Tag Archives: Sarah Rose Cavanagh

“Some people hold the view that if you are a learned scholar in a field, that should be enough to make you a good teacher.”

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Kate Stover

We all know this isn’t true. Is there a person alive who hasn’t suffered through a class taught by an expert who was boring? And yet, it seems to me that we are reluctant to acknowledge that “emotion” can support … Continue reading →

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“You want to aim for what D’Mello and colleagues call a ‘zone of optimal confusion.’”

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Kate Stover

D’Mello and his research team identified three guiding principles for implementing confusion in the college classroom: it should be appropriate, intentional and in the context of learning; students should possess the ability to successfully resolve the confusion; and when students … Continue reading →

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“Students rated sociability (e.g., friendliness, warmth) as significantly more important than did faculty.”

Posted on August 11, 2017 by Kate Stover

A 2014 study by Megan Gerhardt evaluated how instructors and students ranked contributors to teaching credibility. While everyone agreed that competence in subject matter and character are most important, students noted a desire for sociability that “has important implications for … Continue reading →

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“Attributes like confidence, enthusiasm, and likability can be perceived in the briefest of exposures.”

Posted on December 15, 2016 by Kate Stover

In The Spark of Learning, Sarah Rose Cavanagh describes a study where students were asked to rate professors after seeing 30-second videos of lectures that had no audio. The students’ ratings predicted with surprising accuracy the professors’ actual end-of-semester evaluations. … Continue reading →

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