Teaching and Learning
Questions: Why Do They Matter? (Patty Kohler-Evans, Faculty Focus, January 13, 2023): Asking questions is one of a teacher’s most essential responsibilities.
How Can STEM Instructors Show Students They Belong? (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 12, 2023): Efforts to make STEM instruction more inclusive and antiracist.
How to Improve College Teaching in 2023 (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, January 9, 2023): Six new year’s resolutions every college instructor should keep.
The Key to Success in College Is So Simple, It’s Almost Never Mentioned (Jonathan Malesic, New York Times, January 3, 2023): What is it? A willingness to learn rooted in a belief that every class offers something worthwhile.
The Challenge of A.I. and ChatGPT
Chat GPT Advice Academics Can Use Now (Susan D’Agostino, Inside Higher Ed, January 12, 2023): To harness the potential and avert the risks of OpenAI’s new chat bot, academics should think a few years out, invite students into the conversation and—most of all—experiment, not panic.
My First Chat With the Bot (Brian Strang, Inside Higher Ed, January 12, 2023): Uncanny, creepy and bland: Strang reflects on his chat with the artificial intelligence language model ChatGPT and the threat it does (or doesn’t) pose to writing instruction.
ChatGPT: A Must-See Before the Semester Begins (Cynthia Alby, Faculty Focus, January 9, 2023): Might this be an opportunity to turn away from assembly line efficiency and toward a model where we help students use AI to extend their capabilities, allowing them to pursue interests and solve wicked problems?
Diversity, Inclusion, Equity
Quick Activities to Prepare and Maintain a Classroom of Care (Lauren E. Burrow, Faculty Focus, January 11, 2023): Prioritizing a “pedagogy of care” is essential to re-connecting peer-to-peer and professor-to-student relationships so that mutual care and respect can be re-established in college classrooms.
The State of Higher Ed
You have, dear readers, undoubtedly become aware of the events at Hamline University. If not, Vilmal Patel’s article in the New York Times (A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job, January 8, 2023) can bring you up to date. Tom Nichols of the Atlantic had some pointed comments as well (Academic Freedom Is Not a Matter of Opinion: Students should not decide a college’s curriculum, January 12, 2023). As he concluded: “Academic freedom is not an open invitation to be a jerk. It is not a license for faculty to harass students or to impose their will on them. But if all it means is that professors keep their jobs only at the sufferance of students, then it means nothing at all.” And, if you want still more analysis, read Alexander Jabbari, “Where Religion and Neoliberal Diversity Tactics Converge” (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 12, 2023).
Hard Truth That Higher Education Has Evaded for Too Long (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, January 10, 2023): The brutal truths that institutions don’t want to acknowledge.
Webinars
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Teaching” newsletter is hosting some webinars. The first session, on January 20 and open to anyone, considers how to make class time meaningful. Read more about the series and sign up here.
Save the Date: The Consortium for Teaching and Learning of the GLCA/GLAA will be holding a webinar on their Global Course Connections program – what it is, how it works, and how to participate, on Friday, February 10 at 9:00 AM (ET). More information to follow.
What Works Conference at Kenyon
The Center for Innovative Pedagogy at Kenyon College invites presentations on teaching and learning for the 2023 What Works virtual conference, to be held the week of May 30-June 2, 2023. They are considering all proposals that would apply to undergraduate education at a small college or university, but we especially want to encourage proposals in three areas:
- collaboration between faculty and staff to support student learning
- new applications of educational technology
- courses that employ pedagogies of diversity, equity and inclusion
Proposals are being accepted at https://forms.gle/C7rRj9aQutzRQMWV6 . The deadline to submit is Wednesday, March 1. Please feel free to contact Joe Murphy (murphyjm@kenyon.edu) or Alex Alderman (alderman1@kenyon.edu) to discuss your ideas for a session!
GLCA New Writers Award
The GLCA and its 13 member colleges are pleased to announce the winners of the 53rd New Writers Award, recognizing newly published writers for poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. We also wish to extend our gratitude to the 2023 judging panels.
Poetry: James Fujinami Moore, indecent hours, published by Four Way Books. Judges: Chanda Feldman (Oberlin College); Eugene Gloria (DePauw University); Tim Lake (Wabash College)
Fiction: Tsering Yangzom Lama, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Judges: Matthew Ferrence (Allegheny College); Ira Sukrungruang (Kenyon College); Margot Singer (Denison University)
Creative Non-Fiction: Lars Horn, Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay, published by Graywolf Press. Judges: Amy Butcher (Ohio Wesleyan University); Nels Christensen (Albion College); Rhoda Janzen (Hope College)
Award recipients agree to participate in New Writers visits to GLCA colleges by invitation. These campus visits are an integral part of the award, allowing the authors to meet with students, offer readings of their work, and participate in discussions, lectures, colloquia, readings, workshops, seminars, and interviews. The visits can be scheduled for fall of 2023 through the spring of 2024. Please share this opportunity with your colleagues. Don’t hesitate to contact Colleen Monahan Smith with questions about scheduling a visit to your campus!
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)