Archive

Agile Classroom

  1. How to Bring Gamification Into Your Classroom

    Use these gamification strategies in your classroom to increase participation, engagement, loyalty and competition.

  2. I Rejected Tenure to Focus on Fixing the Classroom

    Josh Eyler walked away from a tenured position, choosing instead to pursue his passion: affecting the way professors think about teaching. Now, he is focused on working with faculty to implement evidence-based teaching strategies that help students succeed

  3. Agile Learning: Collaboration in the Classroom

    Agile learning takes its inspiration from the concept of ‘agile’ as used in the world of technology. Agile teams collaborate on projects and provide ongoing feedback, dealing with minor bumps in the road before they become major obstacles. If something doesn’t work, they change course. Agile methodology works in the tech industry, but it’s increasingly […]

  4. How a Riot, a Rock Band and Rutgers Led to the Rise of Richard Florida

    Top Hat is the active learning platform that makes it easy for professors to engage students and build comprehension before, during and after class. This interview is part of our recurring series “Academic Admissions” where we ask interesting people to tell us about the transformative role education has played in their lives. For more than […]

  5. This Entrepreneur Is Making Kids Fall in Love With Science

    In our recurring series “Academic Admissions” we ask interesting people to tell us about the transformative role education has played in their lives. In this instalment, Renee Watson talks about her early encounters with science in rural Australia and how getting stranded in London with barely enough money to buy a day’s groceries turned into […]

  6. How Blockbuster Helped Neil Garg Become a Better Prof

    Your first job, whatever it might be, is often a useful foundation, as Neil Garg, Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles, explains

  7. Grit and a Gift for Engineering Pave a Way for Women in STEM

    Gina Cody, the first woman to have an engineering school named after her in Canada, worked relentlessly to distinguish herself in a male-dominated field. But her success isn’t a one-off. It’s trailblazing a path for other women in STEM to succeed

  8. Course Design For Agile Teaching: 5 Ideas To Try

    Rote learning has become passé. So has passive teaching. These days, top educators are thinking about being agile and engaging, and that comes from first principles: your course design. In the same way software developers create agile software — in which they keep trying new things and improving, and mistakes are part of the journey […]

  9. How and When To Make A Course Correction While Teaching

    A “course made good” in teaching is like steering a ship—work out where you are, where you’re pointing, and how to change direction to get to your destination

  10. How to Succeed at Course Transformation in a Big Class

    There is a metaphor that postsecondary educators fall back upon when talking about a well-worn course: it’s like a house. Sometimes it needs a little fresh air, some new furniture in the form of think-pair-shares or other active learning exercises, to recapture students’ attention. Sometimes it needs to be stripped down to the studs and […]

  11. 4 Tips To Build An Agile Classroom, Courtesy of Engage 2018

    All of our speakers at Engage 2018, our yearly Chicago conference for innovative educators, took the theme of the agile classroom to heart

  12. The Possibilities of An Agile Classroom: Sir Ken Robinson

    His TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” is the most watched TED Talk in history.

  13. Teaching Creative Writing as a Springboard For Students

    Many students have to complete required courses in creative writing. Here's how Linda Rodriguez, Professor of Caribbean Literature, Film, and Creative Writing at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, uses the language of fairytales to introduce new writers to the process

  14. Bloom’s Taxonomy: A History and Why It’s Important

    In this extract from our exclusive e-book, award-winning higher education journalist Philip Preville looks at the history and origin of Bloom's taxonomy and ponders its future place in classrooms that are increasingly dominated by technology

  15. The Secrets of the Cognitive Domain in Bloom’s Taxonomy

    Bloom’s taxonomy, introduced in 1956 and revised in 2001, is one of the most well-known frameworks for classifying educational goals, objectives and standards, and it is practically synonymous with the cognitive domain. Bloom’s taxonomy is traditionally structured as a pyramid. Basic skills lie at the bottom, and more advanced ones reside at the top. As […]

  16. 3 Advantages of Custom Textbooks Versus Traditional Textbooks

    From cars to shoes to Goldfish crackers, everything is being customized nowadays. Companies are realizing that allowing consumers to customize their products helps to set them apart and lead to individuals choosing their products over others. It is only natural that custom textbooks are becoming more popular, because they are designed to provide learning material […]

  17. 4 Creative Teaching Ideas to Use During Your College Course

    Need a boost to your teaching as you enter into the new semester? Here are four creative teaching ideas for each stage of your course, from conspiracy theories to group projects—and links to read more about them. Week 1: Bust out the flash cards According to author Dan Chambliss, one of the most important things […]

  18. 4 Professors Share Tips On Teaching Diverse Students

    There are no typical students, and no typical classroom. Some students might have never grown up with a university tradition in their family. Some might not know how to equally participate in a class discussion. Some may be overwhelmed, and some might start out enthusiastic but lose attention over time. For each of these scenarios, […]

  19. Dynamic Textbook Revisions Will Keep Your Classes Cutting Edge

    In 2006, when Pluto lost its status as a planet, textbooks didn’t help alleviate confusion over the galactic changeup. Many still counted it as part of the solar system. As several new terms were being debated (is it a “dwarf planet”? a “plutoid?”), textbooks struggled to keep up with debate, and it appears many stopped […]

  20. 4 Ways Of Teaching Stats in 1 Interactive Text

    Deborah Carroll is a Psychology professor at Southern Connecticut State University and contributing author of a chapter of Top Hat’s interactive text Statistics for Social Science. In the latest instalment of our webinar series, Why Innovative Educators Are Using Interactive Content, she talked about the lesson structure behind how she teaches a particular statistical concept—and […]