ACUE sat down with Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) to discuss the launch of their “National Quality Dialogue.” This effort includes reaching out to colleagues and faculty organizations to explore, reassess, and understand... Read more
Category: Expert Series
The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) focuses on ways to increase student engagement. We reasoned that if teachers were thoroughly and genuinely engaged in their content, then their engagement would trickle down, with students empathizing with that engagement... Read more
Most syllabi encouraged, but did not formally grade, participation. In some, participation constituted as much as 50% of the grade. A good number measured it as attendance by exacting a price for more than a specified number of absences.... Read more
My granddaughter, a rising sophomore, is buried with assignments. She shared, somewhat despairingly, that rarely can she get anything done in advance—only work due ‘tomorrow!’ I felt her stress and realized she hardly has time for practice and review,... Read more
I have never met a faculty member in my 30-year career who took the summer “off.” Even when an instructor has a nine-month contract, in my experience, most use the time to catch up on their field’s literature, conduct... Read more
As the academic year concludes, we hear a lot about year-end student performance and results. There are final exams, final grades, course completions, etc. But my students’ reflections provided an important reminder: while our final performance may have been... Read more
A key component of any online course is the discussion board. As online courses have matured, we realize that not all discussion forums are or should be the same. Some discussions are for building community; other discussions are for... Read more
Teaching contemporary moral issues in a large lecture format presents a challenge. Of course, the students must read, write, and think. But they also need to have fruitful discussions in which different points of view are presented and argued... Read more
Early in my career, I was guilty of using instructional strategies without knowing why they work. The problem with this is you don’t know how to troubleshoot if things do not go well or whether techniques that work in... Read more
Searching honestly for the learned racism and privilege at the heart of white identity is hard given that bearing witness to experiences of racism typically prompts whites to show solidarity with people of color. Read more