Archive

Student Engagement

  1. Tear Up Current Economics Textbooks? Sure…For The Right Reasons

    A Vanderbilt University professor wades into debate over the utility of current economics textbooks

  2. $20,000 Top Hat Scholarship Goes to Michigan State University Student

    Environmental economics student Emma Rice hopes to work at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Here, she talks about how the Top Hat Scholarship will help her pursue her dreams

  3. Ohio University Student Wins $50,000 Top Hat Scholarship

    First generation student Delia Grantham overcame early life struggles to embrace her studies and college experience

  4. How Education Helped This Author Escape a Decade of Abuse

    There's far too much silence around domestic abuse, says bestselling author, speaker and UofT scholarship award winner Samra Zafar

  5. How to Help Introverts Thrive in the Classroom

    Are you an introvert? Roughly one third to a half of the population feel most capable or alive in quiet environments. Author and speaker Susan Cain’s research centers around introverts, as the co-founder of the Quiet Revolution, a movement devoted to showcasing introverts’ strengths. She is also the author of Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths […]

  6. 4 Professors Share: What I Wish I Had Known

    How do you know if your teaching practice is effective—and whether you’re just teaching a certain way because that’s how your professors did it? In the spirit of reinvention—and remembering the ‘growth mindset,’ where making mistakes is an important part of getting better, here are four professors and how they decided to tweak their initial […]

  7. How to Engage Students in Active Learning

    You’ve created new lesson plans and are experimenting with active learning in the classroom. The problem is, your students are completely resistant to the idea. Here’s how to engage students in active learning—even if they are initially reluctant. Active learning teaching strategies are effective teaching and learning methods. But that doesn’t mean everybody understands the […]

  8. Change—and Persistence—Helps This Award-Winning Mathematician Thrive

    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, mathematician Dr. Priya Subramanian describes her cross-discipline and international quest to be one of the “why people”: and why that one more speculative e-mail sent in the middle of […]

  9. Classroom Response Software Lifts Engagement and Grades: Study

    In-class classroom response software, including Top Hat Classroom, has a profoundly positive effect on engagement—and a knock-on effect on grades, a new study in the March 2019 issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching says. The study, authored by Andrew J. Petto, Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University […]

  10. Ethos, Pathos, Logos: How Rhetoric Can Improve Your Teaching

    The three rhetorical appeals — pathos, ethos, logos — were defined by Aristotle hundreds of years ago, but they’re just as relevant today

  11. Human Anatomy Textbooks: Which Is The Best?

    How leading human anatomy textbooks fare in the higher ed marketplace

  12. Sociology Textbooks: Which Is The Best?

    How leading sociology textbooks fare in the higher ed marketplace

  13. How to Manage Math Anxiety in the Classroom

    Video: Florida Atlantic University’s Burcu Karabina on helping liberal arts students overcome their fear of math

  14. How an Unlikely Academic Ended up Running a Groundbreaking Harvard Lab

    Todd Rose—bestselling author of The End of Average—dropped out of high school because he couldn’t fit the mold. Then he realized that being different could be his ticket to the Ivy League

  15. How To Motivate Students: Some Different Approaches

    It’s an age-old problem faced by teachers: how to motivate students. While research has found a correlation between motivation and academic achievement, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to inspiring your students to engage in course material. But, with a bit of effort, you can effectively motivate different types of learners and, ultimately, […]

  16. In the Search for Student Engagement, Fun Goes a Long Way

    “The level of engagement in your students and your classrooms is not fixed. Yes, students will arrive in your classroom with varying levels of curiosity, but there are things you as an instructor can do to make your class better.”

  17. When Faculty Write Or Adopt OER, Student Outcomes Soar

    Jasmine Roberts, a professor of communications at The Ohio State University, has a story to tell about how she ended up adopting open educational resources for her courses. It was, for her, a way to establish the Golden Rule: she did not want to treat her students the way she herself had been treated as […]

  18. Easy Ways to Personalize Instruction for Student Success

    Jenel Cavazos and Greg Kitzmiller agree: if there’s one classroom tactic that’s effective at personalizing the student experience in their classrooms, it’s the word cloud. Often found on websites and in presentations, word clouds are clever graphic depictions of search terms and answers to open questions, with the most common words appearing in large print. […]

  19. Classroom Management Techniques: 13 Ideas From A Prof

    Psychology professor Jenel Cavazos shares some classroom management techniques for building rapport, keeping students on task and organizing content

  20. 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