Center for Innovative Pedagogy

"We are very good at helping people to find the articles they are looking for and can describe. But the next big thing we would like to do is to get you the articles that you need, but that you don't know to search for. Can we make serendipity easier? "

"A threshold concept is discipline-specific, focuses on understanding of the subject and … has the ability to transform learners' views of the content." What are the threshold concepts in your discipline, and how do you help students grapple with their power?

I know there's a Kenyon professor who hands out a list of "movies you should see if you want to get my jokes." What do you do to bridge the gap between your cultural references and the multiple cultures of our students?

Seems like there might be some pedagogical applications of this article on faculty writing. How many times do students worry a paper to death instead of learning to enjoy the process of completing the writing?

Federal agencies are looking at updates to the "Common Rule," which impacts local IRB processes.

As the semester rolls through week 11, I start to think about how I might better motivate my students and make teaching my subject more fun for myself. My thoughts usually turn toward flipping lessons, which I still maintain is an old idea, but what is new is the "urgency" to implement the concept more efficiently (for a variety of reasons). These FAQ answers should help ease the implementation. Oh, if you don't like the term "flipped classroom" that is the topic of one of the later FAQs. I'm not a big fan of his preferred alternative term, but it really is the pedagogical concept that you want to buy into -- not the name.

People learn best when they are forced to retrieve the information and concepts repeatedly over time but most people haven't learned to study in ways that do this. Consequently, it may be more effective to move from the common practice of giving a few, high-stakes tests to giving numerous low stakes quizzes to assess and improve learning.

An interesting page of resources from DePaul, mixing resources for health and counseling with some classroom approaches which can help students process the learning components of their late-semester stress.

This 2008 blog post from a mathematician at Dickinson College is the best summary of my thoughts on curving grades that I have ever come across. Other than the fact that there is more math in here, this is what I think of whenever my students ask me "Do you curve your exams?" Moreover, his discussion on assigning grades includes formulas that can be pasted into either Google Docs or Excel that will generate letter grades based on splits that you can set to your liking. (Note: I have my own blog post about this where I explain these formulas in a bit more detail. Just copy and paste the following link into your browser: https://cip.kenyon.edu/hells-bells-not-question-again-and-formulas-assigning-grades.)

A great set of resources on finding and effectively reading the scholarship of teaching and learning.

A fun and fascinating interactive activity that shows how small biases lead to substantial segregation. (Hat tip to Bob Milnikel for the link and annotation!)

It seems early for this, with a week of classes and a week of exams left to go, but perhaps these tasks are good mental breaks from all the grading. They also might form the technical side of good reflective practice.

While written primarily for a K-12 audience, this pamphlet includes good specific techniques for assisting a student suffering from concussion symptoms (including tips on recognizing students who might not have disclosed a problem to you).

Written for school teachers (as in grade school, middle school, etc.), this article is not 100% relevant to pedagogical discussions in higher ed. However, the article got me thinking about how I still learn; what gets me intellectually excited; and what diverts me away from other activities in the interest of pursuing an idea. Could I turn one of these instances into an example for my students in order to show them my thought processes and how I go about exploring new pedagogical possibilities? Just et al. (2014) (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0102976) shook the biology/paleobiology world when the discovery of two strange deep-sea species hinted at the possibility of a new phylum. I spent hours reading various accounts of this discovery, including a number of trusted blogs. I compared the article's figures of these enigmatic organisms with other figures in old references I pulled old off my shelves. I referred to dusty old descriptive texts to refresh my memory of basic taxonomic classifications. I drew diagrams. Letting my students see this process could be beneficial. Developing a project that might force them to perform similar procedures and then defend their actions, might be difficult, but it could teach them quite a lot about how learning continues.

This chapter from a University of Virginia handbook gives specific suggestions which can make the classroom more welcoming to people from all backgrounds. Some of the "suggestions" look more like probing questions for reflecting on your own teaching - which is also a good thing! Also available as a PDF at http://trc.virginia.edu/resources/420-2/teaching-a-diverse-student-body-handbook/

"What is the intended learning goal for participation?" And how do students know what "good" participation looks like? By sharing a clear, positive ideal for class participation in rubric form, you can help students learn the social skills you're encouraging with a "class participation" grade.

In the summer of 2015, from July 26 to August 2, a partnership of 23 liberal arts institutions will host ILiADS, the Institute for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship, at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. ILiADS offers participants two ways to engage the community of liberal arts practitioners and pedagogues: a team- and project-based approach and a more traditional conference structure.

Greg Rosenbaum, K'10 and producer of the SXSWedu conference, used this Prezi during his talk at Kenyon next week. (The video will be on the CIP's YouTube channel soon.) It's a good outline of the many factors we're juggling in education; it's also a fine example of the way Prezi can make the structure of an argument apparent.

Vassar has invigorated its common reading program for first-year students by integrating video mini-lectures and Moodle discussion forums. A more active program seems to be helping the first-year cohort form and introduce the campus culture before students move in.