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I had a conversation recently with a faculty member who claimed that she could not possibly write about research in college teaching, despite her many years as an effective teacher! There are multiple scholarly approaches to what happens in the classroom, and they can all be applied effectively.

Everyone's looking for a way to make grading more efficient without sacrificing effectiveness. Most of these tips boil down to finding ways to make feedback engaging, usually by focusing on things the student can do to improve (in a rewrite or on the next assignment).

I've spoken with faculty who are using Problem-Based Learning effectively in their classrooms but were not aware the practice had a name, nor that it had a substantial body of research literature. Here's a sample that outlines the reasons it is an effective practice, best practices, and practical examples plus a brief discussion of the constructivist principles at work. It comes to us at Kenyon through JSTOR.

An interesting balanced look - dare I call it a "middle path"? - at how to move toward wise, effective use of technology in the classroom.

"Creating an effective syllabus is as much about deciding what stays out as it is determining what goes in."

The author discusses recent research indicating that students spend most of their study time using the least effective study techniques and speculates on what teachers can do to promote the most effective techniques.

A set of concrete strategies for guiding class discussions on sensitive topics. There are also some themes which develop about the general environment for discussion, and students' understanding of the role of class discussion (as compared to other projects or homework) in the course.

A critique of an article published by USA Today titled"'Flipped classrooms' may not have any impact on learning." Research into the effectiveness of classroom practices is vital, but the USA Today article makes the article title's striking pronouncement based on unfinished and very limited "preliminary research."

This will be an interesting topic to watch. How can we help students learn the habits of complex thinking, and unlearn the habits of shallow thinking? If the best practices of effective study become automatic, the student will be more able to focus on new ideas.

A great set of resources on finding and effectively reading the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Shelly Wright argues that Bloom's taxonomy of learning domains is most effective when considered in reverse order.

People learn best when they are forced to retrieve the information and concepts repeatedly over time but most people haven't learned to study in ways that do this. Consequently, it may be more effective to move from the common practice of giving a few, high-stakes tests to giving numerous low stakes quizzes to assess and improve learning.

The article reports on a meta-analysis of 225 studies on the effectiveness of active learning techniques in undergraduate STEM classrooms. If anybody needs more evidence that techniques to actively engage students are more effective than the traditional passive lecture and listen classrooms, this report offers compelling numbers. Students in those traditional classes are found to be 1.5 times more likely to fail than those in classes with active learning components. Students in active learning classes earn grades that are, on average, 6% better than their counterparts in traditional classes.

Another article on Active Learning.

This study takes the novel approach of comparing course evaluations for courses and follow-up courses and finds that "teacher effectiveness is negatively correlated with students' evaluations." Except for higher performing students, those who did better in follow up courses, indicating greater learning in the earlier courses, gave worse evaluations.

Interesting list of starting points for considering our own intercultural competence and developing strategies for creating effective multinational classrooms.

Terrific example of how research-based teaching practices can be given useful context with a theory of learning.

Interesting failure to replicate the 2014 study suggesting that longhand notetaking may be more effective than typing on a laptop. Perhaps we should expect our efficacy at using different writing tools to shift over time!

Tips on effectively framing your scholarly work on teaching and learning as scholarship and not just "extra-good" teaching.

A broad ranging survey of best practices, unlikely successes, and unacknowledged challenges in the critique of student work that stresses the importance of authentic communication that directs both the students and the instructors themselves on how to improve their work.

4 great questions to ask when you consider team-teaching a course, with 4 great lessons drawn from the authors' experience.