Weekly Teaching Tips

What Will Students Learn From Feedback? If you want to get good at playing golf, you probably already know that watching great golfers play won’t be enough. You’ll need to practice golfing yourself in order to develop your skills, and your practice will be much more fruitful if you have guidance and feedback from an […]

How Will We Know Whether Students Are Getting Back on Track? We hope you and your loved ones near and far stayed safe during and after Hurricane Ian. We are grateful for your flexibility and your care for your students during the cancellations and as we resumed classes this week. As the Provost has reminded […]

What Students and Faculty Can Learn from Exams Exams are some of the most common tools for gathering evidence of how much students have learned, but they can also be opportunities to learn, both for students and for us. For students, exams can be opportunities to learn when we assign exam wrappers or other reflections […]

Teaching Students How to Learn Few undergraduates arrive at the university with a sophisticated portfolio of study strategies. Students may think learning mostly means memorizing, so they will spend hours going over notes and re-reading (or highlighting every line of) their books. Before they arrive in our classrooms, many of our students have had only […]

Making the Most of Class Time One of the most common topics our colleagues inquire about 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 what they most need to […]

Connecting Old Knowledge and New The book How Learning Works (a frequent CAT reading group selection) begins with this fundamental principle: Learning must be built on prior knowledge. When we learn, we are “interpreting incoming information and…perceptions through the lens of…existing knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions.” To learn effectively, students must connect what they learn to […]

Guiding Students’ Preparation for Class The beginning of a new semester is a great time to help our students develop good habits that will make their learning experiences productive. Coming to class prepared helps them participate more fully and learn more deeply from in-class activities and discussions. Though reading, watching videos, or doing other preparation […]

Welcoming Students on the First Day of Class Around six thousand students will be starting at FSU on Monday: your class may be their first experience in a college classroom. What kind of impression do you want to make? These new students (as well as our returning students, and our transfer students) are probably both […]

Five Big Questions for Course Design First, a warm welcome to all of our new colleagues joining us at FSU this semester, and a warm welcome back to our returning colleagues. We hope your preparations for fall are going well, and that you’re looking forward to meeting your new students and helping them to grow […]

Don’t Let Your Good Ideas Get Away Congratulations! Spring 2022 is a wrap and summer break is just around the corner. We can all be proud of the learning our students did this semester, and now that we’re done (or almost done, if you’re still grading) we get the pleasure of starting to ruminate a […]

Congratulations, Summer Teaching & a Workshop Congratulations! Classes are over and only finals week remains. We hope you have plans for some well-deserved rest this summer. 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 A or B, challenge […]

Do Students Know How Far They’ve Come? With only a week of classes left, it’s a good time to think about how you’d like to bring the semester to a close with your students. A good closing activity can help them to recognize what they’ve learned, take pride in their accomplishments, and celebrate the ways […]