Looking for inspiration on teaching or some specific strategies? David Gooblar, a former lecturer in rhetoric at the University of Iowa who is now associate director of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching, writes about classroom issues in these pages. Here is a sampling of his recent columns.
Advice
Why is it so rare to find “diversity initiatives” that have anything to do with teaching?
Advice
Warren’s version of the Socratic method, cold-calling on students in her law courses, is actually deeply progressive.
Advice
Many instructors have an intuitive sense of how to behave at the front of a classroom but have never really given much thought to how best to teach.
Advice
The idea that professors indoctrinate students is actually a very old accusation. But there are teaching strategies you can use to be sure you are promoting open-mindedness.
Advice
New instructors — trained in the importance of “active learning” techniques — often aren’t sure when lecturing is still a valid teaching strategy.
Advice
You’re a faculty member, not a trained counselor. But you can play a significant role in guiding a struggling student.
Advice
The more that students believe they can succeed in your course, the more motivated they will be to try.
Advice
The best way to start motivating students to do well in your course is to ask them what they want out of the class.
Advice
Whatever your discipline, you should also be teaching students how to understand, assess, evaluate, and apply information.
Advice
Motivation is key to their success. When we give them choices, we benefit as much as they do.
Advice
Yet another example of why we should all be lecturing less and using active-learning strategies more in the college classroom.
Advice
If institutions hope to flourish, it’s in their interest to make sure their professors flourish, too.
Advice
Teaching is the main source of faculty burnout. So doesn’t it follow that our teaching — and our students’ learning — will suffer the more stressed and exhausted we become?
Advice
But I am ready to ask students to do more self-assessments, and to give their “grading” as much weight as mine.
Advice
How to use movie trailers, social media, and other nontraditional forms of rhetoric to improve student writing.
Advice
Just follow the writing rules, kid, and there won’t be any trouble.
Advice
Teaching techniques like “the progressive stack” are a way for faculty members to circumvent our own buried prejudices.