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How To Prevent Online Cheating

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Teaching Classroom Management

One of the issues that you may have to deal with when teaching an online class is attempting to prevent students from cheating on quizzes and exams. While complete prevention cannot be guaranteed, there are things you can do to mitigate students from cheating online.

A colleague of mine contacted me for advice because he suspected that his online students were cheating on his quizzes and exams. He noticed that a lot of the students were earning high grades on his online assessments. It was as though they had access to the answer key to his exams. My colleague wanted to know if there was an online tool that could help with the cheating problem.

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Articles

Finding Time To Write

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Productivity Professional Development

Like most faculty, I first started seriously writing while I was in graduate school. At the time, I was working full-time during the day and working on my studies in the evening. I did not have the luxury of dedicating huge portions of my day to writing. What I did have was an academic goal and a graduation deadline. With this realization, I utilized two techniques that worked extremely well for me. The first technique was mirco-writing during the week. I began writing whenever I could in increments of 5 to 15 minutes. I did this before going to work, during my coffee and lunch breaks, and before bed. Every spare, and sometimes odd, minute during the day counted towards my writing productivity. A sentence here and there eventually adds up to a paragraph and then a page. This meant that I took my notebook or laptop everywhere. The second thing that helped me was to be intentional about writing and making it a part of my daily routine rather than a chore. I tend to do a lot of my writing early in the morning when my family is still asleep. I typically wake up at 4am, grab breakfast and then get to my computer to begin writing. Some may prefer to write in the evening, at a coffee shop, or library. The time and location do not matter as long as writing becomes a part of your daily schedule. So start taking advantage of every spare minute and make writing a daily habit. You may be writing in sound-bites, which may feel different at first, but you will be writing and doing so regularly.

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Student Letters Of Recommendation

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Administrative Duties

As we approach the end of a semester or academic year, we are sometimes flooded with requests from students to write them letters of recommendation. I’m usually honored to be asked to write these letters, and I usually look forward to working on them but only if they are warranted and meet the criteria that I establish for the students requesting the letter.

Screening and Managing Student Letters of Recommendation Requests

As faculty, our duties and responsibilities extend way beyond the classroom, and while we are typically compensated for working 40 hours a week, many of us actually invest 60-80 hours or more engaging in campus-related work. Due to our limited time, we need to be selective about who we write recommendation letters for and when.

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How To Prepare For A Teaching Demonstration At A Job Interview

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Podcast Productivity Professional Development Teaching

This is the third in a series of articles to help you prepare for the teaching job interview. In the last two articles, I discussed how you can prepare for the Writing Assignment At Teaching Job Interview and how to Prepare For A Teaching Interview.

In this article, I’ll share four things to help you prepare for the teaching demonstration.

Teaching Demonstration

Most applicants applying for a teaching position seem have some teaching experience either as a Teaching Assistant (TA) in graduate school, or as an adjunct faculty, or as a trainer in the industry they’ve specialized in. If you happen to be one of those, you’re fortunate enough to have some classroom or instructional experience.

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Writing Assignment At A Teaching Job Interview

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Professional Development Teaching

In a previous article titled Preparing For A Teaching Interview, I discussed six things you can do to prepare for an interview. However, the interview itself is only one aspect of the hiring process at many colleges and universities.

Hiring committees for a full-time teaching position often require candidates to also complete a written assignment and a teaching demonstration. At my college, we require candidates to do the writing assignment, job interview, and teaching demonstration on the same day. In some disciplines, candidates may also be required to perform a skills demonstration. In this article, I will discuss the writing assignment.

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Preparing For A Teaching Interview

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Professional Development Teaching

So you’ve decided to teach! You’ve turned in your application, some secret group mulled over your application, CV, reference letters and decided to invite you for an interview.

Congratulations!

You are one step closer to becoming a professor, but don’t begin celebrating just yet. You still have some homework, lots of preparation, and a hiring committee to impress in person. In this article, I’ll share a few tips to help you better prepare for your teaching interview.

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CC Image courtesy of BMW Guggenheim Lab

How To Teach Outside of Traditional Academia

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Professional Development Teaching

Image of community ed class — CC Image courtesy of BMW Guggenheim Lab

I’d like to dedicate this particular post to a former student of mine, Tracey Anderson, who left a comment with a question on episode 10 of the FacultyWorkshop Podcast. The title of that episode was “Setting The Bar: How High Should Your Expectations Be?”

Tracey is currently finishing up her masters degree in Leadership and Management, and is planning on continuing her education and earning a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Management. Tracey has been through a lot of challenges thought-out her life, but she has always maintained high standards for herself and persisted in achieving her goals. Over the years she’s learned a lot and gained some valuable experiences. She also has a passion for wanting to help others, which is why Tracey would like to teach a class on leadership and motivation to students, to help them discover their full potential. However, she’s not sure how to get to that point or where to start.

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CC Image courtesy of Bryan Frank on Flickr

Top 5 Higher Education Job Sites

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Podcast Productivity Professional Development

Photo of PhD Graduate — CC Image courtesy of Bryan Frank on Flickr

Whether you are looking for your first faculty position or a different one, a job search is a full-time job in itself if done correctly. Opportunities within academia have to be actively pursued on a daily basis.

Why? The answer is simple. Supply and demand!

Universities are awarding more graduate degrees than the market can handle. In 1957, U.S. institutions awarded a total of 8,611 doctorate degrees. In 2012, they awarded a whopping 51,008. That’s a 492% increase within half a decade.

We have seen a 64% percent increase in doctoral degree program completers within the last thirty years alone. The competition in the job market is extremely tough, and you, as a job seeker, need to understand that a college degree, even a PhD from a respected university, does not equal a guaranteed job offer any more. There are simply more qualified job seekers within the academic market than full-time positions.

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Setting The Bar: How High Should Your Student Expectations Be?

Post author:Dr. Fawaz Al-Malood
Post category:Dr. Al-Malood's Blog Podcast Teaching

I was blessed and fortunate enough to have attended an exclusive small private college in Switzerland on a full-academic scholarship. Most of the students who attended came from privileged backgrounds. Many were high-performing students, which was probably a good thing because this college was no walk in the park. This was one of the top five Hotel Management schools in Switzerland at the time. Academic standards and performance expectations were extremely high. This was a school that had rules and expectations for everything in and out of the classroom. It was more like an elite military academy than a college.

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