A GLCA Opportunity: Revitalize Your Research: Effective Project Management for Busy Scholars
Does your research cause you anxiety? Are you drowning in documents and files when you try to work? Do you find yourself spending too much time hunting for important writing, data, or administrative information?
If so, we hope you will join us Wednesday, October 30 at Noon EDT for a presentation on Effective Project Management for Busy Scholars with Shiri Noy, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director, Latin American & Caribbean Studies at Denison University.
This talk will introduce key stages and principles of research project management. Learning how to effectively organize and manage your research is essential for improving both your work and your well-being. Although we gain significant knowledge in theories and methods, we often miss out on training in the organizational and metacognitive skills needed to manage research effectively. By establishing clear organization in your research, you can reduce your stress, improve your research, and better communicate your methodological and theoretical choices to reviewers and funding agencies, while also fostering the development of new ideas and innovative project extensions.
Sign up here for this online event (a Zoom link will be sent the day before). The session will be recorded.
Teaching and Learning
What If You Can’t Remove the Bias from Course Evaluations? (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 17, 2024): Supiano reports on an effort by faculty at Hamilton College to design a course evaluation free from bias. It proved harder than they thought.
Spacing and Retrieval Practice in Health Professions (Althea Need Kaminske, Learning Scientists, October 17, 2024): A new review suggests how to better understand how spacing and retrieval practice are used in health professions education (including undergraduate) and whether these strategies lead to improvements in academic grades.
Expanding Study Away Opportunities (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, October 17, 2024): Study abroad offers students important life and career skill development opportunities, but not every learner is able to take advantage of these programs. Domestic learning experiences give students similar exposure with fewer complications.
Using Collaborative Learning to Elevate Students’ Educational Experiences (George Ojie-Ahamiojie, Faculty Focus, October 16, 2024): Collaborative learning allows students to be engaged and active participants in their own learning by sharing ideas, analyzing problems, and finding solutions to them. [NOTE: See the article below as well.]
Setting Groups Up for Success (Tony’s Teaching Tips, October 16, 2024): How to structure group work so it works better for all involved.
Your PowerPoints Probably Suck (Zachary Nowak, Inside Higher Ed, October 16, 2024): But you can easily improve them. The author offers 10 suggestions for how to do that.
How to Improve the Quality of College Teaching (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, October 16, 2024): This isn’t a mission impossible, but it will require a fundamental change in strategy.
10 Lessons From Leading a Study-Abroad Trip (Aimee Weinstein, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 15, 2024): A faculty member explores the ups and downs of traveling overseas with students for a course.
All Things AI
Two new books focus on the limits of algorithmic prediction: Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age (John Hopkins) by Lindsay Weinberg, director of the Tech Justice Lab at the John Martinson Honors College of Purdue University, and AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t and How to Tell the Difference (Princeton) by Arvind Narayanan, a professor of computer science at Princeton, and Sayash Kapoor, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science.
Students and Voting
How to Help Students Vote This Fall (Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed, October 15, 2024): One in 10 students say they’re planning to vote, but they just don’t yet know how, according to Student Voice data. Respondents outline the most helpful efforts for student voting, including time off to cast a ballot.
Why Political Text Blasts Targeting College Students Are Drawing Outrage (Declan Bradley, October 16, 2024): Republicans in Arizona cried foul after students at the state’s three public universities received texts asking them to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Universities Must Make Voting Easy for Students (Elaine Maimon, The Philadelphia Citizen, October 15, 2024: A long-time university president reminds Philadelphia-area colleges: You are legally required to help your students register and vote.
Activists Raise Alarm on Texts Meant to ‘Frighten’ Young Wisconsin Voters (Johanna Alonso, Inside Higher Ed, October 18, 2024): Reports on texts received by young voters in Wisconsin falsely implying that it would be illegal for students to vote in a state where they are “not eligible” to do so.
October 7: A Year Later
A Curricular Clash at MIT (Amanda Friedman, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 15, 2024): How a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rattled a department.
