No one can deny that the world in which we live and work is changing at a tumultuous pace. We live in a knowledge economy, driven by technologies that…
Teaching and Learning
Thomas Pfaff, PhD, is a professor of mathematics at Ithaca College. Pfaff’s primary scholarly work includes incorporating sustainability ideas into mathematics courses, where he maintains a blog on the…
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Kicking the Paint Bucket Down the Road: Checking in with Our Learners
December 16, 2019 David Largent
Decades ago, a new employee was hired to paint stripes on the side and middle of a road. This was before automated machines, and thus the stripes were painted…
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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…
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A Look Inside the Teaching Professor Collections
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…
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Developing Collaborative Skills through Pedagogical Example
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,…
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Scaffolding: How the Chicken Who Crossed the Road Developed New Knowledge
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…
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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…
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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,…
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A College Scare: Traditions and Stories of Halloween Past
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…
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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…
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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,…
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Prepare for Change: Old APA versus New APA
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…
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The Focus is You: Katrina Gundling and a Mud Hut
September 12, 2019 Faculty Focus
The Focus is You will now occur just once a month. We have other exciting things to share with you on Thursdays, like our new, free special reports, so…
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Music in the Classroom
August 30, 2019 Patricia Metthe Todebush and Audrey Cabe
As faculty, we want our students to achieve, but more than that we want our students to see, at least in some way, that what they are learning in…
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A Memo to Students: College and the Real World
August 30, 2019 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
To: My Students From: Your Teacher Re: What’s happening in college—is it real? I just read about a senior engineering student who was presenting a design project in an…
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Helping Students Learn: Insight from Maryellen
August 20, 2019 Faculty Focus
As faculty members prepare to start their classes and courses for the 2019 school year, it’s important to remember that not all students attending college may have a clear…
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To kickstart The Focus is You, a short Q&A that features a different Faculty Focus member every Thursday, we’re featuring Maryellen Weimer, editor of The Teaching Professor and a…
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The approach to course reading described here is not the result of some altruistic action to save students money on textbooks. Nor was it a brilliant “Aha!” moment regarding…
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Most would agree the classroom is a place for discourse, reflection, and learning. But, whose class is it? Who’s doing the learning—the teacher or the students? We submit it’s…
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I have taught mathematics for 38 years and am puzzled by why the analogies I was taught throughout my youth have been lost. I believe that students often miss…
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Graphic Novels, Innovative Teaching, and Student Engagement in the Classroom
July 24, 2019 Timothy R. Bussey, PhD
As an instructor who has taught courses in the social sciences, humanities, and interdisciplinary fields, I’ve often considered the ways in which course readings can be more engaging for…
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Elvis (the other one … Costello) was right, “Radio, it’s a sound salvation. Radio, it’s cleaning up the nation.” Radio didn’t die, it was just sleeping. Podcasting and ubiquitous…
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One joy of a faculty member in academia is the opportunity to train the next generation of scholars who will continue our work to innovate and create, extend human…
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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…
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The 2019 Annual Teaching Professor Conference offered numerous tactics and strategies to implement in the classroom, but Ken Alford, PhD, Brigham Young University, took a different approach in his…
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What Two Students Want You to Know About Inclusive Teaching
June 10, 2019 Tracie Addy, PhD, MPhil, Ayat Husseini, and Anna DeVault
Inclusive teaching involves creating equitable and welcoming educational environments for the diverse learners in our classrooms. Such approaches may involve, but are not limited to: designing educational experiences informed…
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When I confront “problems of practice” in my teaching, I like to turn to my smart friends for advice. About a year ago, I was really confounded by my…
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Join the Club: The Benefits of Getting Students Involved with Departmental Clubs
April 22, 2019 Matthew J. Wright, PhD
Faculty mentorship is widely seen as an important factor in a successful undergraduate education. A recent 2018 Strada-Gallup Alumni Survey, “Mentoring College Students To Success” shows that successful faculty…
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“What do the readings have to do with class?” “Why do we even have to do the readings?” After spending more than a decade supporting college faculty in teaching,…
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I was wrapping up a presentation on memory and learning when a colleague asked, “How do we help students learn in courses where there’s a lot of memorization?” He…
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Research Highlights How Easily, Readily Students Fabricate Excuses
March 13, 2019 Anna M. Carmichael and Lacy E. Krueger
“My grandmother fell down on her patio and I had to go stay with her for a few days and she does not have internet or a computer and…
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A few years ago, my colleague Brenda Whitney spoke at a workshop about how class discussion can take on many different forms, each with its own style and descriptive…
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Plagiarism seems like a clear-cut crime: if the words of another author appear in one’s writing without appropriate attribution, that writer has “stolen” those words. U.S. higher education institutions…
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“Everybody with Me?” and Other Not-so-useful Questions
February 27, 2019 Pete Watkins
“Any questions?” “Is everybody with me?” “Does this make sense?” I have asked my students these vague types of questions many times and the most common response was...silence. But…
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In Academic Leadership, Teaching and Learning
Preparing Your TA for the Job
February 25, 2019 Katherine Senko
The Teaching Assistant (TA) job is typically filled by an upper-level university student or graduate student. It’s a job that requires one to play several different roles. First and…
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The “Big Bang” of Motivation: Questions That Evoke Wonder in Our Students
February 18, 2019 Rebecca Zambrano
“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in…
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Office Hours Alternative Resonates with Students
February 15, 2019 Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Faculty regularly face the problem of getting the students most in need of help to come to the office for help. Not only do a small number of students…
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Intercultural Dialogue Partners: Creating Space for Difference and Dialogue
January 30, 2019 Elizabeth Barnes, MFA and Tasha Souza, PhD
We teach because we hope to inspire and prepare students for the future. We teach to invite transformation and enact lasting change. But how do we prepare students to…
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Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World (an Excerpt)
January 28, 2019 Paul Hanstedt, PhD
When we in the academy state that we desire our students to be whole, I believe we mean that we want them to leave college capable of achieving their…