Teaching and Learning
How to Make Teaching More Inclusive, Interactive, Equitable and Participatory (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, October 27, 2022): A review of Cathy N. Davidson and Christina Katopodis, The New College Classroom (Harvard, 2022). The authors note that a study of 12,000 classrooms found that instructors took up 89% of class time speaking.
Want Students to Think Deeply? Help Them Do Nothing (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 2022): Helping busy students to slow down.
Let’s Disrupt the Calls for ‘Disruptive Innovation’ (Kevin Gannon, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 26, 2022): Too often the demand for novel solutions to higher education’s woes disregards existing work and those doing it.
Where’s the Wheat? (Regan A. R. Gurung, Inside Higher Ed, October 26, 2022): Author advises how to identify effective educational research to improve your classroom teaching success.
Getting Comfortable With Ed Tech (Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 26, 2022): How students’ feelings about learning technology are changing — and where they, and professors, still need support.
Flipped Learning Benefits ‘Easy to Replicate in Normal Classroom’ (Tom Williams, Times Higher Education, October 25, 2022). Authors of a study find that when active learning was built into traditional teaching methods, the effects of flipped learning “vanished.” [Registration required]
There’s No Right Way to ‘Ungrade’ (John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2022): Take it from an expert in failure. Ungrading is not a specific approach or set of techniques so much as a mindset.
The Power of Role Modeling Self-compassion Practices in Your Class (Carrie Jarosinski, Faculty Focus, October 24, 2022): A self-compassion practice may sound a bit awkward and uncomfortable, yet research clearly demonstrates that this intervention can support success in our personal, academic, and professional lives.
AI-Generated Essays Are Nothing to Worry About (S. Scott Graham, Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2022): And coming to terms with “robot writing” might just improve writing instruction. You can read this along with Machines Can Craft Essays. How Should Writing Be Taught Now? (Susan D’Agostino, Inside Higher Ed, October 26, 2022), which argues that we need to pay much more attention to the design of assignments.
How to Make Smart Choices About Tech for Your Course (Michelle D. Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education): Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should: it takes college students one hot minute to figure out when technology is just a useless embellishment.
Guide to Effective Presentations (Cindy Nebel, Learning Scientists): Resources that utilize learning science principles to talk about effective presentations of materials. (Thanks to Lew Ludwig at Denison for this resource.)
How to Make Your Lecture More Engaging and Interactive for Your Students (Faculty Focus, October 27, 2022): a 18-minute podcast with ways to make lectures more interactive, information on incorporating lecture wrappers and different engagement techniques.
The State of Higher Ed
The State of Education Censorship in Institutions of Higher Ed and Implications for the Field (Ashley L. White, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, October 27, 2022): Research argues that bills designed to prohibit classroom discussion of certain topics like race and LGBTQ culture can directly affect colleges, but often target K-12 schools and may dissuade prospective teachers from joining the profession.
Our Future Demands Critical and Creative Thinking Skills (Patrick Blessinger, Abhilasha Singh, Amudha Poobalan, and Sarwat Nauman, Learning Futures, October 23, 2022): While the central role of education, at all levels, in the political, economic and social spheres is well understood by the general public, it is now time to see how higher education can evolve stronger from this worldwide change.
Is College Worth It? Voters Are Split (Monica Potts, FiveThirtyEight, October 24, 2022): More than 80% of Republicans think that “most college professors teach liberal propaganda;” only 17% of Democrats agree. You might also be interested in a FiveThirtyEight podcast (24 min.), How A College Education Divides American Voters (Galen Druke, October 26, 2022) suggesting how a college diploma can influence an individuals’ beliefs and preferences.
Why Liberal Education Matters (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, October 23, 2022): Exploring a distinctively American article of faith.
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)