The Teach Better Blog
The Teach Better blog is where I share my thoughts on teaching and the education system in general. I like to try new things in the classroom, and much of the content here reports on the success or failure of these experiments. While all of my teaching experience is at the university level, I come from a long line of teachers: My mother teaches special needs kids at REED Academy in Framingham, Massachusetts, and my grandmother taught 4th grade in Weston, Massachusetts. I firmly believe many truths about teaching are universal. One of those truths is that great teachers always have more to learn and are always striving to improve. Hopefully my writing will spark discussion–learning on the web should be interactive just as it should be in the classroom.
You can follow me on Twitter at @TeachBetterCo to get updated whenever I post something new, or subscribe to the site’s RSS feed. You can also subscribe via email to get new articles in your inbox. I blog about music, kids, and everything else at High Variance.
Feel free to browse the article archive:
by Topic
by Date
My Favorites
Pedagogical Strategy:
- Invention Activities
- More on Two Stage Exams
- Improvising a Third Stage
- All in on Two Stage Exams
- Math Club
- Looking Back on a Semester-long Creative Project
- Getting Creative in Intermediate Microeconomic Theory
- Dipping a Toe in the Group Project Pool
- Discussion Sections as Labs
- Working in Small Groups: Online Econometrics, Day 13
- Buddies: Online Econometrics, Day 6
- Learning about Teaching at Sarah Kennedy Ballet
Elements of Learning:
- The Dangers of Mixing Student Data and Machine Learning
- ZipGrade: My New Favorite App
- More on Two Stage Exams
- Improvising a Third Stage
- All in on Two Stage Exams
- ESSA and AESA: Measuring Learning in Econometrics
- Giving a test on the second day of class
- Comprehensive Exams for Undergraduates
- Injecting New Life into an Old Class
- Study Habits, Lecture Attendance, and Exam Performance
- Test locations and test scores
- The Data Behind Evidence-Based Teaching
- Improving Learning through Pretesting
- Review Session and Final Exam: Online Econometrics, Days 14 and 15
- Quizzes with Canvas: Online Econometrics, Day 12.5
- Using a Physical Testing Center for Exams: Online Econometrics, Day 8
- A Few More Thoughts on Grade Inflation
- A Few Thoughts on Grade Inflation
- Exams and Online Classes
Elements of Teaching:
- More on Two Stage Exams
- Improvising a Third Stage
- All in on Two Stage Exams
- Stagnation
- Selection Bias
- How I Extract Value from Course Evaluations
- Mid-Semester Feedback
- Implementation Details
- Give the People What They Want
- What are your students thinking?
- Midterm Feedback: Online Econometrics, Day 9
- Improving Classes with Live Student Feedback
- My First Week Teaching a Big Zoom Class
- ZipGrade: My New Favorite App
- The 2017 Pearson Innovations in Teaching Summit
- Lecturing with a WolfVision Visualizer
- Engaging Students in a Large Lecture Class
- Gynandromorphs and Cloacal Kisses
- Handling Student Questions during Lecture
- Getting Discussion Sections Started on the Right Foot
- What to do if you lecture in a monotone voice
- Taking up the reins of a successful class
- Back to School with Cymbeline
- Teaching High School Students at the Yale Model UN
- Wrapping up Econometrics, Fall 2014: What Worked and What Needs Work
- Lecture Attendance: Who Comes, Why They Come, and What It All Means
- Study Habits, Lecture Attendance, and Exam Performance
- Midterm Review
- Lectures and Colonoscopies
- Give the People What They Want
- Using Props in Lectures
- First Day of Class: Rolling with the Punches
- Three Tough Decisions Every Lecturer Has To Make
- Getting Excited about Clickers
- Lectures 2.0: Using online materials to improve off-line courses
- Exams and Online Classes
- A Few More Tips for Zoom Teaching
- My First Week Teaching a Big Zoom Class
- Teaching Online with Zoom, Duet Display, and PDF Expert
- Teaching Online with an iPad Pro and Zoom
- Teaching on a Snow Day, Take 2
- First Day of (Summer) School
- Sharing My First Two Econometrics Mini-lectures
- Why is Efficiency a Dirty Word in Education?
