Students are fickle. They want an online course experience, the ability to work at their own pace, in their own environment, wherever that environment is, home, work, school, beach house, neighbor’s house, or Starbuck’s. In all course evaluations, online students report how they want more contact with faculty, how they don’t get email replies back…
One of the best ways to teach, I have discovered, is to be wrong. Say something wrong, show something wrong, do something wrong – such as have some errors in a hand-out, and savvy students will call you out. “Hey, I’m confused. This map is wrong, I think.” Years ago I made some maps with…
My teaching career spans only twenty-years. I have not “heard it all” nor have I “seen it all.” Judging by writing samples which continue to cross my desk I will never achieve either. Interestingly enough, my mentors, with perhaps a decade or so more teaching experience than I, have also not exhausted anecdotes on the…
At times, I think my Announcements for my classes take on the tone of a blog post. My online students do not have the luxury of the 5-10 minutes I spend each class period harping on attitude, perseverance, discipline, and poor defense and shot-blocking in mid-major NCAA basketball conferences. I have to make up for…
One of my favorite weather resource web sites is Unisys Weather (weather.unisys.com). I’ll explain why. First, below is a current weather map for North America. If you examine the color bar at the bottom, you’ll notice a color gradient from black (-100dBZ) to light blue (250dBZ). The color is based on the energy returned to…
The notion “reading is studying” needs to be removed from everyone’s brain. Reading alone is not “studying.” Reading is part of the Process of Learning and Study. When a student tells me “I read the chapter” I say, “that’s a good start. Now go back and re-read it 2 more times, and this time, pay…
Warning: my diatribe below consists of mostly rant, with excerpts of real-world writing samples from previous students. I will also indict most of Kindergarten through High School Education. I say most as the factors with the least blame, in my opinion, are the teachers themselves. However, my attitude towards K-12 teachers is changing, too. I…
What Teachers Make: In Praise of the World’s Greatest Job. By Taylor Mali. Penguin-Putnam Publishing. Hardback. 2012. $12 At 197 pages What Teachers Make is short, sweet and to-the-point. Mali has a wide following, having taught in numerous places, with experiences across curriculums and disciplines. He draws from his wide experiences in this brief collection…
As I write my journal, I am prepping for tonight’s class. Prepping for class nearly always puts me in the frame of mind of, "What the hell am I doing? I can’t teach." I’ve been working through this negative self-talk since I became responsible for teaching courses. So, since August of 1993. Here I sit,…
Technology use in the classroom, whether for K-12 or Higher Education, should not be the exception but the rule. I should point out technology should never replace good, solid teaching or the promotion of good, solid skills, such as working math problems using pencil and paper, or writing using pen and ink. Certain fundamental skills…
Constant Geography 