Tips for the Week of May 1, 2023
Flipping for Active, Engaged Learning The term “flipped learning” is no longer new in higher education, but what does it mean for Chapman’s mission of personalized education? Flipped learning is based on an inverted model of traditional teaching, in which students listen to lectures in class and complete learning tasks like problem sets at home.
Tips for the Week of April 24, 2023
Prioritizing Self-Care is Not Being Selfish Contrary to what many people believe, the build-up of lactic acid is not the culprit in post-workout muscle tenderness or fatigue. Instead, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the result of microscopic damage to muscle fibers involved in exercise. Much like DOMS, Covid-19 and the pandemic left many of
Tips for the Week of April 17, 2023
Flexible Late Policy Reduces Stress for Students and Faculty Guest Post by Dr. Samantha Dressel, Department of English In my classes, I have a no-questions-asked extension policy open to all students. Students may request a 1-day, 3-day, or 5-day extension before the deadline of any assignment but can only use each of these extensions
Tips for the Week of April 10, 2023
Let’s Get Loud: The Sound of Learning We know that active learning is effective, but what does it sound like in the classroom? Germano and Nicholls (2020) challenge us to think about the “acoustics” of good pedagogy, or what a classroom with active, engaged students actually sounds like. Rather than a lengthy solo performed by
ChatGPT in the Classroom: An Ongoing Conversation
The CETL would like to thank everyone who joined our open faculty discussions about AI and ChatGPT in the classroom this past week. We are especially grateful to Dr. Erik Linstead, an expert in Machine Learning from Chapman’s Fowler School of Engineering, for providing some crucial background knowledge about AI and helping to facilitate these
Tips for the Week of April 3, 2023
Professional Development? But I’m Already a Good Teacher! According to Goobler (2019), most academics still receive little to no preparation for teaching in their graduate programs. And, although pedagogical coaching services and resources are available through teaching and learning centers like CETL, Mintz (2022) argues that most faculty don’t take advance of these services because
Tips for the Week of March 27, 2023
All Teaching Strategies Are Not Equal In his book, The Missing Course, Goobler (2019) argues that while college is changing, the way we prepare college professors is not. Most graduate students are still trained primarily to conduct research, receiving little to no pedagogical training in their graduate programs. Think about your own pedagogical training. Although many
Tips for the Week of March 20, 2023
Easy Active Teaching Strategies for Engaged Learning As the Spring sunshine beckons students away from their studies and they drift into a mid-semester slump, it can be challenging to engage them in learning. “To learn, students need to DO something” (Gonzalez, 2018), which is why active learning is an important strategy in any classroom. As
Tips for the Week of March 13, 2023
Distracted Students: Are Digital Devices the Real Challenge? Educators today are quick to blame digital devices for distracting their students and subsequently impose policies banning devices in the classroom. But before we had digital devices, students’ attention drifted out the window, waxed and waned throughout a course or period. James Lang argues, “whenever we are
Tips for the Week of March 6, 2023
Creating Interactive Lectures and Active Discussions Research tells us that students are more likely to be engaged and to retain information in an active learning environment than in a purely lecture-based class. Creating interactive lectures that include active discussions encourages student engagement and helps develop students’ critical thinking and communication skills. Active class discussions also