Faculty Focus

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

So then, why do so many educators lecture and click through PowerPoints for 30-,40-, or even 60-minutes at a time with no breaks or learning activities? Reflecting on my experiences as a student, I know how tough it is to pay attention during these longer lectures and wish instructors had a different way to deliver them.

Lecturing 105

Lecturing Attention Students Discussions 105

Scholarly Teacher

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

At times, however, that stone may feel like a boulder, especially to research faculty who are used to delivering lectures and to whom the switch to activity-based learning may seem like a daunting and demanding venture into unfamiliar territory. 2023; Hsu & Goldsmith, 2021; Venus & Sharma, 2024). Two birds with one stone.

Lecturing 98

Lecturing Active Learning Activities STEM 98

Faculty Focus

MAY 11, 2025

As the capacity of AI grows to complete increasingly complex tasks, we (as college instructors) may wonder what we can offer our students in the age of AI. Why College Instructors Matter: A Student’s Perspective I had a conversation with one of my students recently about this exact question. Schoeder, 2024).

Instructors 115

Instructors Motivation Critical Thinking Students 115

k12 Digest

MAY 19, 2025

Lecture is a common passive learning practice. And while there is some value to lecture and some passive learning strategies, there is a much greater benefit from active learning strategies. work with a partner to light a bulb using the materials provided for you).

Science 130

Science Education Motivation Lecturing 130

Edsurge

JANUARY 11, 2021

Yet as instructors in the new world of online education, we have access to ever-increasing amounts of data—from recorded lecture videos, electronically submitted homework, discussion forums, and online quizzes and assessments—that may give us insights into individual student learning.

Teaching 214

Teaching Instructors Quizzes Intelligence 214

Edsurge

JANUARY 14, 2021

As the pandemic has forced more teaching online, plenty of instructors have been trying to figure out the best way to keep students’ attention and interest with lecture videos or Zoom sessions. It’s almost like this symphony that the instructor is the heart of.” That’s not to say that the transparent whiteboard is ineffective.

Instructors 218

Instructors Lecturing Teachers Attention 218

eSchool News

MAY 26, 2016

A growing number of today’s instructors also fall into this group. Turn lectures into a 2-way conversation. Students who are used to highly interactive communication often have difficulty adjusting to traditional classroom lectures, where they are expected to silently take notes while the instructor speaks.

Gamification 199

Gamification Lecturing Instructors Communication 199

Faculty Focus

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

So then, why do so many educators lecture and click through PowerPoints for 30-,40-, or even 60-minutes at a time with no breaks or learning activities? Reflecting on my experiences as a student, I know how tough it is to pay attention during these longer lectures and wish instructors had a different way to deliver them.

Lecturing 97

Lecturing Attention Students Discussions 97

Faculty Focus

MAY 18, 2025

Enacting equity pedagogy as an essential component of multicultural education (Banks & Banks, 1995) requires instructors to become change agents. Be open and welcome student questions. Provide Closed Captioning on posted videos (lectures, resources, etc.). Jennifer E. Garland, Ph.

Accessibility 97

Accessibility Disabilities Learning Disabilities Special Education 97

Ask a Tech Teacher

APRIL 28, 2025

This shift raises critical questions about the future of education: How will teachers adapt their roles? This shift raises questions about the efficacy and long-term viability of conventional education methods. As a result, your role involves creating a learning atmosphere that encourages questioning and exploration.

Hybrid Learning 141

Hybrid Learning Learning Styles Study Critical Thinking 141

Edsurge

JULY 27, 2023

But pulling off these “assignment makeovers,” as some instructors are calling them, turns out to be challenging, and what works differs significantly depending on the subject matter and type of assignment. Some of those instructors are using tools that attempt to detect text written by bots, such as GPTZero and a new tool by Turnitin.

Assignments 148

Assignments Instructors Writing History 148

Edsurge

APRIL 22, 2020

Option 1: Paper-based teaching Point a camera at a piece of paper, write on it and lecture. And here’s what your student will see: Option 2: Whiteboard or easel teaching Point a camera at yourself while lecturing in front of a whiteboard or easel+paper pad. Schedule lectures at the assigned time slot for the class 3.

