Josh Eyler
Senior Director of Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Assistant Professor of Teacher Education
Biography
In collaboration with CETL and AIG staff, Josh leads programming efforts that respond to faculty and departmental needs with respect to teaching and learning, and he also works to align new and existing services with the university’s strategic goal to enhance the “awareness and adoption of evidence-based teaching practices.” He is also the director of the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan and is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Teacher Education. Please email Josh if you would like to talk about a departmental initiative related to teaching practices or if you would like a consultation or observation related to any dimension of teaching, course design, or alternative grading practices.
Josh previously worked on teaching and learning initiatives at Columbus State University, George Mason University, and Rice University. He is the author of the book How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College Teaching (West Virginia University Press, 2018), which was named a “Book of the Year” by the Chicago Tribune. His forthcoming book, Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, and What We Can Do about It, is about one of the most urgent issues in education today–grading and alternative assessment.
Books
How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories behind Effective College Teaching (West Virginia University Press, 2018).
Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, and What We Can Do about It (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024).
Edited Collections
Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations (Ashgate, 2010). Editor and Contributor.
A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages (with Jonathan Hsy and Tory Vandeventer Pearman). Volume 2 in the Cultural History of Disability Series, Gen. Eds. David Bolt and Robert McRuer (Bloomsbury Press, 2019). Editor and Contributor.
Other Research, Writing, and Scholarship
“The Origin of Grades in American Schools.” Saturday Evening Post. February 26, 2024.
“Grades Are at the Center of the Student Mental Health Crisis.” Guest post for the “Just Visiting” column on Inside Higher Ed. March 7, 2022.
“What We Mean When We Talk about Lectures.” Inside Higher Ed. October 16, 2018.
“To Ban or Not to Ban: Education, Technology, and the Media.” Ed Tech Researcher, a blog for Education Week. October 2, 2017. (with Beth Holland)
“Against Student Shaming.” Inside Higher Ed. March 29, 2017.
“Teaching is messy. We need to embrace that.” Op-Ed for the Houston Chronicle. February 1, 2017.
Courses Taught
- EDCI 209 Foundations of American Education
- EDCI 703 Seminar on Learning and the Learner
- WRIT 101 First-Year Writing I
Education
Ph.D. English, University of Connecticut (2000)