Weekly Teaching Tips

Gathering Midsemester Feedback When teaching, it’s natural to wonder how the course is going for students. We might wonder what’s working for them and what’s not or whether they are really learning what we hope they will. Sometimes a few vocal students can make it seem like everyone’s “getting it” (or not getting it), so […]

Learning from Claude Steele To celebrate Black History Month this year, we’re featuring renowned scholar and educator Claude Steele, whose social psychology research and higher education leadership has inspired generations of university faculty. Steele holds a B.A. in Psychology from Hiram College, an M.A. in Social Psychology from The Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. […]

Planning Active Class Sessions One of the most common inquiries we get from colleagues is how to spend class time effectively. There are many ways to get students engaged in learning during class, and deciding how to make the most of their time and attention involves reflecting on your priorities for their learning as the […]

Encouraging Questions Have you ever stood in front of a class and asked, “Are there any questions?” only to be met with silence and lowered eyes, or only to receive questions about something unrelated, like the word count requirement of a paper or the date of an exam? It’s probably happened to all of us. […]

Exam & Assignment Wrappers By this point in the semester, your students have probably completed graded work and gotten some feedback, so they have a sense of their progress toward the learning goals of the course. After students take an exam or turn in a project, they usually focus on the score they got and […]

What Makes a Course Design Effective? Much of the work of teaching happens before we enter the classroom. Course design is the process through which we plan what students should learn, what they should do in order to learn it, and what methods we’ll use to collect evidence of their progress. Whether a whole course […]

Why Developmental Stages Matter for Teaching If you’ve ever felt frustrated that your students seem to think in black and white, or that they seem reluctant to do their own reasoning and expect you to provide the “right” answers to every question, you might be reassured to know that what you’re noticing is not intellectual […]

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?) […]