Dear (Tired) Readers: Always faithful to traditions – I’m speaking of the traditional exhaustion which ramps up after Thanksgiving – the News of the Week is looking forward to taking a breather. We’ll be back in your inboxes on January 5, full of vim and vigor and ready to tackle 2024 with gusto.
Teaching and Learning
First-Year Experience Courses Tied to Higher Retention, GPA (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, December 14, 2023): New research from California State University, Fullerton, found students who participated in a first-year experience course were more likely to persist to their second year and achieved higher grades, on average.
The Power of Authentic Assessment in the Age of AI (Siham Al Amoush, Faculty Focus, December 13, 2023): A detailed argument for why instructors should design assessments as an engaging, ongoing process for students, helping them learn and achieve their learning outcomes rather than considering it as a one-shot test or quiz and focusing merely on the score.
Nonconformists Embrace Play as a Tool for Teaching and Learning (Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed, December 13, 2023): Lisa Forbes was fed up with expectations that professors should take a rigid approach to teaching. She co-founded Professors at Play, which connects faculty interested in playful pedagogy.
We Are the Targets (Tamara Schwartz, Inside Higher Ed, December 13, 2023): How instructors can combat the information warfare that pervades society by teaching students information and disinformation literacy skills.
A.I. in the Classroom
Why You Shouldn’t Use ChatGPT (Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, Inside Higher Ed, December 12, 2023): AI promises efficiency gains, but they come at the cost of alienation.
ChatGPT Has Changed Teaching. Our Readers Tell Us How (Beth McMurtrie and Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 11, 2023): Responses to generative AI in the classroom are, in short, all over the map.
High School Students’ Use and Impressions of AI Tools (Jeff Schiel, Becky L. Bobek, and Joyce Z. Schnieders, ACT Research, December 2023): Coming your way: Almost half of the participating high school students reported that they had used AI tools. See, as well, Cheating Fears Over Chatbots Were Overblown, New Research Suggests (Natasha Singer, New York Times, December 13, 2023): AI tools like ChatGPT did not boost the frequency of cheating in high schools, Stanford researchers say.
Teaching the Crisis
Teaching Palestine (Rana Jaleel, Academe, November-December 2016): Academe reprised an article from 2016 on bringing the Israel-Palestine conflict into the mainstream.
Continued Fallout from the Antisemitism Hearings
I Teach a Class on Free Speech. My Students Can Show Us the Way Forward (Sophia Rosenfeld, New York Times, December 15, 2023): Colleges and universities are best understood as special spaces with missions distinct from the world at large; they need some special rules of operation, tailored to the classroom, the student club and the college green.
Why the Presidents Couldn’t Answer Yes or No (Rafael Walker, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 12, 2023): They behaved like academics. That’s a good thing.
Lessons on Moral Clarity From the Antisemitism Hearing (Karl Schonberg, Inside Higher Ed, December 11, 2023): The presidents’ answers were not so much wrong as they were deaf to the moral imperatives of the moment.
What the University Presidents Got Right and Wrong About Antisemitic Speech (David French, New York Times, December 10, 2023): French argues that it is the hypocrisy in the presidents’ responses, not their understanding of the law, that has created a campus crisis. [You might also want to watch Peter Beinart’s 16 minute video response, Elise Stefanik, University Presidents, and the Politics of Distraction (Substack, December 11, 2023), who examines both the hearings and the charges of the hypocrisy of higher education leaders.]
My Students Aren’t Debating ‘Genocide,’ they’re Looking for the Freedom to Learn (David M. Perry, CNN Opinion, December 7, 2023): In a world driven by sound bites, social media, secret recordings of professors and students and elected officials demanding yes/no answers, suspicion and division making it seemingly impossible to have the difficult conversations in the classroom that always lie at the core of great education.
Billionaires in the Driver’s Seat?
How a Billionaire’s Fellowship Spread Skepticism About College’s Value (Jeffrey R. Young, Edsurge Podcast, December 12, 2023): The first episode of a podcast series “Doubting College,” looks at the fellowship funded by Peter Thiel which was intended to encourage high schoolers NOT to go on to college.
Bill Ackman’s Campaign Against Harvard Followed Years of Resentment (Maureen Farrell and Rob Copeland, New York Times, December 12, 2023): The billionaire investor has mounted a high-profile battle against Harvard president Claudine Gay over antisemitism and threats to Jewish students on campus, but long-held personal grudges play a part, too.
The Moral Authority of Marc Rowan (Maureen Tkacik, American Prospect, October 21, 2023): The private equity billionaire played a key role in the removal of M. Elizabeth Magill.
Extra Credit Reading
15 Findings from Chronicle Data on Public Perception (Brian O’Leary, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 11, 2023): What the public thinks about higher education is highly dependent on what questions are asked.
Webinars
The AAC&U is offering a free webinar on “AI and Higher Education: Implications for Learning, Curricula, and Institutions,” on January 10, 2024 (2:00 PM Eastern). Among the panelists are Bryan Alexander, Michael Roth, and Gilda Barabino. Register here.
Workshop Opportunities
It’s not too late for early career faculty at small liberal arts colleges to apply to join a fully paid and supportive faculty learning community at the Nielsen Center of Eckerd College exploring teaching identity, student learning, and teaching in liberal arts contexts. The Nielsen Workshop provides an extended opportunity to reflect on the vocation of liberal arts education and connect with new colleagues in a retreat-style fellowship program. Applications are due by December 22 and include fully funded travel, accommodations, and a stipend for three workshop sessions over a yearlong program. Apply 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 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)