Teaching 209

Teaching Lecturing Instructors Disabilities 209

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

After all, in-person was seen as the gold standard, and the question was whether that could be faithfully reproduced online. And now that campuses are back from pandemic restrictions, many instructors are trying to incorporate those remote practices into their in-person teaching.

Teaching 218

Teaching Lecturing Blended Courses Instructors 218

Edsurge

MARCH 11, 2020

First, the tips: The Simplest Way to Go Online is to Shift to a Video Conference Platform Stachowiak says that just lecturing to a webcam instead of an in-person class isn’t the best way to teach online, but it is the easiest way to switch. Or read the highlights here, edited and condensed for clarity and readability.

Instructors 202

Instructors Teaching Multiple Choice Questions Ethics 202

eSchool News

JULY 21, 2016

Flipping your class by having students watch lecture videos for their homework can lead to richer discussions about the content, but only if students come to class prepared. It also makes sure teachers are prepared to address students’ key questions and areas of confusion—without creating more work for the instructor.

Lecturing 189

Lecturing Textbooks Instructors Discussions 189

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Since the pandemic, more instructors at schools and colleges appear to have embraced “flipped learning ,” the approach of asking students to watch lecture videos before class so that class time can be used for active learning. Finally, instructors assess the student work and give feedback. “I

Lecturing 211

Lecturing Learning Instructors Failure 211

Edsurge

OCTOBER 22, 2020

To stave off this potential defection, how can we instructors promote virtual community? One of the most empirically supported best practices of online education is for the instructor to “be present.” In an online-only world, it’s imperative for students to see you as a human being, not merely as an instructor.

Instructors 208

Instructors Lecturing Course Evaluations Feedback 208

Edsurge

APRIL 8, 2020

As professors and K-12 teachers adjust to the sudden move to online teaching, one question keeps coming up: How much of class time should be done live—known in education parlance as “synchronous” teaching—and how much should be done so that students can do the work at their convenience—or “asynchronous” teaching.

Teaching 218

Teaching Instructors Distance Learning Lecturing 218

Edsurge

OCTOBER 27, 2020

That question is the topic of a new book out this month by James Lang, called “ Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It. One of the things that I talk about in the book is the presence of the instructor, and how felt that presence is in the actual space of a classroom. So what are educators to do?

Instructors 218

Instructors Attention Education Lecturing 218

Edsurge

MARCH 18, 2022

In the pandemic many higher ed faculty, forced onto Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms, have continued teaching online just as they always did face to face, delivering lectures over streaming video as they did in person. In fact, many college instructors have been downright grumpy about having been thrown into a new teaching format.

Teaching 175

Teaching Lecturing Instructors Learning 175

Faculty Focus

JUNE 18, 2023

In a face-to-face class, students see the instructor and other students and, even if not interacting with them directly, know they are not alone. But asynchronous courses, and especially asynchronous independent study courses, present a different scenario with challenges for both instructors and students. Who is my instructor?”

Instructors 105

Instructors Syllabus Assignments Feedback 105

Edsurge

APRIL 27, 2023

The tech itself raises a host of challenging questions. He points to research that shows that some students learn better from male instructors, while others learn better from female ones. He says initial results show that students responded more positively to computer-generated instructors that read as female.

Lecturing 181

Lecturing Instructors English Textbooks 181

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 19, 2021

The most controversial new tech tool for colleges since the start of the pandemic is automated proctoring, which aims to detect cheating on online exams by using algorithms that watch students via their webcam and look for suspicious patterns of behavior—often sending clips of questionable moments to professors for later review.

Exams 181

Exams Lecturing Instructors Testing 181

Edsurge

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Even vocal proponents of HyFlex admit it’s not widely popular among college instructors. He says instructors who felt forced to quickly allow for remote options or teach remotely are now eager to get back to what they consider normal. As one instructor wrote in an essay last year , “everyone lost something in HyFlex courses.

Teaching 206

Teaching Instructors Lecturing Blended Courses 206

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

These days students can have tools like Google’s NotebookLM turn their lecture notes into a podcast , where sunny-sounding AI bots banter and riff on key points. It’s not as simple as assuming that students are all cheaters, the instructor stresses. And those summaries aren’t just a series of quippy text in bullet points.

