Whether it’s talking to colleagues, reading the latest research or visiting a teaching and learning center, professors have places to turn to learn about best pedagogical practices. Yet faculty members in general still aren’t known for their instructional acumen. Subject matter expertise? Yes. Teaching? Not so much.
The demand for faculty development is ongoing, and many medical schools will need to expand their pool of faculty
developers to include physicians and scientists whose primary expertise is not education. Insight into what motivates
occasional faculty developers can guide recruitment and retention strategies. This study was designed to understand the
motivations of faculty developers who occasionally (one to three times each year) lead faculty development workshops.
The purpose of this study was to examine whether a set of instructional practices commonly prescribed to online faculty in the higher education setting were consistent with the expectations of a group of experienced online student participants. Online faculty performance conventions were collected from 20 institutions of higher learning located in the United States. The collective practices yielded three primary domains related to administrative faculty performance expectations in online instruction: Communication, Presence/Engagement,and Timeliness/Responsiveness. Undergraduate participants representing a cross section of colleges and universities in the United States were surveyed to determine their expectations for online faculty as compared to scaled items derived from the lists of participating institutions. The results of this investigation offer practitioners insight into how administrative instructional guidelines relate to the user demands of an informed group of undergraduate online studentsThe purpose of this study was to examine whether a set of instructional practices commonly prescribed toonline faculty in the higher education setting were consistent with the expectations of a group of experiencedonline student participants. Online faculty performance conventions were collected from 20 institutions ofhigher learning located in the United States. The collective practices yielded three primary domains related toadministrative faculty performance expectations in online instruction: Communication, Presence/Engagement,and Timeliness/Responsiveness. Undergraduate participants representing a cross section of colleges anduniversities in the United States were surveyed to determine their expectations for online faculty as comparedto scaled items derived from the lists of participating institutions. The results of this investigation offerpractitioners insight into how administrative instructional guidelines relate to the user demands of an informedgroup of undergraduate online students
This month, we’ll focus on how to prepare for existing state and national tests. I’ll focus on three things that can help your students improve their chances to score up to their potential. By the way, kids never score above their potential; they’re just not going to randomly make enough lucky right answers time after time after time (in statistics, it’s called regression to the mean).
But, they often underperform for a host of reasons, even when they should perform much better. While we could focus on dozens of variables that influence standardized testing, we’ll focus on these three: 1) brain chemistry, 2) priming, and 3) episodic memory triggers. Some of these suggestions got so many rave reviews that they are reproduced from an earlier bulletin!
Regardless of our subject area, we’ve all had moments where some students appear to hang on every word,
gobbling up our messages, images, graphs, and visuals with robust engagement. Within those very same classes,
however, there will be a degree of confusion, perplexed looks, or at worst, the blank stare! In my field of anatomical
education, like many other STEMM* disciplines, the almost ubiquitous use of multimedia and other increasingly
complex computer visualizations is an important piece of our pedagogic tool kit for the classroom, small group, or
even the one-on-one graduate-level chalk talk. Although a picture indeed does say a thousand words, the words that
each person hears, or more importantly, comprehends, will vary widely.
What do you call a professor? Professor. Oh, I’m so funny…
In all seriousness, the answer to this question is much more complicated than you might think, hence my humour flow chart. Let me explain. Most students who attend university grew up in homes that valued manners to one degree or another. So unless told otherwise, they referred to adults as Mr., Mrs., or, more rarely, Ms. This was standard procedure from their parents’ friends to their elementary and high school teachers. So when these students get to university, they end up with one of two problems. Either they don’t know what to do or they say the wrong thing. So in this post, I’m going to discuss what not to do, why the title you use is important, and how to avoid feeling like an ass. The easy answer is to just call your professor, “Professor.” It’s a good catch-all and you are unlikely to offend anyone. If you want to delve further into this topic, read on!
Is there a tipping point at which students who take a blend of online and in-person coursework are doing too much online? That question goes to the heart of something called the online paradox.
The online paradox has inspired much debate, and it describes two seemingly contradictory things. The first is
that community-college student who take an online course are more likely to fail than are those who take it face-to-face. The second is that community-college students who take some online classes are more likely to complete their
degrees than are those who don’t take any.
Institutions across the country have been considering carefully scripted general-education courses in lieu of
traditional distribution requirements (see “No Math Required,” “Rethinking Gen Ed” and “Gen Ed Redesigns”). Some
months ago, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni issued a report pointing out the efficiencies that would be
realized by sequenced general-education courses with prescribed curricula, little student choice and lots of
requirements.
The same organization also issued a letter deploring the fact that most college students could not identify James
Madison as the father of the U.S. Constitution (most chose Thomas Jefferson) and that 40 percent did not know that
Congress has the power to declare war. Their solution: a course on civic literacy required of every college student.
Institutions across the country have been considering carefully scripted general-education courses in lieu of
traditional distribution requirements (see “No Math Required,” “Rethinking Gen Ed” and “Gen Ed Redesigns”). Some
months ago, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni issued a report pointing out the efficiencies that would be
realized by sequenced general-education courses with prescribed curricula, little student choice and lots of
requirements.
The same organization also issued a letter deploring the fact that most college students could not identify James
Madison as the father of the U.S. Constitution (most chose Thomas Jefferson) and that 40 percent did not know that
Congress has the power to declare war. Their solution: a course on civic literacy required of every college student.
