today, in my Bible reading, i came to the following passage: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke…
Category: teaching
Don’t Take Offense at Jesus’ Call
This is one of a series of Lenten devotionals I wrote for our church’s Foreign Missions Ministry and appears on their blog. However, I wanted to share it with you all… Today’s Scripture Focus: Acts 16:1-3 Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer…
10 minutes for thoughts on teaching
Timer’s on… I enjoy teaching. It is the most enjoyable part of my job as a professor. I also hate teaching. It is the most difficult part of my job as a professor. I love teaching because it is a conversation. I have the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals how the theory developed in…
why are we asking the wrong questions about education?!?
[I’m warning you now, this is probably the longest blog post I’ve ever written, but my passion on the issue requires it…] The Chicago Teachers’ strike is compelling news to me for a number of reasons. [For example, why did the union not give parents and students more lead time that a strike might be…
Think-alouds shed light on how students grapple with content (
This week, I received an email from Faculty Focus with the above title. I recommend you check it out for yourself. Here’s a short excerpt that might provide modest motivation for learning how to apply this technique: Even if you didn’t want to use it in a rigorous study design, the idea of listening to…
Who is the student’s most appropriate audience?
Admittedly, I am having trouble developing a title for this post. Broadly speaking, the idea behind my thoughts is that most of my education has been done under a paradigm characterized by two things: I am a consumer of information. I am a producer of information only for the professor. Now, obviously most professors and…
what is education? a generic good with brand-name prices?
As the academic year draws closer, I am getting antsy to start the semester. Not too antsy, since I haven’t yet hit the beach nor completed all my lectures for the upcoming semester, but I’m excited to meet the new class of graduate students, my new advisees, and get started on my second year of…
What constitutes “base training” for instructors?
Today, while reading an article in Running Times Magazine called “Base training basics,” I was reminded that long distance running is a sport in which dividends are paid after years and years and miles and miles of training runs. While in soccer and basketball (my other two favorite sports), athletes are generally winding down in…
the challenge of evaluating students within technicalities but based on truth
I am challenged by what I find is the hardest part about teaching. Well, it’s one of the hardest things about life in general, but especially when teaching or mentoring students you often find yourself in the position of authority or ‘judgment’ on the quality of students’ work and, in some cases, character. This challenge…
#67: learning teaching & understanding undertanding II
This week I received my first set of teaching evaluations… Let’s just say they weren’t pretty at all. I knew they were going to be bad, but they were catastrophic. Among several concerns my students had, one was a previous blog post I had written where I was wrestling with the disconnect between student motivation,…