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 [...]
2005-2006 Innovation Abstracts Issue Description Vol. XXVIII, No. 15 May 5, 2006 In “Practical Advice: Focusing on the Attentional Needs of College Freshmen,” Lori Norin, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication, at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, describes her successful strategies for responding to barriers that ADHD creates for an unfortunate number of [...]
2003-2004 Innovation Abstracts Issue Description Vol. XXVI, No. 15 May 7, 2004 "Getting Them Excited the First Day," by Alice Reinke, Karen Kemp, Rod Somppi, and Paul Johnson, members of the Curriculum and Technology Planning Team, at Confederation College (CN), describes the results of a collegewide strategy for getting all students off [...]
2002-2003 Innovation Abstracts Issue Description Vol. XXV, No. 15 May 2, 2003 In "Listening: Everyone's Responsibility," Kimberly Batty-Herbert, Instructor in Communications at Clovis Community College (NM), describes the practices and challenges of good listening, emphasizes the critical need to teach good listening skills, and addresses the importance of college faculty and administrators [...]
