The Teaching Professor Blog: Faculty Focus is honored to welcome The Teaching Professor Blog to the site. The blog is written by Dr. Maryellen Weimer, professor emeritus at Penn State Berks and one of the nation’s most highly regarded authorities on effective college teaching. Many of you know Maryellen as the editor of The Teaching Professor newsletter and from her book Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practices, which is considered the go-to guide for educators looking to adopt a learner-centered approach in their classrooms. The Teaching Professor Blog features a new weekly post from Maryellen on such topics as:…
2 CommentsTag: learning
HASTAC: Nobel Prize Winner vs TA With a Clicker? Who Wins the Teaching Award? If you guessed the Nobel Prize winning physicist, you guessed wrong. In a fantastic new study, it turned out the way students in a 250-person lecture class really learned the nitty gritty of the physics was not when the famous scientist lectured at them but when the TA engaged them with a clicker. This is music to my student-designed, peer-assigned, peer-assessed, interactive ears! Here’s the url to the article that describes the study: http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/05/12/study_its_not_tea… All the research shows that the best way to learn is to…
Leave a CommentCathy Davis: The point is that, when we worry about what attentional capacities we lose with new media, we often compare those capacities to some fantasy of undivided attention at its best: typically, the alternative paradigm is the solitary, uninterrupted book reader. Really? I remember as a child hearing that the average American read only one book a year. I’m not sure that figure has budged much in either direction. So what we are really saying is that we’re worried that some aspects of the culture our children have inherited may not benefit them as some aspects of the culture…
Leave a CommentWashington Post: [Laura] Nelson and her friends would seek out their favorite professors. Faculty would choose topics, assign any readings and set enrollment limits. Students would find teaching space. She thought about approaching university leaders for approval, but she couldn’t think of anything in her plan that required approval. “It’s so simple, and I think that’s what caught people off guard at first,” she said.
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