CTL Survey: The CTL will be conducting a faculty-wide survey to better understand AI in teaching and learning at GLCA institutions. The survey intends to gain insights regarding GLCA faculty’s perceptions, use of, interest in, and attitudes towards AI. This information can significantly contribute to the CTL’s efforts to develop programming and enhance discourse. We value your input and hope you will participate when you receive the email request from your campus. The survey closes November 15.
Teaching and Learning
How to Hold Difficult Discussions Online (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 9, 2023): A faculty member in instructional design shared the guide she’s compiled on holding asynchronous discussions on difficult topics.
The Potential Harm of Learning Styles (Carolina Kuepper-Tezel, Learning Scientists, November 9, 2023): A recent series of experiments looks at how awareness of learning styles can affect the perception of student abilities in teachers, parents, and children, adding to the evidence that learning styles are not only ineffective for learning but potentially harmful.
Responding to the Charge of Brainwashing Students (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, November 6, 2023): Saying that you can’t even get students to read the syllabus probably isn’t helping.
Feedback as a Dialogue (Rachael A. Lewitzky, Faculty Focus, November 8, 2023): The importance of designing space for personalized assignments and experiences, focusing on the process as well as feedback, and creating a welcoming learning environment.
There’s No Safety in Playing It Safe (Cyndi Kernahan, Inside Higher Ed, November 8, 2023): Those who teach about race and racism can’t appease would-be government censors with minor course modifications.
The Social Classroom (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2, 2023): Connections can be key to students’ academic success. Professors can help.
A.I. in the Classroom
Generative AI: Your Assistant as an Administrator or Faculty Member (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, November 8, 2023): Generative AI is quickly becoming a daily fixture in the lives of administrators and faculty. It enhances productivity, creativity and perspectives.
Campus Speech Roiled by the Israel-Hamas War
War and the Collapse of the Campus Speech Consensus (Geoff Shullenberger, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 9, 2023): Israel, Hamas, and the contradictions of college administrators.
Why Campuses Need Centers for Pluralism (Eboo Patel, Inside Higher Ed, November 9, 2023): Now more than ever, colleges must help students learn to cooperate across differences.
Why College Presidents Seem Flummoxed (Suzanne Nossel, CNN Opinion, November 6, 2023): It’s not time to “blandly denounce all bigotries” when an incident of antisemitism, Islamophobia, or racism takes place, writes the author, chief executive of PEN America
Bias-Related Incidents Are Roiling Colleges. What Might the Response Look Like? (Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 6, 2023): Campuses are struggling to respond to incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia.
How Two Dartmouth Professors Are Addressing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (NPR, November 4, 2023): NPR’s Scott Simon talks to Susannah Heschel and Tarek El-Ariss about their forums to educate students and the public about the Israel-Hamas conflict at Dartmouth. (8 minute listen and transcript).
Stanford University’s Provost’s Remarks to the Faculty (Stanford Report, November 2, 2023): “Every member of the Stanford community has a responsibility to uphold the principles that make higher education work. That responsibility matters most not when discussing topics that are abstract, historical, or conjectural, but when addressing topics that involve acute human suffering and injustice…Neither the president nor I can compel the members of Stanford’s community to observe these principles that make higher education work. That is the nature of responsibility – each of us has to embrace it.”
Extra Credit Reading
You Can’t Tell a Quilt by Its Cover (Laura Skandera Trombley, Inside Higher Ed, November 10, 2023): The author reflects on the artful stitching together of a first-semester first-year seminar.
Where the Public Sees Value in Higher Ed (Jacquelyn Elias and Brian O’Leary, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 6, 2023): CHE asked more than a thousand adults how well colleges serve students and society. Read this along with the Chronicle’s series, The Public Perception Puzzle, which examines higher ed’s public perception problem – and the solutions to it.
Their Prophecy of Enduring Democratic Rule Fell Apart. They Blame College Grads. (Michael Schaffer, Politico, November3, 2023): A review of John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, Where Have All the Democrats Gone? (Macmillan, 2023).
Webinars
Len Gutkin, of the Chronicle of Higher Education, will join Bryan Alexander’s regular Thursday afternoon discussion on November 16 (2:00 PM Eastern) to discuss academic freedom, campus speech, religion and blasphemy, particularly in light of the campus tensions generated by the Israel-Hamas war. It’s free and always informative. Register here.
On the Bookshelf
Stephanie Land, Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education (Simon and Schuster), a memoir about going to college as a low-income adult and single parent. Liam Knox interviewed the author in One ‘Forgotten’ Student Tells Her Story (Inside Higher Ed, November 9, 2023).
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 Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org) if you have colleagues who would like to receive this weekly report.
Steven Volk (steven.volk@oberlin.edu), Editor
GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning
Co-Directors:
Lew Ludwig (ludwigl@denison.edu)
Colleen Monahan Smith (smith@glca.org)