Articles

Plagiarism vs. Originality: Why I [heart] Melania Trump

When I first I started teaching, I knew what plagiarism meant and how it related to schoolwork. But student “cheaters” challenged my beliefs. I also assumed graduate students would submit original work. So it took me by surprise when I noticed a mysterious improvement in one student’s writing capacity, well beyond the skill level he’d demonstrated earlier. When a Google search proved more than 20 percent of his paper was copied, he explained it as a computer error—he’d accidentally dropped the footnote when cutting and pasting. I lowered his course grade, but assumed it really was a snafu—not subterfuge. The (now) obvious question went unasked: Why was so much of his assignment based on other people’s insights?

Diane Rubino September 2, 2016

Word Choice: What You Call It Matters to Teaching and Learning

Language influences thought and action. It’s a fundamental idea in linguistics. I remember first encountering it in a class when I was assigned S.I. Hayakawa’s classic Language in Thought and Action. But it’s a principle that’s easy to forget. Here are a few examples that pertain to education, with the question being—how does what we call something affect our teaching and students’ learning?

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 31, 2016

Is It Time to Rethink Our Exams?

I’ve been ruminating lately about tests and wondering if our thinking about them hasn’t gotten into something of a rut. We give exams for two reasons. First, we use exams to assess the degree to which students have mastered the content and skills of the course. But like students, we can get too focused on this grade-generating function of exams. We forget the second reason (or take it for granted): exams are learning events. Most students study for them, perhaps not as much or in the ways we might like, but before an exam most students are engaged with the content. Should we be doing more to increase the learning potential inherent in exam experiences?

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 24, 2016

Building a Collegial Classroom Across Cultures

An Iraqi student, a Kuwaiti student, a student who is an American veteran who served in Desert Storm, and a Chinese student all walk into

Ronda MacLeod, PhD August 22, 2016

Three Ways to Create a Safe and Supportive Learning Environment

Students don’t generally learn well, if at all, in stressful situations. Neuroscience tells us that the cortisol released during stress makes learning extremely difficult. Setting

Joanne Tompkins, EdD August 22, 2016

Using Punk Rock to Invite Dialogues on Diversity and Inclusion

Conversations on diversity and inclusion are not a naturally occurring phenomena in higher education classrooms. Unfortunately, the American obsession with political correctness and the Eurocentric,

Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado, PhD August 22, 2016

Flipping Large Classes: Three Strategies to Engage Students

As we continue our ongoing series focused on the flipped classroom in higher education, it’s time to tackle another frequently asked question: “How can I flip a large class?”

I like this question because it’s not asking whether you can flip a large class, but rather what’s the best way to do it. Faculty who teach large classes are challenged not only by the sheer number of students but also by the physical space in the classroom. Having 100, 200, or 400+ students in class means teaching in large lecture halls with stadium seating and seats that are bolted to the floor. It’s not exactly the ideal space for collaboration and group discussions, so the types of flipped and active learning strategies you can use are more limited.

Barbi Honeycutt, PhD August 22, 2016

Teaching and Learning ‘Respect’ and ‘Acceptance’ in the Classroom

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Kentina R. Smith, PhD August 19, 2016

A Memo to My Students
Re: College and the Real World

To: My Students
From: Your Teacher
Re: College and the Real World

I just read about a senior engineering student who was presenting a design project in an upper-division business communications course. In the presentation, he talked about what he would do if he were a “real” engineer. His teacher asked him what it was about what he was doing that wasn’t “real” engineering. He’d designed the project. He was presenting it to a group of his peers. He answered, “It’s school—not real engineering.”

Maryellen Weimer, PhD August 17, 2016

Teaching Quantitative Problem-Solving Skills Lies in the Solution

Editor’s Note: One of the themes that emerged from our recent Faculty Focus reader survey was a request for more articles specifically related to teaching in the STEM disciplines. In response, we are pleased to present an article written by true leaders in STEM education and the authors of Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide (Jossey-Bass, 2016). As its name suggests, the book focuses on the practical application of research-based strategies for designing and teaching STEM courses. It has been called “hands-down the best instruction manual for professors in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that you can find.” [Barbara Oakley, PhD]

Rebecca Brent, EdD, and Richard M. Felder, PhD August 15, 2016

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