Teaching in higher ed, there are many times when we add requirements or resources to our class, only to wonder later if they are beneficial to the students. Below are some conversations with a freshman that echo my experiences with students over the last few years as...
I get stressed, sometimes, by all of the grading and emailing that’s required of me in the middle of the semester, and by the unending to-do list I keep running in my brain. For work, I have a three column to-do list that, when not woefully neglected, works really...
Perhaps some of you have seen the video circulating on Facebook lately that features a collection of college students supposedly lining up for a race. But before the race begins, students answer questions that allow some of them to move ahead of their peers. The point...
I got a teaching ego check recently. I agreed to teach a section of ENG220 Technical Writing this term, my first online teaching experience. No problem, I thought, I got this. I was confident going in, but teaching online has been a lot more challenging than I...
Violent communication in our society is a result of training. We yell at each other, and we blame, judge, dominate and evaluate. According to Marshall Rosenberg, this form of communication is not our natural state. Rosenberg, founder of The Center for Nonviolent...
I recently returned from a conference where the biggest takeaway had to do with the thoughts from several Fortune 500 CEO’s. The topic had to do with engaging senior leadership in organizational design and idea flow but became more about establishing enthusiasm for...
Twenty-one per cent of NMC students who responded to the Learner Engagement Survey this spring said they were likely to use a food pantry if we had one. Ten per cent said that they often cannot afford to eat three meals a day. I was really surprised by that....
What’s in it for me? Thinking back to August, and our professional development (PD) day, I have been thinking about our aim for a more experiential learning environment (Kolb’s learning theory). Comments overheard during PD included lots of examples of experiences we...
There is a deep well of knowledge that not everyone knows how to access. Some who access it have no want to share it with others. Some share about the knowledge but they don't share the knowledge itself. Few find the knowledge. Fewer are willing and able to give true...