Teaching for Student Success

Grades demotivate student learning.  That is a problem.  Faculty also often spend significant amounts of time grading.  Another problem.  So, if we know grading demotivates learning and we are spending lots of our time grading, are we working against ourselves? Are we working against the goals of our courses?  Isn’t our goal to motivate students to learn, and then provide them with the resources t...

Content isn’t enough!  The classroom environment that you create can foster learning or impede learning.  If you really are here for all of your students, and I think you are, then it is critical to ensure that the environment you provide is one the fosters learning for all students.  In this episode Dr. Oscar Fernandez discusses Inclusive Excellence at Wellesley College, an effort to create a com...

A huge amount of information must be provided to students at the outset of every course.  Enter the SYLLABUS!  A universal one-way communication tool that can set the tone for your course and for your relationship with your students.  It defines the rules of engagement - the struggle for power between student and faculty.  In this episode we talk about the syllabus; how it is used, how it can be u...

For decades, the United States has been trying to increase the number of STEM professionals from underrepresented groups - with limited success.  Retention and persistence at the undergraduate level, and advancement to graduate degrees continue to be problematic areas.  In this episode we talk with Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta about her fascinating long-term study on the impact of peer mentors on the pe...

UNGRADING! You might already implement some form of UNGRADING but it is more likely that you don’t.  Perhaps you heard of UNGRADING and dismissed it, or thought about it but decided it wasn’t the right time, or decided it wasn’t right for you or your students, or thought the whole idea was insane, or perhaps you don’t know anything about UNGRADING at all.  Perhaps this is the first time you have e...

OLD NEWS: A 2014 meta-analysis by Scott Freeman and colleagues of 225 peer-reviewed studies concluded that students taught in an active learning environment significantly outperform peers taught using more traditional formats.   CURRENT STATUS:  Most colleges and universities are still a long way from full adoption of these practices.  The reasons are complex.  Resistance comes from institutions a...

In higher education our introductory classes are more diverse than ever.  That’s great!  Our graduating classes?  Less diverse. That’s bad!  Faculty play a critical role in this loss of diversity and therefore have a responsibility to address the issue.  In this episode, Dr. Viji Sathy and Dr. Kelly Hogan, authors of “Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom” (2...

Higher education is recognizing the importance and value of diversity and inclusivity in our institutions, our classes, our majors, and in the workforce.  Along with this recognition are efforts to increase the success and graduation rates of all students with particular attention to our historically excluded, minoritized, marginalized, and first generation students.  Many approach this work from...

As researchers study the success of students in active classrooms, they expose new questions to ask, they generate new data to analyze.  These data put classrooms implementing active learning practices under the microscope.  In looking closely at the details of implementation, researchers are now uncovering evidence of practices resulting in inequities, in some and perhaps most active learning env...

In this episode we parse the massive Active Learning Umbrella and discuss a particular type of active learning classroom, the generative classroom in which students generate their knowledge.  Dr. Tessa Andrews (University of Georgia) discusses her research investigating how expert instructors think about, prepare and implement active learning in their generative classrooms versus how novices think...

Who were your role models growing up?  In particular, who were your role models that led you to your career in academia? I’m going to guess that most of your academic role models were teachers who look like you or might have similar backgrounds to you.  Think about the power of that - seeing an inspirational teacher/educator/thinker/academic that has a similar background to you.  If this happened...

In daily life, we seem inundated by negative talk and negative messaging.  Open the newspaper, listen to talk radio, don’t even start me on social media!  But our classrooms, our classrooms should be a sanctuaries, safe places to have civil, open discourse on contentious and non-contentious issues.  Whew!  That sounds like a slice of heaven, doesn’t it? Peace. Even in these ideally safe places, we...

In Episode 2 Dr. Kimberly Tanner introduced us to Instructor Talk, the non-content language used by instructors.  In this episode, listen to a fascinating discussion with Drs. Ovid and Rice about the student perspective of instructor talk.  How do students view instructor talk?  What do students hear?  What do students think? And interestingly, what do students remember?  It may, and probably shou...

How can you best help ALL of your students learn when they are all different?  They each have their own complex lives and life histories.  Listen to Kirsten Behling and Thomas Tobin talk about bringing the principles of Universal Design for Architecture to the learning environment to help manage this seemingly intractable problem.  Universal Design for Learning promises to reduce more barriers for...

 Episode 16 is  Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Jessamy Neuhaus.  We discuss the importance of time for reflection, the practice of gratitude, and the challenges of student evaluations of teaching: the most contentious subject in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

“The Research is Pretty Clear that there is one thing and only one thing that across the board improves teaching.  Do you know what that is, Steve?”   This is the first episode of two part series with Dr. Jessamyn Neuhaus, author of Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds who want to be effective teachers. published in 2019 by West Virginia University Press.  For all the g...

Many faculty participate in professional development programs that promise increases student success and decreases in the opportunity gap.  Programs that train faculty in evidence-based practices have reason to promise these outcomes.  However, some faculty that go through these trainings implement theses practices, others don’t.  What are the factors that underlie this choice to adopt proven prac...

The percentage of students on our campuses suffering from depression doubled from 2009 to 2019.  Student suicides increased 50% over the same period.  The pandemic probably hasn’t helped. Campuses nationwide are responding by increasing access to health care professionals and training staff and faculty to identify stressed students.  However, most campuses are not dealing with one of the most sign...

Many of your students grew up economically disadvantaged.  Without intervention, economically disadvantaged students are more likely to leave the academy than economically advantaged students.  While no one expects faculty to solve students economic problems (well, maybe we can help by minimizing costs of textbooks), we as faculty can significantly impact the academic performance of these students...

Dr. Tracie Marcella Addy, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at Lafayette College discusses her 2021 book “What Inclusive Instructors Do.  Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching”.  In this episode, we discuss why instructors and institutions should embrace inclusive practices.  We also discuss practices that improve engagement, persistence, and success.  Wherever you are...

Dr. Robert Ariel, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Virginia Wesleyan University discusses his research on a simple approach that may help students adopt a proven study method - retrieval practice - that improves long term student learning and student success.  If you are unfamiliar with retrieval based learning, please listen to my interview with Dr. Jeffrey Karpicke in episode 4.  Helping stu...

Enjoy a conversation with Dr. Bryan Dewsbury about an approach to inclusive instruction that goes beneath the mechanics of your courses. We don’t talk about what your syllabus looks like, how you engage students in your learning environments, or how you assess students.  Instead we discuss an approach to inclusive instruction that first and foremost focusses on the criticality of developing an enr...

Welcome to Part 2 of my conversation with Peggy Brickman about group work.  In part 1 of this episode, we discussed her 2018 paper entitled WHEN GROUP WORK DOESN’T WORK.  INSIGHTS FROM STUDENTS.  In this paper Peggy discusses her research on group work identifying a number of problems concerning standard practices that one might implement in courses. In Part 2, we discuss her follow-up paper: What...

If you are interested in using group work in your courses but might be a bit intimidated, if you are using group work but are frustrated by it, if you have used group work but have sworn it off, I encourage any and all to listen to this two part series on the problems of group work and possible solutions.   In this episode I have a conversation with Dr. Peggy Brickman of the University of Georgia...