How to Build Community in Your Class Without Using Icebreakers

How to Build Community In Your Class Without Using Icebreakers

Research has shown that college students who find a support community in the first 6 weeks of college are more likely to persist and complete their education (Woosley, 2003). Much of this community can be found and created outside of the classroom through co-curricular involvement, however, faculty are in a unique position to influence the success of their students. For example, a 2021 study found that students who felt a sense of belonging in their STEM program were more likely to persist to their second year (Garza et al.).
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Teaching in Tough Times: How to Counter Languishing and Burnout in Higher Education. An image of a match burning down then becoming a seedling.
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Teaching in Tough Times: How to Counter Languishing and Burnout in Higher Education

A quick note before I move into the post–if you find that your feelings run deeper than just your work, or that the challenges you face are pervasive or problematic across other areas of your life, I would encourage you to seek professional counseling or therapy with a licensed mental health professional beyond the recommendations for approaching your work outlined below. Always remember that it’s important to prioritize mental health for youth and young adults.

We all likely know the feeling by now, even if we might still lack the specific terminology to explain it. We’re tired, despite sleeping relatively well. We’re feeling “off,” but we’re not sick. We’re feeling lonely or disconnected, though we still get along with our coworkers and students. We may forget project details or course deadlines, or just find it hard to be excited about starting a new endeavor or covering topics in the classroom that once interested us. Is this burnout, or something else? Continue reading →

Professor Vs. Wild Surviving and Thriving When Time is a Factor
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Prof vs. Wild: Surviving and Thriving When Time is a Factor

As any faculty member can tell you, proper course planning can take a long time. There are a multitude of factors to consider when initially setting up a course, including text selection, developing the syllabus and course objectives, selecting and developing assessments that properly align with module-level objectives, creating communication channels, and many more. In an ideal situation, we would have months to think about and plan for a truly impactful course. Continue reading →

Shifting Tides with AI in Higher Education

For those who are involved in higher education in any way, there is one blaring question that has been circulating feverishly for the past few months: “How can I be sure if my students are using generative AI (ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, etc.) to write their assignments or not?” Fret not, I have the answer that we’ve all been searching for: you can’t. In fact, and perhaps more distressing for some, it’s actually safer to assume that they are using generative AI to help write and ideate their assignments at this point. Does that mean the learning has left the picture? Or is it time to rethink how we assess student learning?

a block of text sailing to the right and morphing into a boat

Before I get into a long, drawn-out (this is a pun, you’ll see why later) metaphor about higher education’s relationship to artificial intelligence (AI), there are a few things I’d like to raise as points of interest: 

  1. This isn’t a new problem.
  2. It isn’t actually even a problem.
  3. There is a lot to be learned from this moment in time, for all of us.

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The Benefits of Making Small Changes in Your Course Design: An Introduction to the Plus-One Approach
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The Benefits of Making Small Changes in Your Course Design: An Introduction to the Plus-One Approach

One Small Change…

Iterative design isn’t a new concept. It’s been one of my favorite approaches to course development and teaching since my earliest days as an instructional designer. You probably do this in your teaching practice without even thinking – when you tweak something from one term to the next based on how an activity went, or how well students responded to a prompt.

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A Brief History of Academic Integrity Panics about Disruptive Technology
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A Brief History of Academic Integrity Panics about Disruptive Technology

When ChatGPT emerged last year, a segment of academia panicked in response to articles suggesting that students could get an AI to write their term paper and you, the instructor, would be none the wiser. Some are ready to write a eulogy for human authorship altogether. Continue reading →

Educational Technology Before and During the Pandemic

Educational Technology Before and During the Pandemic

Before becoming an instructional designer in 2015, I was a teacher in the K-12 industry for 14 years. I specialized in teaching 3rd and 4th-grade self-contained classes, as well as the middle school classes in the areas of language arts and social studies. Since 2001 until now, teaching practices have changed due to pedagogy and the integration of technology. Kamau Bobb of Google‘s dedication to educational research advances the field. We live in an ever-changing technological society that impacts our lives at home and in our careers. With this being said, many teachers want to keep abreast of the latest pedagogical practices and technology developments, but it can be challenging due to time constraints.

As I compare and contrast the instruction I received in my undergraduate years in the College of Education at ISU vs the instruction I now give to undergraduate students in the College of Education at DePaul, a lot of the foundation is the same, but now there is a wide focus on how to integrate technology properly into the curriculum. Continue reading →

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Using Genre in the Classroom

During the holidays, I spend the majority of the time with my partner’s family, who are predominantly first- and second-generation Polish immigrants. Many of them can speak Polish to each other with ease. Now, I’ve tried a few times to learn Polish so I can participate in conversations (or at least have a marginal understanding of what they are talking about). Really, I can only name a few foods and I can sing Happy Birthday.

But sitting around the table, not being able to speak or understand the Polish they’re speaking, often leaves me feeling isolated and confused. Those moments remind me just how challenging it can be to try and be an active participant in the room, when I fundamentally don’t communicate in the same way.

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Hands typing at a computer with floating interactions
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Post Once, Reply Twice… But Why?

At some point–even prior to the start of COVID-19–most online instructors have relied on the ‘Post Once, Reply Twice’ formula for their online discussions. It is unclear where this formula originated, but like the Pot Roast Principle, there is no real reason we need to be bound by it. Discussions remain a pain point for most online instructors, so what can be done? How do we make our online discussions something students want to engage in? What alternatives exist?
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Michigan field with tractor.
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Identifying our “Oak Savanna”: How HEERF Funds Helped to Regenerate an ID Team Battered by the Pandemic

In January 2021, my husband and I bought a messy piece of land in Michigan. Some of the land is (barely) tillable farmland, and the other parts are weedy prairie, scrubby forest, and swampy muck. This is what we wanted—a biodiverse piece of land that needs support to bring it back to its natural, harmonious state of being. Continue reading →