Volume XXXV, No. 22 | October 11, 2013 The Digital Dilemma As higher education continues to adapt to and incorporate online technology into the curricula, several significant obstacles from seemingly insignificant areas have come to light. For instance, one of the biggest misnomers that plagues our college classrooms today is the presumption that [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 21 | October 4, 2013 Do I Have Your Attention? Introduction When teaching rigorous or abstract content, it is common for students to become disengaged from the lecturer. Frequently, instead of asking questions to dispel their confusion, students choose to mentally separate themselves from the situation. While faculty and educational [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 11 | April 5, 2013 “Playing in the Mud”: Teaching Goofy (or Otherwise) Personal Research Some years ago I read a professor’s lament that teaching geological concepts had become problematic because recent students had not played enough in the mud—experience with TV and videogames had detracted from useful intuitions into the [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 8 | March 15, 2013 Taming the Beginning-of-the-Semester Teaching/Writing Jitters You are standing at the front of a clinically white classroom facing 25 to 30 anxious faces. You fidget. They fidget. The air is thick with the smell of new books, chalk (or dry-erase pens), freshly sharpened pencils, and expectation. [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 7 | March 1, 2013 Understanding or Memorization: Teaching that Promotes Long-Term Retention Why do we remember some lessons and forget others? Is it that some are perceived as more important, exciting, or possibly just easier to comprehend? Perhaps the answer has elements of all of those in its makeup; [...]
Volume XXXV, No. 5 | February 15, 2013 The Critical Thinking Biology Final During my first five years of teaching Biology II for majors, I gave my students a typical multiple choice/ matching/short essay comprehensive final exam. The subject matter of the course focused on biological organization from organisms to ecosystems. Each year [...]
Volume XXXII, No. 11 | April 9, 2010 Things I Wish I Learned the First Year This Will Not Be Your Last Syllabus. I must admit that the first time I wrote a syllabus, it did not occur to me that I would be creating hundreds more, similar and different, as well as [...]
2008-2009 Innovation Abstracts Issue Description Vol. XXXI, No. 15 May 8, 2009 In “Global Perspectives: Enhancing Research,” Stephen Holland, English and Education Faculty, at Muscatine Community College (IA), describes a strategy for helping students move from simple presentations of information to critical levels of thinking. Helping students gain perspective about global relationships [...]
2007-2008 Innovation Abstracts Issue Description Vol. XXX, No. 15 May 2, 2008 In "The Natural Athlete: A Comfortable Myth," Suanne Roueche, currently Editor of NISOD Publications, describes 10 strategies for improving athletes' performances that have proven to work equally as well for improving academic performance. This issue, originally published in 1983, is [...]
2006-2007 Innovation Abstracts Issue Description Vol. XXIX, No. 15 May 4, 2007 In “Challenging the Myths About Online Learning,” Robert Mendenhall, President, Western Governors University (UT), and Mark David Milliron, former NISOD Director, at The University of Texas at Austin, discuss 10 of the most common myths that faculty believe about this [...]
