Archive

Faculty Development

  1. 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

  2. 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 […]

  3. Top Hat in Action: High Expectations from Engineers

    David Cereceda is Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Villanova University, near Philadelphia, PA. Here, he shares how including interactive questions as part of an active learning strategy helped satisfy a demanding student audience

  4. Why It’s Important to Approach Teaching With a Growth Mindset

    If you want to become a better educator, the first step is to embrace a growth mindset. We expect it of our students, so we should expect it of ourselves

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

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

  6. Why the First Five Minutes of Class Matter So Much

    There is no need to transform, overhaul or tear down and rebuild the way you teach, according to education expert James Lang. You simply need to take a more mindful approach to class time and make an effort to use it better

  7. Why Academic Careers Shine Outside of the Meeting Room

    Professors most readily learn from each other and by attending off-site conferences, while deeply distrusting departmental meetings, according to a new survey of nearly 2,000 professors across the US and Canada

  8. 11 Teaching Quotes to Inspire Educators in 2018

    From Comenius to Montessori, here are some teaching quotes for the modern educator—all about letting your students challenge their perceptions and themselves

  9. What is An Adjunct Professor? How To Solve Career Isolation

    What is an adjunct professor? An adjunct professor, a term most often used in the U.S., is a temporary, part-time appointment brought in by college administrations to teach. Many adjunct professors teach at short notice on part-time contract; many more teach at more than one institution, looking to supplement their income from their other careers. […]

  10. Hurricane Preparedness and Recovery: What Faculty Should Do

    In late August and early September, Hurricanes Harvey and Irma wreaked havoc not only on homes and businesses, but on post-secondary institutions that were gearing up for the new school year. In the aftermath of these devastating storms, students, faculty and staff are still trying to recover — and make up for lost time. There […]

  11. Lecturer Career Ideas: 4 Ways To Get Ahead

    If you’re a lecturer waiting for your administration to send you on a training course, you could be waiting a long time. Taking the first step yourself is easier than you think. Here are four ways you can boost your lecturing career and improve your reputation, knowledge and student feedback. Leadership If your medium-to-long-term plan […]

  12. Steven Sloman Challenges Everything You Know

    People are more ignorant than they think they are. That’s the premise of Steven Sloman’s new book, The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone, co-authored by Phil Fernbach. In it, the authors posit that the idea of individual thinking is a myth and that everything we know is due to the collective knowledge of […]

  13. The 3 Career Stages of Academic Stress

    In researching her book Helping Faculty Find Work-Life Balance: The Path Toward Family Friendly Institutions, Virginia Commonwealth University professor Maike Philipsen looked at work-related stress for academics at different stages of their careers. What she found: workplace stress never goes away, but the sources change. Subscribe to Top Hat’s weekly blog recap Get the best […]

  14. Small Changes in Teaching: The Last 5 Minutes of Class

    Imagine what a difference we could make if we all took five minutes — even just a few times during the semester — to offer students the opportunity to reflect on their learning habits.