Ask-Dr-Kirk

New Book For New College Teachers

For those who are curious about college teaching or who are starting their first year of teaching this fall, you might check out this book from Atlantic Publishing Company entitled, How To Be Successful In Your First Year Of Teaching College: Everything You Need To Know That They Don’t Teach You In School. Here’s a review of the book here.

 

Here's my advice on how to get a part-time teaching position.

 

 

Suggestions On Writing Letters Of Recommendation?

I've agreed to do several letters of recommendations for students/ex-students in the past few weeks and am always a little amazed how long these can take to do.I ask them for a copy of their resume and a list of what they believe to be their strengths and weaknesses but still...

Anyone have an idea of how to be more efficient in writing these?

Using Blogs In Your Courses

Professors Irina Gendelman and Nathalie Kuroiwa-Lewis (Saint Martin’s University) share their approach to using a blog assignment in their creative writing course. They include guidelines for students as well as sample discussion questions and examples of effective and ineffective blogs. You can access their blogpost here.

Here's a rubric to grade blog assignments. Download Kirk & Johnson Blog Rubric

The Importance Of Lifelong Learning

As we wind up this semester and start thinking about the next, I found this article interesting. It really does illustrate that our students need to develop their own brand, or as Mike Wagner, CEO of White Rabbit Group, said to me, "it's another reason why they MUST brand their careers."

Here's a quote from the article:

We've come to realize we don't really want most employees for the whole of their careers. We want their particular set of skills when we need them — but then things change so fast, we don't need that particular skill set any more."

This really illustrates the importance of teaching our students how to learn as well as what to learn.

This Is What A Letter From A Journal Editor Should Look Like!

 

Dear Professor:

 

Congratulations! Your paper submitted yesterday has been accepted for publication in our next issue. As you know, our journal is ranked in the top 1% of journals in your field. Your paper has been chosen as the best example of research and writing that we have seen in the 40 years that we have been publishing. In fact, the three reviewers of your paper have all decided to cite your paper in their own current research. Please send us more of your research papers asap as we can't wait to review and accept more of your brilliant writing!

 

Oh, and your six-figure check is in the mail!

 

Sincerely,

 

Journal Editor

 

They Always Tell You It's All About The Networking!

An assignment in my graduate class last fall has led to the right connections for a University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee MBA student who is graduating tomorrow.

I directed my students to use a mind map as a visual aid for their presentations on the first day of class. One of the students, Adam Roper, took the opportunity to discuss a product he was attempting to develop that would replace a CD player with a small device that would easily record a collection of CD's and play them back upon demand.  This device would store thousands of CDs in a space not much larger than the CD player it replaced. 

After class I mentioned Roper’s idea to my fiancé, Jim Maher, who is on the Board of Directors of Cary Audio Design. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Adam worked with the development team at Cary Audio Design,  a 21 year old manufacturer of high end audio equipment to develop a comprehensive "music server" that would store approximately 2800 CDs, and play them back with a musical quality far above what most people have ever heard in a home environment.  The "Music Server" is one of the new generation of  "green" components and designed to utilize a maximum of 21 watts of electricity.

 

The server will be available for sale on Monday, May 10...the day after graduation. You can read more about it here.

 

Can you hear how proud I am? Congratulations Adam!

Social Media Used As Teaching Tool

New research study of college professors shows 52 percent of respondents use at least one form of social media as a teaching tool.

If you're interested in trying this, here are some possible resources:

Using Twitter and Facebook to get more class participation

Various ways to use blogs in the classroom (and a rubric for grading blogs)

Example of one professor's blog to teach Accounting

50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom

 

Chewing Gum Reduces Anxiety, Increases Performance

Research shows chewing gum reduces anxiety and stress and increases performance. Perhaps we should give out gum to students before final exams? Or before we start grading those exams :)