Weekly Teaching Tips

A Learning Guide for Students As we begin another academic year in uncertain circumstances, some aspects of our teaching remain familiar: We’re preparing our courses, writing our syllabi, meeting our new students, and helping them to grow intellectually, professionally, and personally during our time together this semester. The Center for the Advancement of Teaching is […]

Making the Most of a Short Semester Congratulations again on making it through a challenging academic year. We hope you have plans for some well-deserved rest. But if you’re teaching this summer, you may be in the midst of planning a six-week course. “Compressed” or “intensive” classes, like those in summer B or C, challenge […]

Congratulations & Thank You Phew. Today marks the end of Spring 2021 classes, and only finals remain. We made it through a marathon, and even if we’re limping toward the finish line, we’ve done more than just endure. As we reflect on the last year, it would be natural to focus on—and to grieve—our many […]

Missing Assignments: Exhaustion & Procrastinationå In the last few days, several colleagues have mentioned that more students than usual have been missing class or not turning in assignments here at the end of the semester. A host of reasons spring to mind, beginning with the most likely: stress and burnout. Like us, many students are […]

Celebrating at the End of a Difficult Semester For many of us—both faculty and students—this semester has been uniquely difficult. With Spring Break canceled because of the pandemic, many students are exhausted and have just been focusing on doing the best they can in a difficult situation—so much so that they may not yet be […]

How Are We Measuring Learning? Finals week is sneaking up on us this spring. This semester has been another tough one: students are exhausted and isolated, as well as frightened and distressed by the multiple acts of violence in the news. (Many faculty and TAs are similarly overwhelmed, of course). This is an important time […]

Spring Study Advice for Students The brilliant weather this week reminds us that it’s time to share our favorite study advice: we hope you’ll pass it along to your students. Too many students experience studying as a lonesome and sedentary activity, like poring over their notes or highlighting the textbook. But they’d be better off […]

Supporting Academic Reading + Apps to Help It’s a familiar problem: only some students complete the assigned reading, so in-class discussion only involves a few participants or activities aren’t as fruitful as they could be. Maryellen Weimer summarizes: Getting students to do their assigned reading is a struggle. Most teachers don’t need anyone to tell […]

Checking in Halfway Through the Term It’s always illuminating to get students’ feedback on the way we’ve designed our courses: what’s helping them learn, what’s not helping them learn, and what adjustments we could make for the remainder of the term. Just the act of checking in with our students about how the course is […]

Inviting Students to Ask Questions Have you ever stood in front of a class, or sat in front of a gallery of faces on Zoom, and asked, “Are there any questions?” only to be met with silence and lowered eyes or, equally disappointing, only to receive questions about something unrelated, like the word count requirement […]

A Brief Guide to Group Activities The last year has felt like a decade to most of us, so it must have felt even longer to our students, who are trying to figure out who they are, what they want to do, and how to face the future in the midst of a pandemic and […]

Assignments: Making the Most of Students’ Time Almost all of us give students assignments of some kind in our courses—from large, multi-stage projects that take a whole semester to complete, down to small, low-stakes assignments that students can do as homework or during class. Sometimes we inherit assignments from a colleague who taught the course […]