Teaching – Desert of My Real Life

Disciplinarity Games for Impact Integrated Clusters Teaching

What is an “academic discpline”?

·January 11, 2024

Integrated Capstone (INCAP) classes at Plymouth State University are supposed to engage students in the development of an interdisciplinary signature project. To understand what "interdisciplinary" means, we first have to…

Astrophotography Learning Teaching

Signal to Noise Ratio in Learning

·July 19, 2023

I think those of us who are educators would agree that, since the start of the pandemic, our students are more distracted than ever. In fact, I think most of…

Astrophotography Learning Teaching Wonder

Experiencing Awe

·January 30, 2023

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime celestial event. Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) is approaching Earth for the first time in 50,000 years. Astronomers discovered it in March 2022…

Astrophotography Learning Making Meaning Teaching

Obsession, Learning, and Teaching

·December 27, 2022

I didn't write a single blog post during the Fall semester. My blog post from the end of July gives a little bit of a hint about the reason. In…

Cluster Pedagogy Learning Teaching

Astrophotography and Teaching

·July 29, 2022

I have been interested in photography for years. I have a good understanding of composition, the exposure triangle, depth of field, and many other photographic concepts as well as how…

Habit Formation Learning Teaching

Teaching, Learning, and Atomic Habits

·July 27, 2022

I wrote earlier this year about using the book Atomic Habits by James Clear to think about how to help students develop good academic habits. This summer, group of faculty…

Habit Formation Habits of Mind Teaching

Developing Academic Habits

·February 6, 2022

Last semester, I had a student who told me that he had been the kind of student in high school who just sort of skated through his classes, not taking…

Design Forward Instructional Design Teaching

Teaching Philosophies

·July 7, 2021

In June, a group of Plymouth State University faculty members, including me, participated in "a month-long emergent exploration about the intentional design of teaching and learning," called Design Forward. At…

Critical Instructional Design Design Forward Teaching

The MDA Framework and Teaching

·June 22, 2021

I've been thinking a lot about instructional design lately because I'm participating in Design Forward, "a month-long emergent exploration of the intentional design of teaching and learning" created by Martha…

Cluster Pedagogy Creating Games Teaching

What Can I Salvage?

·May 9, 2021

I don't think anyone would disagree that this has been a challenging year. As part of the work of the Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community at Plymouth State University, my colleague…

Cluster Pedagogy Integrated Clusters Tackling a Wicked Problem Teaching

Adventures in Ungrading

·December 22, 2019

I have been moving away from traditional grading schemes for a while. In teaching the INCAP course in Spring 2019 and Tackling a Wicked Problem in Fall 2019, I have…

Learning Teaching

The Vulnerability of Learning

·January 19, 2019

I spent the last three days talking about learning and teaching at Plymouth State University's January Jamboree and the University System of New Hampshire's Academic Technology Institute meeting. Both events…

Integrated Clusters Teaching

Complex Lives, Tragedies, and Empathy

·December 17, 2018

As the General Education Coordinator at PSU, I've been working on the First Year Seminar Poster Symposium since before the Fall semester started. Like everyone else involved in the event,…

Academia Education Engagement High Impact Practices Innovative Curriculum Integrated Clusters Project-based Learning Teaching Technology

The New Education

·April 30, 2018

I recently read The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University and Prepare Students For a World in Flux by Cathy N. Davidson. Davidson has long been an academic hero…

Education Engagement General Education Teaching

National Survey of Student Engagement

·February 2, 2018

Plymouth State University participates every other year in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which measures student participation in meaningful learning experiences. The survey is given to first year…

Integrated Clusters Open Educational Resources Open Pedagogy Teaching

Creating OERs with Students

·December 30, 2017

With the end of the Fall 2017 semester, I want to record my thoughts about creating the open educational resource (OER) Introduction to Media Studies with students in CM2770 (Intro to Media…

Academia Education Teaching

Disruptive Innovation in Education

·July 6, 2014

I went to a conference sponsored by UBTech a few weeks ago. It was advertised as a "national summit on technology and leadership in higher education" and had a tag…

Teaching Technology

When is Failure Really Failure?

·August 9, 2013

If you are involved in higher education in any way, you have heard about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I first heard of them back in the Fall of 2011…

Games Teaching

Gamification and Education

·June 30, 2013

A trending buzzword in today's digital culture is gamification. According to most sources on the Internet, the term was coined in 2004 by Nick Pelling, a UK-based business consultant who…

Dangers Society Teaching Technology

The Problem with Educational Technology

·December 28, 2011

I don't think anyone would accuse me of being a Luddite. I began to learn to program in the late 1970's when I was in high school, majored in computer…