- Online Econometrics: Summer Wrap-up
- Review Session and Final Exam: Online Econometrics, Days 14 and 15
- Working in Small Groups: Online Econometrics, Day 13
- Quizzes with Canvas: Online Econometrics, Day 12.5
- Reading Current Research: Online Econometrics, Day 12
- Remote Lecturing: Online Econometrics, Day 10
- Midterm Feedback: Online Econometrics, Day 9
- Using a Physical Testing Center for Exams: Online Econometrics, Day 8
- Buddies: Online Econometrics, Day 6
- Technical Difficulties: Online Econometrics, Day 5
- Making Data Analysis Interesting: Online Econometrics, Day 4
- Up and Down on Zoom: Online Econometrics, Day 3
- Interactive Problem Solving: Online Econometrics, Day 2
- First Lessons Learned: Online Econometrics, Day 1
- Using Zoom to Teach Live Classes Online
- The Unfair MOOC Backlash
- Online tech in an in-person seminar: An experiment with Piazza
- Exams and Online Classes
- The Opposite of a MOOC
- Lectures 2.0: Using online materials to improve off-line courses
- A Few Thoughts on MOOC's
- Math Club
- Gynandromorphs and Cloacal Kisses
- Three Really Cool and Creative Teaching Ideas
- Relative Brilliance
- Teaching performance and teaching as performance
- Going back to third grade
- Teachers are Everywhere
- Making Data Analysis Interesting: Online Econometrics, Day 4
- Learning about Teaching at Sarah Kennedy Ballet
- An Homage to Chris Welty
Other Topics:
- The Dangers of Mixing Student Data and Machine Learning
- Invention Activities
- DBER Journal Club
- Carl Wieman Practices what he Preaches
- CTREE 2016: My First Economics Teaching Conference
- Lecture Capture, Exam Performance, and Attendance
- How does how you study affect exam performance?
- Evidence-based Higher Education at UC Davis' iAMSTEM Hub
- Do Girls Try Harder or Work Smarter?
- What Happens When Students Can Choose Between Video and In-Person Lectures
- Lecture Attendance: Who Comes, Why They Come, and What It All Means
- Study Habits, Lecture Attendance, and Exam Performance
- Test locations and test scores
- The Data Behind Evidence-Based Teaching
- Improving Learning through Pretesting
- So you want to improve your teaching? Here's how!
- A Few More Tips for Zoom Teaching
- My First Week Teaching a Big Zoom Class
- The Dangers of Mixing Student Data and Machine Learning
- ZipGrade: My New Favorite App
- Wireless Lecturing with an iPad: The Video Tutorial
- iPad Unleashed: My New Wireless Lecturing Setup
- Teaching Online with Zoom, Duet Display, and PDF Expert
- My New Streamlined Lecturing Setup
- Playing Games on the First Day with MobLab
- Combining Latex and Powerpoint
- My Absurd Lecture Hardware Setup
- New School, New Classes, New Tech
- Lecturing with a WolfVision Visualizer
- Teaching Online with an iPad Pro and Zoom
- Lecturing with an iPad Pro
- Teaching on a Snow Day, Take 2
- Total Failure: How not to use clickers to take attendance
- Lecture Capture, Exam Performance, and Attendance
- A Senior Thesis Support Forum
- Opt in vs. Opt out
- First Day of (Summer) School
- Three Really Cool and Creative Teaching Ideas
- When snow days and sick days collide
- Sharing My First Two Econometrics Mini-lectures
- Injecting New Life into an Old Class
- Wrapping up Econometrics, Fall 2014: What Worked and What Needs Work
- Canvas Course Management System Gets an A-
- Echo360 Video Lecture Capture gets an A
- Piazza Discussion Boards Get an A
- Student Anonymity
- What Happens When Students Can Choose Between Video and In-Person Lectures
- Three Tough Decisions Every Lecturer Has To Make
- Lecture Capture with Echo360
- Getting Excited about Clickers
- Online Econometrics: Summer Wrap-up
- Review Session and Final Exam: Online Econometrics, Days 14 and 15
- Working in Small Groups: Online Econometrics, Day 13
- Quizzes with Canvas: Online Econometrics, Day 12.5
- Remote Lecturing: Online Econometrics, Day 10
- Midterm Feedback: Online Econometrics, Day 9
- Using a Physical Testing Center for Exams: Online Econometrics, Day 8
- Technical Difficulties: Online Econometrics, Day 5
- Making Data Analysis Interesting: Online Econometrics, Day 4
- Up and Down on Zoom: Online Econometrics, Day 3
- Interactive Problem Solving: Online Econometrics, Day 2
- First Lessons Learned: Online Econometrics, Day 1
- How Much Freedom Should Teachers Have in the Classroom?
- Using Zoom to Teach Live Classes Online
- The Unfair MOOC Backlash
- Online tech in an in-person seminar: An experiment with Piazza
- The Opposite of a MOOC
- Lectures 2.0: Using online materials to improve off-line courses
- A Few Thoughts on MOOC's
- Social Science Labs
- Carl Wieman Practices what he Preaches
- CTREE 2016: My First Economics Teaching Conference
- What to do if you lecture in a monotone voice
- Taking up the reins of a successful class
- Back to School with Cymbeline
- Opening up our classrooms to other faculty
- So you want to improve your teaching? Here's how!
