Teaching Advice

Small Teaching Tip #18: Increasing Students’ Use of Office Hours

by Jessica Smith | Jul 19, 2019 | Small Teaching Tip, Teaching Advice

Many faculty lament how few students take advantage of office hours. Often, undergraduate students do not perceive office hours to be beneficial unless something has gone wrong, such as a failing grade. But interactions between students and faculty outside the...

5 Great Sites to Help You Find Open Educational Resources (OER) for Your Course(s)

by Chris Meshanko | Jun 27, 2019 | content, Distance Ed, OER, Teaching Advice

What is OER? “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium–digital or otherwise–that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and...

Small Teaching Tip #17: Crafting a Learner-Centered Syllabus

by Jessica Smith | Jun 21, 2019 | Best Practices, Small Teaching Tip, Teaching Advice

Historically, a syllabus has been defined as an outline of the topics to be covered during a course. But in the past twenty years, the functions of our syllabi have expanded greatly. Common functions faculty cite include serving as a contract, listing required...

Small Teaching Tip #16: Structured Discussion Formats

by Jessica Smith | Apr 19, 2019 | Best Practices, discussion, Pedagogy, Small Teaching Tip, Teaching Advice

“I’m tired of looking out at a sea of blank faces.” “There’s nothing but crickets when I try to get a discussion going.” “It’s like talking to a brick wall!” How many times have you lamented the quality of discussions in your classes? Facilitating engaging...

What I Learned from “Make it Stick”

by Jessica Smith | Feb 25, 2019 | Make It Stick Monday, Pedagogy, Small Teaching Tip, Teaching Advice

Much of our understanding about how we learn is flawed. The typical advice given to students is single-minded, focused repetition, reflecting the belief that if we expose ourselves to something enough, we can burn it into memory. This is called “massed practice” by...

TLT’s Summertime Reading List

by Jessica Smith | May 10, 2018 | Best Practices, Innovative Instruction, Pedagogy, Teaching Advice

Summer is a great time to catch up on reading! When you take a break from your research, why not explore the scholarship of teaching and learning? Here are my current favorite books related to pedagogy, student engagement, and how the brain works: Cheating Lessons by...