Teaching and Learning
Making Space for Compassion in the Classroom (Chris Hakala, Inside Higher Ed, April 21, 2023): Hakala uses Student Voice data to argue that students and faculty members mutually benefit from flexibility, communication and feedback.
Could a Few Emails from You Boost Student Success? (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 20, 2023): A new paper offers some encouraging evidence that low-touch forms of outreach from an instructor can make a difference in how students, especially those from marginalized groups, view the course — and help improve their academic performance.
There Are Better Ways to Study That Will Last You a Lifetime (Daniel T. Willingham, New York Times, April 20, 2023): In a 2007 survey, just 20 percent of college students agreed that they study as they do “because a teacher (or teachers) taught you to study that way.” And that lack of instruction shows. Students don’t know much about how they learn.
Our Future Self (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, April 18, 2023): The ability to project oneself into the future is a key to such attributes as resolve, willpower, and patience and one’s knack for coping with stress and setbacks.
AI, Tech, and Higher Ed
ChatGPT and Writing Assessment, an Old Problem Made New (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, April 21, 2023): When it comes to assessing student writing, ChatGPT merely makes an enduring problem more apparent.
How ChatGPT Bested Me and Worsted My Students (Brandi Lawless, Inside Higher Ed, April 20, 2023): As educators, let’s not be so reactive to AI when it comes to possible plagiarism. Otherwise, we are no more nuanced than it is itself.
Yes, We Are in a (ChatGPT) Crisis (Inara Scott, Inside Higher Ed, April 18, 2023): The author argues that apathy to the impact of AI on how courses (and curricula) are constructed is unacceptable.
How Much Can Duolingo Teach Us? (Carina Chocano, The New Yorker, April 17, 2023): The company’s founder, Luis von Ahn, believes that artificial intelligence is going to make computers better teachers than humans.
DEI
DEI’s Critics Are Missing the Point (Shaya Gregory Poku, Inside Higher Ed, April 19, 2023): Many criticisms of DEI are misguided and miss the essential fact that attention to diversity, equity and inclusion advances learning for everyone.
Academic Freedom and Higher Ed
Hundreds of Students, Faculty, and Administrators Speak Out Against Ohio’s Proposal to Reform Public Colleges (Kate Marijolovic, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 20, 2023): The 39-page Senate Bill 83 would ban mandatory diversity training and diversity statements, while also overhauling faculty evaluations and campus mission statements. On SB 83, see, as well Ohio Races…to the Back of the Line (Steven Volk, After Class: Education and Democracy, April 19, 2023).
On the Bookshelf
Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson, Campus Economics: How Economic Thinking Can Help Improve College and University Decisions (Princeton). Interview with the authors by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, April 17, 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 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)