- The Active Learning Initiative: Lessons Learned from the First 18 Months
- This is going to be big
- New School, New Classes, New Tech
- Visiting UCL's Center for Teaching and Learning in Economics (CTaLE)
- Intensity and Innovation: Comparing Systems of Higher Ed, Part II
- Flexibility and Rigidity: Comparing Systems of Higher Ed, Part I
- A Senior Thesis Support Forum
- Why are so few women majoring in economics?
- Comprehensive Exams for Undergraduates
- Opening up our classrooms to other faculty
- Mid-Semester Feedback
- Balancing Research and Teaching at an Elite University
- Student Evaluations as Measures of Teaching Quality
- Why is Efficiency a Dirty Word in Education?
- How Much Freedom Should Teachers Have in the Classroom?
- The Unfair MOOC Backlash
- Economics and Data Analysis
- Don't Throw Them to the Wolves
- Who should own course materials?
- Does School Suck?
- New School, New Classes, New Tech
- Lecture Capture, Exam Performance, and Attendance
- When snow days and sick days collide
- Echo360 Video Lecture Capture gets an A
- Do Girls Try Harder or Work Smarter?
- What Happens When Students Can Choose Between Video and In-Person Lectures
- First Day of Class: Rolling with the Punches
- Lecture Capture with Echo360
- Poster Session, Fall 2018: Sweating the Details ()
- Wireless Lecturing with an iPad: The Video Tutorial ()
- Math Time! ()
- Improvising a Third Stage ()
- All in on Two Stage Exams ()
- iPad Unleashed: My New Wireless Lecturing Setup ()
- ESSA and AESA: Measuring Learning in Econometrics ()
- Giving a test on the second day of class ()
- Math Club ()
- DBER Journal Club ()
- Carl Wieman Practices what he Preaches ()
- Teaching Online with Zoom, Duet Display, and PDF Expert ()
- Playing Games in Class ()
- Looking Back on a Semester-long Creative Project ()
- Pushing the Envelope on the Last Day of Class ()
- Music in the Classroom ()
- An Applied Econometrics Playlist ()
- The 2017 Pearson Innovations in Teaching Summit ()
- This is going to be big ()
- My New Streamlined Lecturing Setup ()
- Getting Creative in Intermediate Microeconomic Theory ()
- Playing Games on the First Day with MobLab ()
- Combining Latex and Powerpoint ()
- Have Poster Session, Will Travel ()
- My Absurd Lecture Hardware Setup ()
- New School, New Classes, New Tech ()
- Lecturing with a WolfVision Visualizer ()
- Engaging Students in a Large Lecture Class ()
- CTREE 2016: My First Economics Teaching Conference ()
- Teaching Online with an iPad Pro and Zoom ()
- What do students care about? ()
- Gynandromorphs and Cloacal Kisses ()
- Visiting UCL's Center for Teaching and Learning in Economics (CTaLE) ()
- Handling Student Questions during Lecture ()
- Lecturing with an iPad Pro ()
- Teaching on a Snow Day, Take 2 ()
- Stagnation ()
- Email Sanity ()
- Total Failure: How not to use clickers to take attendance ()
- Serious Fun: Another End-of-Semester Poster Session ()
- Lecture Capture, Exam Performance, and Attendance ()
- Ideas for New Learning Spaces ()
- The Post-Lecture Post-Mortem ()
- How does how you study affect exam performance? ()
- Intensity and Innovation: Comparing Systems of Higher Ed, Part II ()
- Flexibility and Rigidity: Comparing Systems of Higher Ed, Part I ()
- A Senior Thesis Support Forum ()
- Opt in vs. Opt out ()
- Selection Bias ()
- Getting Discussion Sections Started on the Right Foot ()
- What to do if you lecture in a monotone voice ()
- Taking up the reins of a successful class ()
- Dipping a Toe in the Group Project Pool ()
- Making Choices and Explaining Them to Our Students ()
- First Day of (Summer) School ()
- Why are so few women majoring in economics? ()
- Three Really Cool and Creative Teaching Ideas ()
- An end-of-semester digital poster session ()
- Advising Senior Essays ()
- Back to School with Cymbeline ()
- Relative Brilliance ()
- Comprehensive Exams for Undergraduates ()
- Opening up our classrooms to other faculty ()
- Teaching performance and teaching as performance ()
- How I Extract Value from Course Evaluations ()
- Mid-Semester Feedback ()
- Going back to third grade ()
- Evidence-based Higher Education at UC Davis' iAMSTEM Hub ()
- When snow days and sick days collide ()