College Campuses Remain Largely Peaceful, Even as Widespread Protests Mark War Anniversary (Madina Touré and Bianca Quilantan, Politico, October 10, 2024): Many universities have implemented new restrictions on demonstrations after widespread disruptions earlier this year.
Affirmative Action and DEI
The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong? (Nicholas Confessore, New York Times, October 16, 2024): A decade and a quarter of a billion dollars later, students and faculty are more frustrated than ever.
When DEI is Gone: A Look at the Fallout at One Texas University (Kiara Alfonseca, ABC News, October 13, 2024): Texas is one of about nine states with anti-DEI legislation in place.
Extra Credit Reading
Americans Have Not Turned Against Higher Ed (Kevin Carey and Sophie Nguyen, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 15, 2024): Reports of the sector’s cratering popularity are mistaken.
Teaching Centers Aren’t Dumping Grounds (Kerry O’Grady, Inside Higher Ed, October 15, 2024): When the pandemic hit, the best-laid plans of teaching and learning centers went out the window. Instead of focusing on strategy and innovation, it was a fire hose of emergency implementation that left teaching and learning center staff viewed more as customer service representatives than as experts in education. It’s time for a reset.
Where Are the White Students? (Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 10, 2024): A Chronicle analysis shows their numbers are dropping faster than any other group’s.
Underrepresented Minority Faculty in the USA Face a Double Standard in Promotion and Tenure Decisions (Theodore Masters-Wage, et. al, Nature – Human Behavior, October 4, 2024): Data from five US universities on 1,571 faculty members P&T decisions demonstrates a double standard which is amplified for faculty with intersectional backgrounds.
Future Imperfect
Georgia Made Kirby Smart College Football’s Highest-paid Coach. But At What Cost? (Mark Giannotto and Steve Berkowitz, USA Today, October 16, 2024): Recent graduation rates are among the worst in the country.
“Universities are the Enemy”: The Dark Belief Behind Project 2025’s Higher Education Agenda (Carrie N. Baker, Washington Monthly, October 14, 2024): The infamous 887-page policy manual linked to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance aims to take Ron DeSantis’s war against liberal arts education nationwide. [NOTE: the following two articles give greater depth to what is happening in Florida.)
Florida Universities Are Culling Hundreds of General Education Courses (Andrew Atterbury, Politico, October 14, 2024): Universities that keep general education courses against recommendations from the Board of Governors run the risk of losing critical state funding.
Do These Courses Contain Antisemitic Content? (Emma Pettit, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 2024): Florida’s 12 public universities were told to identify courses to be reviewed for “antisemitism or anti-Israeli bias” by searching under the following key-words: Israel, Israeli, Palestine, Palestinian, Middle East, Zionism, Zionist, Judaism, Jewish, and Jews. The results turned up courses on “Percussion Ensemble,” “General Parasitology” and “Painting Workshop.” Seriously: What could possibly go wrong?
Conferences and Workshops
Addressing the Hidden Curriculum on Campus: Supporting First-Generation and Low-Income Students as They Navigate College: Friday, November 8, 1:00-2:00 Eastern
In this workshop, Rachel Gable will introduce current research on supporting first-generation and low-income students in a range of college contexts. She will offer concrete data, personal vignettes from students, and specific advice for faculty and staff as they engage with first-generation and low-income students on their campuses. The emphasis of the workshop is on supporting all students to thrive, with a focus on those who have less familiarity with the college-going process. This event will be held on First-Generation College Student Celebration Day (November 8).
Rachel Gable is a higher education researcher and practitioner who is passionate about helping students find their best fit educational pathway, one that maximizes their academic strengths, intellectual curiosity, and personal fulfillment. Over the past two decades, she has taught and worked with students from middle school through college and from an array of institutional types, including highly selective private universities, small liberal arts colleges, and large less-selective public institutions. Her first book, The Hidden Curriculum: First Generation Students at Legacy Institutions, details the academic, social, and personal experiences of first-generation college students attending two of our nation’s most selective universities to uncover the unwritten rules for success in college. Gable works with faculty and university stakeholders at William & Mary on academic program development and modification to meet the needs of all students. REGISTER HERE FOR THIS WORKSHOP
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)