This week, Dr. Stephen Brookfield offers ways of incorporating technology into lectures after students reveal that they value both personal interaction and technology.

Educators Grapple with Integrating Technology Into the Lecture
According to two new surveys, most adults report that they learn more from technology than from people, while online students value personal interactions. To meet these competing challenges, Dr. Stephen Brookfield suggests that instructors seek out technology that strengthens rather than replaces in-person instruction. (Education Dive)

4 Questions to Ask Before You Co-Teach
Julia Weise and Claudia Holguín Mendoza offer lessons on co-teaching a course, including reviewing each other’s research, discussing assessment styles and content delivery, and identifying power dynamics in the classroom. (Inside Higher Ed)

Bringing the Current Into the Classroom
Connecting current social issues with course content can increase student engagement, Kristi Kaeppel writes. Based on her experience, she makes suggestions for raising contentious issues in class discussions, such as doing so incrementally and helping students find common ground. (UConn Graduate Certificate in College Instruction Blog)

Teaching With Cultural Diversity
Classroom diversity can bring many benefits to a classroom, according to Lilia Mantai. She provides tips for ensuring these benefits are realized by strategically increasing positive interaction among students with different cultural backgrounds. (Teche)

Teaching From the Passenger Seat
Leading a discussion session based on a professor’s lecture can be challenging for many graduate students. David Gooblar offers advice for taking on the new role, demonstrating authority in the classroom, and planning for future lessons. (Vitae)

Fostering Deep Learning in College Teaching
Michael Harris’s takeaways from his learning center’s Teaching Effectiveness Symposium include framing a course with questions that encourage student curiosity and providing opportunities for students to try, fail, and receive feedback. (Higher Ed Professor)

Partner News

Kansas State Community College: KCKCC joins with ACUE to launch student success initiative (Wyandotte Daily)

West Virginia University: West Virginia University reports rising numbers across the board (The Exponent Telegram)

Editor’s note: Babette Moreno, a reader for ACUE’s course, shares her inspiring story about facing the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.

It is rare I would use words like “devastating” or “catastrophic” to describe anything in my life, but over the past two weeks I have seen and experienced what these words really mean. Like many Houstonians, I heard warnings from the news about Harvey but thought, “Not me. I’ve never flooded.” In fact, I added HBO to my cable lineup so I could finally catch up on Game of Thrones. Although initially I thought the news had overdramatized the storm, by early Sunday I saw the park across the street begin to fill with water and a small pool forming in my driveway. I packed a few suitcases and filled a backpack with my passport and laptop. I slept upstairs on Sunday, and when I woke up the next morning, I was met with a surreal scene. The water surrounded my house, basically leaving me on an island.

I sat on the bed upstairs thinking, “Okay, now what?” At that moment, I heard a banging on my door and assumed the coast guard was there to evacuate me. Instead, it was one of my neighbors (whom I had never met) coming to get me out of the house. I grabbed my backpack, my husband’s naturalization papers, and—for some reason—a big can of bug spray before leaving my house and all that I owned. It wasn’t until the following day that I was able to return to my home, which was completely flooded on the first floor.

Never before have I experienced the outreach of hope and support that I saw that day and continue to see throughout Houston. My neighbors, most of whom I met for the first time, brought brooms, sheetrock cutters, fans, and anything else that would help with the cleanup. Total strangers have come by to drop off meals, tools, and cleaning supplies and lend able hands to our labor. As unfortunate as this experience has been, and continues to be, the outpouring of support and kindness makes me so proud to be a Houstonian and confident we will get through this together (though I do look forward to having walls and doors again on my first floor).

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, I have been determined to keep up with my work to maintain a sense of normalcy. As a national reader for ACUE’s course, I hold a position that requires me to read participants’ end-of-module reflections and provide quality feedback within 48 hours. This semester, I’m reading about 50 reflections per week from course-takers nationwide who may or may not have been affected by Harvey. I chose to continue reading reflections during this time because it is one of the only “normal” things I can do. Each evening, after resetting the fans and checking the progress of the drying wood in my home, I sit down to read about how educators across the country are faring in their classrooms as they implement new teaching practices and report on the positive outcomes they observe with their students. As an educator myself, I feel so connected to these colleagues from different colleges and universities, especially now as they start the semester during a time when so many are trying to recover from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.

