The Power of Storytelling: Why Stories Stick
Why Do Stories Stick? You may remember sitting through training sessions, lectures, or presentations packed with useful information only to forget most of it by the next day. But tell us a story and something different happens. We do not just remember information, we remember experiences. Like the overwhelmed first-year teacher trying to manage a […]
Finding the Rhythm of your Online Course
When faculty think about course design, they naturally focus first on content: readings, lectures, discussions, and assignments. These are, of course, the foundation of any learning experience. However, the underlying course structure is a sometimes neglected but deeply important consideration as well. Before students can engage meaningfully with ideas, they have to understand how the […]
Reimagining Technology as a Creative Partner in Teaching and Learning
When integrated intentionally, technology expands possibility — supporting creativity, flexibility, access, and meaningful learning experiences across modalities. Beyond Efficiency: Technology as Possibility Technology has become such a familiar part of teaching that it’s often discussed in terms of tools, platforms, or requirements. But when we step back, technology offers something far more powerful than efficiency […]
Level Up Your Classroom: The Low-Stakes Guide to Gamification
Gamification brings game‑design principles into course design to boost student engagement, motivation, and persistence. By weaving in elements like progression and meaningful rewards, you can transform traditional course structures into experiences that feel more energizing. This post highlights a few simple strategies you can use to make your course more enjoyable for students. Gamification doesn’t […]
The Growth-Mindset Classroom: Considering the Process as the Product
Imagine two students in your crowded lecture hall. One views a difficult problem as a signal that they lack the talent to succeed, quickly turning to external shortcuts to find the answer. The second student sees that same struggle as fuel for their brain, understanding that mental effort is the physical process of building new […]
Instructional Illusions
In classrooms worldwide, we often confuse busyness with learning, novelty with effectiveness, and engagement with deep understanding. In Instructional Illusions, Kirschner, Hendrick and Heal (2025) pull back the curtain on ten pervasive but misleading assumptions about teaching and learning—what look like good practices on the surface, but which cognitive science shows are often counterproductive. This […]
Structuring Peer-to-Peer Learning for Authentic Engagement
One of the greatest strengths in any classroom lies in the students themselves. While instructors often feel pressure to provide all the answers, authentic engagement frequently emerges when learners connect with and learn from each other. Peer-to-peer learning allows students to be co-creators of knowledge, drawing on their collective insights, diverse perspectives, and lived experiences. […]
Engaging Students with Academic Reading
Reading is fundamental to the learning process. Yet, there is increasing concern that students are not engaging with assigned readings (McMurtrie, B. 2024; Stripling, J. 2024). When students don’t engage with assigned readings, they miss critical information, their classroom participation is limited, and their academic performance and peer learning suffer. Some barriers to reading are: […]
