Tips, tutorials, and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology in higher education.

Author Archives: Jeff McClurken

Where’s the Prof?: Twitter Feeds for Your Office Door

March 16, 2010 in How-To, Productivity, ProfHacker by Jeff McClurken

In this post, I look at a software/hardware setup that allows you to update students and visitors to your office about your availability.

Student Contracts for Digital Projects

March 2, 2010 in Pedagogy by Jeff McClurken

Like many ProfHackers, I'm constantly tinkering with my syllabi and assignments, looking to improve the experience for the students and for me. For many of my writing assignments, this tinkering has meant that the guidelines for the assignments have grown longer and longer (as I address specific issues that have come up in previous iterations). However, in one class, I've taken the opposite approach, giving groups of students the broadest of guidelines and providing them with the opportunity to create their own assignments. This post explores my approach to having students write contracts for digital history projects.

Redesigning the Classroom: Let’s Start with the Wall

February 18, 2010 in Pedagogy by Jeff McClurken

Beginning with a discussion of the potential uses of a large-scale, multi-touch interface in learning, this entry makes a few observations about classroom technology.

EduCon 2.2 — A ProfHacker Perspective

February 4, 2010 in Pedagogy by Jeff McClurken

We here at ProfHacker recognize the vital importance of K-12 education (both in the sense of a shared endeavor and in terms of the reality that successful K-12 teachers are essential for us to have any chance of succeeding in our own educational mission). In that spirit, this post explores an increasingly important K-12 education conference, EduCon.

Why Not to Set Up a Formal New Faculty Mentoring Program

October 14, 2009 in Life by Jeff McClurken

ProfHacker's series on mentoring continues with a look at some of the challenges of creating formal programs for the mentoring of new faculty within a department.

The Value of 24 Hours in Passing Back Graded Work

October 9, 2009 in Pedagogy by Jeff McClurken

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as a new teacher was from a senior colleague who listened to me express anxiety about handing back graded papers to my class. She looked at me and said, "Why don't you just deploy the '24-hour rule'?" I looked at her blankly and she explained that she told her students that it was her policy not to discuss their papers/tests/projects with them until 24 hours after they had received them. She insisted it significantly reduced the number of concerned students following her back to her office wanting an explanation for this or that part of their grade.

Advice on Faculty Workload

September 8, 2009 in Productivity by Jeff McClurken
The ProfHacker audience (so far) seems to be made up of people who want to be better, more efficient, more effective in their academic careers. One of the biggest issues that we faculty (new and seasoned, adjunct and long tenured) face is the question of managing our workload. If we care about what [...]

Deploying Students as Tech Mentors

August 17, 2009 in Pedagogy by Jeff McClurken
One of the common concerns that faculty have when thinking about using digital technologies in the classroom is how much time they would need to spend in training an entire classroom of students on the same tool.  This task can be made more complicated given the varying student levels of technical expertise and comfort level [...]