First day: Start strong, avoid “Syllabus day”

On the first day, I start strong: I warmly welcome students, share my passion for the subject, and excitedly jump into the material. If it’s intro to programming, I open a coding window and start coding. I include media, interactions, group activities, and humor (well, my attempt), so the first day looks like future lectures. I do go over the syllabus […]

How Kellie Grasman Innovates and Inspires Engineering Higher Education

This International Women in Engineering Day, hear from Kellie Grasman on empowering female students in engineering, plus instructor tips for “back to the classroom.”

How Programming Professor Dennis Sigur Effectively Uses Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning is an authentic, meaningful way to engage students. Computer Science Instructor Dennis Sigur describes how to implement the method.

How Professor Peg Fisher helps girls pursue STEM

Anyone fortunate enough to connect with Peg Fisher will immediately notice her passion for education. So it may be surprising to hear that this advocate originally pursued a different path. It was after a few years into her role as a programmer for a major insurance company that Peg realized, “I could make a bigger […]

Meet the zyCommunity

As a professor-founded company, we often say, “Students first, instructors a close second.” So when the world changed and our instructors needed connection more than ever, we knew we had to help. In addition to introducing our COVID-19 Digital Care Package, developing best practices on how to pivot to online learning, and more, we looked […]

Increasing competency in C

Even to the most seasoned instructor, when 450 students take their seats on the first day of class, the landscape can feel intimidating. Confident achievers sit down in the lecture hall beside curious learners and annoyed students. Some arrive with years of coding experience, whereas others are just starting out. How can an instructor possibly […]

A better way to promote active learning in a MATLAB course

One of the more challenging courses to teach in an engineering discipline is computer programming. Focusing only on algorithms and programming blocks leaves little time to build a connection to daily engineering problems. On the other hand, teaching based on problem solving does not allow for a deeper comprehension of algorithm development. “Finding the right […]

Discrete Math: out with the tome, in with the zyBook

Dr. Sandy Irani is a longtime Professor of Computer Science at UC Irvine. And like any good professor, she constantly looks for ways to improve the classroom experience. But over the years, Dr. Irani has kept running into the same issue; the classic textbook for her Discrete Mathematics course (considered the “standard” across universities) was […]

User spotlight: Dr. Nelly Cardinale, Eastern Florida State College

The year was 1979, the screen was black and the text was orange. This was the year Dr. Nelly Cardinale purchased her first computer, an Apple II.  It came with four textbooks on programming and nothing else.  “If you wanted to do anything on the computer back then, you had to do it yourself,” Cardinale […]

Success in learning and teaching

Wendy Hankes has taught high school classes for 24 years and is an expert at picking up new things fast. But when the principal of Big Spring High School in Pennsylvania asked her to teach a brand new Intro to Java course the next school year, even Ms. Hankes was overwhelmed. “I was going to […]