As we begin to move forward here in Houston, my thoughts and prayers go out to those who are struggling in the aftermath of these two major hurricanes. For those who are part of college and university communities that were impacted, I know you will overcome and be a great source of strength and encouragement for your students. For those who live in states that were not directly affected, know that we appreciate every call and email of encouragement. Together, we can rebuild.

To contribute to the Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma relief efforts, visit the One America Appeal website.

This week’s news headlines unpack the significance of a new survey about student loneliness on campus and explore ways to keep students motivated well beyond their first year.

The Motivation Cliff

For first-year students, academic motivation often peaks early. Descriptive feedback and intrinsic carrots are a couple ways to keep the drive alive for all students. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

A Thread About Our Students

Characterizing the incoming class of first-year students as a cultural monolith made up entirely of “digital natives” or “millennials” is potentially damaging, Kevin Seeber writes. (Inside Higher Ed)

The Future of Educational Technology

In the finale of a summer-long podcast series about education technology, Michael Feldstein emphasizes that technology should be used to support effective pedagogy and offers some criteria to evaluate new products. (Teach Better)

The Real Campus Scourge
An American College Health Association survey of 28,000 students at 51 colleges revealed that more than 60 percent report feeling “very lonely” in the past 12 months. Experts say more candid conversations about the transition to college are needed, writes Frank Bruni. (New York Times)

Design Learning Outcomes to Change the World
To be successful, learners must understand how given knowledge will help them reach their goals. Cathy Davidson shares how she designs learning outcomes with students in mind. (Inside Higher Ed)

Editor’s note: This post is written by ACUE Chief Academic Officer Penny MacCormack, EdD. 

The recent Chronicle of Higher Education article on Clarkson University brings helpful attention to important service performed by today’s graduate students. Across higher education, we focus time and resources on the professional needs of our faculty, both full-time tenure-track and part-time, or adjunct, educators. But what about our “third” teaching force—our graduate teaching assistants?   

Estimates by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics find over 135,000 graduate students employed as teaching assistants, holding more than 20 percent of part-time teaching positions in the United States. We believe that their classes, breakout sections, and labs provide students with important and personalized learning opportunities. But we should reexamine this assumption.   

In a case of “cultural reproduction,” graduate students’ pedagogical preparation typically mirrors that of the profession they seek to enter. Doctoral training prepares them as subject matter experts and researchers, but often overlooks the basics of good teaching. Absent formal and comprehensive training in evidence-based teaching practices, they do what we’ve all done, in one way or another: teach the way we were taught and perhaps pick up some useful approaches along the way.   

What a contrast to the extensive preprofessional training required in other fields—and that higher education itself delivers. We would never send a surgeon into an operating room without foundational training and practice in surgery. Law schools’ case methods and moot courts prepare aspiring attorneys for the actual work they will encounter. And yet with higher education, the canard persists. Simply because we excelled in our own schooling does not mean we know how to help others excel in theirs. 

Clarkson University is challenging this status quo. Incoming graduate students participate in a pedagogy “boot camp.” The small private university in Potsdam, New York is requiring those science and engineering doctoral candidates who will also teach at the university to learn about effective teaching practices and implement the techniques in simulated classrooms. The effort is enhancing the quality of undergraduate instruction at Clarkson and will distinguish its PhDs when they enter the professoriate. 

Participants shared with Chronicle reporter Vimal Patel how they learned to better connect with and motivate students, integrate technology into lessons, and adjust their teaching to the latest findings from the cognitive sciences. Practicing these skills is making their work more rewarding. As one participant noted, teaching has become “unusually fulfilling.” 

