Now that it’s officially winter break, it’s time to reflect on the past semester and consider what changes you want to make going into the new year. This task can really help improve your teaching practices, along with other elements of your academic life. In today’s post, I go over three teaching reflection activities that you can use to improve your teaching. Each approach is very different from the next, so you can do all three, or just your favorite of the bunch. As teachers, we often ask students to reflect on what they’ve learned in our classrooms. It’s time for us to reflect on our own classroom experiences, as well.
Continue readingErika Romero
PhD Candidate and Education Blogger
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Today is the last day of class at ISU, which means there’s only a couple more weeks until grades are turned in and winter break officially begins. If you don’t have final exams to worry about, your semester might end even earlier! So, what kinds of winter break activities do I recommend for grad students, especially those who teach? Here’s a list of fun and productive activities to try out over the break.
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At this point, you’re probably starting to get distracted more and more by the knowledge of how much you have to get done during this last month of the semester. Grading, final meetings, exams, papers, etc. are all going to be due pretty soon. So, how can you prevent yourself from feeling super overwhelmed? From failing to keep track of an important task and needing to scramble to get it done? In today’s post, I start with a short video with a few simple productivity activities to help keep you on track. Then, I offer a couple extra tips that will help you end the semester on a productivity high note!
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There are about four weeks left in the fall semester, which means times of epic stress and overwhelm are likely coming up in your near future. I’ve already written one post about how to carefully plan this time in ways that account for self-care, but I thought I’d write from a different perspective this semester. There’s a short video you can watch with my six self-care activities suggestions, or you can read the quick list in this post. In any case, let’s take the time to take care of ourselves as the semester ends.
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We are more than halfway through the semester, so hopefully you’ve been able to get most of your students speaking up during class discussions. If you’ve done a Midterm Chat, then you also have a good idea of what students consider to be stronger and weaker elements of your teaching style. But, there are probably still some shy students that you are having trouble getting to speak up in class. They sit quietly in their seats and seem to be listening to your lectures and the class discussions, but you have no idea what their voices sound like. In today’s post, I go over three strategies for communicating with shy students, or those who are just too self-conscious to ask questions in class. If you’d rather see a video version of these strategies, that’s an option for you, too.
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October is here and Halloween falls on a school day this year. As the only holiday I’ve used as inspiration in my classroom, I thought this month would be the perfect time to share my ideas on how to create holiday themed class activities that are fun for your students while still being educational. It’s not about “wasting” the day celebrating a holiday. It’s about taking a break from the usual classroom routine and livening up things a bit (while still staying relevant to your course subject). Here are three ways you can bring your favorite holidays into the classroom.
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