Teaching in Higher Ed

Productivity

Five ways to save time as a professor

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

5timesavers

Everyone enters the “contest” of who is the busiest at some point in their lives. As someone who is a Mom of a 14 month-old, a full time professor, a person who subscribes to 121 RSS feeds (RIP in June, Google reader), and who can't wait to learn what's happening in the world of Mad Men, I know the value I place on time savers.

Here are five of the biggest tools/approaches that I have found to save the most time, in my role as a professor: [Read more…] about Five ways to save time as a professor

What's in my bag?

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Michael Hyatt's recent podcast on the tools that he uses to support his work inspired me. After almost ten years in higher education, I have certainly had my share of successes and failures when it comes to tools that I've used in my role as a professor.

This is the start of a series of posts I will do on the resources I have come to rely upon in facilitating learning. Since the majority of my teaching is in a hybrid format, with approximately 2/3 of the learning experience being in a traditional classroom, I decided to start with the answer to the question:

WHAT'S IN MY BAG? [Read more…] about What's in my bag?

What’s in my bag?

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Michael Hyatt's recent podcast on the tools that he uses to support his work inspired me. After almost ten years in higher education, I have certainly had my share of successes and failures when it comes to tools that I've used in my role as a professor.

This is the start of a series of posts I will do on the resources I have come to rely upon in facilitating learning. Since the majority of my teaching is in a hybrid format, with approximately 2/3 of the learning experience being in a traditional classroom, I decided to start with the answer to the question:

WHAT'S IN MY BAG? [Read more…] about What's in my bag?

Use checklists to teach more effectively and efficiently

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Lukes_smile

I've been on maternity leave this semester, loving the time I get to bond with our first child. As I think toward next semester, I'm working toward preparing for classes more effectively than I ever have before. I'm going to be teaching a full load and want to also continue to invest lots of time in our son's life.

One way I can become more efficient is to build checklists as I prepare, to make future class prep faster. [Read more…] about Use checklists to teach more effectively and efficiently

Attendance App just keeps getting better

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Most people don't enjoy learning to use new technology as much as I do and just want it to work “out of the box.” The iPhone application, Attendance, is one of those apps that is super simple to get started with – – and keeps getting better as you learn more, and as the developer adds more features to it.

Visit the Attendance page at:

http://www.dave256apps.com/attendance/

and get ready to make taking attendance and learning student names a whole lot easier.

My method for taking attendance is to have students sign a sign-in sheet as they enter the class. Then, I use the Attendance app during class to randomly call on students to assess how well they are retaining and absorbing the information. After class, I enter the attendance for that day on the iPhone app. Finally, I scan the sign-in sheets for my classes either on my scanner in my home office, or via the scanning app I use on my iPhone (GeniusScan), so I have a digial copy of the signed sheet that can be accessed at a later date, if there is a question as to whether or not they signed in that day.