By: Jacqueline Thomsen

Imagine if schoolteachers and college professors were immediately able to identify how each of their students learns, what learning style works best for each child and what new topics he or she is struggling with.

Research faculty members at the University of Wisconsin at Madison are hoping that this can be the future of education. Their research uses a combination of psychology and computer science to determine how best to optimize teaching for individual students. This means teachers and professors will be able to immediately know what subjects students are struggling with and be able to address those needs, instead of teaching an entire class of students with ranging difficulties.

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By: Terry Givens & Kerry Ann Rockquemore

The end of the semester must be near because nearly all the new faculty members I met last week were holding their breath, trying to keep their heads above water, and praying for the end of the semester! The feelings of exhaustion and frustration I heard repeatedly were both intense and predictable. As a result, let's focus on some concrete ways to deal with Common New Faculty Mistake #15: Failing to Recognize and Adjust to the Rhythms of the Semester.

Each semester has a natural energetic rhythm. We share our students' high energy at the beginning, it flattens out during the middle (as reality sinks in), and the end of the semester finds most of us dragging from some combination of disappointment, frustration, exhaustion, and/or departmental drama.

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By: D. Frank Smith

Professors are finding new ways to turn the technology in every student's pocket into a powerful tool to augment lectures.

During a webinar hosted by Campus Technology, Kate Biberdorf, a chemistry lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, explained how her class has benefited from mobile device polling through REEF Polling, an app from i>Clicker.

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