I have long observed in my teaching practice that the most memorable learning tends to occur after students are able to pinpoint gaps in their own knowledge or understanding of course material. Put another way: failure is an effective teacher. However, many college-level courses are delivered in a mode of instruction traditional to higher education: lectures followed by summative assessments, such as term papers or exams. The feedback students receive is delivered and received not as an opportunity for reflection or further inquiry but as a final, definitive grade.
Category: In the Classroom
Engaging with Technology: My Experience as a Blind Graduate Instructor
Kendal Lyssy is a doctoral candidate studying communication at the University of Missouri. Her research program explores family difference through the telling of narratives. She studies how parents tell their children narratives about such topics as disability, adoption, and religion.
What It Takes to Make Scientific Discoveries Happen
Dr. Elisabeth Adkins Marnik, PhD, is the Science Education & Outreach Director at MDI Biological Laboratory and the Chief Scientific Officer of Those Nerdy Girls.
The Importance of Failing Forward in Science and Beyond
When I asked a group of college instructors how their students responded to setbacks in their courses, the responses were familiar: increasing disengagement and absence, avoidance of assignments, cheating, and even anger. In all these cases, students are seeing mistakes/errors as off-ramps taking them away from the successful completion of a course of study. One of the most meaningful things an instructor can do is to flip that narrative, helping students see their mistakes/errors as on-ramps to more powerful and lasting learning.
Using the Norton Critical Edition of WIDE SARGASSO SEA in a High School Literature Survey
Pamela J. Franics, PhD, outlines the many ways the Norton Critical Edition of Wide Sargasso Sea brings a deeper analysis to her classroom, including teaching her students the importance of critical literary lenses, context, and backstory when analyzing text.
AI: An Unexpected Cure for Faculty Burnout
The fear of technology replacing the human element in education is real. I’ve thought about these concerns: Will AI encourage laziness? What about bias? What if it makes mistakes? But I’ve found a way to use AI that isn’t replacing me as an educator; it’s supporting me. And in a time when faculty burnout is rampant, that support makes all the difference.
Pedagogy in the Precarious Present: Tips for Teaching Effectively in Challenging Times
The past several semesters have been tremulous with more to come, topping even the anxiety-laden and stress-producing “pandemic semesters.” What new edict will come down today? Will my class end up on the news? Will I be fired, or will my department be shut down? These aren’t just philosophical questions in 2025.
Teaching Students to Write Award-Winning Essays
In Spring 2020, I started teaching in the Second Chance Pell program, and I was fortunate to have some gifted students. I decided to submit a couple student essays to the Norton Writer’s Prize competition. One of those essays won the First-Year Writer category, which recognizes original nonfiction by undergraduate writers, and another one was selected for publication in The Norton Field Guide to Writing (with Readings), Sixth Edition.
Making Film Personal: Selecting Engaging Movies for My Students
Whenever I’m teaching a film course at the beginning of a new semester, I am transported back to my own experience as a freshman taking my first film class at the University of Michigan, an introduction to cinema course taught by Hubert Cohen. Professor Cohen, who sadly passed away in March 2024 after teaching into his 90s, stood in front of a class of what must have been 250 people and told us, “My plan is to ruin your experience of going to the movies.” Of course, 18-year-old presumptuous me, thought “Who is this guy? And what’s he got to tell me I don’t already know about movies?”
Is It Poetry?: Engaging Students with Taylor Swift
When is the last time any of us saw that question in the popular press or animating everyday conversation? Lately, those words are on everyone’s lips because of the release of Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.