The Ten Worst Teaching Mistakes by Richard M. Felder, North Carolina State University and Rebecca Brent, Education Designs, Inc. Reprinted from TOMORROW'S PROFESSORsm eMAIL NEWSLETTER You may download a PDF version of this document. Like most faculty members, we began our academic careers with zero prior instruction on college teaching and quickly made almost every possible blunder. We've also been peer reviewers and mentors to colleagues, and that experience on top of our own early stumbling has given us a good sense of the most common mistakes college teachers make. In this column and one to follow we present our top ten list, in roughly increasing order of badness. Mistake #10. You know what happens when you do that. Mistake #9. You stop in mid-lecture and point your finger abruptly: "Joe, what's the next step?" Mistake #8. It has become common for instructors to put their lecture notes into PowerPoint and to spend their class time mainly droning through the slides. Mistake #7. Mistake #6. Mistake #5. Mistake #4.
Learners NOT Students! All of us are learners. Think about it. We were born curious and open to learning or we wouldn't walk or talk. It's just how each of us were made. Learning is part of us. 1350-1400 - Middle English, alteration (influenced by Latin studre, to study) of studient, studiant, from Old French estudiant, one who studies, from present participle of estudier, to study, from Medieval Latin studire, from Latin studium, study.] This is the 21st century not the Middle Ages. All the references to student that we could find represent someone who studies or is being taught as part of an institution. A student is someone who is learning when they attend an educational institution. In the Free Online Dictionary, student means: 1. a. b. How about calling students, "learners?" Think about yourself as a learner in and outside of school. A student... What do you think of the term "learner"?
10 research tips for finding online answers Before Danielle Thomson was our TED Prize researcher, she wrote trivia for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and spent years finding difficult-to-source info for The Late Show with David Letterman. And she has quickly established herself as our staff secret weapon. When one of us can’t get our hands on a piece of information that we need, we turn to Danielle and — voila! We asked Danielle to share some of her best research tips to help you in those “why can’t I find this?” There are no new questions. Have any research tips that you love?
8 Characteristics Of A Great Teacher 8 Characteristics Of A Great Teacher by Ian Lancaster What makes a teacher strong? What differentiates the best from the rest? 1. Confidence while teaching can mean any number of things, it can range from having confidence in your knowledge of the material being learned to having confidence that your teaching acumen is second to none. It’s the confidence that you know you’re in the right spot doing what you want to be doing and that no matter what transpires, having that time to spend with those young learners is going to be beneficial both for them and for yourself. 2. Having some life experience outside the classroom and outside the realm of education is invaluable for putting learning into context and keeping school activities in perspective. 3. Just as each student has a different set of interests, every student will have a correspondingly different set of motivators. These students run the risk of disengaging altogether. 4. Yes, all teachers are heroes. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Better Group Work Experiences Begin with How the Groups Are Formed July 31, 2013 By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching Professor Blog Like many matters regarding teaching and learning, there isn’t one best way to put students into groups. The best way is related to what you want students to learn from their group experience. Randomly formed groups – Students join with others sitting nearby or the teacher creates groups using some random method like birthdays, house numbers, last digit in a cell phone number, etc. Student-formed groups– Students form their own groups, selecting members from among their classmates. Teacher-formed groups – Teachers assign students to groups using any number of different criteria. There are other criteria teachers can use to form groups and they may be more important than ability. When teachers use knowledge and skill criteria to form groups, students have a greater chance of experiencing a group that accomplishes more than they could as individuals.
