Weekly Teaching Tips

Wishful Thinking at the End of the Term Around this time of the semester, you may have a student or two reemerge after many missed classes (or assignments) to inquire about how they might still pass your course. Sometimes when students get a little bit behind, they get embarrassed or discouraged and stop attending altogether. […]

Reconnecting with the Course Goals The final weeks of the semester can be overwhelming. When there are too many tasks, too many competing demands for our attention, it can be difficult to prioritize and to focus. Many students are just trying to get through the term at this point, and they may have lost their […]

Strategies for Getting Students’ Best Work Picture this: It’s the end of the semester. Students have submitted their final projects, whatever form those take in your course, and you’re reading through them, feeling delighted (or relieved) because so many meet or exceed your expectations, and because you see evidence that students have done so much […]

Rebooting After the Break Spring break is back! After two years of COVID-19 disrupting our typical time off from classes, students and faculty alike are welcoming the return of our weeklong respite. 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 […]

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 […]