Tips on Teaching

Fascinating article today in IHE from a young whippersnapper about what he has learned about college teaching in his first few years in the classroom, all before earning the PhD. I don't have time to do much commentary, but a lot of it looks like what I might have said when I was still wet behind the ears in grad school. And a lot of it is very good advice. Nice way to start the semester. I may get back to this and fill in a few remarks later, but one that I do want to mention is his policy on cell phones. I have moved in that direction as well. I make a mental note of who is not engaged at a time when we are doing something I know is important, and then compare my mental notes to their performance when the exam is graded. Most fail to succeed at their multi-tasking exercise. He also has a rather amusing set of fifteen tips for students. Amusing because getting students to do most of these things strikes me as wildly optimistic! And some are utterly irrelevant to science or engineering majors.