November 25, 2015

Take 5… blogs on teaching & learning

Posted by Laura Guertin

There are many blogs that highlight ideas on teaching and learning. Why not take a few minutes during this holiday break and explore more of what the online world has to offer beyond GeoEd Trek? If you haven’t seen these five blogs, their posts make for interesting readings and great discussions with colleagues!

The Scholarly Teacher (http://scholarlyteacher.com/)  —  Subtitled “Applying evidenced-based strategies to enrich student learning,” this blog encourages us all to “top, think critically, and reflect about teaching and learning.” The blog was begun in 2014 by Todd Zakrajsek (you may recognize his name from the Lily Conference on College and University Teaching). New posts go online twice a month. Sample posts include:

  • Meeting Your Students as Learners: An Activity for the First Day of Class (Meyers & Smith)
  • Active Processing Using “Quizzes-on-the-Go” (Charney)
  • Establishing & Maintaining Transdisciplinary Courses (Kuban)

The Chronicle of Higher Education blogs (*here, I’m suggesting 2!). For my educational technology news, I’m a fan of The Chronicle’s Wired Campus (http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/) blog on technology and education, as well as ProfHacker (http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/?eio=61142) blog which covers teaching, technology, and productivity. Sample posts include:

  • When the Technology Changes on You (Bali)
  • 5 Tips for Handling Grading in Large Online Classes (Salter)
  • University-Run Boot Camps Offer Students Marketable Skills — but Not Course Credit (Wexler)

The Teaching Professor Blog (http://www.facultyfocus.com/topic/articles/teaching-professor-blog/)  —  The Teaching Professor Blog is written by Dr. Maryellen Weimer, professor emerita at Penn State Berks. The blog features a new weekly post on such topics as: the scholarship of teaching and learning, student engagement, classroom policies, active learning, assignment strategies, grading and feedback, and student performance.

  • Using Grading Policies to Promote Learning (Weimer)
  • Lost in a Sea of Yellow: Teaching Students a Better Way to Highlight (Weimer)
  • Why Students Don’t Attend Office Hours (Weimer)

Improve with Metacognition (http://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/category/blog/)  —  This site primarily focuses on the process of learning academic materials and skills, with an emphasis on metacognition related to learning within the higher education environment. A second emphasis is the process of teaching, i.e. metacognitive instruction. There are two-to-four new postings per month. Sample posts include:

  • Metacognition About Course Design: Creating a Paradigm Shift (Peak)
  • Metacognition and Scaffolding Student Learning (Chew)
  • Comprehension Monitoring: The Role of Conditional Knowledge (Gutierrez)

For fans of sustainability, AASHE (The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) has a list of campus sustainability blogs you can check out. And yes, before anyone points out that I left off the comprehensive Inside Higher Ed site, their blogs go well beyond teaching and learning, and their network is certainly worth exploring. Another blog you can get lost exploring previous posts on is The Scholarly Kitchen, which addresses scholarly publication and communication.

If you have any blogs to suggest, please add them in the Comments field below!