September 2022 Featured Resource:
Higher Ed Teaching Strategies from Magna Publications
Faculty Focus publishes three articles each week written by instructors, teachers, instructional designers, and others from around the world, where they provide insight into what’s working (and what’s not) in the classroom and online. Faculty Focus was the winner of the 2017 MERLOT Faculty Development Classics Award and is currently ranked #7 in the Teach100 daily ranking of education blogs.
Let Me Tell You a Story: Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Personal Stories
By Geraint Osborne, professor of sociology at the University of Alberta – Augustana
Reading length—2.5 pages, 5 minutes
Professor Osborne explains how and why his personal stories serve as examples that connect course concepts and ideas to real-life experiences for his students: “Neuroscience has found that images produced from a story produce a sensory experience that make the recall of information much easier.” Provided stories are well-chosen and used to good instructional purpose, Osborne asserts that storytelling is a powerful pedagogical tool more faculty should consider using.
The author examines four primary benefits of this approach, which students tell him on their course evaluations make the material, especially the more abstract or theoretical material, easier to understand. Osborne concludes by balancing the benefits against several cautions.
21 Ways to Structure an Online Discussion
By Dr. Annie Prud’homme-Généreux, Director of Continuing Studies at Capilano University
A series in five parts
First article reading length—6 pages, 10.5 minutes
The author is a past recipient of the National Association of Biology Teachers’ Four-Year College/University Teaching Innovation Award. Her five-part series on online discussion strategies offers highly creative and well-grounded approaches that transcend typical online discussion—and hold potential for fostering higher level learning. The series is organized around ideas to:
· apply learning
· explore concepts through divergent thinking
· explore concepts through convergent thinking
· foster metacognition
· increase student use of multimedia and other resources
Each strategy includes a description, tips, an example, variations, and where to find more information. In her first article, Prud’homme-Généreux explains five ways to help learners apply what they have learned: #Hashtag that Photo Safari, Virtual Scavenger Hunt, Guessing Game, Forced Analogy, and Flawed Design.
Interactive Strategies for Engaging Large and Small Classes Alike
By Toni Weiss, Associate Director at Tulane’s Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT)
Reading length—2 pages, 4 minutes
In her faculty development role, Toni Weiss helps faculty transform their classrooms into more engaged spaces with increased opportunities for interaction. For most instructors she works with, the strongest barriers to embracing more interactive approaches are a lack of time and the fear of adverse results. But Weiss, in her own teaching, has made a single change with multiple benefits: she wirelessly connects her iPad to the classroom computer. This frees her to roam the room and go where the students are. Read on to learn how her use of Doceri, a professional iPad interactive whiteboard and screencast recorder, has transformed the participation level and energy in her classroom.