Category Archives: Uncategorized

Should pre-med requirements be reformed?

This is the title of Aaron Carroll’s April 11 blog post over at The Washington Monthly, which coincidentally appears at the same time as a Perspective piece by David Muller in the April 10 issue of The New England Journal of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Faculty Play Dates

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of learning and work occurring in Faculty Learning Communities. But, like preschool play groups, FLCs also provide a safe and structured environment focused on a shared interest, for learning, interaction, and enjoyment among … Continue reading

Posted in Active Learning, CTE, Inspiration, Interdisciplinary Teaching, Learning Communities, Technology, Uncategorized, Writing | Leave a comment

Evidence-based Study Skills

How many times have students come to your office and asked your advice about how to study? Perhaps the student was a struggling first year or did poorly on the last test.  What do you tell them? My standard response … Continue reading

Posted in Pedagogical Theory, Students, Teaching Methods, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Technology in the classroom: Good for logisitics. Good for learning? Maybe not so much.

There’s a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education (online: Jan. 28, 2013) about a paper that appeared in Science, Technology & Human Values (April 2012) entitled, “Technological Change and Professional Control in the Professoriate.” That’s not a very revealing title, but the abstract … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Death to the Credit Hour?

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching created the credit hour in the early 1900s as part of a pension system for university faculty.  It has evolved into a universal measurement of the credit students receive for the classes … Continue reading

Posted in Pedagogical Theory, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What Do You Think About Algebra?

There was an interesting article in the New York Times this summer called “Is Algebra Necessary?“.  The author is Andrew Hacker, an emeritus political science professor of political science at CUNY, who has co-authored a book entitled Higher Education? How … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Command Attention–Your Way

Let me begin with an admission: Although I have been teaching for about 30 years, and am on the CTE’s Advisory Board, I have never taken a course on how to teach. Yes, I’ve read a few books on the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Chasing Sparks

I was recently asked what my favorite part about being a teacher was.  I thought this was an interesting question as being a teacher is a complex job and involves a lot of disparate activities. Who loves serving on boards … Continue reading

Posted in Inspiration, Students, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Plagiarism, copyrights, and things that go bump in the night

Okay, I admit it: the last phrase in the title to this post isn’t original with me. I stole it from an unknown author, although in my defense, it has by now become such a well-known phrase that it has … Continue reading

Posted in Students, Teaching Evaluations, Uncategorized | 1 Comment