Teaching and Learning
Could Creating More Active-Learning Spaces Improve Equity? (Beth McMurtrie, October 6, 2022): McMurtrie shares research on the implications for women around active learning classrooms.
How Conducting a Mixed-mode Class is Similar to Hosting a Late-night Talk Show (Randy Riddle, Faculty Focus, October 5, 2022): A mixed-mode class and late-night talk show both require a specific kind of planning and stagecraft that must engage an in-person and remote audience at the same time.
Faculty Teaching the Way They Were Taught (Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed, October 5, 2022): Whether you consider teaching an art, craft, science or profession, it is clear that K-12 teachers are more fully prepared than many of us who teach in higher ed.
More Vexing Than the Impostor Syndrome (Angelica S. Gutierrez, Inside Higher Ed, October 5, 2022): The author argues that certain classroom practices that faculty unconsciously engage in can make students question their intelligence, competence and sense of belonging.
‘Cancellation’ Narratives Mistake Symptoms as Causes (Kyle Sebastian Vitale, Inside Higher Ed, October 5, 2022): Poor training in teaching is one of several deeper organizational problems underlying issues like cancel culture and self-censorship.
Momentum Builds for Helping Students Adapt to College by Nixing Freshman Grades (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report, October 1, 2022): Un-grading helps students who are so preoccupied with grades that they aren’t actually learning.
Ready for an In-class Sharing Reset? Try the “TRI” Method! (Katherine Orlando, Faculty Focus, October 3, 2022): Instead of using an in-class model in which one person shares with the whole class (one at a time), or using a pair-share method, consider a reset and try the use of trios.
‘The System Needs to Be Changed’ (Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, October 4, 2022): New paper suggests introductory STEM courses disproportionately push underrepresented minority students out of the applied sciences.
Targeted Learning Outcomes: Equitable and Effective Teamwork (Project-Based Learning in Higher Ed): If you have students working in teams, here is an activity that can help students manage team dynamics. Its recommended use is just after the mid-point of a team-based project.
What Our Best College Instructors Do (Christine Latulippe and Patricia O’Sullivan, Every Learner, Everywhere, September 27, 2022): Reflections by students about meaningful learning experiences. [Free download]
Correcting Peers is Key in Small-Group Learning (Alan Flurry, University of Georgia, September 26, 2022): Students who are willing to ask for clarification, as well as correct the mistakes of others, show better results in small-group problem-solving than their peers.
The State of Higher Ed
Do We Really Need New University Models? (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, October 5, 2022): What’s missing from the proposed new educational models for the post-COVID era.
The Return of College as a Common Good (Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3, 2022): Americans increasingly see the public value of higher education. Can colleges seize the moment? (And this useful “backgrounder:” When College Was a Public Good (Scott Carlson, November 27, 2016): As the population has grown more diverse, support has dwindled for grand efforts, like the GI Bill, to open doors to higher education. Coincidence?
Academic Freedom Has Always Been Dirty. That’s a Good Thing (Joan Scott, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 4, 2022): Scott reviews three recent books on higher education: Daniel Gordon’s What is Academic Freedom?: A Century of Debate, 1915-Present, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth’s It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom, and Julia Schleck’s Dirty Knowledge: Academic Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism.
Professorial Speech, the First Amendment, and the ‘Anti-CRT’ Laws (Keith E. Whittington, Wake Forest Law Review, August 19, 2022): The author explains the legal history of academic freedom and lays out a case against strategies like Governor DeSantis’s argument that college teaching is a form of government speech. (Summary by Len Gutkin, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3, 2022).
At NYU, Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry, Who Was to Blame? (Stephanie Saul, New York Times, October 3, 2022): This one unhappy chemistry class could be a case study of the pressures on higher education as it tries to handle its Gen-Z student body. Also, an Opinion article by Tressie McMillan Cottom (More on the Firing of That N.Y.U. Professor, New York Times, October 5, 2022). [Subscription required] Finally, What Does It Mean When Students Can’t Pass Your Course (Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 6, 2022): The case of an NYU organic-chem prof centers on one of teaching’s thorny questions.
Equity and Justice in Higher Ed
Female Faculty: Beware the Non-Promotable Task (Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 5, 2022): Mentoring, committee work, and other campus service disproportionately burden women.
Teaching in Color (Chavella Pittman): A podcast which gives voice to the teaching experiences of faculty of color who’ve been silenced, marginalized and ignored, their careers destroyed for far too long, most often by the allies presumed to support them.
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)