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Teaching basics before teaching excellence

As a teaching center director, I spent much of my time thinking about how to help faculty improve and develop. It is exciting and rewarding work. When teaching my own classes, I can work to improve the learning experience of my students. In my faculty development role, I’m able to help many faculty teaching literally thousands of students. When working with faculty, we often stress innovation, experimentation, and technology. However, I’ve recently been reminded that we need to talk more about teaching basics before teaching excellence.

Photo credit: osseous

In my experience, most faculty want to be better teachers. They may not know how to improve or possess the skill set. They may feel that they don’t have time to devote to teaching. But they want to be better.

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MLK on solving the problems of racial injustice

In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke at Southern Methodist University regarding segregation, racial injustice, and moving the nation forward. This past year has been a difficult one with racial tensions within and outside of higher education. With affirmative action again before the Supreme Court, the coming year will continue to challenge us to implement King’s vision. I want to share a brief excerpt from his speech at SMU that should particularly convict our country as we select our next president.

King speaking at SMU. Photo credit: SMU
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How do tenure committees evaluate candidates

The tenure review process may be one of the most mysterious performance review processes in any industry. In most cases, there are vague guidelines and unclear expectations. As I went through the tenure process, I felt like I had done enough, but you never really know.  In large measure, the lack of clarity stems from a fear of establishing legally binding precedent as well as an attitude of “I did it this way, you can too” on the part of senior faculty. In today’s post, I want to pull the curtain back and answer the basic question: How do tenure committees evaluate candidates?

To be sure, each department, school, and institution vary somewhat on what they’re looking for and how they evaluate pre-tenure candidates.

While the relative weight of each of the 8 aspects I identify vary, I want to suggest that these are the primary criteria considered by colleges and universities across the country— no matter their size, research mission, or prestige.

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Intentionally Designed Activities to Engage Students

Everyone who teaches wants engaged students. But how do we do this? There are so many buzz words out there about flipped classrooms, active learning, and grit. The research literature examining effective teaching practices has grown, yet it is largely inaccessible.  Over 700 different journals address college teaching in various forms. How can instructors wade through this to find the most effective strategies. In today’s post, I will share a few helpful formulas and strategies to create intentionally designed activities to engage students.

Les Roches International

Across different disciplines, there are a multitude of instructional approaches from lecturing to discussion to peer teaching. No matter which approach is used, students learn best when they are engaged with the course content.

Engagement doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentionally designing class to foster learning.

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5 things to do before applying to a Ph.D. program

Few academic decisions are as momentous as selecting where to pursue your Ph.D. degree. In fact, I would argue that deciding where to get your Ph.D. is more influential for your academic and professional career than the decision regarding your undergraduate institution. Yet, I’m constantly surprised that more prospective Ph.D. students don’t do better homework before jumping in to a Ph.D. program. In today’s post, I share 5 things to do before applying to a Ph.D. program.

Photo credit: neverbutterfly

Applying for a Ph.D. program can easily be a five to seven year commitment. The quality and prestige of your program will also determine your career options and opportunities after graduation.  Moreover, even your chances of graduation can be influenced by your choice of program.

As a result, you need to do your due diligence before committing to a program. In fact, I would suggest you need to do work before even applying to a program. Specifically, I recommend you do the following 5 things before applying to a Ph.D. Program.