Helpful Resources
Timing Class Sessions
In his blog post from Teaching in Higher Education, Dr. Bonni Stachowiak, Dean of Teaching and Learning and Professor at Vanguard University of Southern California, provides advice on how to plan class sessions to fit the available time. She describes five approaches to planning the timing of a class session: (a) begin with the end, (b) use a timer, (c) err on the side of engagement, (d) determine a way to extend learning, and (b) leave time for metacognition.
High Impact Teaching and Teaching Fatigue
In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, the authors describe the ways in which high impact teaching practices (e.g., giving students multiple opportunities to revise and rewrite papers, providing detailed feedback, or managing groups projects) can lead to burnout and recommends ways to avoid or effectively manage this and other negative consequences. These include grading selectively, using rubrics, using digital shortcuts, and staggering deadlines.
Small Changes in Teaching
In this nine-part Chronicle of Higher Education series, James Lang argues that small changes in pedagogy can have a strong impact on student learning. Examples include making better use of the time before class starts, the last five minutes of class, and the first five minutes of class.
Why Give Final Exams?
In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, the author questions whether one high stakes assessment gives an accurate picture of what students have learned in a course. He suggests alternatives such as a research paper and poster or a portfolio and presentation that allow students to demonstrate their synthesis and integration of learning during the course.
Answering student questions
In Faculty Focus, the authors provide five helpful strategies for answering questions when teaching and presenting: (a) smile-breath-think-talk, (b) validate and thank questioners, (c) be aware of your body language, (d) say “I don’t know” in productive ways, and (d) embrace and love questions.
Giving Students Grace
This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education elucidates six ways faculty members can support students without exhausting themselves: (a) have a list of where students can find help, (b) explicitly let students know you care about them, (c) maximize the flexibility of your course policies, (d) build some flexibility into your course schedule, (e) provide opportunities for student engagement and connection, and (f) emphasize the relevance of course content to students’ lives.
Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies
The Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation at Clemson University developed a list of the top ten evidence-based strategies for college teaching. These include: (a) state clear learning objectives; (b) share and model how students will do a task; (c) check for student understanding; (d) give regular feedback; (e) record information graphically; (f) allow repeat and spaced practice; (g) create peer-to-peer learning; (h) build in time to succeed; (i) teach strategies for learning; and (j) nurture metacognition.
Teaching evaluations are racist and sexist and often useless
The author of this Chronicle of Higher Education article summarized some of the literature on the correlates of students’ teaching evaluations of faculty. “I found almost 80 peer-reviewed papers demonstrating the gender and racial bias afflicting teaching evaluations, going back to 1979. Study after study showed increasingly disturbing statistics: Women were routinely rated lower than men, younger women were evaluated as less professional than their older female or male counterparts, women of color were rated as less effective than white women, and so on.” He advocated for not using these evaluations in faculty retention and promotion decisions although some faculty members may want to use them for individual feedback.