Teaching and Learning
Teaching: A Different Kind of Faculty Fellowship (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 25, 2024): A program with a goal of helping professors remember what it’s like to learn something unfamiliar, which can be frustrating, but also joyful.
Motivational Regulation – Strategies for Academic Motivation (althea Need Kaminske, Learning Scientists, July 25, 2024): In general, motivation regulation strategies can be categorized into six broad categories (2): mastery self-talk, performance self-talk, self-consequenting, value regulation, efficacy enhancement, and environment regulation.
Continual Feedback for Student Assessment (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2024): As part of a larger ungrading initiative, one professor implemented a performance-review process for students to connect their classroom experiences to strengths, growth and skill development—while preparing them for review processes in future jobs.
Robert’s Rules of (Campus) Order (Jason V. Morgan, Inside Higher Ed, July 24, 2024): To teach students to debate better, colleges already have a proven, 150-year-old method they can draw on.
More Colleges Are No Longer Putting Students on ‘Academic Probation.’ Here’s Why (Kate Hidalgo Bellows, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 23, 2024): The University of California system and other institutions are changing the language used to label students who are struggling in their classes.
Difficult Discussions: Some resources suggested by directors of small college teaching and learning centers:
PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Guide: A go-to resource for faculty, staff, and students provides practical, principled guidance for how campuses can best remain open to all voices.
Lara Hope Schwartz, Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life (Princeton, 2024): Written for students, offering a framework for understanding and practicing dialogue across difference in an out of the classroom.
Creating Community Agreements (Berkeley Graduate Division, Teaching and Resource Center): Community agreements for discussion in section can help promote and organize productive conversations among students by building a sense of community and setting clear expectations and boundaries.
Navigating Heated, Offensive, and Tense (HOT) Moments in the Classroom (Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning): Includes suggestions and various resources.
2024 Election Guidebook (Constructive Dialogue Institute): Maintaining campus community during the 2024 election.
Teaching in Times of Crisis (Nancy Chick, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University): Whether local, national, or international in scope, times of crisis can have a significant impact on the college classroom.
Resources in the Face of Tragedy, Conflict, and Critical Incidents (POD Network): A valuable series of resources.
Teaching in Times of Crisis (Faculty Development Center, Eastern Michigan University): a variety of points including the importance of considering the wellness of faculty and students alike, deciding whether or not to discuss the situation that has arisen, and various actions that one might take.
Ilarion Merculieff and Libby Roderick, Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning and Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education (University of Alaska Anchorage, 2013): open access pdf here.
Difficult Dialogues Handbooks (Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center).
All Things AI
Assessment Reform for the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed, July 25, 2024): 43-minute podcast with Jasonn Lodge.
Majority of Grads Wish They’d Been Taught AI in College (Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed, July 23, 2024): A new survey shows 70 percent of graduates think generative AI should be incorporated into courses. More than half said they felt unprepared for the workforce.
Fallout from Spring Protests
What Did Task Forces Responding to Reports of Antisemitism and Islamophobia Accomplish? (Fernanda Zamudio-Suarez, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 23, 2024): The committees, led by faculty or staff members, have in many cases avoided making calls on controversial definitions.
Prosecutors Drop Charges Filed by Northwestern Police Against Educators Involved in Campus Encampment (Lisa Kurian Philip, WBEZ Chicago, July 19, 2024): The Northwestern employees were charged with obstructing police, months after the encampment came down. Now the cases have been dismissed.
3,100 Arrests, but Many Charges Have Been Dropped (Isabelle Taft, Alex Lemonides, Lazaro Gamio, and Anna Betts, New York Times, July 21, 2024): The spate of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments engulfed academic institutions of all sizes and nearly every part of the country.
Extra Credit Reading
What a Kamala Harris Presidency Will Mean for Higher Education, DEI, and History (Liann Herder, Diverse Education, July 22, 2024): Harris matriculated at an historically Black college and university (HBCU), and is also the child of immigrant parents, which would give the presidency another vantage point that it never had before.
What Young Conservatives Have to Say About Higher Education (Joanna Hou, Hechinger Report, July 22, 2024): Politically motivated Republican college students have concerns about free speech, respect from fellow students and the political views of professors.
Predictive Models May Have Bias Against Black and Hispanic Learners (Ashley Mowreader, July 19, 2024): A recent study from the American Educational Research Association’s journal finds predictive models can perpetuate social disparities and assume worse outcomes of some racial and ethnic groups.
To Sell Prized Paintings, a University Proclaims They’re Not ‘Conservative’ (Annie Aguiar, New York Times, July 19, 2024): Valparaiso University is arguing it should never have acquired two paintings, including a Georgia O’Keeffe, in the 1960s. It hopes to sell them to pay for dorm renovations.
The Progressive Case for Reforming Higher Ed (Michael D. Smith, Inside Higher Ed, July 22, 2024): Customized, digital education offers a path for progressive reform.
Workshops
We normally don’t advertise workshops that charge for attendance, but this seemed a good one to bring to your attention: AAC&U is offering a series of four workshops on Tuesdays from September 3-24 featuring current-to-the-moment information regarding teaching with generative AI and its possibilities for higher education. Among the topics covered: Working with AI for Teaching and Learning; Cheating, Detection, and Policy; Assignments and Writing; and AI to Improve Classes and Courses. More information and to register available 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)