Here is a list of recent articles and blogs about higher education and student learning with links.
Inclusive Teaching (Sep 16, 2021)
I am working on a new book: Inclusive Teaching Techniques: a Short Guide for Everyone that is coming out of the many inclusive teaching workshops I am doing. The idea is to provide only the briefest amount of theory and provide lots of easy techniques teaches can use today around the ideas of transparency, belonging, engagement and scaffolding. So the focus is on every class, including STEM and not just classes that deal with sensitive topics–although there is a chapter on that too. All good teaching is inclusive teaching. Here is a preview in this new article from Inside Higher Education: Is Your Math Course Racist?
Virtual Gap Years (August 18, 2020)
A list of options for Fall 2020
A Less Nuclear Option (July 27, 2020)
Could shutting down for a year increase the chances that your college can survive?
Preparing to Teach in an Uncertain Fall 2020 (July 13, 2020)
Ideas and resources as you design your fall courses: hint pretend it will be all online, since at least part of it will end up that way.
Helping Students Study Smarter (July 6, 2020)
Students are going to need additional support and guidance in Fall 2020. Here is a study strategy that can improve grades significantly from my forthcoming book (A New 3Rs: Learning to Change through Relationships, Resilience and Reflection, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021)
5 Bigger and Better Ideas for Fall 2020 (July 20, 2020) Article in InsideHigherEd
Longer Blog Version: Alternative Ideas for Fall 2020 (June 29, 2020)
The IHE article was condensed to five ideas and the longer blog has ten more radical ways you might think about increasing your odds for success and reduce inequity during the pandemic.
The HyFlex Flip: Rethinking Course Strategy for Fall 2020 ( June 22, 2020)
If lower capacity F2F classes has you thinking about doubling synchronous sections, here is another proposal to reallocate time to smaller groups of more engaged active learning.
Is Higher Ed Asking the Wrong Questions? (InsideHigherEd, May 19, 2020)
During a time of crisis, people are prone to focus on the tactical, but what we know already suggests we should be thinking longer term and for greater disruption.
Your New Virtual Course: A Quick Primer (March 16, 2020)
With limited time, I suggest that mastery of online teaching is not the short-term goal.
Teaching the Pandemic (March 13, 2020)
Thinking about how to incorporate the current crisis into more engaged teaching and learning.
Inclusive Teaching (Feb, 2020)
I’ve started doing an Inclusive Teaching workshop and thinking about that practical things faculty can do–maybe the kernel of a new book too.
A New Year’s Resolution about Uncertainty (2019)
An argument for why a liberal arts education matters more than ever. Published in TheHill on Dec 31, 2019, who could have known that our ability to deal with uncertainty, nuance and ambiguity would be so tested in 2020?
WYPR Commentaries on Higher Education (2019)
A series about learning and higher education for WYPR in Baltimore
Nudges, the Learning Economy, and the 3Rs (2018)
In January of 2018 I received the Ernest L Boyer Award (for significant contributions to American higher education) was awarded to me from the New American Colleges and Universities at the Association of American of Colleges and Universities national meeting. There is a video of the talk I gave, but I also published this article based on that talk in Liberal Education: The Quarterly Journal of the American Association of Colleges and Universities 104/2 (Spring 2018) p.28-35. These ideas have turned into a pair of books. A New 3Rs: Learning to Change through Relationships, Resilience and Reflection (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) and Naked Learning: Nudging Student Behavior with Educational Design (Johns Hopkins Press, forthcoming)
Building a New Liberal Education (2018)
I was the guest editor for the special edition of Liberal Education: The Quarterly Journal of the American Association of Colleges and Universities 104/3 (Fall 2018) It is full of reports, processes and results of efforts to rethink a liberal arts education.
Teaching Naked Techniques (2017)
C. Edward Watson and I extracted this article from Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017). It appeared in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 49/5 (Nov 2017) p. 26-35.
Why Student Learning Matters (2017)
I am the closer in this set of brief remarks about ACUE and how we can improve teaching.
Get some TNT for your teaching (2017)
An introduction to Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017).
Reacting to the Past will Revive Your Teaching! (2016)
My experience at the 16th annual RTTP institute at Barnard College with Mark Carnes (who has written an excellent Harvard University Press book about this pedagogy).
Rethinking Dorm and Dining Design (2016)
I describe the process and data behind new residential housing and dining that was designed to increase relationships and especially faculty/student interactions.
Why Do We Do General Education? A Five-Part Series (2015)
I wrote these reflections as we worked through a new general education revision at Goucher College.
Your Major Doesn’t Matter, Yes it Does, No it Doesn’t! (2014)
A three-part series looking at the conflicting data about income and life outcomes depending on your major.
Reflections on the need for both more diverse students and institutions in higher education.
Rethinking Teaching Evaluations to Improve Student Learning (2014)
A better way to think about student course evaluations.
Value in Higher Education: Preparing for the Unknown (2014)
The value of your education is less about the content you learn and more about how you are prepared to self-regulate your own future learning.
The Teaching Naked Cycle (2014)
When Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning won the Ness Award for Best Book on Higher Education from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, I was asked to give a talk. This article is the result: “The Teaching Naked Cycle: Technology is a Tool, but Psychology is the New Pedagogy” Liberal Education: The Quarterly Journal of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, Vol 100. No 2 (Spring 2014) p. 18-25.
I Hate Your Class; It Changed My Life (2013)
On navigating student discomfort.
A introduction to how and why you should be using cognitive wrappers to support refection and integration of your content. With a free template.
A better way to support improved course design at the department level.
Why You Need an eCommunication Policy (2013)
We want students to come to office hours, but the relationship often starts online.
What Good Are Scholarships? (2013)
All of the data on equity supports moving your money from “merit” to need scholarships.