I recently found an interesting article by Jeremy A. Rentz as part of The Best of 2021Teaching Professor Conference. He asked the simple question, who does more work during class time, you or the students? Think it about for a moment. Over a semester course, who is doing more work? I would bet you a...

With the pandemic and navigating student illness which may be related to COVID, it seemed like a good idea to revisit FERPA and to include its role in relation to COVID. FERPA or the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 is education’s version of the Health Insurance Portability and Acco...

A common issue I repeatedly see, especially at a heightened level these days, is anxiety in our students.  Even though we returned to the classroom, the anxiety does not seem to be abating for the most part.  Given the nature of our educational program and requirements coupled with a full curriculum...

With many of us returning to remote teaching, we are back to live and recorded lectures. So, I decided to reprise an article about recording videos.  In my travels, I have noticed that recorded lectures don’t take into account giving students breaks, as we do when we are in person. Many of us break ...

You don’t have to be teaching for very long to realize students don’t read. In particular, despite all the energy and effort you may put into your syllabus for your course, we know students don’t read those either.

A colleague recently sent me a link to an article that really drove this point home....

One of the more challenging tasks for faculty, especially new faculty, is how to help a student who is struggling academically. Most of our students come to us having navigated 16 plus years of schooling successfully. They figured out ways to study and be successful. However, in my experience, when ...

In these most recent weeks, it seems as though the forward momentum of life returning to something more recognizable appears to be moving in a backward direction. As we all prepare for the fall semester questions abound as to whether we are facing another potential shutdown.  The good news is we are...

Although these evaluations are an essential component of feedback, they can sometimes be very upsetting for faculty. We all know how hard we have worked to put a course together and run it well, especially over this past year. When we get negative comments about our course or our teaching, they are ...

In all my years in PA education and experience guiding programs through the accreditation process, a common point of confusion is the difference between learning outcomes and competencies.  By definition, the consensus from the research, learning outcomes are statements that clearly define what the ...

I recently came across the concept of “motivating presence.”  I was captivated by it because, with almost 35 years of teaching experience, I have found a term that truly reflects the nature of the impact we have as teachers. One of the most common themes I have heard from faculty is that they miss p...