Tag Archives: strategies

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Lessons learned for institutions from the research on distance education

A variety of pressures push institutions toward pursuing distance education initiatives. Unfortunately, these initiatives often fail to learn from the experiences of other colleges and universities. Given the amount of time and resources increasingly dedicated to distance education, higher education must do a better job in avoiding the well known pitfalls of early adopters. In today’s post, I want to share some lessons learned for institutions from the research on distance education.

Photo credit: Clare Black https://thoroughlyreviewed.com
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How to keep email from running your life

The reality of email:  can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Of all the technologies that have made their way into our personal and professional lives, I believe email can be one of the most distracting and time intensive. While email provides enormous benefits for communicating quickly and cheaply, the amount of time required to manage and process email can be profoundly damaging. No one is getting tenure, promoted to a new position, or gets a raise because they are good with email. However, the reverse can absolutely be true. In today’s post, I want to share five strategies that can keep email from running your life.

Photo credit: mattwi1s0n

Before discussing these strategies in detail, I want to address the elephant in the room.

Whenever I discuss ways to curb email, many people just immediately assume this isn’t possible.

To be sure, there are some positions that by the nature of the job requires constant email work. However, I suspect that the vast majority of you reading this will not fall into this category.

I want to argue that if you have an email problem that it is time to look in the mirror.

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The Power of a Writing Routine

Routines can be powerful drivers of human behavior. When we do certain things the same way every time, we are able to save our focus and brain power for the things that really need our attention. Moreover, a routine helps prepare you for engaging in a certain activity. In today’s post, I want to explore the power of a writing routine to help supercharge your writing activities.

the power of a writing routine

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One of my favorite ways to think about academic work is to learn about the daily habits and processes of experts. My goal isn’t to copy what these experts do verbatim, but to think about how their process can inform my own.

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How to Effectively Recruit Graduate Students

Universities spend significant time and resources in recruiting undergraduate students. Unfortunately, graduate recruiting efforts frequently fall victim to ineffective and inefficient practices. As a faculty member and program director of various higher education graduate programs, I have spent much of my career recruiting masters and doctoral students. I have often been frustrated by the lack of attention, planning, and the lack of expertise in how institutions recruit graduate students. In today’s post, I will share the common causes of graduate recruiting problems and discuss how to effectively recruit graduate students.

Photo credit: Martyn Wright

While undergraduate recruiting often differs substantially by the type of institution, graduate recruiting suffers from many of the same problems across all institutions. Obviously some institutions have more money to throw at the problem or can rely on rankings differently, but few institutions do a strong job with graduate recruiting.

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Implementing Cal Newport’s Deep Work

Deep work should be the goal of all of us in higher education. As Cal Newport convincingly argues in his book of the same name, deep work is focused work in a distraction-free environment that brings value. The challenge, of course, is how to implement deep work into our daily routines. In addition to discussing the broader concepts, Newport also suggests ways to achieve deep work in our daily lives. In today’s post, I want to share some key takeaways that I believe will help when implementing Cal Newport’s deep work.

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As I discussed in my last post, shallow work takes over in the absence of clear feedback and immediate rewards for deep work. Shallow work is easier and the appearance of busyness makes us feel more productive.

Although he offers far more suggestions than I outline below from the simple to the more controversial (quit all social media), I believe these six ideas will get you well on the way to implementing the deep work philosophy.