach in higher education because you are a subject-matter specialist with a tremendous knowledge of your…
