The sheer volume of content faculty members are responsible for teaching is enormous, but being an effective educator takes much more than the mastery and delivery of material. It requires unique skills and knowledge that most new higher education instructors were never trained in. For newcomers, the challenges can seem overwhelming.

Sometimes we get into it with students. Most often it involves grades, exams, and excuses. And most often, at least from our perspective, the students don’t have a case. The grade is fair, the exam contains predictable content, and the offered excuse is lame. We dismiss the complaint and deny that a problem exists.

Many of my students wait until they are in academic trouble before they seek help. By then, they are often in too deep to be retrieved. At the beginning of the semester, I’ve always tried to encourage students to know what support services are available to them. “Find help before you need it!” I tell them. But often times this advice is either completely ignored or stored for use when it’s too late. How could I convince students to heed my advice? I needed a more creative approach.

“You will submit three projects.” “I expect regular participation.” “You must attend class.” “Students bear sole responsibility for ensuring that papers…submitted electronically to the professor are received in a timely manner.” The “arrogant tone” and “imperial commands” (p. 51) are an all-too-familiar part of syllabi for college courses, writes Mano Singham in the article cited below. Edits like these even appear in the course outlines of gentle, kindly faculty members.

Sometimes we (or our colleagues) don’t always deliver material in ways that expedite note-taking. We may not be able to take class time for a session on note-taking but all of us can probably find time to distribute a handout that students might find helpful. Consider this classroom management strategy, a slightly condensed and modified version of material that appears in the reference below. These are research-based recommendations.