Clarkson is responding to a candid understanding of who is responsible for student learning and the support necessary to promote student success. Its focus on STEM majors is a shrewd place to start, given the economic opportunities in these fields and the need to graduate more women and students from underrepresented backgrounds.   

But Clarkson, and other institutions, need not stop there. Every student deserves, in fact is expecting and paying for, a high-quality college experience. This must include instruction replete with the evidence-based teaching practices that help students learn more, persist in their work, and graduate ready for what life will bring.

This week, we bring you insights and research-based practices that faculty can use this semester to ensure students are poised to succeed.

From the ACUE community blog:

Avoiding Stage Fright: Feeling nervous is natural. Being overly prepared is one way to reduce those first-day nerves, explains Dr. Linda Nilson.

Preparing Your Syllabus: Michael Wesch talks about how to design a syllabus that both communicates essential information and facilitates student success.

Sparking Engaging Discussions: Stephen Brookfield shares how to start your discussion on the right foot.

Helping Underprepared Students: Experts explain what it takes to motivate and support underprepared students.

News in brief

The latest news and opinions in higher education.

Reeling Them in Early

David Gooblar advises new instructors to focus on engaging students, making their subjects exciting—and relaxing. (Vitae)

What First Years Might Not Know & What To Do About It
Incoming students may be missing some basic understandings about college classwork, according to Anne Trubek. In this series of tweets, she highlights some of the gaps that instructors may need to address in those early days, from study habits to classroom conduct. (Profhacker)

Ready to Feel Old? Time for the Mind-Set List
To help faculty relate with incoming students, Beloit College has released its latest edition of the “mind-set” list, which highlights some of the cultural and technological forces that have shaped the Class of 2021. (Inside Higher Ed)

Six Steps for Colleges to Inspire Innovation
Bryant University President Ronald Machtley aims to inspire innovation in the classroom by adopting measures that encourage a “design thinking” approach to instruction. (University Business)

Revisiting Classroom Laptop Bans from the Intersections of Disability, Race, and Ethnicity

Elspeth Slayter writes that bans on using laptops in the classroom could unintentionally discriminate against students with disabilities and other unique learning needs. (Elspeth Slayter)

Demanding Kinder Classrooms Doesn’t Make You a Snowflake
Instructors must strive to accommodate the different goals and expectations that many students have about college. (The Walrus)

This week, one instructor reveals what she learned when she asked her students to be candid, and higher education leaders describe a program they implemented for promoting faculty morale.

“Don’t Take Our Failures Personally”
When Nicole Matos asked her students what they wanted their instructors to understand about their learning, they advised her to allow them to show emotions in class, offer multiple chances to succeed, and not take students’ struggles personally. (Vitae)

6 Design Principles for Educational “Escape Rooms”
Escape Rooms, which involve finding clues and solving puzzles, can be innovative learning tools if they align to clear learning outcomes and adhere to sound pedagogical approaches, writes Jeff Cain. (From Mind to Keyboard)

Toward a Culture of Self-Care
Shari Tarver Behring, Carolyn Jeffries, and Michael Spagna describe how California State University, Northridge, created a self-care program for faculty that they report yields more engaged employees, promotes higher morale, inspires innovative research, and offers valuable role models. (Inside Higher Ed)

From ORID to ORIT: Focused Conversations in the Classroom
Jen Allan uses a method she calls ORIT (Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, and Takeaways) to facilitate conversations about difficult topics in the classroom. The structure allows students to acknowledge their feelings and hones their critical thinking skills, she writes. (The Global Lorax)

Not All PhD Supervisors Are Natural Mentors—Some Need Training
Recalling a personal experience with an unsupportive supervisor, a PhD candidate suggests that faculty receive training in constructive criticism and how to encourage students to persist. (The Guardian)

Partner News

City College of San Francisco: City College enrollment up with free tuition for SF residents (San Francisco Chronicle)

University of Southern Mississippi: ‘Easy and smooth’ transition: Making sure new students thrive in college environment (Hattiesburg American)

West Virginia University: WVU freshmen enrollment hits record (Mineral Daily News Tribune)