As the year comes to an end, I thought I’d take a moment and look back at the year. It’s been a pretty exciting year for the 8 Blog. Over 10,000 people visited the blog this year and the blog logged its 100,000 visitor sometime in February. After a decade of publishing weekly posts, I’m so appreciative for all of you who keep coming back to read my musings. Thank you!
As a way of wrapping up 2019, I want to review the top viewed posts from the year. Happy New Year!
1. Climbing the Mountain– Written in August, this post described my emotional journey through applying for promotion and navigating the (unexpected) feelings of success.
2. Carrots and Sticks– How to get people to participate in professional development? In this post from September, I weighed the challenges with incentives and mandates.
3. An Empty Seat – In this post from March, I discussed how considering the needs of our students may not always be as easy as it sounds.
4. Supporting At-Risk Students Online – Have you ever attending a keynote presentation that rocks you to your core? Dr. Newton Miller did this at this year’s Distance Teaching & Learning Conference and this post from August captured my reflections on his amazing presentation.
5. Start with Thanks – We all mess up sometimes. In this post from October, I discussed one of my recent mistakes and outlined the need to remember to express gratitude to our collaborators.
6. Improving Teacher-Student Relationships– From April, this post discussed how finding common ground and similar interests can help to foster rapport with students.
7. Illusion of Expertise? – How does learning through videos impact students’ perceptions of their expertise? In this post from February, I discussed an episode from the Hidden Brain podcast and how it relates to Joshua Eyler’s 2018 book, How Humans Learn.
8. Campus Learning Communities – In this post from October, I listed all of the books we’ve used at our institution to support different campus learning communities.
9. Back in the Saddle – This fall, I taught an undergraduate class after a three-year hiatus. In this post from October, I discussed my feelings of dissonance and excitement from teaching this class.
10. Counting What Counts – In another post from October, I share some advice that a retiring teacher offered at my daughter’s graduation.
The 8 Blog 