Virtual Conversation: Addressing Challenges in the Classroom (Consortium for Teaching and Learning, GLCA-GLAA). Have you wondered how to respond to the “eye rollers” in your class? Ever ponder what to do if a student complains of being “excluded” when other students converse in their first (non-English) language? Uncertain how to respond when students inform the class that they won’t discuss an assigned reading because it made them uncomfortable? If so, we invite you to join your colleagues in a virtual conversation on Tuesday, October 4 at Noon (ET) when we will discuss these challenges. Please register here. A link to join the meeting will be sent out on Monday, October 3.
Teaching and Learning
The New College Classroom (Cathy Davidson and Christina Katopodis, Teaching in Higher Ed, September 29, 2022): A 44-minute podcast from the authors of a book by the same name.
Advice from Students Who’ve Taken Your Course Before (and) Ideas for Improving Class Participation (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 29, 2022): A professor asks her former students, “Any tips and wisdom you’d like to share?” before she taught the same course again.
Stop Telling Students to ‘Narrow Down’ Their Topic (Christopher Rea and Thomas S. Mullaney, Inside Higher Ed, September 28, 2022): A student who follows that advice will most likely end up as lost as they were before – just inside a slightly narrower wilderness, the authors argue.
How to Cope with Presentation Anxiety (James M. Lang, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 28, 2022): How a professor and experienced public speaker learned to deal with the academic version of stage fright.
Teach Students to Be Critics – and Builders (Stephen Pasqualina, Inside Higher Ed, September 30, 2022): An essay by Eboo Patel calling on professors to teach students to be builders, not critics, rests on a false dichotomy, according to the author.
The State of Higher Ed
Why Aren’t People Going to College? (Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive, September 28, 2022): Many of those who didn’t enroll or complete degrees say college was too expensive – but they also cite stress and career uncertainty, new research finds. See, as well, this article by Anne Kim, Generation COVID: Record Numbers of Youth Opt Out of College, Work (Newsweek Magazine, September 28, 2022).
Putting Humanities Degrees to Work (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, September 28, 2022): How to better prepare humanities graduates for the future of work without diluting the value of a humanities education.
The Liberal Arts
‘One Thing a Person Cannot Do…” (Julius Nagy, Inside Higher Ed, September 30, 2022): “… is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him!” A Thomas Schelling quote prompts Julius Nagy to reflect on the value of a liberal arts education.
Have a short article or some news related to teaching and learning at your institution that you’d like to share with colleagues? Send your contribution along to us. Also, please email Charla White (white@glca.org) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.
GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
Steven Volk (steven.Volk@oberlin.edu)
Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org)
Charla White (white@glca.org)