1. Welcome to EduProffer!

About

I am an Assistant Professor at California State University, Fresno. I love to teach and to make a positive impact. This is probably why I love to teach teachers about teaching - it amplifies the effect. I was trained as a molecular and evolutionary biologist and geneticist, and not at all to be a teacher. Everything I have learned about how to teach, aside from my observations of my own professors, I have learned since joining the Fresno State faculty. It has truly been eye-opening, and I'm hooked! As a scientist, I am trained in applying quantitative reasoning and evidence-based decisions to my genetics research in the laboratory, and I'm just as enthusiastic about using the same approaches to the efforts you and I make in the classroom.

History

In my first year at Fresno State, I was nominated to take part in an innovative ed tech initiative on campus: teaching classes where the instructor and every student used a mobile device (tablet or laptop or smartphone) to improve engagement inside and outside of class. I immediately began blogging the best practices that I developed at tabletpedagogy.blogspot.com. As time has passed, I've realized that this blog, by name itself, has a rather limited scope. I often think more broadly about effective pedagogy, and the EduProffer blog is where this content has a new home.

Concept

This blog is named EduProffer not just to indicate that it focuses on higher education (and posts will usually be more grade-agnostic than that), but that I will use this site to Proffer best practices in Education.

Format

When I conceive or test a new (to me, at least) educational practice, I'll describe it here. Each post title will start with a serial number, to ease the ability to read posts in order. I'll write posts from the perspective of whichever class I'm teaching at the time, but making my practices discipline-, grade-, and technology-agnostic is a point of pride for me. I'll do my best to ensure that posts aren't exclusively applicable to teaching biology, or teaching with technology, or teaching in higher ed institutions.

Values

In addition to this agnostic approach, I hold a number of other values dear when I consider implementing educational practices in my classes:

• accessibility (for students)
• affordability (for students and/or faculty)
• engagement (of students)
• efficiency (for students and/or faculty)
• implementation (detailed protocols provided)
• inquiry (enhances student question-asking)

I will self-rate (1-3, high-low), each post's relevance/impact to each of these values. I hope that this will provide a quick sense of whether a post is relevant to your own values.

Enjoy!
- E.P.