In This Issue Current Issue Archives

November 2004

The Teaching Professor November 2004 full issue PDF
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A Fair and Reasonable Approach to Deadlines and Late Penalties
By Adam Chapnick, University of Toronto
Although I love to teach, for a number of years, I experienced a great deal of agony while attempting to determine what constituted appropriate grounds for granting a student an extension on a course assignment.

When Teaching Less is More
By David Locher, Missouri Southern State University – Joplin
When I first began teaching sociology, I was determined to cover as much material as possible. The first textbook I used had 23 chapters, and although I knew I could not cover all of them, I sure did try. I distinctly remember hitting an entire chapter’s highlights in one 50-minute period. Even at this breakneck speed, I still felt as if I had let students down by not getting through enough of the material.

Faculty Ratings: Improved With Consultation
Several years ago in this newsletter, we highlighted research that documents that if faculty solicit evaluation feedback from students and then meet with a consultant to discuss the results, their end-of-course ratings improve significantly. A recent study confirms these results yet again and provides good reason for us to revisit this important finding.

Non-Threatening Classroom Environments
By Keith Barker, Catherine Ross, and Gillian Thorne, University of Connecticut
What makes a classroom environment threatening to students? That depends on the student.

To Read or Not to Read PowerPoint Slides
Late last spring we published a piece proposing some rules for effectively using PowerPoint (“Twelve Commandments for Using PowerPoint, TP, June/June, 2004). One of those commandments forbade reading, word-for-word, material printed on the slides. We printed an objection to that rule in our August/September issue, and that motivated another reader to send a link survey on what people find most annoying in PowerPoint presentations.

Study Reveals Faculty Attitudes About Grade Inflation
Most professors believe grade inflation is a problem. Their beliefs are buttressed by some evidence and by accounts that have appeared in widely read media like The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, National Review, and USA Today. But not all the evidence lines up in support of those who believe grade inflation is a rampant problem.

Translating ‘Ideal’ Professor Characteristics into Practices
When students evaluate teachers, they likely compare their “real” teachers with some notion of an “ideal” professor. In previous research, words like “warm,” “capable,” and “accessible” have been identified as descriptors of ideal teachers. But as the research team of Epting, Zinn, Buskist, and Buskist (reference below) point out, in order to be truly useful to teachers, these characteristics need to be translated into actions — policies and practices that guide their interactions with students.