Welcome to Educational Excellence. This site is dedicated to exploring ways to meet the educational challenges of the 21st century–especially in the college environment. Foremost among those challenges in my mind is helping faculty learn how to teach for effect…how to teach in ways that create environments in which most students can learn and in which students are inspired to learn.
Over time, expect this site to be filled with stories about what did and didn’t work, reviews of books and articles that help teachers and students alike learn the learn effectively, and links to sites that help us all do that.
You should wonder what authority I have to speak to the issue of educational excellence (edx). I hope you did because I believe that at the foundation of edx is critical thinking and at the foundation of critical thinking is a healthy skepticism. Thus, you deserve to know a little about me so that you can decide whether or not I might have anything worth saying on the subject. See my profile for some more biographical background.
The gist of any authority I might have to speak to this topic lies in experience. I’ve been teaching at an open admission, tuition-driven, liberal arts college for 15 years. In that time, I’ve traveled a road that has taken me from a traditional lecturer to one who appreciates the need to create diverse learning environments. I’ve went from being a teacher to knowing that I’ve really got to be a learning facilitator. In my heart, I’ve come to know that teaching, learning, student evaluation and faculty assessment (of courses and programs) are not separate, often unrelated, activities but the naturally conjoined chambers of education’s heart. Finally, my experiences and my commitment to educational excellence (edx) led me to take on the oversight for the general education program at my college.
Out of those experiences and my serious commitment to students getting what they really need from their educational experience, comes this blog.
Excellence in Education 