Weekly Teaching Tips

Our students are watching as the war in Ukraine unfolds in real time on every form of media. They are likely frightened, confused, and distracted from their work. Their levels of information literacy vary widely; so will their access to and grasp of the facts. While we faculty may view the war through our various […]

A Framework for Thinking about Inclusion Note: Our hearts go out to all of our colleagues and students affected by the war in Ukraine. We are gathering related teaching advice and resources and will share them in next week’s message. One of the most common requests we get at CAT is for support with inclusive […]

Part 2: Learning from Bob Moses To celebrate Black History Month this year, we’re featuring two transformative Black educators who passed in 2021. Last week, we shared teaching advice from author, teacher, scholar, and activist bell hooks, and this week we’re featuring Bob Moses, who was a teacher, civil rights leader, and founder and president […]

Part 1: Learning from bell hooks To celebrate Black History Month this year, we’d like to feature two transformative Black educators who passed in 2021. Their powerful work has been illuminating and liberating for so many people, particularly for those of us working in education, so we wanted to express our gratitude and share some […]

Creating an Error-Rich Environment for Learning To develop as thinkers, students need to wrestle with ambiguity, attempt to solve intractable problems, and grow more comfortable with a learning process that includes struggle. Unfortunately, many of our students have been conditioned by their prior learning experiences to fear failure and to avoid revealing ignorance. They may […]

How Students’ Reasoning Develops If you’ve ever felt frustrated that your students seem to think only 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 languor, […]

A Brief Guide to In-Class Activities As often as we can, we like to speak with students about their experiences—how does it feel to be a student at FSU at this point in the semester? What we’re hearing now is that there’s still excitement about the new term, but students are feeling isolated. They wish […]

Staying Connected During Quarantine & Isolation If you are feeling so tired of this pandemic, we’re right there with you. Because of the latest surge, we’re all noticing more student absences and requests for alternate ways to keep up with the class. Since we absolutely do not want ill or potentially contagious students coming to […]

To Help Students Grow, Start Where They Are Welcome back! We’re starting the new year with a new provost, and a recently new president. FSU is changing and growing, so we thought it might be useful to frame the new term with some contemplation of the role of change in learning, and of what it […]

Congratulations, Reflections & Feedback Congratulations! Fall 2021 is a wrap and winter break is just around the corner. If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to read through the Thank-a-Professor messages we shared a few weeks ago, now might be a great time to do so and remind yourself how meaningful your work is. Students […]

Grading Final Projects Regular classes draw to a close today, and only finals week remains. For many of us, the work of grading final projects, papers, or presentations looms. On one hand, it’s gratifying to see the learning students have done this semester, and on the other, evaluating their work takes a lot of thought […]

Students Are Giving Thanks for All You Do! Welcome to the fifth year of our Thank-A-Professor Program! Students have submitted almost 900 tributes so far this fall, and their outpouring of gratitude feels especially welcome this year. Students expressed their heartfelt appreciation for your kindness and understanding in response to their difficulties, and they found […]