Faculty can be very particular (even precious) about a course syllabus, but sometimes in all the wrong ways. Many view the syllabus as a firm contract and a laundry list of every particular variation and question that might ever occur to a student during the course of a semester. This was the rationale behind the […]
Professors almost always know what they are looking for in assignments, but sometimes they’re not always as clear students need them to be. One secret to being successful in college is asking the right questions, especially with regard to coursework. Here are some to keep in mind. 1. ”How will this assignment be evaluated?”The criteria […]
The talk of assessment of student learning outcomes has well established the important connection between student learning outcomes and coursework. It is essential that coursework prepare students for and ultimately give them an opportunity to demonstrate and master. What has been overlooked has been the connection to outcomes and objectives—that is, how we teach what […]
Rick Magee is an associate professor of English at Sacred Heart. He won the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015 and has a reputation for being one of the most effective and most popular instructors on campus. I wanted to see what he was up to, so I could steal some of his best ideas. […]
James Lang, the author of four books and a regular contributor to The Chronicle of Higher Education, has just published a remarkable new book on teaching and learning, called Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. Lang, professor of English and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College, takes his […]
After hearing about how the communication platform Slack is taking over the business world, I decided to see what all the buzz was about, with the hope that I might use it for some administrative tasks. The platform seemed a little too involved for the standard academic committee, but I was delighted to see that […]
On Thursday, January 21, Dr. Anita August and the Writing Across the Curriculum program hosted a talk for faculty on race, writing, and literacy with guest speaker David E. Kirkland. Kirkland is Associate Professor of English Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development Department of Teaching and Learning at New York […]
It used to be that video games were something you did after studying or even as a reward for a few good hours of coursework. But that dichotomy might be coming to an end, at least if Bob McCloud has his way. McCloud, associate professor of computer science at Sacred Heart, gave a presentation on “Gamification” […]
Research consistently shows how a focus on students and learning is better than focusing on instructors and teaching. Here is an opinion piece from the New York Times on how learning is improved by a more engaged teaching style. The impact is true overall, but it’s more pronounced for women and minorities. What has always surprised me […]
Steven Michels 