It’s easy to think of “accessibility issues” from a deficiency-based perspective. For example, sometimes faculty members are asked to do extra things for students with audio-processing limitations. This new book by Thomas Tobin and Kirsten Behling takes a much different approach. They encourage us to think of creating “just one … Read More
Category: Pedagogy
“Since students are more likely to learn when they do their own thinking, it is useful to encourage as many to think independently about a question as possible.”
It’s a well-documented trend: college students are increasingly reluctant to participate in class discussions. Especially during the early weeks of the semester – like now – creating the sort of classroom environment that fosters discussion is a huge challenge. I turned to this classic book by Derek Bruff for … Read More
“Whether teaching or writing, what I really am doing is shepherding revelation; I am the midwife to epiphany.”
It’s the dead of winter, which is a hard time to begin something new. And yet, that’s exactly what those of us who are preparing to start a new semester must do. That’s why this is a perfect time for help from poets. This poetry collection comes from The Courage … Read More
“It stands to reason, then, that if we notice similar patterns emerging from psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, then they might together help us to understand how human beings learn.”
In the last ten years, research by cognitive psychologists has led to many interesting books on how learning works. And yet, questions about why humans learn the way we do remain. Would a cross-disciplinary approach give us a richer context for understanding what by all accounts is a complex process? … Read More
“The courage to teach is the courage to keep one’s heart open . . .”
The school year has just started, and I’ve begun to meet students who seem to have everything going for them and other students who seem to have the deck stacked against them. At this point, I don’t know how any of this will unfold, but I can predict that I’ll … Read More
“You want to aim for what D’Mello and colleagues call a ‘zone of optimal confusion.’”
D’Mello and his research team identified three guiding principles for implementing confusion in the college classroom: it should be appropriate, intentional and in the context of learning; students should possess the ability to successfully resolve the confusion; and when students can’t resolve it on their own, there should be appropriate … Read More
“While learning requires much effort, teaching entails an even greater one because it is more laden with moral and human responsibilities.”
Really? Moral and human responsibilities? Let’s think about that for a moment. Could it be the case that the teacher’s real work is to “animate inert knowledge with qualities of our own personality and spirit”? Is it our job to “fill and enlarge the character and spirit, as well … Read More
“Students who have experienced trauma and stress are not a small subpopulation of students.”
This book, like last week’s book, discusses “Adverse Childhood Experiences,” which is a set of 10 questions that assess the level of trauma kids experience. These questions focus on exposure to mental illness, addiction, abandonment, hunger, physical abuse or danger, sexual assault, and imprisonment. Studies have found that about a … Read More
“Social psychologists have found that we are overconfident, sometimes to the point of delusion, about our ability to infer what other people think . . .”
It’s easy to recognize “bad” writing, but hard to identify the cause of bad writing. Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker argues that the problem starts when writers make incorrect assumptions about their readers’ knowledge and vocabulary. Writers who are experts, for example, can be so familiar with their topics that … Read More
“The enthusiasm of the educators statistically predicted their students’ ratings of enjoyment and perceived value in the subject matter.”
This is the first week in the spring semester at my college, and it’s a critical time for setting the tone and energy level in our classes. That’s why I’m turning again to James Lang’s excellent book Small Teaching, which focuses on simple ways to apply current research on teaching … Read More
“In her research, Fassinger (1997) found that the variable that best explained student participation was a student trait – confidence.”
Thirty years of research on classroom discussion has generated many theories on why some students participate in discussion and others do not. I’ve come to believe that while a combination of factors come into play, Fassinger’s findings are probably key. If you put her research side-by-side with Jean Twenge’s new … Read More
Best Books for College Teachers in 2017
“Sadly, the reality is that more and more students entering the educational pipeline have had curdled childhoods.”
It is not poverty per se that distinguishes these students, Karen Gross writes, but it’s a childhood burdened by “hunger, exposure to or experience with drugs, alcohol, abandonment, frequent moves, abuse, self-harm or harm of others.” Do we know which of our students have had these experiences? Probably not. I … Read More
“My students call this a ‘quarter-life crisis.’”
Cathy Davidson, author of The New Education, describes the twenty-fifth birthday parties that many of her college students throw “to commemorate their collective indecision and existential sense of uselessness.” They have degrees, credentials, and honors, but few job prospects. Davidson argues that these students have been given “a raw … Read More
“When he analyzed students’ responses through their handheld electronic clickers, only 10 percent would remember the material after twenty minutes of lecture.”
Was this professor inept? Were his students slackers? Both are unlikely: Carl Wieman, the professor, is a Nobel Laureate, and he teaches at Sanford. Perhaps, as Norman Eng points out, those of us who stand in the front of the classroom are more focused on teaching than on helping … Read More