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What to Look for in Teaching Philosophy Statements

What should faculty reviewers look for in a teaching philosophy statement of a candidate? Correspondingly, what should those applying for academic positions put in a teaching philosophy statement? The author of this article suggests models of teaching and learning. Of learning, he writes, “Candidates should demonstrate knowledge of models of how students learn, how best to encourage learning, and how to assess whether learning has occurred.” (p. 336)

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 29, 2009

Seven Tips for Creating a Positive Online Learning Experience

Here are a few tips to ensure your students have a positive online learning experience.

Personal introductions. By using the personal introductions of students, an instructor can get to know his/her students better, thus allowing interaction with individual students in a more personal manner. When students see that the instructor is reaching out to them on a personal basis, it helps establish a rapport and put the student at ease.

Errol Craig Sull December 28, 2009

Different Sources of Power that Affect the Teacher-Student Relationship

Communication educators have taken a well-known typology of power and applied it to teachers. According to this theory-based schematic, individuals exert influence over other individuals based on five different sources of power.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 22, 2009

Why It Can Be Hard to Get to Know Your Students

Getting to know your students is important, but as Dean A. McManus (referenced below) points out, it’s not always easy and may, in fact, be one of the few things that get worse with experience. Here’s why:

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 18, 2009

Tips for Building a Personal Learning Network on Campus and Online

Colleagues can play such an important role in our development as teachers, yet most of the time we don’t make use of them in ways that really help us grow pedagogically. We spend time with faculty who inhabit offices near ours sharing pedagogical pleasantries, noting our successes and those of our students, or complaining about the lack of institutional support for teaching or the poor performance of this year’s entering class.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 16, 2009

Helping Students Fill Gaps in Basic Knowledge

I once observed in a class in which the instructor returned a quiz. One of the questions indicated that an employee had just received a 10 percent raise. The employee was now making $50,000. The question asked what the employee’s previous salary was.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 15, 2009

How Wikis Streamline Student Collaboration Projects

Utter the words “group project” and you’re likely to hear at least a few groans from your students. The reasons for their dislike of group work are many, but logistical difficulties of getting everyone together and lazy group members who don’t pull their own weight are two of the biggest complaints.

Mary Bart December 14, 2009

Should You Let Students Lead Discussion Boards?

Several years ago, a colleague suggested that having students lead discussions in the online classroom would be a good idea. I agreed and searched the literature for research on this topic but found nothing. No one at that point had been looking at having students moderate, or they hadn’t written about it. I still thought it was a good idea and decided to pursue this line of research by having my students moderate and follow up with an end-of-course student questionnaire.

Joan Thormann PhD. December 11, 2009

Making the Shift from Rhetoric to Performance

Discussion of teaching and learning as an academic, scholarly endeavor has become an acceptable conversation on college campuses. A shift is beginning to take place whereby the scholarship of teaching and learning is now being taken seriously. We are making progress in higher education by making undergraduate education intentional, thus moving toward a learner-centered paradigm.

Michael Harris PhD and Roxanne Cullen PhD December 10, 2009

Six Tips for Effective Writing Groups

By offering students a supportive group for writing assignments and research projects, students can form strong learning communities and feel less isolated when they see

Kathryn Linder M.A. December 9, 2009

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