Teaching and Learning
How to Personalize Data Projects in a Large Class (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 13, 2023): Pair-and-share work is one thing, but what if you want to create a broader sense of community in a course, and convey to each of your students that you see and value their contributions?
10 Ways to End Elitism in Math Classes (Felicia Darling, Inside Higher Ed, April 12, 2023): The current approach often translates into racism, classism and sexism – and leaves many students feeling as if they don’t belong and can’t succeed, according to the author.
5 Lessons Learned from Diverse Student Panels (Matthew R. Johnson, Jennifer Evanuik, and Xantha Karp, Inside Higher Ed, April 12, 2023): Report on panels with students who hold marginalized identities asking how faculty and administrators can better support them.
AI, Tech, and Higher Ed
A Few Hidden Gems Among AI Apps (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, April 12, 2023): In the flurry of launches of generative AI apps this year, there are some gems that don’t get enough attention. These are ones that the author thinks colleagues in higher ed might use every day.
Bryan Alexander on AI (The Pulse Podcast). Interview with Bryan Alexander about the role of artificial intelligence in higher education. 58:35 minutes.
What Kind of Mind Does ChatGPT Have? (Cal Newport, The New Yorker, April 13, 2023): Large language models seem startlingly intelligent. But what’s really happening under the hood?
Liberal Education
Did Liberal Arts Colleges Miss a Chance to Become More Inclusive After the Pandemic? (Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge, April 11, 2023): An interview with Steven Volk and Beth Benedix, authors of The Post Pandemic Liberal Arts College: A Manifesto for Reinvention (Belt Publishing). 46 min interview here.
Academia: Skills That Make the Bills (Timothy Burke, Eight-by-Seven, April 13, 2023): François Furstenberg did a great job this past week of skewering the hollow vision that recently departed Temple president Jason Wingard set out for higher education in his book. As Furstenberg observes business leaders still end up seeming to want to hire graduates who are good at critical thought, good at expressive self-presentation, generalists with a broad range of knowledge and skill. E.g., what liberal education already excels at.
Letter from an English Department on the Brink (Sarah Blackwood, New York Review of Books, April 2, 2023) At the English department she chairs, the major has grown by more than 40% in the last two years, but they are being driven to the edge of extinction anyway. (Subscription required)
Academic Freedom and Higher Ed
Shouting Down Offensive Speakers (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, April 13, 2023): Over the course of a month, students on four different college campuses shut down speakers they disagreed with. Why is it so hard to forge a consensus on what protecting free speech really means?
New Faculty-Led Organization at Harvard Will Defend Academic Freedom (Steven Pinker and Bertha Madras, Boston Globe, April 12, 2023): The new Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard is devoted to free inquiry, intellectual diversity, and civil discourse. Leaders are diverse in politics, demographics, disciplines, and opinions but united in their concern for academic freedom.
Conservative Attacks on Higher Ed Are Attacks on Democracy (Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 13, 2023): The “public” in public higher education is primarily about access to higher-education institutions that are dedicated to serving the public. Of course, members of the public should have a say in shaping public colleges. But those with the requisite expertise, namely faculty members, must be at the forefront when it comes to making decisions about teaching and research.
On the Bookshelf
Elizabeth Aries, The Impact of College Diversity: Struggles and Successes at Age 30 (Temple University Press. Interview with Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, April 10, 2023. Author who first explored the impact of diversity on undergraduates in 2005 returns to her subjects as they reach 30 and finds new evidence of success of affirmative action.
Bryan Alexander, Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis (Johns Hopkins University Press), discussed in Imagining One Higher Ed Future for ‘Universities on Fire’ (Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed, April 14, 2023).
Webinars
Helping Students Navigate the ‘Hidden Curriculum’ (Chronicle of Higher Education). April 18, 2023: Success in college goes beyond academic achievement. Webinar will examine how institutions can help first-generation students understand the nuances of life outside the classroom. Register here.
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)