​When I was a little girl (growing up in a semi-rural area near Windsor, Ontario, Canada), I didn’t like to play house; I liked to play teacher. I would have been ok with being the student, but my friends typically wanted me to be the teacher. I would prepare lessons and assign homework. My friends weren’t usually too impressed because I expected them to complete their homework and hand it in to be graded during our next playdate! So I guess you could say that I knew at a young age that I wanted to become an academic.

We at TNP recognize that life can be messy. Everyone’s path to get to their chosen career is different even if our end goal is similar. There may be some bumps, detours, or halts along the way.

These differences are what make everyone unique and give everyone a story to tell. This is a new series we are rolling out in an effort to highlight there is not just one way to become an academic. It truly is a journey and everyone’s is different. This series will officially be kicked off tomorrow by Lynne Kennette. Stay tuned for her story and for many more to come! ​

​We all go into our face-to-face classes with some idea of what we are going to be doing during that day. Some professors like to wing it and have just a few notes to go off of, other have class totally mapped out including what they plan to say.
 
I tend to fall on the more prepared end of the spectrum. One way I have come to facilitate that preparation is to actually create a lesson plan. My lesson plans have taken different formats depending on the course and my experience teaching the course. For today’s post I’m going to share three different ways I have done this and describe how I have used them in each class. 

Technology in the classroom has been an interesting debate as of late. Technology can be properly incorporated into courses for the benefit of students (i.e., via a polling software), but some instructors oppose its presence altogether. Previous research has shown that frequent laptop and cell phone use is negatively correlated with overall GPA, course grades, and exam grades (Fried, 2008; Junco & Cotton, 2012; Sana, Weston, & Cepeda, 2013). Hutcheon, Lian, & Richard (2019) wanted to investigate how banning personally technology in an intro psych course would impact student perceptions and performance. 

​TNP recently celebrated our 1-year anniversary! We are constantly humbled by the overwhelming support we receive from the wonderful twitter and teaching conference communities!