Volume XXXVII, No. 19 | September 18, 2015 Striving for Enhanced Understanding and Retention (Contextualized Learning) I’d like for you to think about a time when you attended a class or lecture and were really excited about learning more about the subject matter. Now I want you to compare the feeling you had [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 18 | September 11, 2015 Making the Transition to Teaching at a Community College: Perspectives and Insights When I began as an Assistant Professor of English at Broward Community College (now Broward College) in 2008, I had to make the transition to teaching at a community college. Up until that [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 16 | August 28, 2015 On Giving Students the Gift of Time Ask any group of students what they wish they had more of and 99.9 percent of them will respond, "Time." This is especially true at the community college level where students struggle to balance academics with work and [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 9 | March 27, 2015 Strategies to Increase Confidence in the Classroom: A Problem Solver The single best fulfillment that a teacher can witness in a learner is self-confidence. Although many students are capable of solving problems and thinking critically, they often don’t possess the confidence to display those [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 8 | March 13, 2015 No Professional Development Funds: What to Do While Doing Without Yikes! I’m ready to travel to my favorite conference, but some unwelcome (and unsurprising) news interrupts my plans: no professional development travel funds are available unless the requested travel is “mission critical.” Recent years of [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 15 | May 8, 2015 Roll Out the Welcome Mat: Using Hope, Hospitality, and Humor to Create a Comfortable Classroom The welcome mat is often the first thing that many of us see when we visit someone. It sends a clear message to visitors that they are entering a welcoming [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 14 | May 1, 2015 The First Day of Class: People Before Paper The first day of class is arguably the most important day of the school term, since this is when impressions are made, trust starts, and relationships either begin or are dashed. As teachers, we must think about [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 13 | April 24, 2015 Doing Literature: Using the Cognitive Learning Strategy of Elaborating to Help Students Interpret Texts Introduction One of the courses I most look forward to teaching is “Introduction to Literature,” a general education course intended to (re)familiarize students with such foundational literary elements as character, plot, [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 12 | April 17, 2015 Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work There has been some buzz about teaching practices in higher education that is getting louder. Instructors listening to the noise may feel a pressure to change the way they have been teaching [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 11 | April 10, 2015 Teaching Critical Thinking Dispositions Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great Books program at the University of Chicago, once famously wrote that critical thinking could not be taught. In his essay, “Critical Thinking Programs: Why They Won’t Work,” Adler wrote, “I would almost say that, [...]