- The Best-Laid Plans Often Go Awry ()
- Teaching High School Students at the Yale Model UN ()
- Sharing My First Two Econometrics Mini-lectures ()
- Injecting New Life into an Old Class ()
- Wrapping up Econometrics, Fall 2014: What Worked and What Needs Work ()
- Canvas Course Management System Gets an A- ()
- Echo360 Video Lecture Capture gets an A ()
- Data Analysis Labs Get a B ()
- Teachers are Everywhere ()
- Piazza Discussion Boards Get an A ()
- Student Anonymity ()
- Do Girls Try Harder or Work Smarter? ()
- What Happens When Students Can Choose Between Video and In-Person Lectures ()
- Lecture Attendance: Who Comes, Why They Come, and What It All Means ()
- Balancing Research and Teaching at an Elite University ()
- Homework and Potty Math ()
- Study Habits, Lecture Attendance, and Exam Performance ()
- Test locations and test scores ()
- The Data Behind Evidence-Based Teaching ()
- Midterm Review ()
- Student Evaluations as Measures of Teaching Quality ()
- Lectures and Colonoscopies ()
- Implementation Details ()
- Curriculum Night ()
- Give the People What They Want ()
- Improving Learning through Pretesting ()
- What are your students thinking? ()
- Using Props in Lectures ()
- First Day of Class: Rolling with the Punches ()
- Teaching Students Who Don't Want to Be There ()
- Three Tough Decisions Every Lecturer Has To Make ()
- So you want to improve your teaching? Here's how! ()
- Discussion Sections as Labs ()
- Why is Efficiency a Dirty Word in Education? ()
- Lecture Capture with Echo360 ()
- Getting Excited about Clickers ()
- Online Econometrics: Summer Wrap-up ()
- Review Session and Final Exam: Online Econometrics, Days 14 and 15 ()
- Working in Small Groups: Online Econometrics, Day 13 ()
- Quizzes with Canvas: Online Econometrics, Day 12.5 ()
- Reading Current Research: Online Econometrics, Day 12 ()
- Remote Lecturing: Online Econometrics, Day 10 ()
- Midterm Feedback: Online Econometrics, Day 9 ()
- Using a Physical Testing Center for Exams: Online Econometrics, Day 8 ()
- Contributing to the Community from inside the Classroom ()
- Buddies: Online Econometrics, Day 6 ()
- Technical Difficulties: Online Econometrics, Day 5 ()
- Making Data Analysis Interesting: Online Econometrics, Day 4 ()
- Up and Down on Zoom: Online Econometrics, Day 3 ()
- Learning about Teaching at Sarah Kennedy Ballet ()
- Subscribe via email ()
- Interactive Problem Solving: Online Econometrics, Day 2 ()
- First Lessons Learned: Online Econometrics, Day 1 ()
- Choosing the right textbooks for a class ()
- How Much Freedom Should Teachers Have in the Classroom? ()
- Regaining the Student Perspective ()
- Using Zoom to Teach Live Classes Online ()
- The Unfair MOOC Backlash ()
- Welcome to Teach Better! ()
- Improving Classes with Live Student Feedback ()
- Creativity in the Classroom ()
- Another Way to Teach Seminars ()
- Economics and Data Analysis ()
- Don't Throw Them to the Wolves ()
- Online tech in an in-person seminar: An experiment with Piazza ()
- A Few More Thoughts on Grade Inflation ()
- A Few Thoughts on Grade Inflation ()
- Exams and Online Classes ()
- The Opposite of a MOOC ()
- What I've learned about teaching advanced undergraduate seminars ()
- Lectures 2.0: Using online materials to improve off-line courses ()
- Who should own course materials? ()
- An Homage to Chris Welty ()
- An Applied Econometrics Playlist ()
- This is going to be big ()
- CTREE 2016: My First Economics Teaching Conference ()
- Handling Student Questions during Lecture ()
- Wrapping up Econometrics, Fall 2014: What Worked and What Needs Work ()
- Teachers are Everywhere ()
- Balancing Research and Teaching at an Elite University ()
- Homework and Potty Math ()
- Test locations and test scores ()
- First Day of Class: Rolling with the Punches ()
- Three Tough Decisions Every Lecturer Has To Make ()
- So you want to improve your teaching? Here's how! ()
- Online Econometrics: Summer Wrap-up ()
- Contributing to the Community from inside the Classroom ()
- Learning about Teaching at Sarah Kennedy Ballet ()
- Creativity in the Classroom ()
- Don't Throw Them to the Wolves ()
- What I've learned about teaching advanced undergraduate seminars ()