Educator’s Toolbox
Posts about instructional communication and the assessment of student learning and teacher behaviors.
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Experimenting with Pinterest in the college classroom
The article below was featured on the Social Media Club’s Education Blog on September 17, 2012. I embarked on another classroom teaching and learning experiment this fall on Pinterest. One hundred of our students at Queens University of Charlotte were dispatched into the venues and streets of Charlotte as student interns and volunteers during the 2012 Democratic…
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Charlotte and the Convention – recapping #COMM360
Two days of seminars (followed by a week of volunteering) would normally be enough to leave students glassy-eyed and exhausted. The “Charlotte and the Convention” conference at Queens University of Charlotte was a clear exception. After over 30 different speakers and as many topics, students poured out of the classroom enthusiatic about engaging with the Democratic National…
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Charlotte and the Convention
This morning, Jennifer Hull and I appeared on Fox News Rising in Charlotte to promote the COMM 360 experience starting August 30, 2012 at Queens University of Charlotte. Watch the video on the FoxCharlotte website. If you’re interested in joining us for the events, here is the full schedule: Joining us for Charlotte and the…
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Queens students – and Charlotte – can go to school on DNC
Queens students – and Charlotte – can go to school on DNC This column ran in the Charlotte Observer on September 30, 2011 on the opinion/editorial page. The link above will take you to the column on the Observer’s website. Our city might learn a lot from the Democratic National Convention this September, if we…
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Digital Pedagogy: An Experiment with Pinterest
On the topic of teaching with technology, I wrote this in 2007 (published in 2009): As “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001) enter the classroom, instructors must engage these students and expand their burgeoning and often technologically nuanced skills. The incorporation of technologies into classroom instruction challenges students and instructors alike; but, this challenge is both a necessary…
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Pedagogy, then Technology
Want to integrate technology into your classroom? Choose technology that supports your pedagogical aims. That’s the message of my workshop conducted this morning at the Teaching Professor Conference in Washington, DC. Attendees worked together to create opportunities to infuse their courses with technology. I presented 4 experiments that I’ve tried in my classroom with social…
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Learning Strategies for Teaching Professors
The Teaching Professor Conference was full of good teaching ideas and resources. Here are a few from selected panels I attended. For further information on one of these strategies, leave a comment here. Engaging Students in their Own Learning Angie Nippert and Kris Bransford of Concordia University and Karen Moroz of Hamline University The four…
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Why Won’t They Talk? Breaking the norms of the college classroom – #TPC12 Keynote Speaker
“A lecture about discussion is always a bad idea,” says Jay Howard of his keynote speech at the Teaching Professor Conference on June 2, 2012 in Washington, DC. Howard, Professor of Sociology and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Butler University, says effective discussions require careful planning and structuring. Norms exist in…
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The Lively Discussion: Getting students to talk and learn
“Any discussion protocol is a game that you play in class, linked to your course aims,” says Burdick. Using Film Noir as a backdrop for classroom techniques, Dakin Burdick, Director for the Center for Teaching Excellence at Endicott College in Massachusetts, advanced the conversation on classroom discussions at The Teaching Professor Conference June 2, 2012…
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Digital Storytelling and the Hero’s Journey
“Stories are interesting in ways that normal conversation is not,” says David Noah. In Noah’s freshman seminar course at the University of Georgia, students are invited to be part of a hero’s journey* that combines narrative design, digital storytelling, and personal experiences. “I wanted students to journal in a reflective way about their own academic…
J.A.McArthur 