Reading Time: 5 minutes Blake Fetty is a Lecturer of Spanish at the University of Central Oklahoma   Every teacher must face this conundrum on a regular basis, especially towards the beginning of their career: “How can I create engaging and effective lesson plans for my students without dedicating an inordinate amount of my time to lesson planning?” In our first few years of teaching, this task is daunting. We have not yet acquired enough resources and teaching materials to cover all our curriculum. It can feel like our lesson plans are bare bones and in need of sprucing! Where do we turn ..read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes Daisy Annan is a Financial Economics major at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County   For a student, the educational leap between high school and higher education is quite significant. Teachers create multiple college readiness activities and courses that fail to achieve their purpose: to prepare students for higher education. In high school, students study through memorization, and never truly ingest any information. In college, they have to understand the material and apply it to real-world situations. It is one of the reasons so many first-year students u ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes Kierstan Taylor is a Human Services and Legal Studies Major at Ivy Tech Community College.   Whether taking classes on campus, online or hybrid, study habits and time management skills can make or break student success. Many college students are trying to balance chaotic schedules that involve classes, social and extracurricular activities, work and family. Since COVID I’ve had to change many habits. Once I learned these study tips and time management strategies, clarity and connection began to sink in. Feel free to share my personal time management and college stu ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes Anitre Bell is a College Success Facilitator and Instructor at Community College of Beaver County   Cultural differences affect a lot more than we like to let on. In some situations, those differences can mean life or death, and in others, the impacts are less dramatic. For example, people’s cultural differences can affect how others converse with them. For some, it affects the way they’re treated in a luxury store. The education system is one place where cultural differences can have a serious impact on students’ experiences and outcomes.   High School Cultur ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Dr. Billi Bromer is an Associate Professor of Education at Brenau University   A process for earning digital badges can provide a simple way for you and your students to share responsibility for student success in your online course. Digital badges can be provided to students who complete additional instructional activities that increase knowledge related to the course content or enhance valuable course-related skills. The “win” for an instructor is the opportunity to provide that little bit of extra information in a course that adds to student learning. For studen ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Dr. Jewrell Rivers is a Professor of Sociology, Marriage and Family and Criminal Justice at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College   No two students learn the same. So, as faculty, we should adapt our teaching to fit students’ learning styles. To better address and engage your students, I recommend adapting or designing a course to incorporate a multi-pronged approach that supports four main learning styles – visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic. While this isn’t an exhaustive list of learning styles, they’re a strong foundation for a diverse set of acti ..read more

Reading Time: 5 minutes Diantha Ellis is Associate Professor of Business in the Stafford School of Business of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College   Why is it so easy to binge a show like The Witcher, but so hard to keep students focused throughout class? The two are roughly the same length of time, give or take a few minutes. Yet, you can sense the rising anticipation that class is almost over as your students surreptitiously (or openly) prepare to leave while the clock approaches the fifty-minute mark. What does The Witcher have that we don’t (other than Henry Cavill), you ask? Twists ..read more

Reading Time: 6 minutes Paul Coats is a course supervisor and core lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University   For years, students have cited employment as their primary reason for attending higher education institutions. Their reasons vary from landing a good-paying job, to expanding their employment opportunities, to learning key skills necessary for their future job – from social media literacy to a global mindset. However, there has been a marked increase recently in the number of students who believe that the value of their education is not worth the ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Lisa Heller Boragine is a Tenured Associate Professor of Communication and the Chair of the Department of Arts & Communication at Cape Cod Community College   Teaching is a privilege. I love the connections that I make with students both in and out of the classroom. Throw together a mix of engagement, fun, learning and curiosity and my passion for teaching really ignites when I see that alchemy in action, creating new opportunities and experiences for students. Anyone who has taught for a while can tell you it’s magic when a class comes alive. The COVID-19 pand ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes Anitre Bell is the Student Athlete Academic Liaison at The Community College of Beaver County.   The last few years of teaching have been challenging for everyone. Education as we know it has forever changed. I often asked myself, how will I connect with students in this climate?  The word simplicity came to mind. When your environment has turned inside out, and processes flipped upside down, returning to basic principles is key. So here are four basic time-saving teaching hacks I have found myself returning to in order to make teaching in these transitional t ..read more