Faculty Focus

HIGHER ED TEACHING STRATEGIES FROM MAGNA PUBLICATIONS

Articles

Working With Part-Time Faculty to Enhance Teaching and the Curriculum: A Top 10 List

Part-time faculty make essential contributions to our programs. Their part-time status often limits their contact with other faculty and their knowledge about the program in which they are teaching. Program coordinators and directors often provide the only contact between the two, and so play a critical but challenging leadership role. However, coordinators may also tend to work in isolation from one another and may lack opportunities to share experiences and learn from one another.

Read More »
Richard Leblanc and Sandra Scott October 19, 2010

Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Harassment: Navigating the Murky Legal Waters of Online Teaching

If you teach online, here’s a simple quiz for you:

  • Are you familiar with your college’s intellectual property policy?
  • Do you know if you own the class material you have created?
  • Do you have permission to use all copyrighted materials you use regularly?
  • Do you know how to prevent defamation and harassment issues online?
  • Do you have a disability expert on campus that regularly assists in the development of online materials so that you do not violate disability guidelines?
Read More »
Mary Bart October 18, 2010

When Mentoring New Faculty, Don’t Ignore These Issues

Beginning college teachers benefit when they have an instructional mentor. That fact is well established; as is the fact that mentoring benefits those who mentor. The influx of new faculty over the past few years has caused mentoring programs to flourish. All kinds of activities have been proposed so that mentors and mentees can spend their time together profitably. Addressed less often are those instructional topics particularly beneficial for the experienced and less-experienced teachers to address. Here’s a list of possibilities.

Read More »
Maryellen Weimer, PhD October 15, 2010

Do More Tests Lead to More Learning?

Most college teachers assume that more tests are better than a few. Why? What caused us to decide on three or four unit tests followed by a final? Is there evidence that students don’t do as well in courses where there are only a midterm and a final? Why do we think that more tests might be better? And what do we mean by better? Higher grades? More learning?

Read More »
Maryellen Weimer, PhD October 14, 2010

Three Tips for Handling Disruptive Online Students

Disruptive students, in any teaching and learning environment, are a challenge to manage, but they can be particularly so online. And it may take longer for an instructor to realize that a student is actually being disruptive online, since online communications can be ambiguous and one always wants to give students the benefit of the doubt.

Read More »
Susan Ko PhD October 12, 2010

The Benefits of a Course Blog

Does it matter if students leave courses with a positive attitude toward the content area? Maybe successful acquisition of content is all that really matters. Maybe teachers don’t need to be concerned if students “liked” the content. As physics professors Duda and Garrett (reference below) point out, this is about more than whether or not students “liked” physics.

Read More »
Maryellen Weimer, PhD October 8, 2010

Valuing and Rewarding Academic Advising

The literature has made us aware of the importance of a student’s connection with a faculty member, advisor, or other significant adult and its impact on academic success and retention of students. For first-generation students, this can be especially critical, as they require assistance not only in what to take and why, but also how to understand and negotiate this new and overwhelming environment. Universities employ a variety of methods and people to attempt to ensure that this connection be established and maintained. Advisors often fulfill this role for students in their first year in higher education.

Read More »
Kathleen L. OConnell October 7, 2010

Three Simple Keys to Effective Classroom Management

Fall semester is well underway at my institution. Prior to classes starting I had the opportunity to have lunch with a couple of fellow faculty members. During our lunch, we discussed many topics related to the upcoming term, but classroom management emerged as a common point of contention.

Read More »
Monique Perry October 6, 2010

Building Rapport with Your Students

Rapport, defined as “the ability to maintain harmonious relationships based on affinity” (a definition cited in the article referenced below), is more colloquially thought of as what happens when two people “click”—they connect, interact well, and respond to each other favorably.

Read More »
Maryellen Weimer, PhD October 5, 2010

Sign Up for
Faculty Focus!