Republic of Logan

Gender Dynamics

republicoflogan — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:45:46 +0000

At a recent Center for Teaching and Learning workshop on this topic, discussion included:
-the question of class participation–how to balance gendered participation in class discussion, and also how to encourage and manage class discussion in general

-the importance of teaching the history of our disciplines to show they have been shaped by gender dynamics and concerns

-the importance of contextualizing gender and race so that they are not just token topics on one day

-the unequal burden of mentoring that falls on women faculty, and is often unrecognized in evaluations

-the situation of students addressing male faculty as doctor or professor, and female faculty as miss, ms, mrs or by first name

-the question of gender differences in comments on course evaluations, including those showing less tolerance toward female than male faculty or making derogatory gendered remarks

-the issue of dealing with women students who see themselves as inadequate despite material evidence of success

The flipped classroom

republicoflogan — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:12:23 +0000

An article from the CHE giving student feedback on a flipped classroom experiment.

Work (How to give an A)

republicoflogan — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:12:46 +0000

Watch Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Symphony, on YouTube, describing how he reframes the class experience for his students. His students are not college students, and he is teaching a master class in directing, but I think this has applicability for thinking about where we want our students to be by the end of our class. Listen to this–its inspirational whether you think it applies in your classroom or not.

Work (How to Give An A) by Benjamin Zander

To term paper or not to term paper, that is the question

republicoflogan — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:47:38 +0000

Since I am on a personal mission to never assign a “term paper” again, but to reinvent research projects and writing in my classes, I have enjoyed these posts in the CHE. The recent one is about doing away with the term paper, but I also like the earlier one that defends term papers. Both provide some good ideas about how we get our students to produce better thinking in writing.

“Lets Kill the Term Paper”

“Blogs and Term Papers” (in defense of term papers)

“Did I Miss Anything?” a poem

republicoflogan — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:40:15 +0000

Did I Miss Anything? by Tom Wayman

Do more students need hand-holding?

republicoflogan — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:49:10 +0000

In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “So many hands to hold in the classroom,” Lynda Lambert argues that she is seeing a significant uptick in the number of students who cannot think for themselves and demand from the instructor a road map that will lead to an “A.” She writes, “Unfortunately, following a map may teach them how to navigate, but it does not teach them how to drive. Few students seem to be able to find their way through their courses anymore without that map. And, interestingly, they hold the instructor responsible for their lack of learning if she does not provide GPS coordinates.”

Are we seeing this in our Penn classrooms, is the writer being curmudgeonly, what do you think?

Grading differently

republicoflogan — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:47:20 +0000

Provocative article about grading. I don’t agree with his solution, but its still a valuable article for talking about a problem that we all wrestle with as instructors.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/grading-differently-2/42614?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

“The importance of undisciplined thinking”

republicoflogan — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:59:16 +0000

Interesting article in the CHE about teaching students “not just how to think about course material, but rather how to think through the material. The idea is to help students learn how we, as practitioners of our disciplines, analyze, make meaning, understand, look at the world, and create.”

Article link

Checklist Manifesto in the classroom

republicoflogan — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:44:18 +0000

I read Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right this summer because of having read some columns in CHE talking about the usefulness of checklists in teaching. Specifically, if there are things that you really want students to get right, such as how you want papers to be formatted and presented, a well-designed checklist may help. For example, I am always frustrated that my course’s research paper never looks the way I want it. So I am going to design a checklist (and if you read Gawande, this has to be done carefully so as not to have so much stuff on it that it becomes overwhelming) to try to accomplish this. I am going to require that students sign and turn in the checklist along with the final paper.

I am also thinking that checklists might be a good way to teach skills over time. If I design a checklist for learning to read history literature, for example, it could then becomes a starting point for the next class discussion not only about content, but about the conventions of the literature itself.

I have a copy of Gawande in 363 if you want to take a look at it! Its a short read but really smart and compelling.

Comics in the classroom

republicoflogan — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:38:06 +0000

6/25/13 CHE contained an article about using comics in teaching, including many links to other sites.

“Comics in the Classroom and Beyond”

The Comics Grid has many resources and links about comics and about using them in teaching