The Importance of Asking Questions to Promote Higher-Order Competencies Irving Sigel devoted his life to the importance of asking questions. He believed, correctly, that the brain responds to questions in ways that we now describe as social, emotional, and cognitive development. Questions create the challenges that make us learn. The essence of Irv's perspective is that the way we ask questions fosters students' alternative and more complex representations of stories, events, and circumstances, and their ability to process the world in a wider range of ways, to create varying degrees of distance between themselves and the basis events in front of them, is a distinct advantage to learning. However, Irv found that schools often do not ask the range of questions children need to grow to their potential. Tell: Tell children the story by reading the text or having them read the text. Suggest: This involves providing children with choices about what might happen next or possible opinions they might have. For the story, here are some two-question rule sequences:
The 49 Techniques from Teach Like a Champion The Blogs below continue the chapter "Setting and Maintaining High Behavioral Expectations." Technique 39: Do It Again. This technique is perhaps the only negative consequence that truly works. Building Character and Trust Technique 43 Part 1: Positive Framing. Teach Like a Champion is an excellent resource for teaching, especially for middle school and high school students. Lessons Learned from My Students June 13, 2013 By: Candice Dowd Barnes, EdD in Teaching and Learning My students have taught me some invaluable lessons during my first two years as a college professor. I’d like to share three of the most important ones here. They aren’t new lessons and I didn’t use any unique methods to learn them. Assumptions about students can be dangerous I have learned from students that new learning can be overwhelming. I complicated the problem with my assumptions about their skills, knowledge, and dispositions. Deepen the learning to maximize the learning It has always been my goal to impart as much knowledge as possible to prepare students for careers in their respective disciplines. Champion the content Students are exceedingly concerned with their final grades and miss the value of learning the content. To combat this challenge, it was important for me to find a way to champion what is truly valuable and important. Dr. Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 26.5 (2012): 6.
How to Shrink Your Course Image: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) This summer, I faced the challenge of squeezing a course I usually teach during a 15-week semester into a paltry 6-week session. It felt like trying to pour my post-Christmas body into skinny jeans. I had taught this developmental-writing course twice before during the regular academic year, but I knew it would be a whole new can of worms in a shorter time frame. While I’m confident that my students learned to become better writers during their brief time with me this summer, there was plenty I tweaked along the way to make that happen. Trim the fat without cutting the meat. So I had to declutter — that is, I had to prioritize my curriculum to determine which units and readings had to go and which absolutely could not be cut. In a course that prepares students for college writing, could I, in good conscience, get rid of the big research project? Speed through the getting-to-know-you routine. Second, I pushed office hours from Day 1. Break it up.
What Makes Teachers Great, From The Perspective of a 10th Grader This article was written by Noa Gutow-Ellis, a high school sophomore in Houston, Texas. She’s passionate about all things related to the Arab Spring and 21st Century Education. As an 8th grader, Noa gave a TEDx talk about the power of social media. Everyone can think back to their years as a student and recall at least one teacher that stood out as a truly outstanding teacher. We’ve all had that teacher at some point in our lives. It can be really difficult to pinpoint what makes a teacher remarkable. 1. Whether cheering for us on the field or applauding our curtain call, students appreciate teachers that show us they not only care about how we’re doing in their class, but out of it, too. 2. The best teachers are not always the ones teaching the core classes. 3. My 6th grade Life Science teacher was an incredible teacher. 4. I had an unforgettable teacher during my freshman year of high school. In the end, the best teachers aren’t always the ones doling out the best grades.
Displays Web Accessibility for Online Courses 2nd Edition! Web accessibility handbook! Hot off the presses! The 2nd edition of our Web Accessibility Handbook. It's Creative Commons licensed, so you're free to edit and and use at your institution. Did you know 12% of community college students have disabilities (AACC Data point [pdf], Oct. 2015)? This site is meant mainly to help instructors. Step-by-step guides Instructors: use these step-by-step guides to make your content accessible. Check the accessibility of your content with these accessibility checking tools! Who's responsible for accessibility in online courses? Accessibility is the shared responsibility of the instructor, Disability Services and Distance Education. Questions to ask publishers Online materials provided by publishers must be accessible. Get help with your content Download copies of the Web Accessibility handbook and our Accessibility Quick Guide. Talk to Karen If you can't find the answer you are looking for, contact Accessibility Advocate, Karen Sorensen.
30 Habits Of Highly Effective Teachers Editor’s Note: We often look at the qualities and characteristics of good teaching and learning, including the recent following pieces: How A Good Teacher Becomes Great What You Owe Your Students Ten Secrets To Surviving As A Teacher The Characteristics Of A Highly Effective Learning Environment How To Be A Mediocre Teacher So it made sense to take a look at the characteristics of a successful educator, which Julie DuNeen does below. 25 Things Successful Teachers Do Differently by Julie DuNeen If you ask a student what makes him or her successful in school, you probably won’t hear about some fantastic new book or video lecture series. What students take away from a successful education usually centers on a personal connection with a teacher who instilled passion and inspiration for their subject. Are teachers reaching their students? 1. How do you know if you are driving the right way when you are traveling somewhere new? 2. We can’t all be blessed with “epic” workdays all the time. 3. 4. 5.