Teaching and Learning
The Mindful Learning Framework (Marjorie Jackson, Faculty Focus, February 6, 2023): The Mindful Learning Framework is an organized set of principles to extend thinking and expand learning in a tangible framework that can be applied to any college course.
Learning with Flash Cards (Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel, Learning Scientists, February 3, 2023): Studying with conceptual-level flashcards (as opposed to detail-level content) is associated with better test performance and leads to better performance on a test that requires to formulate answers (e.g., short-answer questions).
Yes, There IS Still More to Say About ChatGPT
At This School, Computer Science Class Now Includes Critiquing Chatbots (Natasha Singer, New York Times, February 6, 2023): Move over, coding. Some schools are asking student programmers to think critically about rapid advances in artificial intelligence.
You’re Not Going to Like How Colleges Respond to ChatGPT (Chris Gilliard and Pete Rorabaugh, Slate, February 3, 2023): Pedagogically speaking, focusing on the grunt work of trying out ideas—watching them develop, wither, and cede ground to better ones—is the most valuable time we can spend with our students.
The Liberal Arts
Some See Liberal Arts Education as Elitist. Why It’s Really Pragmatic (Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, February 5, 2023): Rather than being just trained how to be a cog in a machine, you are taught to understand how machines work within the systems in which they (and you) are embedded.
Campus Speech, Academic Freedom, and Curricular Censorship
“This Is How Censorship Happens” (Nell Gluckman, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 2, 2023): How vague laws and heightened fears are creating a repressive climate on campus.
The Meaning of African American Studies (Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, New Yorker, February 3, 2023): The discipline emerged from Black struggle. Now the College Board wants it to be taught with barely any mention of Black Lives Matter.
A Brief History of Curriculum Censorship (Julie Halterman, Facing History & Ourselves, January 30, 2023): Book bans and other restrictions on what gets taught are making headlines. But they aren’t new. Read this for more background on how we got to this moment.
Fear of a Black-Studies Planet (Roderick A. Ferguson, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 30, 2023): There’s a reason Ron DeSantis feels threatened by AP African American Studies.
What’s On Your Bookshelf? Are you reading something (higher ed related or not) that you would like to recommend to your colleagues? Let us know!
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)