Center for Innovative Pedagogy

Kenyon alum Rob Edsall (K'91) has been involved with the creation of an app for community input on the Portneuf River. Community members and tourists can record sites of interest - positive or negative - as they enjoy the environment.

Bryan Alexander has an excellent, extensive list of terrific tips for public speaking. I particularly like the way he breaks down the stages of preparation and giving a talk. Might be a useful tip sheet for students - or as we enter summer conference season!

Educators rely on the fair use of copyrighted material heavily - but not always with a clear grasp of what "fair use" really is as a legal principle. The Copyright Office has released a new tool for exploring case law on fair use; this article looks at the usefulness of the tool, and its limitations.

Educators rely on the fair use of copyrighted material heavily - but not always with a clear grasp of what "fair use" really is as a legal principle. The Copyright Office has released a new tool for exploring case law on fair use; this article looks at the usefulness of the tool, and its limitations.

What are the benefits of having students compile a portfolio of their work, and what are the critical choices you make as a teacher in creating a portfolio requirement? This list of 11 key issues is a good place to start.

Much of the information about undergraduate research is written by professors for professors. This article gives the students a voice, as 5 students from the University of Central Florida give their insights on what practices made their research experiences worthwhile.

A guide to mentoring undergraduate research from the University of Miami, including many concrete suggestions for habits and activities to develop. Also includes a lot of information specific to undergraduate research opportunities at Miami, which might spark conversations about scaffolding research experiences at Kenyon.

A few tips from Ball State about ways to wrap up a course. What will you do in the last week of class to give students a solid sense of what they've learned and how to bring that knowledge to their next experiences?

Conversations about portfolios often suggest them as a solution to one problem at a time, whether that problem is integrative learning, student self-representation outside the college, or institutional (and departmental) assessment. This article tries to juggle 4 very different ways of looking at portfolios at the same time. Such a view might help us understand how many benefits might flow from a pedagogy which includes portfolio construction.

I've heard multiple Kenyon faculty say that the first step of teaching writing in their disciplines is to unlearn the writing habits students used successfully in earlier educational experiences. What can we do to better "communicat(e) what really happens inside our classes" as this author asks?

"Transdisciplinary" work asks students to apply knowledge from diverse fields to a project in an environment which may seem tangential to their academic fields. The model in this article resonates with much that we've heard about community-engaged learning, but it also has implications for any interdisciplinary course.

Interesting ideas here about the connective power of a recording of your voice for answering frequently asked questions or providing review copies of some of your short lectures.

"A meta-analysis of 62 studies involving 11,837 students indicated that... students participating in SL programs demonstrated significant gains in five outcome areas: attitudes toward self, attitudes toward school and learning, civic engagement, social skills, and academic performance. ... Furthermore, as predicted, there was empirical support for the position that following certain recommended practices--such as linking to curriculum, voice, community involvement, and reflection--was associated with better outcomes." (This link requires Kenyon authentication; the full citation is doi: 10.1177/105382591103400205 Journal of Experiential Education September/October 2011 vol. 34 no. 2 164-181.)

Do bullet points oversimplify the nuanced arguments in a lecture? I'm not prepared to give an unequivocal "yes" like this author, but I think questioning your PowerPoint style (and perhaps your students' lecture-attending style) is a good exercise.

Some excellent tips to think about if your class discussions aren't quite where you want them to be. I was particularly struck by the way some of these tips are relevant for introverts and extroverts (or other groups which might have different approaches to discussion on any given day).

This article came up at yesterday's discussion of neurodiversity, as we considered the emotional support needs of our students. It provides a couple of specific examples of language a faculty member can use to help students get the help they need, while still preserving appropriate teacher-student boundaries.

"It's not too late to make improvements that can still impact student outcomes as well as our shared classroom experience for the remaining weeks of the term."

Terrific podcast review of research about the importance of teacher-student relationships on student achievement.

Lots of interesting ideas in this podcast episode for removing potential sources of unconscious bias from your grading.

Interesting and nuanced take on "trigger warnings" from a PBS YouTube channel.

If a student's level of academic stress is one reason they abuse "study drugs" like Adderall or Ritalin, then pedagogies which reduce stress might have a positive impact on this campus health issue. Also note the point that just being more focused doesn't make cramming a productive study technique...