Group items tagged

Good review of the literature around the concept of "grit." Most of this literature focuses on students and I'm intrigued to see the call that we have to look closer at grit in the faculty life cycle too, with its ongoing opportunities for negative feedback.

Molly Appel describes a strategy she uses to teach students specific critical analysis and close reading skills, allowing them to relate more deeply with diverse texts and the diversity of the classroom. While the examples are from literature, I can imagine the approach being adapted for the reading skills of any discipline.

A news story on a web site which uses Google Maps to plot scenes from books. 

What do classes look like as you move from infrequent, high-stakes assignments and exams to frequent grading of low-stakes activities? Warnock makes a number of claims, backed up by the literature - students become more confident and motivated, there's less incentive to cheat, the dialogue between students and faculty improves. I particularly like the last half of the article, where he talks about the practical elements of increasing informal writing or quizzing in a course.

Terrific podcast discussion reviewing the body of literature on course evaluations. Did you know it's one of the deepest areas of research in the scholarship of teaching and learning?

I've heard (and said) that small humanities classes already are "flipped", but Derek Bruff gives some examples which show that a lit class can still be flipped. Even close reading and response writing "can benefit from what Helen Shin calls "shared temporal, spatial, and cognitive presence.""

An interesting set of prompts to help you consider publishing scholarship about your teaching. I'd like to highlight the first sentence of Step 5 - "a primary rule of (the scholarship of teaching and learning) is to use your discipline-based methods first." Don't use your preconceived notions of what education literature looks like, but consider how your study might use your disciplinary ways of knowing.

Did you know that grades weren't widespread in American education until midway through the 20th Century? This article features a literature review of the history of grading, discusses some of the ways in which grading doesn't work as well for learning as we'd like, and suggests alternative approaches to assignments and assessment.

I've spoken with faculty who are using Problem-Based Learning effectively in their classrooms but were not aware the practice had a name, nor that it had a substantial body of research literature. Here's a sample that outlines the reasons it is an effective practice, best practices, and practical examples plus a brief discussion of the constructivist principles at work. It comes to us at Kenyon through JSTOR.

Another interesting wrinkle in the learning preferences literature. Feeling that learning something was easy is not the same as learning it well.

An extensive review of 51 years of scholarly literature on student participation. Thanks to Michael Levine and Irene Lopez for pointing this out.

One of the interesting findings in the literature on academic honesty is that specific policies or processes appear less important than having a visible campus conversation about the value and purpose of being honest. This memo might be an interesting starting point for having that conversation with your students.

Useful framework for identifying "empirical generalizations", "theoretical statements", and "epistemic assumptions" when we look at the literature on learning, and thinking about how they might be more or less applicable to our work.

Fascinating examples of ways that a shared spreadsheet, thrown up on a projector, can be used to manage group work, record ideas from class conversation, and develop arguments and the use of evidence.

"Survey of literature and arts professors finds 60 percent see the practice as harmful to academic freedom -- although many favor general descriptions on a syllabus, even as they avoid labeling particular works."

The Kindle and iBooks only scratch the surface of what's possible with an electronic book. This is an intriguing list of mobile apps which make more full use of the digital abilities to link and present resources. I'll personally recommend The Tempest and Poetry Foundation apps.

A free ebook from the Teagle Foundation addressing the humanities' approach to learning assessment. "What happens when the disciplines make themselves heard in the discussions of learning outcomes assessment that are ubiquitous in higher education today? What do disciplinary perspectives and methodologies have to bring to the table? This volume engages these questions from the perspective of literary study, with essays by education leaders, faculty from English and foreign language departments, and assessment experts that offer a wide range of perspectives."

Big issues on this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The MLA is opening a new repository for scholarship in the humanities. Would you be more likely to use it, or Digital Kenyon, to preserve and distribute your work? The AHA has issues some guidelines about assessing digital work in history; the panelists debate what they're good for and where they don't go far enough.

Big issues on this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The MLA is opening a new repository for scholarship in the humanities. Would you be more likely to use it, or Digital Kenyon, to preserve and distribute your work? The AHA has issues some guidelines about assessing digital work in history; the panelists debate what they're good for and where they don't go far enough.

Short, accessible articles summarizing literature and best practices around student course evaluations.

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.