Weekly Teaching Tips

The first week of the spring term didn’t launch in quite the smooth fashion we were expecting. We hope that despite the disruptions you enjoyed meeting your students, and that they’re excited about the learning they’ll do in your courses. Although many students begin the semester experiencing positive emotions about their classes, some may feel […]

Students Can Help Set the Norms Welcome back! We hope you had a restful break. No matter how long you’ve been teaching, each semester brings new energy and opportunities, and we all look forward to meeting our new students on the first day of class. The first day is also our best opportunity to establish […]

Reflecting on the Fall Semester Congratulations! Fall 2023 is a wrap. We can all be proud of what we helped our students accomplish during our time together this semester. Now that we’re done (or almost done, if you’re still grading) we get the pleasure of reflecting on what we’ve learned, too. Because the term ends […]

Grade What You Mean to be Grading On the last day of classes, with only finals remaining, you may be bracing yourself to work through stacks of papers, projects, or exams that need to be graded. Although the workload is certainly a factor, it’s often the human dimension of grading that can be the hardest […]

Goals for a Great Last Week At any point in the semester, we know that the more content we try to race through, the less students actually learn. To learn deeply, they need opportunities to think, to analyze, to apply concepts, and to develop skills through practice and feedback. Now, when (mysteriously–how did this happen?) […]

Thankful for Your Teaching Welcome to the seventh year of our Thank-A-Professor Program, which invites students and alumni to send messages of thanks anonymously to their professors. Students have submitted hundreds of tributes this fall, and we hope their gratitude will warm your Thanksgiving. We’ll be sending individual letters to their recipients over the next […]

Teaching Students to Incorporate Research “My students don’t know how to incorporate source material into their work. They don’t even correctly cite their sources. They should know how to do this by now!” This is one of the most common complaints we hear from our colleagues across disciplines. Certainly it can be frustrating to get […]

Ending the Term with Students’ Best Work Picture this: It’s the end of the semester. Students have submitted their final projects, whatever form those take in your course, and you’re reading through them, feeling delighted (or relieved) because so many meet or exceed your expectations, and because you see evidence that students have done so […]

Bouncing Back After a Bad Exam When students don’t do as well as we would wish on exams, we may assume it’s because they didn’t study enough, but there are a variety of reasons they might struggle. Pinpointing the issue(s) can help us make adjustments to give students the best possible chance at success. Here […]

Scaffolding: Providing Support as Students Learn In the initial phases of building, construction workers need temporary support structures called scaffolding to accomplish their work. Similarly, our students need support and guidance as they learn complex concepts and skills that they are unlikely to master on their own. Scaffolding is the temporary structure we provide to […]

Exploring the Effects of Our Teaching If we think about teaching as an inquiry-driven process, our curiosity about our students, and about learning, can lead us to improve our practice. Among the many useful questions we can pose, this one is essential: How do I know whether my students are learning what I intend for […]

Inviting Students to Office Hours It’s gratifying when students perform well on exams and projects, but if a few of them are struggling, there’s still time to get them on track before midterm. For most of us, office hours seem like the best place to provide individual support to students and to find out what […]