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The concept of early and ongoing check-ups is simple, and applies readily to our teaching in the form of feedback. It’s early in the semester, but it's never too early to do a thorough systems check to make sure the students, course, and you are ready for takeoff (or need to circle back for a quick fix).

If everything went perfectly for your class this semester, there’s no need to read on, because you shouldn’t change anything. For the rest of us mortal instructors, there is rarely, if ever, such a thing as a perfect class. Teaching is a practice of constant iteration and improvement, never a destination.

The lecture has long been a topic of rich debate in the field of education. Questions about should we, or shouldn’t we lecture persist. I’d like to argue that it’s not quite so simple, and a reductionist approach to determining the value and use of lecturing eliminates insight into good pedagogical practice overall, and the real value of the tool itself as a mechanism to promote student learning.

Pure and simple, I love teaching using technology.  It gives me an opportunity to “be there” when a teachable moment occurs without having to be in the same place as my students.  It allows me to see beyond their eyes and into the minds of each of my learners.  And yes, it allows me to teach from the beach, the mountains, and from home when my family needs me.

You’ve likely heard some variation of the adage before. It goes something like this: “Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong." While often used in athletic circles, the origin of the phrase (as best we can determine) is actually found in education in 1902.

Your muscles, brain, and course syllabus all have something in common.

You’ve just finished teaching your class for the day and head home. You sit down for dinner, and a loved one asks, “How was class today?”

How do you respond? The answer may be revealing.

How do you teach your students to function effectively in teams?

It is not news to anyone teaching in higher education that Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) are a hotly debated topic. Their validity and reliability are often called into question, particularly since they are typically the primary source of evidence used for merit and promotion decisions in regard to one’s teaching effectiveness.

At a recent pedagogy workshop, a senior faculty member gently pulled me aside. So as not to disturb his colleagues who were working on a prompt I had given them, he whispered, “This stuff is great. It really is. I’m going to use this in my class. But, what’s really concerning me right now is that I’m teaching a class of mostly freshman, mostly around 18-20 years old, and I’m 50 years older than they are!

As we approach the end of another semester, it is common for students to turn in drafts of papers, projects, and assignments for some kind of review before the final product is due. It would be typical for a blog, then, to note something like the top 10 or top 5 ways to promote student development through feedback that both instructs and motivates.

With the possible exception of presentations, there are few things that happen in a student’s academic career that stress them out more than final exams. One source of frustration for both students and faculty alike is when faculty believe an exam has been written fairly and yet students have done poorly.