Group items tagged

Interesting claim that the qualities of a "critical thinker" can be enumerated, taught, and practiced as "intellectual virtues."

Xtranormal is an online service which creates animated videos based on your script. In this Chronicle article, the author describes using this approach to help students learn to write arguments by assigning the sides to animated characters.

How do you get students to make connections between the facts they learn in a course? This article describes two courses which used Twitter to get students to contribute small connections to a class archive, in a similar way that an Orwell character does in his novel "A Clergyman's Daughter."

A collection of Google Earth map files, designed to help students think about the geographic locations in various literary works (and the travels of their characters). The site also includes links to some good Google Earth tutorials.

Louis Schmier's latest asks about the true mission of higher education. "Students are asked in word and action, especially at revealing career days and job fairs and Career Services Office,  "what do you want to do," and seldom, if ever, "who do you want to become."" It's intriguing to think about resume-building credentialism not only as a pressure from outside, but also the easy way out compared to the real goals of liberal education.

In the liberal arts, we can be rightly skeptical about teaching "job skills"... but how can we help students develop their sense of what makes their lives more meaningful and fulfilling, including employment?

"As I reflected why some groups of students were able to embrace the place of gratitude more than others, or even why some seemed to express more gratitude than others, I discovered that there was an uncanny relationship between my own level of gratitude and that of my students." So what are you grateful for this semester - and what are you doing about it?