Center for Teaching and Learning at UT Dallas

12/04/2025

Strongly recommend!

Three rounds of retrieval practice enhanced not just memorization but transfer to novel application questions one week later, outperforming both restudy and studying quiz questions with answers provided.

11/14/2025

The “parking lot” is an efficient and effective tool for boosting students’ participation. But be careful—there is a risk that students will think you are asking them to comment on their experiences with parking their cars on campus.

💡 From Silence to Engagement: The Power of the “Parking Lot”

When classrooms go quiet, it’s not always a lack of curiosity, it’s hesitation.

In this insightful piece, learn how one simple strategy, the “Parking Lot”—helped transform hesitant classrooms into spaces of active participation and confident student voices.

Discover how this approach:
✅ Encourages equal participation
✅ Builds trust and confidence
✅ Turns uncertainty into meaningful dialogue

👉 Read the full article:
https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/how-i-used-the-parking-lot-to-turn-quiet-rooms-into-engaged-classrooms/

11/07/2025

So pleased to share the news of this well-deserved recognition!

Jigarkumar Patel MS’10, PhD’11, one of the recipients of the 2025 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, led the development of a new teaching strategy in applied calculus courses. Motivated by his mother’s teaching style, a University of Texas at Dallas mathematics educator has found a formul...

09/11/2025

Take a look at this terrific article by Daniel Willingham in which he analyzes what we know, what we don’t know, what we suspect, and what we can conclude about digital tech and students’ attention in classrooms. As always, there are no simple answers, but there are important questions about how we can understand the problem we are trying to address.

03/09/2025

A new book is available from in McDermott Library! Kent Kauffman addresses legal issues that faculty should know more about. For example, did you know that it is not a good idea to refer to your syllabus as a contract? Kauffman explains why. He also addresses copyright and intellectual property, FERPA, tenure and academic freedom, and shares examples of real cases.

Reader-friendly, jargon-free guide to legal issues all college faculty need to know so that they can make teaching decisions within the bounds of the law.

01/09/2025

CTL strongly recommends this free e-book. Your students’ prior knowledge influence how they take in and process all new information.

If you're curious to know more about the role of knowledge in learning and curriculum, download this free e-book, a collaborative effort by an international team of eight experts. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-74661-1

12/07/2024

Do good grades in college mean anything about likely success in the workplace? New meta-analysis suggests they do. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-18160-001

12/07/2024

We know that learning requires thinking, but do our students understand this? A 2024 meta-analysis indicates that when students have to engage in effortful thinking, they conclude they are not learning—the opposite of what is true. See this explanation by Andrew Watson for more:

In that book — one of the first to make cognitive science clear and practical for classroom teachers — Willingham wrote this immortal sentence: “Memory is the residue of thought.”

11/05/2024

Click here for a video about the SWG program:

Learn more and donate at https://impact.utdallas.edu