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Category Archives: Pedagogy
“Is there just one more way that you can help keep learners on task, just one more way that you could give them information, just one more way that they could demonstrate their skills?”
It’s easy to think of “accessibility issues” from a deficiency-based perspective. For example, sometimes faculty members are asked to do extra things for students with audio-processing limitations. This new book by Thomas Tobin and Kirsten Behling takes a much different … Continue reading
“Since students are more likely to learn when they do their own thinking, it is useful to encourage as many to think independently about a question as possible.”
It’s a well-documented trend: college students are increasingly reluctant to participate in class discussions. Especially during the early weeks of the semester – like now – creating the sort of classroom environment that fosters discussion is a huge challenge. I … Continue reading
“Whether teaching or writing, what I really am doing is shepherding revelation; I am the midwife to epiphany.”
It’s the dead of winter, which is a hard time to begin something new. And yet, that’s exactly what those of us who are preparing to start a new semester must do. That’s why this is a perfect time for … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy, poetry
Tagged epiphanies, Parker Palmer, shepherding revelations, Taylor Mali, Teaching with Heart
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“It stands to reason, then, that if we notice similar patterns emerging from psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, then they might together help us to understand how human beings learn.”
In the last ten years, research by cognitive psychologists has led to many interesting books on how learning works. And yet, questions about why humans learn the way we do remain. Would a cross-disciplinary approach give us a richer context … Continue reading
“The courage to teach is the courage to keep one’s heart open . . .”
The school year has just started, and I’ve begun to meet students who seem to have everything going for them and other students who seem to have the deck stacked against them. At this point, I don’t know how any … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy
Tagged Courage to Teach, emotion and spirit, Intellect, Parker Palmer
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“You want to aim for what D’Mello and colleagues call a ‘zone of optimal confusion.’”
D’Mello and his research team identified three guiding principles for implementing confusion in the college classroom: it should be appropriate, intentional and in the context of learning; students should possess the ability to successfully resolve the confusion; and when students … Continue reading
“While learning requires much effort, teaching entails an even greater one because it is more laden with moral and human responsibilities.”
Really? Moral and human responsibilities? Let’s think about that for a moment. Could it be the case that the teacher’s real work is to “animate inert knowledge with qualities of our own personality and spirit”? Is it our job to … Continue reading
“Students who have experienced trauma and stress are not a small subpopulation of students.”
This book, like last week’s book, discusses “Adverse Childhood Experiences,” which is a set of 10 questions that assess the level of trauma kids experience. These questions focus on exposure to mental illness, addiction, abandonment, hunger, physical abuse or danger, … Continue reading
“Social psychologists have found that we are overconfident, sometimes to the point of delusion, about our ability to infer what other people think . . .”
It’s easy to recognize “bad” writing, but hard to identify the cause of bad writing. Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker argues that the problem starts when writers make incorrect assumptions about their readers’ knowledge and vocabulary. Writers who are experts, … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction, Pedagogy
Tagged Bad Writing, Effective Writing, Linguistics, Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style
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“The enthusiasm of the educators statistically predicted their students’ ratings of enjoyment and perceived value in the subject matter.”
This is the first week in the spring semester at my college, and it’s a critical time for setting the tone and energy level in our classes. That’s why I’m turning again to James Lang’s excellent book Small Teaching, which … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction, Pedagogy
Tagged James Lang, pedagogy, role of emotion in learning, science of learning, Small Teaching
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“In her research, Fassinger (1997) found that the variable that best explained student participation was a student trait – confidence.”
Thirty years of research on classroom discussion has generated many theories on why some students participate in discussion and others do not. I’ve come to believe that while a combination of factors come into play, Fassinger’s findings are probably key. … Continue reading
Best Books for College Teachers in 2017
Of the books published in 2017, here is my list of the five that have added the most to my understanding of our students, our challenges as instructors, and our need to reform our educational system. iGen by Jean Twenge: … Continue reading
Posted in Pedagogy
Tagged Andrea Petersen, Breakaway Learners, Cathy Davidson, iGen, Jean Twenge, Karen Gross, Norman Eng, On Edge, Teaching College, The New Education
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“Sadly, the reality is that more and more students entering the educational pipeline have had curdled childhoods.”
It is not poverty per se that distinguishes these students, Karen Gross writes, but it’s a childhood burdened by “hunger, exposure to or experience with drugs, alcohol, abandonment, frequent moves, abuse, self-harm or harm of others.” Do we know which … Continue reading
“My students call this a ‘quarter-life crisis.’”
Cathy Davidson, author of The New Education, describes the twenty-fifth birthday parties that many of her college students throw “to commemorate their collective indecision and existential sense of uselessness.” They have degrees, credentials, and honors, but few job prospects. Davidson … Continue reading
“When he analyzed students’ responses through their handheld electronic clickers, only 10 percent would remember the material after twenty minutes of lecture.”
Was this professor inept? Were his students slackers? Both are unlikely: Carl Wieman, the professor, is a Nobel Laureate, and he teaches at Sanford. Perhaps, as Norman Eng points out, those of us who stand in the front of the … Continue reading