Weekly Teaching Tips

How Many Times Do I Have to Explain? Recently a student told us about her experience seeking help from a professor. She said she was trying to learn how to do something essential for passing a difficult course, but she “just didn’t get it.” She worked up the courage to go to office hours, and […]

Getting Outdoors Improves Cognition With only a month left in the semester, both students and faculty may be feeling torn: There’s pressure to stay hyper-focused on work and meet deadlines, but the beautiful spring weather beckons and may be fleeting. Fortunately, these impulses aren’t mutually exclusive. Learning may actually be advanced by taking time to […]

Making the Most of the Rest of the Semester We’re always amazed by how quickly the weeks pass after spring break. One moment we’re getting back into the swing of things, and the next, it’s already time for finals, goodbyes, graduations, and summer. Before the semester gets away from us, this is a good moment […]

Spring Break Refresh Happy spring break! Whether you’re traveling, staying put, catching up on projects, or claiming your well-deserved rest, we hope the time will be restorative. After a break in routine, it can be hard to regain momentum, so we have a few suggestions for helping students regain their focus when classes resume. First, […]

Describing the Qualities of Successful Work Communicating our expectations to students is a challenging part of teaching. We’re often trying to help people who may be totally unfamiliar with the types of work we assign to understand what it means to do that work well. As an analogy, this task is like describing the qualities […]

Gathering Feedback on Learning 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 many fascinating questions we can pose, this one is essential: How do I know whether my students are learning what I intend for them to learn? […]

Learning from Saundra Yancy McGuire To celebrate Black History Month this year, we’re featuring an inspiring Black scientist and educator whose work has influenced the way many university faculty teach and the way many college students learn. Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire is the Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success and retired Assistant Vice […]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Many of us use some form of class discussion in our teaching, likely with varying results. Sometimes class discussion is invigorating, with many students participating, making substantive contributions, and building on one another’s ideas. Other times, getting students to participate at all feels like pulling teeth, or we notice that although a […]

Test What Matters Most & Provide Practice Faculty and students alike often find exams to be stressful—most of us have had minimal preparation in the craft of designing tests—and as Clegg and Cashin admit, “the process is not only difficult; it is also frustrating and often ineffective.” Sometimes we may find that our exams don’t […]

A Perfect Time for Formative Feedback In the beginning of a course, students learn fundamental concepts and skills that they will need to build on all semester, so this is an important time for them to get some feedback on how it’s going. They need to know whether they are “getting it” so far, and […]

Learning Through Inquiry The everyday work of a scholar involves posing questions that matter in your discipline. Your relentless curiosity is part of the love for your field that got you to where you are today. If you can help your students to see their learning this way, too—as a process of asking good questions […]

A Snapshot of What Students Learn The opening of a new semester, full of promise and potential, is a great time to motivate students by providing a vision of the learning they’ll do in your course. Since learning is a process of change, you can help them see the course as transformative: What will they […]