If there’s a downside to another academic year coming to a successful close, it’s reading course evaluations. This post explores how we respond to those one or two low evaluations and the occasional negative comments found in answers to the open-ended questions. Do we have a tendency to over-react? I know I did.
Technology is gradually replacing cursive instruction—but have we taken stock of what we’re losing?
Should cursive writing still be taught in our schools? The old debate is back with a vengeance as schools shift resources from the intricate, painstakingly rendered script to keyboard skills.
I got lucky this semester. I’m teaching two undergraduate courses, and in both of them, my students have bonded in a way that makes my job easier. They start talking to each other before class begins, and are still talking as they walk out the door. They are excited to share their views on the readings and participate eagerly in class discussions. It’s great.
I’m not under the illusion that I had much to do with creating that dynamic. Sometimes a group of students just clicks. But I recognize how a sense of community among students helps me — when students enjoy coming to class, when they trust each other, when they seem to genuinely like each other, they are more likely to learn more.
Real learning is a trip to an unknown destination. It involves revising your previous beliefs in ways that can be
difficult, frightening, or painful. A cohesive and supportive community can ease that process for students. Even when
faculty aren’t as lucky as I’ve been this term, we should be looking for ways to build such a community — one that
offers a safe environment for students to do the sort of experimentation and risk-taking that is necessary for learning
to occur.
"If you look closer," sang Smokey Robinson, “it’s easy to trace the tracks of my tears.” Clearly he never experienced the flow of tears at the end of a semester.
Whenever midterm and final exams loom, students’ tears during faculty office hours become as commonplace as requests for extra credit and do-overs. Low grades produce desperation and despair. In deciding how to respond, professors first must identify the reasons for the crying because not all tears are equal.
Some students cry because they lack the necessary skills to succeed in the course. Others are dealing with the stresses of life and, particularly if they're young, haven't developed coping mechanisms. There are tears from students who are dealing with the very real traumas of microaggressions, racism, homophobia, rape, and the failure of their institutions to recognize those pressures or listen to their voices. And there are tears that surely produce less empathy — from the grade grubbers crushed by a B or the slackers who simply didn't do the reading but know how to turn on the waterworks.
The first “teaching machine” was invented nearly a century ago by Sydney Pressey, a psychologist at Ohio University, out of spare typewriter parts. The device was simple, presenting the user with a multiple-choice question and a set of answers. In “teach mode,” the machine would advance to the next question only once the user chose the correct answer. Pressey declared that his invention marked the beginning of “the industrial revolution in education”—but despite his grand claims, the teaching machine failed to gain much attention, and soon faded into obscurity.
It's never easy seeing a student experience distress, but well-meaning adults (myself included) too quickly and too often rush to the rescue. There are times to intervene, but we must be more judicious in knowing when to let students cope with failure on their own. Otherwise, we will raise a risk-averse generation whose members lack resilience and the crucial ability to rebound from failure. To prevent that outcome, teachers and educational leaders alike must be mindful of several situations where helping hurts.
This article focuses on teachers’ experiences in implementing peer assessment with first semester students. It explores the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of teaching and their approach to peer assessment, where both conceptions and approaches are described as being either learning focused or content focused. Drawing upon analysis of interviews with eight teachers, the study found that one had a consonant view of the interrelationship be- tween conceptions of teaching and
approaches to peer assessment, while the remaining seven described their conceptions of teaching and their approach- es to peer assessment with a combination of learning-focused and content focused statements. These statements are labelled as dissonant. Discussion focuses on implications of consonant and dissonant relationships between conceptions of teaching and approaches to peer assessment for implementation of peer assessment; it also addresses academic development issues.
The study reveals that when implementing new methods (here, peer assessment), underlying assumptions will impact on the nature of teacher engagement.
While student data systems are nothing new and most educators have been dealing with student data for many years, learning analytics has emerged as a new concept to capture educational big data. Learning analytics is about better understanding of the learning and teaching process and interpreting student data to improve their success and learning experiences. This paper provides an overview to learning analytics in higher education and more specifically, in e-learning. It also explores some of the issues around learning analytics.
Academe’s Me Too movement has thus far focused on professors harassing students, or senior professors harassing junior professors. And that makes sense, given the obvious power differential between those groups: in many cases, students depend on faculty members for not only grades but mentorship, recommendations and professional opportunities. Much the same can be said for the dynamic between junior and senior faculty members. Yet a recent case
highlights the fact that professors, too, may be vulnerable to abuse by students.
Garrison Institute looks a little like Hogwarts. The retreat center is housed in a former monastery amid tranquil green hills overlooking the Hudson River, 60 miles north and a world away from New York City.
Inside the airy chapel on a recent summer afternoon, about 35 educators from the U.S. and at least five foreign countries are seated quietly, shoes off.
"Just notice your breath, the sensation of your air coming in, going out," says Christa Turksma, a Dutch woman dressed all in white with silver-white hair. She's one of the co-founders of Cultivating Awareness and Resilience for Educators, or CARE for Teachers.
New research has revealed students’ preferences for their lecturers’ personalities, and if you are neurotic,
disagreeable, closed off and unreliable, you may want to look away now.
We have heard recently of lecturers rating students; now students have got their own back. Looking at five
personality traits -- openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism -- a survey of more
than 260 students, from three London universities, found that conscientiousness was the most desired trait in
lecturers.