Teaching Tip: Tis the Season

This week’s tips is more about surviving the effects of teaching than teaching itself.  Look around — do you see piles of papers and exams to grade, reports to submit, and just a general seemingly unbearable amount of chaos? That sounds like December to me.  At this time of year, even when we “take breaks,” [...]

Teaching Tip #12 Situational despair: The end of semester paper

So, you gave a written assignment, with some directions and maybe even a rubric.  Now you’re sitting in your favorite grading spot and reading your students’ work.   The MIA thesis, the failing logic, the absent evidence, the atrocious editing – where did it all go so wrong?  Unfortunately it’s probably too late for this semester’s [...]