By Doug Ward

The University of Kansas has gained international attention with its work in student-centered learning over the past five years.

By Doug Ward

Howard Gobstein issued both a challenge and a warning to those of us in higher education.

Universities aren’t keeping up with the pace of societal change, he said, and the initiatives to improve education at the local, state and national levels too often work in isolation.

By Doug Ward

The overarching message from a meeting of the University Innovation Alliance was as disturbing as it was clear: Research universities were built around faculty and administrators, not students, and they must tear down systemic barriers quickly and completely if they hope to help students succeed in the future.

By Derek Graf

As instructors, we sometimes look for ways to create big changes in our courses, departments, and degree programs. Searching for complete overhauls to our teaching practices, we risk losing sight of the small changes we can make in our next class meeting.

By Doug Ward 

From the trenches, the work to improve college teaching seems interminably slow.

By Doug Ward

Strong beliefs about volatile issues can quickly turn class discussions tumultuous, especially during election season.

Rather than avoid those discussions, though, instructors should help students learn to work through them civilly and respectfully. That can be intimidating, especially in classes that don’t usually address volatile issues.

Here’s another approach to using silence as a motivator for active learning.

I’ve written previously about how Genelle Belmas uses classroom silence to help students get into a “flow state” of concentration, creativity, and thinking. Kathryn Rhine, as associate professor of anthropology, uses silence in as part of an activity that challenges students to think through class material and exchange ideas but without speaking for more than 30 minutes.

By Doug Ward

The end of a semester is always hectic, but it’s important to spend time reflecting on your classes while things are still fresh in your mind.

Those of us in higher education like to think of ourselves as preparing students for the future.

That’s a lofty goal with a heavy burden. Predicting the future is a fool’s game, and yet as educators we have accepted that responsibility by offering degrees that we tell our students will have relevance for years to come.

By Doug Ward

Education has always been a balancing act. In our classes, we constantly choose what concepts to emphasize, what content to cover, what ideas to discuss, and what skills to practice. As I wrote last week, the choices we make will influence our students throughout their careers.