Books and journals on college teaching are chock full of best practices, compelling activities, and successful ideas for the classroom. These resources do help, but also helpful are experiences at the unsuccessful end of the teaching spectrum. I am referring to clinkers – those best
In the face of a long, protracted pandemic with reports of exhaustion streaming in from all quarters, many educators may feel they were not able to teach as effectively as they would have liked to. This is the perfect time to revisit (or ask anew)
While it is, admittedly, a bit of an unorthodox concept, we would like to propose that our understanding of colleges and universities would be enhanced if we thought of them as cooking schools. The faculty are master chefs with expertise in particular styles of cuisine,
When as a college sophomore I first encountered Benedict de Spinoza, I was fascinated by both his philosophy, which emphasizes intellectual freedom and pursuit of virtue, and the fact that by trade or profession he was a grinder of lenses.
In William Wordsworth’s well-known sonnet “The World Is Too Much with Us; Late and Soon,” the titular line’s meaning hinges on two words, the latter of which may initially seem insignificant: “world” and “with.” “World” refers to human affairs; and, of all the definitions for
As a first-year professor on the tenure track, I’m looking for inspiration from any source, including Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. The series is about an American college football coach hired by an English soccer team. Like many of the show’s more than 500 million viewers,
I have long pondered a phrase I learned from a mentor: “Witness the struggle.” Frances, my mentor, used the phrase when she talked about working with students in emotional pain. She was referring to those students who sometimes lash out in frustration over missed assignments,
For all the talk in faculty development circles about transforming our classrooms, there is very little guidance for faculty attempting to navigate the mindset shifts necessary to approach their work differently. We each want to create a classroom where our students feel included and able
Two readings triggered my thinking about contrasting images for education. In Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind tells us that education is stuffing facts into the minds of students. The more, the better. The quicker, the better. In current terms he favors “information bombardment.”
I used to fret quite a lot over my grade distribution. If I gave too many As, did that mean my courses lacked rigor? If too many students failed, was I a bad teacher? My thinking has shifted to a greater concern over student learning
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