Study 214

Study Lecturing Instructors Students 214

Edsurge

JUNE 25, 2020

There are still many unanswered questions about what that might look like in practice, as colleges try to balance safety through social distancing while making teaching and other campuses experiences meaningful and effective. These were the questions tackled this week during a live online discussion, part of our monthly EdSurge Live series.

Lecturing 168

Lecturing Instructors Communication Questions 168

Edsurge

JUNE 6, 2024

It’s a game-changing shift,” says Marc Watkins, a lecturer of writing and rhetoric at the University of Mississippi and director of the university’s AI Summer Institute for Teachers of Writing. The software will automatically use your recording to make notes, flashcards and quiz questions,” she says in the promotional video.

Lecturing 215

Lecturing Education Assignments Syllabus 215

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Student-centered approaches such as active learning , in which faculty facilitate opportunities for small-group collaboration and minimize lecture time, have been linked to improved student performance. Another version of this approach supplements large lectures with smaller interactive sections.

STEM 217

STEM Lecturing Math Beliefs 217

Edsurge

AUGUST 1, 2024

Many teachers and professors are spending time this summer experimenting with AI tools to help them prepare slide presentations, craft tests and homework questions, and more. As more instructors experiment with using generative AI to make teaching materials, an important question bubbles up.

Teaching 217

Teaching Education Ethics Instructors 217

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

As college classes start up this fall, instructors are handing out syllabi and pointing students to official platforms for turning in assignments and participating in class discussions. But because these online platforms are easy to hide from instructors and are available 24/7, they can be trickier for students and professors to navigate.

Exams 199

Exams Instructors Students Lecturing 199

Edsurge

OCTOBER 17, 2023

He argues that the traditional lecture method for teaching physics and other STEM fields has been proven ineffective, and that shifts to more active methods can greatly improve learning outcomes to make sure the next generation of researchers can make the next Nobel-worthy breakthroughs. You’ve famously compared lecturing to bloodletting.

Teaching 196

Teaching Lecturing Evaluation Teaching Evaluations 196

Edsurge

JUNE 19, 2018

And those lists offer a telling snapshot of how MOOCs are evolving and what their impact is on the instructors and institutions offering them. In some ways a key question for MOOCs, even after all these years, is: Can other subjects be delivered online as well as computer science? Self-help courses might be one viable competitor.

Teaching 167

Teaching Lecturing Instructors Quizzes 167

Edsurge

JANUARY 2, 2019

Every new version of Microsoft PowerPoint allowed instructors to embed more and more media and wow students with visually appealing graphics. And improved access to devices and high-speed Wi-Fi means that traditional classrooms lectures need not be limited to the physical classroom space. Provide opportunities for students to reflect.

Technology 167

Technology Teaching Intellectual Development Instructors 167

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

The educators sat through lectures on pedagogy, the finer points of math and how to apply it to actual biological problems. This idea is what drew instructors to sweaty Cambridge in July. The session was meant to catalyze change, encouraging those instructors to open their own revised courses modeled on the ones being taught at UCLA.

Math 218

Math Instructors Science STEM 218

Edsurge

MAY 24, 2018

Faculty assign homework to expose students to a new concept before they arrive to class, and use class time to ask questions and do more-active learning. There, students enrolled in the online or in-person course can access a discussion board about the course to ask questions or see how others got through a certain challenge.

Lecturing 161

Lecturing Learning STEM Instructors 161

Edsurge

JANUARY 31, 2023

But getting and holding the attention of students has become more difficult since the pandemic, according to many college instructors around the country. A couple months ago I visited a big public university – Texas State University – and observed three large lecture classes, to get a sense of what teaching looks like these days.

Attention 189

Attention Lecturing Instructors Students 189

Edsurge

MAY 13, 2020

Looking for an easy way to become a better online instructor? At a time when millions of educators have been thrown into remote learning with no formal training, any answer to that question might seem too good to be true. The in-depth workshop or multi-day training can come later.) This is a very brief recap of the conversation.

Online Learning 215

Online Learning Interdisciplinary Lecturing Learning 215