Instructors and professors know from their experiences as learners that engaged, interactive, dialogical learning can enhance understanding and increase joy in the learning process. Yet many were primarily taught through traditional lecture-style techniques and continue that pattern in their own teaching. As a professor who believes learning…

In this paper, the author talks about community building and the power of active listening. Active listening is a particular kind of listening that requires conscious effort; it is a type of listening that some rarely practice and sometimes is virtually absent from classroom interactions. Thus active listening itself may be deceptively simple…

In this article, the author discusses her successes and struggles as a junior faculty member, in building critical community with and among a diverse group of graduate students. Drawing from and expanding upon the current literature, she presents a definition of critical communities and then makes an argument for why teachers need to promote…